The beginning being: a research wall, a primary source in a historical script that your translation references couldn’t fully resolve, and the extremely irritating reality that the person best equipped to help you was a Haravatat scholar who had made it quietly known that he didn’t particularly enjoy being interrupted.

You’d interrupted him anyway.

He’d looked up from his work and said: “The translation is the problem. That edition has been corrupted since the second printing. I’d have thought a Vahumana researcher would verify her sources before building an argument on them.”

You’d stared at him. “And I’d have thought a Haravatat scholar might manage a sentence without condescension, but here we are.”

Something had shifted in his expression then. Barely perceptible, the way a window changes when light hits it from a slightly different angle. Not quite surprise. Something more like: interest.

He’d helped you anyway. Correctly, thoroughly, and with a running commentary on the methodological differences between approaching history as causation versus approaching it as text that you’d argued with for the entire hour and only conceded three days later, privately, because he’d been mostly right.

Which was how it started.

Which was, if you were honest, how it kept going.

How it’s still going.

Your banter with Alhaitham keeps your mind sharp. You enjoy how talking to him stirs you intellectually, and he, as it seems, finds you worth engaging with.

At least, he keeps engaging with questions you throw at him, both rapid-fire ones and the ones you find philosophically interesting. But you also fight. A lot.

The worst argument you’d ever had with him—and you’d had several worth ranking—had been in your first year, in the House of Daena, when he’d said with complete calm that knowledge was not the goal of humankind, and you’d put down your book and stared at him and asked: “then what exactly are we doing here?”

He’d looked at you with that expression that meant he was deciding whether you were worth the explanation.

Apparently you were.

He’d said that truth exists regardless of whether anyone finds it. It isn’t waiting to be claimed. Pursuing it as though it’s a destination, as though acquiring enough of it makes you something. That many researchers were using knowledge as a mirror to admire themselves in.

You’d argued with him for an hour.

And then, three days later, admitted that he was right about most of it—with the amendment that you weren’t accumulating knowledge to possess it. You were asking questions about things that had been smoothed over and taken for granted. You were pulling at threads that other people had decided were settled. That was different.

He’d been quiet for a moment.

Then he’d said: “Yes. It is.”

It was, you think now, probably when he started paying attention.

He comments on your work, sometimes. Not just the snide commentary he would give anyone else, although he does that too, but also remarks that make you think.

Your research sits, officially, in the intersection of Vahumana’s historical sociology and the question of knowledge transmission. How it moves, how it changes, how it survives or doesn’t across centuries and collapses and silences.

Unofficially, it has a more specific center of gravity: the desert, and its long memory, and the particular question of what Nabu Malikata knew that no one thought to write down.

Your uncle, who had lived his whole life among the Eremites and died knowing more about the old tribes than any Akademiya researcher, would have found that funny.

You find it clarifying.

It also means you keep needing Haravatat scholars for their language skills. Specifically, you keep consulting this one. Which is either a feature of your research interests or a convenient excuse, and you have never looked closely enough at the distinction to find out.

Three years later, and you still come to the same table in the House of Daena.

You tell yourself it’s because the light in this section is good for reading.

That it has nothing to do with the fact that Alhaitham’s usually here, in the same chair, with the same quality of focused stillness that you have spent… not a lot of time thinking about.

A normal amount of time. The amount of time anyone would spend thinking about a colleague who is occasionally useful and consistently irritating.

You settle into a chair and open your book.

Alhaitham doesn’t look up.

You read two pages. Then, because the afternoon is slow and it is quiet and you are, at your core, constitutionally incapable of leaving a wall un-pressed—

“You’ve had that same page open for eleven minutes.”

He turns it without looking at you. “I was thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing that requires your input.”

“Ouch.” You rest your chin in your hand, watching him with the particular attention you’ve always given him. The kind you tell yourself is just habit, just the natural result of having argued with someone long enough that reading them becomes automatic.

“You know, most people consider it polite to at least acknowledge when someone sits down.”

“Most people sit down somewhere else.”

“Most people aren’t me.”

“I’m aware.” He still hasn’t looked up. “That’s not the compliment you seem to think it is.”

You smile. You can’t quite help it.

“Tell me something,” you say, leaning forward slightly, dropping your voice to the register you’ve found, through trial and error, tends to produce the most interesting reactions in him. Warm, a little conspiratorial, the verbal equivalent of standing slightly too close.

“Do you actually enjoy being difficult, or does it just come naturally?”

Alhaitham looks up then.

His gaze moves to you with the unhurried quality it always has and then stays. The lamplight falls across his features and you think, briefly and without doing anything about it: he really is—

You don’t finish the thought. You never do.

“Both,” he says. “Equally load-bearing.”

And then he goes back to his book.

You sit back.

There is a warmth in your chest that you file, without examining it, under the satisfaction of a good volley. That’s all it is. You’ve always liked the back-and-forth with him, the specific intellectual friction of someone who won’t let anything through unchallenged.

It’s stimulating.

It’s interesting.

It doesn’t mean anything.

(It means something.)

You open your book.

You read another page, but your gaze keeps drifting to him.

“You’re staring again,” Alhaitham says, without looking up.

“I’m thinking.”

“That would be a first.”

“I liked you better when you didn’t talk.”

“You didn’t like me then either.”

You finally look up fully—and find him already watching you, which means he was watching you before he said it, which means the you’re staring again was, in its own way, something else. You file this without examining it too closely.

He’s seated across from you, posture unhurried in that particular way of his. One arm resting along the back of the chair, the other holding a book open in his lap.

His eyes are already on you, steady and completely unbothered.

He is, objectively, difficult to look at for too long.

Not because it’s unpleasant. The opposite problem, if anything.

You’ve trained yourself not to think about that.

“You’re not even reading,” you say.

“I finished three pages ago.”

“And now?”

“I’m watching you struggle with a paragraph you’ve reread six times.”

You close your book with a quiet snap. Then, because you’ve been meaning to say it and this seems as good a moment as any: “You know, I’ve been thinking about something.”

“A departure from your usual process.”

“About you and books specifically.”

Alhaitham tilts his head.

“You always have one,” you say. “I’ve rarely seen you without one. Even when you’re not reading it, it’s there.” You gesture at the one in his lap. “I used to think it was affectation. Scholarly costuming. You know how the older researchers do it—the book as prop.”

“I know,” Alhaitham says. “It isn’t.”

“I know it isn’t. That's what I’ve been thinking about.” You lean forward slightly. “You actually read them. Properly. The old-fashioned way, with your eyes and time and—”

“That is how reading works.”

“You know what I mean.” You look at him. “Most researchers grew up on the Akasha system. They didn’t really need books, so they didn’t use them. And now they are getting accustomed to them. They see them as an instrument. It’s different. With you it's different.”

He looks at the book in his lap for a moment, then back at you.

“The Akasha provided answers,” he says. “Books provide the conditions under which you learn to question the answers.” His tone is even, but there’s something underneath it that isn’t quite evenness. Something more considered. “Most people find that distinction irritating. They’d prefer the answer.”

“And you prefer the question.”

“I prefer having earned the capacity to recognize when an answer is wrong.” He pauses. “The Akasha couldn’t give you that. It could give you information. What you did with it was always going to depend on what you’d built before you put the headset on.”

You look at him.

You have known, in a general way, that his relationship with books is not the same as other people’s. You hadn't known it was that specific.

“Someone told you that,” you say. Not quite a question.

He glances at you. “My grandmother.”

“Ah.” You’ve heard her mentioned before. Not often, not in detail, but enough to know she’s the one he refers to when he refers to anything from before the Akademiya, which is rarely. “She sounds like she was remarkable.”

“She was practical,” Alhaitham says. “Which, in Sumeru, amounts to the same thing.”

He picks the book back up.

You look at your own, and think about the Nabu Malikata texts, and the way knowledge moves through people before it moves through archives, and say nothing.

But you think: that’s it. That’s the whole difference between him and every other scholar in this building.

You lean back, studying him openly now. Three years and he still does this. Makes you feel like a problem he’s half-solved and finds mildly diverting. You’ve never decided whether it’s irritating or not. You’ve leaned both ways on different days.

Today the light is hitting him a particular way and you’re leaning toward not.

“Do you ever get tired,” you ask, “of being right all the time?”

“No.”

“…that was immediate.”

“There’s no benefit in hesitation when the answer is obvious.” The faintest tilt of his head. “You’re welcome to test the theory.”

Oh, but I have been, you think, and don’t say. And then notice, a beat later, that you thought it, and feel the warmth in your chest again and call it something other than what it is.

You narrow your eyes at him instead.

He meets your gaze without flinching. Something in you rises to meet it. The same thing that always does, the thing you have never looked at directly because it is easier to call it competitive instinct, intellectual friction, the natural response to someone who challenges you.

A slow smile tugs at the corner of your mouth.

Alright, you think. Let’s see.

“I bet,” you say, voice easy, almost offhand, “I can make you fall for me in five kisses.”

Alhaitham closes his book and sets it down. “On what basis?”

You blink. “…what?”

“Your claim. What variables are you accounting for?”

You stare at him for a long moment. Then you laugh. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I’m asking for clarification.”

“It’s a bet, not a research proposal.”

“All the more reason to define the parameters.” He tilts his head slightly. “You of all people should know that.”

“And there it is.” You point at him. “That. That specific tone. That is why I—” you stop.

He waits.

“—that is why this bet exists,” you finish, smoothly.

Your fingers find the bracelet at your wrist. A thin cord, worn soft with age, threaded with a small copper bead that had belonged to your uncle. A habit you’ve had for so long you stopped noticing it somewhere around your second year at the Akademiya.

Alhaitham’s gaze drops to your hand for a fraction of a second, then back to your face.

Something moves in his expression that you don’t examine.

“Fine,” you say. “Five kisses. No manipulation, no engineered circumstances. If I win, you admit—out loud, in words—that I was right.”

“That’s a low-value prize.”

“For you it’s enormous and we both know it.”

Alhaitham doesn’t deny it. “And if you fail,” he says, “you answer one question. Honestly. Completely. No deflection.”

“Any subject?” you ask.

“Any subject.”

“Fine.” You lean forward. “Accept the bet.”

He watches you. “Very well,” he says.

“That was easy.”

“I’m curious whether your confidence is structural or simply habitual.”

“Both,” you say. “Equally load-bearing.”

His mouth quirks. Not quite a smile. The closest he gets. “We’ll see,” he says.

He picks his book back up.

You smile at the table. I’m going to win this, you think.

— ✦ —

You don’t think about the bet that evening.

You think about it a little.

You think about it the way you think about a move in a game you’re confident you’re winning: with the particular comfortable anticipation of someone who has already calculated the outcome and found it favorable.

Five kisses. A man who runs on logic and routine and the deliberate avoidance of unnecessary complication. How hard could it be.

You fall asleep thinking about how hard it could not be.

You wake up thinking about his expression when you’d said it. That almost-imperceptible recalibration. I’m curious. The way he’d said it like he was noting a change in weather conditions.

He said he was curious. Not uninterested. Curious.

You think about this for approximately three minutes before deciding you’re going to go buy coffee and not think about it anymore.

You prefer going to the Akademiya early, and despite him complaining about morning hours often, you know Alhaitham feels the same. Less people, less conversation that only serves social protocol, according to him.

In passing you wonder why he never stops talking to you in the mornings despite his sharp commentary every single time.

Treasures Street in the morning is different from the surroundings you work in. The stalls are still setting up, their proprietors arranging goods with the unhurried efficiency of people who have done this every day for years.

The air smells like bread and spice and the particular green-damp smell that Sumeru never quite loses.

You have your coffee. You’re not thinking about the bet. You are thinking about the Nabu Malikata source text you want to request from the library today and whether it will be a borrowing queue problem and whether—

“You went to the wrong place.”

You stop walking.

Alhaitham falls into step beside you with the composure of a man who was simply already here and happens to be going the same direction, and not the composure of a man who came looking for you.

You’ve learned to read the difference. You are approximately sixty percent sure there is one.

“Good morning to you too,” you say.

He glances at your cup briefly. “There's a place near the city outskirts that uses beans from other farms. Different cultivation altogether. Better elevation, more consistent roast.”

“I’ve been going to Puspa Café for years. I didn’t know of other places that sell a wider coffee variety.”

“I’m aware.”

“…and you’re telling me this now?”

“You seemed satisfied with it.”

“I was satisfied with it.” You look at your coffee, then at him. “Now I’m going to think about this every time.”

“Better information produces better outcomes.”

“Better information,” you say, “produces the specific irritation of knowing you could have had something better and didn’t. That’s not always an improvement.”

Alhaitham considers this.

“Philosophically,” he says, “that sounds like an argument a Vahumana researcher would make.”

“Well, I am one.”

“I know.”

You huff. But you fall into step beside him anyway, the way you always do on this walk when you happen to be going the same direction, which happens often enough that you’ve stopped considering it coincidence.

The path up toward the Akademiya rises ahead of you, the Divine Tree as the everlasting foundation, the plaza opening out as you climb.

It’s quieter up here at this hour.

The early scholars are already inside, the late ones haven’t arrived yet.

Just the wind through the leaves and the distant sound of the city below and the comfortable rhythm of two people who have walked this way enough times that they don’t need to talk about it.

“The Nabu Malikata sources,” you say, because you were thinking about it and because silence with Alhaitham has always felt like an invitation to think out loud.

“I found a reference in the secondary literature to a collection held in the library. Pre-catalogued, probably under the old classification system. I’m going to spend half the morning arguing with Katayoun about access.”

“Shelf marker seven-thirty-two, subsection four.” He doesn’t look over.

“It was re-catalogued two years ago. The librarians haven’t updated the reference index yet, apparently the Grand Conductor has some restructure plans with new collections coming in, but the materials are accessible under the new system. You won’t need to argue.”

You stop walking.

He takes two more steps before pausing and turning to look at you with the expression of a man who doesn’t understand why you’ve stopped.

“…how do you know that,” you say.

“There have been many new applications for library access. And I processed the re-cataloguing request. You seem to forget that I am the scribe.”

“That was two years ago.”

“I have a good memory.”

“You remembered a specific shelf marker for a source collection in my research area from a cataloguing request you processed two years ago.”

“It’s not a particularly remarkable memory,” Alhaitham says. “I remember most things.”

“Most things,” you repeat.

“Most things worth remembering.”

The sentence does something to the air between you, lands with a weight that neither of you immediately addresses, like a book set down too carefully on a table.

You look at him, standing in the early light on the path up to the Akademiya, his gray hair catching it, his coat the same color as the tree.

You think, not for the first time and with the usual lack of useful conclusions: he really does fit here.

Not in the way most people fit places. Not just because he belongs, but because Sumeru has this quality of ancient unhurried certainty and so does he, and sometimes standing next to him is like standing next to something unshakable.

You say none of this. Instead: “The scribe thing is useful.”

“I’ve been the scribe for years.”

“I’m aware.” You start walking again. “I meant it’s useful to know in terms of future source access problems.”

“Mm.”

“You’re a resource, essentially.”

“I helped you before. And most people would phrase that differently.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No,” he says, and the word has a quality to it that you clock and don’t examine. “You’re not.”

“You know, I noticed that the researchers—,” you continue to keep your mind from overanalyzing this, “they still don't quite know what to do with the House of Daena. Now that the system’s down."

“They’ll adapt. Or they won’t, and they’ll produce diminishing work, and the Akademiya will notice eventually.”

“That’s a very calm view of a significant institutional disruption.”

“The institution disrupted itself,” he says. “The library was always there. The knowledge was always there. The Akasha was convenient. Convenience isn’t the same as substance.”

You glance at him. “You sound like you’re not sorry it’s gone.”

“I’m not.” Alhaitham says it without apology. “It made people comfortable with receiving.”

“You always say that,” you say. “I keep disagreeing. Those aren’t the same thing. Usually, you don’t bother repeating things at some point.”

The almost-smile again, brief, at the edge of his expression. “That’s because you’re not foolish,” he says. “You adjust your position when presented with new information. Repetition isn’t wasted effort in that case.”

He holds your gaze a moment.

“Most people don’t,” he adds. “They receive information, but they don’t engage with it.”

You study him. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“The thing where you make knowledge sound like a personal failing.”

“I’m making the pursuit of knowledge as self-aggrandizement sound like a personal failing,” he says. “The distinction matters.”

He looks away first.

“There’s a difference between receiving knowledge and building the capacity to use it. To engage with it. The Akasha was very good at the former.”

“And you think the latter matters more.”

“I think without the latter, the former is just storage.” He pauses. “Most scholars in the Akademiya are excellent storage systems. They can retrieve information with impressive speed. They’re considerably less reliable when the information doesn’t exist yet, or when the existing information is wrong.”

“Your grandmother,” you say.

He glances at you.

“She taught you that,” you say. “Didn’t she? Not the Akademiya.”

“She gave me books before I could understand most of them,” he says. “She said a sharp mind would find what it needed and discard the rest.” Something in his voice shifts. “She was right about most things.”

You walk for a moment without talking.

“She sounds like someone who understood that wisdom and knowledge aren’t the same thing,” you say finally.

“She’d have found that distinction obvious,” he says. “She’d have been right to.”

You think about your uncle, who’d never had access to a single Akademiya text in his life and had known more about the old desert peoples than most of the researchers who’d written papers on them.

Who’d carried knowledge in his hands, in his feet, in the way he could read the landscape. Who’d given you a copper bead on a cord and said: don’t forget where you come from when you go somewhere impressive.

“We got to the same place,” you say, “from very different directions.”

He looks at you.

“You and I,” you say. “You came to it because it was always around you. Books, scholars, the Akademiya always visible at the end of the street. And I came to it because—” you touch the bracelet briefly, “—someone who’d never been here made me curious about what it contained.”

“Your uncle,” Alhaitham says.

“My uncle,” you agree.

It’s not a question because he knows this. You’ve told him, in pieces, over three years. He has, in the way he has, put it together.

“He would have been a better scholar than most of the people in that building," Alhaitham says, nodding toward the Akademiya ahead, “by any meaningful definition of the term."

It lands somewhere warm and unexpected.

“…thank you,” you say, quietly.

“I’m being precise,” he says.

“I know.” You look at the path ahead. “That’s why it counts.”

You reach the upper plaza just as the morning opens fully, the light going from gold to white, the city spreading out below the path, the Akademiya rising ahead of you.

Up here, with the wind and the space and the whole of Sumeru laid out below, it has a quality of being slightly outside ordinary time. You’ve always liked this part of the day for that reason.

(You definitely don’t dwell on the fact that on many mornings it’s Alhaitham who accompanies you.)

You stop and look out.

After a moment, Alhaitham stops beside you.

It’s quiet for a while. Not the silence that needs filling, just the particular morning quiet of a city still deciding to begin.

“The bet,” he says.

You keep looking at the city. “What about it?”

“We didn’t establish a timeline.”

“I didn’t think we needed one.”

“Open timelines produce ambiguous results.”

“It’s a bet, not a—” you stop, and turn to look at him. He is looking at Sumeru, profile composed, entirely unbothered. “Did you think about this last night?”

“I considered the parameters.”

“You thought about it.”

“I considered the—”

“You thought about it last night,” you say, and you cannot entirely keep the satisfaction out of your voice.

Alhaitham glances over.

“I find loose variables worth resolving,” he says. “It’s a methodological preference. It has nothing to do with—”

“You thought about the kiss bet.” You let this sit for a moment. “You went home and you thought about it.”

“I went home and I noted that the parameters were insufficiently defined.”

“At length.”

“…for a reasonable amount of time.”

You smile. “Mm.”

“That expression,” he says, “is unwarranted.”

“It’s a proportionate response to available information.”

“The information doesn’t support the—”

“We could settle the timeline now,” you offer, pleasantly. “Since you’ve clearly been thinking about it.”

He is quiet for a moment.

“We could begin today,” he says. “If the conditions are suitable.”

You glance at him, and then, you notice that particular expression he gets when he’s said something deliberately and is waiting to see where it lands.

You look at him properly, the way you do when you want to see something.

He is, objectively, ridiculous.

The coat, the gold detailing, the gray hair in the morning light, the Divine Tree spreading behind him like he was placed there for compositional reasons.

Like Sumeru simply arranged itself around him and he noticed and found it neither surprising nor particularly interesting.

“You know,” you say, tilting your head, “you do fit the scenery. Has anyone told you that?”

Alhaitham blinks. The disruption to his composure is slight, but you catch it. You file it, because it is the closest thing to being caught off guard that he ever produces, and you have always found it disproportionately satisfying.

“That’s not relevant to—”

“Akademiya scholar, the Divine Tree, morning light.” You gesture at the general arrangement of him. “It’s almost annoyingly aesthetic. Someone should write a paper.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“I’m observing. You’re the one who likes observation.”

“I said we could begin today,” Alhaitham says, with the tone of someone returning a conversation to its correct path. “The conditions are—”

“Not yet,” you say.

He looks at you.

“Not today,” you say. And then, because he’s still looking at you with that careful expression: “It’ll be better when I decide. You know that.”

Something moves at the very edge of his expression. Something that in anyone else you would call the leading edge of being charmed, and in him you have no word for because he would reject all the available ones.

“…then I’ll expect you to follow through,” he says.

“You always do.” You push off the wall and gather your things. “Come on. I need to argue with a librarian.”

“You won’t need to.”

“I’ll probably argue anyway.”

“I know,” Alhaitham says, which means: I’ll come with you.

He falls into step beside you.

You walk into the Akademiya together in the morning light, arguing about whether anticipating conflict constitutes causing it.

You do not think about the look on his face when you called him aesthetic and you do not think about the fact that he went home last night and considered the parameters.

You think about it the whole way there.

— ✦ —

You hadn’t expected him to find you the next afternoon.

That was your first mistake: thinking I’ll decide when meant anything to a man who, having identified a loose variable, would simply wait in the place you were most likely to appear and present his findings.

He’s leaning against a wall when you arrive. Arms folded. The posture of someone who was simply already here.

You hadn’t expected Alhaitham to take it seriously.

That was your second mistake.

“We should establish consistency,” he says, without preamble.

You slow to a stop. “I’m sorry?”

“Location. Duration. Timing.” He lists them without flourish. “If the conditions vary too much between instances, the results won’t be reliable. We’d be measuring confounding variables rather than the core premise.”

You stare at him. “You’re turning this into an experiment.”

“It already is one. I’m simply suggesting we control for external factors.”

“The external factor is you being insufferable.”

“A common mislabeling. I’m efficient.” He tilts his head slightly. “You initiated this. Do you want results or not?”

You regret everything.

You regret it at moderate intensity. Which is to say, not enough to take it back.

“Fine,” you sigh. “What do you suggest?”

He considers for a moment. You get the feeling he’d already considered it before he found you.

“Now is as good a starting point as any. We’re alone, interference is minimal.” His gaze is steady, watching you. “Unless you’d prefer to reschedule.”

“No,” you say, too quickly. “I don’t.”

Something shifts in his expression. Too subtle to name, there and gone before you can catch it.

“Then proceed.”

You hesitate.

This is the part where, under normal circumstances, you would say something clever. Deploy that particular easy confidence you’ve always had when it comes to him. The casual lean, the too-close step, the remark designed to land somewhere between a compliment and a needle.

You’ve done it before.

It’s always come naturally.

It doesn’t, now.

Because before, there were no stakes. Before, it was just entertainment. You pressing to see if the wall would give, knowing it wouldn’t, not particularly caring either way.

Now there are five. And he’s watching.

“You’re not going to make this easier,” you observe.

“You’re the one attempting to prove a hypothesis. I’m the test environment.”

“Test environments don’t usually watch you like that.”

“I’m simply paying attention.”

“It’s a lot of attention.”

“It’s the appropriate amount.” Alhaitham pauses. “Don’t overthink it.”

“You’re the reason I’m overthinking it.”

“That’s unlikely.”

You exhale, and then, before the second-guessing can solidify any further, you step into his space, reach up, and catch his collar lightly in your fingers.

Up close, the details of him become harder to dismiss: the faint lines of his features, the particular stillness of someone who’s never fidgeted in his life.

He smells like parchment and something green, like rain through woods.

You press your lips to his.

It’s brief, softer than you intended.

You pull back almost immediately.

“There,” you say.

Your voice comes out composed, completely unaffected.

Probably.

Alhaitham doesn’t move. He studies you. Not your lips, which would at least be something, but your face. Your expression. The slight unevenness in your breath that you’re working hard not to let show.

“…that’s it?” he asks.

“What do you mean, that’s it?”

“The duration was shorter than expected.”

You stare at him. “It was a kiss, not a timed trial.”

“It can be both.”

“You—” You stop. Compose yourself. “Well? Any effect?”

Alhaitham tilts his head. “No.”

Something happens in your chest. Something you categorize, immediately and firmly, as annoyance.

“Good,” you say. “That was the point.”

“Mm.”

Alhaitham doesn’t step back. He doesn’t create the distance you expected. He’s still standing close—closer than he usually stands for ordinary conversation—and you’re aware of it in a way that itches at the edges of your attention.

“Your pulse is elevated,” he adds.

You go still. “It is not.”

“It is. Slightly. In the carotid.” His gaze flicks briefly to your throat. “I noticed when you stepped closer.”

“That’s—” You search for the word. “Invasive.”

“Observational.”

“Not the same thing.”

“No,” he agrees mildly. “But both are accurate.”

You cross your arms. “You’re supposed to be the one affected.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t observing.”

“Observing isn’t the same as—”

“No. It isn’t.”

Alhaitham says it like a concession that isn’t one. Like he’s given you something that, on closer inspection, contains nothing at all.

“You hesitated,” he adds, after a moment.

Your stomach does something you ignore. “I didn’t.”

“You did. Approximately two seconds between the decision and the action.” He says it without judgment, which is almost worse. “It indicates uncertainty in your approach.”

“Or it indicates that I was being considerate of—”

“It indicates uncertainty.” He tilts his head slightly. “It won’t skew the results. But I’d expect it to decrease over time.”

“I hate you a little.”

“That’s within the expected range.”

He finally steps back, unhurried, as if nothing happened, as if the air between you is exactly the same temperature it was before.

It isn’t.

You know that. You’re fairly sure he knows it too.

You just don’t know yet what he’s planning to do with that information.

“…it won’t happen next time,” you mutter.

“I would expect improvement,” he says.

He picks his book back up off the shelf beside him. Which means he had it this whole time, which means he was here first, which means he planned this down to the location. He continues walking.

“Four remaining,” Alhaitham adds, without turning back.

You watch him go.

Your pulse is still elevated.

— ✦ —

The noise from inside Lambad’s Tavern is the particular kind of loud that only scholars get up to when they’re far enough from the Akademiya to forget they have reputations. Enthusiastic debates about topics that stopped mattering decades ago.

Someone has produced a blackboard. Another person is winning an argument by volume alone, which is the least scholarly possible method and apparently the most popular.

You last about an hour before you step outside.

The overlook is quiet in comparison. All of it muffled now, replaced by the low warm hum of Sumeru City at night. The air is cooler out here, carrying the green, rain-heavy scent that clings to this place like a second skin.

You lean against the railing and exhale.

“Too much?”

You glance sideways. Alhaitham has followed you out and is standing nearby with the particular quality of stillness that means he’s been here long enough to settle.

“A little.” You gesture vaguely back toward the noise. “Farhan has been wrong about the history of a regional conflict for thirty-five minutes. I was going to correct him and then I thought—why.”

“Because it wouldn’t change anything.”

“Because it never changes anything. He’ll be wrong again tomorrow.” You shake your head. “You didn’t stay.”

“I calculated the point at which the noise-to-information ratio became unfavorable.”

“And when was that?”

“Approximately two minutes after we arrived.”

You look at him. “…then why did you stay as long as you did?”

“You were still inside.”

It’s said without inflection. Without emphasis. Just a fact, offered the same way he offers all facts.

You process it for a moment and decide not to examine it too closely.

“How gracious,” you say. “Sacrificing your comfort for the sake of keeping an eye on me.”

“I wasn’t keeping an eye on you. I was simply not leaving before you did.”

“Those are the same thing.”

“They’re not.” Alhaitham glances over, briefly. “One implies surveillance. The other implies preference.”

“…right,” you say.

“Farhan will be wrong again next week,” Alhaitham says, after a moment. “Different topic, identical methodology. I’ve documented the pattern.”

“…you’ve documented it?”

“Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t bother with something like this, but he is a peculiar case. I’ve grown accustomed to it. Three years of data.”

You stare at him. “You keep a record of how often Farhan is wrong.”

“I keep a record of recurring methodological failures across Akademiya researchers.” A pause, perfectly timed. “Farhan has his own subsection.”

You laugh, and he doesn’t smile, exactly, but there is something in the quality of his attention that shifts, the way it does when he’s said something deliberately and it landed where he intended. Something pleased, tucked just beneath the surface.

You’ve learned to recognize that. It took two years.

You’re not sure what to do with the fact that making him almost-laugh has started to feel like an achievement worth repeating.

The silence between you has always been one of the more comfortable silences you’ve known: the kind shared by two people who’ve spent enough time together that the absence of words doesn’t require explanation.

You’ve known each other long enough that you’ve argued about everything from academic methodologies to whether certain sections of the Grand Bazaar have better acoustics in the morning than the afternoon.

Long enough that he once spent twenty minutes explaining a historical linguistic discrepancy to you in the middle of a corridor and neither of you noticed the time.

Long enough that standing on an overlook in the dark feels remarkably ordinary.

“You’re quieter than usual,” Alhaitham observes.

“I’m enjoying the lack of Farhan.”

“Mm.” A pause. “You’ve been quieter for several days.”

“Have I?”

“A decrease of approximately thirty percent in unnecessary remarks.”

“Those remarks serve important social functions.”

“So you’ve claimed.”

You think about the scholars inside Lambad’s Tavern, about how they always try to outsmart each other, showing off and celebrating themselves publicly.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can attempt it.”

“Did you always know you’d end up here? The Akademiya.” You gesture vaguely at the general direction of the building. “For some people it’s all they ever wanted. The title, the position, the—”

“No,” Alhaitham says. “Superficially speaking, it was the natural course of action for me. But if we’re talking about personal motivation, it was simply the most logical proximity to what I wanted.”

“Which was?”

“The library.” A pause. “The books were already there.”

You look at him. “That’s it? You joined the most prestigious academic institution in Teyvat because it had a good library?”

“The House of Daena is an exceptional library.”

“Most people join for slightly more—”

“Ambitious reasons?” He looks at you briefly. “Yes. I’ve noticed.”

You laugh softly. “Meanwhile I came from the complete opposite direction. My uncle couldn’t have told you what a Darshan was. I applied because I wanted to understand something he couldn’t tell me. And that this was the only place with the right questions.” You shake your head.

“Mm.” He glances at you. “Your path was longer.” And then, after a beat so brief you almost miss it: “For what it’s worth: your starting conditions produced better instincts than most people who basically grew up inside these walls.”

You look at him.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all evening,” you tell him.

“It was an observation.”

“It keeps counting anyway.”

You glance sideways, smiling despite yourself. He’s looking at the horizon, profile calm in the lamplight. The earpieces catche the gold of the nearest lamp.

You’ve thought about his earpieces more than you’d like to admit.

“That reminds me,” you say. “I’ve been meaning to ask for help with something.”

“Have you?”

“Deshret Script. Or a variant of it. There’s a passage I can’t get to cooperate.” You glance over. “You can read it.”

“I do, yes.”

“Show off.”

“It’s simply accumulated study time.” He tilts his head slightly. “Most people choose not to invest it.”

“Or most people,” you say, stepping slightly closer and tilting your head up at him, “simply haven’t had the right teacher.”

“That,” Alhaitham says, with the mild tone he uses when he’s identified exactly what you’re doing, “is not a subtle approach.”

“I wasn’t being subtle. I was being direct.” You look at him, keeping your expression easy. “Well? You’re clearly better at this than I am. Maybe you should educate me.”

“You have access to the same texts I do.”

“And yet.”

“And yet you choose not to use them.”

“I choose,” you say, “to use better resources when they’re available.”

He looks at you then. That careful, full attention, the kind that always makes you feel slightly like a problem he’s deciding whether to solve.

“That,” he says after a moment, “is either a very efficient approach to scholarship or a very transparent one.”

“Can’t it be both?”

“Unlikely.” Another pause. “What’s the problem?”

“There’s a term that keeps appearing in different sections and my translation keeps coming out nonsense.”

He is quiet for a moment.

You wait for the dismissal. The mild disinclination. The look it up yourself delivered with complete lack of apology.

“Tell me the subject matter,” Alhaitham says instead, “and I’ll add it to my schedule.”

You blink. “…really.”

“I don’t make offers I don’t intend to follow through on.” He turns slightly toward you. “Wednesday. My office. 4 in the afternoon. Bring the text.”

You raise an eyebrow. It is common knowledge that Alhaitham doesn’t spend much time in his office. “Your office?” you hear yourself asking.

“It exists. I use it when necessary.”

You consider making a comment, pointing out that you, in his office on a Wednesday afternoon, hardly qualify as necessary, but decide against it.

“Well, that was easier than expected,” you say instead.

“You expected resistance.”

“I expected you.”

“Those aren’t the same thing.” Something moves at the edge of his expression. “I find translation problems worth my time. Most scholars get it wrong.”

“…are you saying I got it wrong?”

“I’m saying it’s likely.”

You look at him for a moment. Then you ask: “Has anyone ever told you that your compliments are structurally indistinguishable from insults?”

“Frequently. I find the distinction is usually the listener’s interpretation, not the speaker’s intent.”

“Enlightening.” You take a step closer. “I’m going to hold you to Wednesday.”

“I expect you to.” His eyes drop briefly, then return. “Your approach lacks consistency, by the way.”

You blink. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been circling the second instance for the last ten minutes.” His tone is entirely conversational. “The earpieces, the closer steps, the— “ a pause— “tutorial request.”

Your face feels warm. You refuse to acknowledge it. “Those were all entirely genuine.”

“They were. That’s not what I said.”

“You said they lack consistency.”

“I said you’ve been circling.” Alhaitham tilts his head, a fraction. “If you intend to follow through on the bet, follow through.”

You stare at him.

“You are,” you say, “possibly the most insufferable person I’ve ever met.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I mean it more every time.”

“And yet,” he says, quiet, with that barely-there almost-expression, “you’re still here.”

That landing is unfair.

You look at him for a long, level moment.

Then you step closer, and your hand comes up to his jaw, deliberate now, fingers tracing along the edge of the earpiece before settling. His eyes track the movement, and you feel the slight shift of his attention sharpening.

You kiss him.

Smoother than the first. More intentional.

You let it settle before stepping back.

“Better?” you say.

Your voice comes out steadier than you deserve credit for.

Alhaitham watches you.

“…improved,” he says.

“That’s it?”

“Measurably.”

“Romantic.”

“I wasn’t attempting—”

“I know. You never are.” You laugh, soft, and feel it catch somewhere in your chest before you let it out. You turn back to the railing, looking out at Sumeru rather than at him. “Wednesday,” you say. “The translation.”

“Wednesday,” he agrees.

You can feel, without looking, that he’s moved slightly closer to the railing.

Not beside you. Not that.

Just nearer.

You look at the panorama and say nothing.

And he stays.

— ✦ —

You hadn’t planned this meeting.

That’s the problem.

The House of Daena is quieter at this hour. The crowds have thinned out, the usual hum of scholars and students replaced by a more deliberate stillness.

In this area of the library, where the older collections are shelved, it barely reaches at all.

You’d come looking for a specific text. You’ve found it, and two others you didn’t know you wanted.

You’ve been in this particular alcove for longer than you meant to be because the space in question is a useful one: out of the main reading room’s sightlines, cool, quiet, with a shelf at a convenient height for resting an open book while you compare passages.

You’re comparing passages when you hear footsteps that you recognize without looking.

“You’re not in the main area,” Alhaitham observes, appearing in the alcove.

“Observational.” You don’t look up. “Also correct.”

“The text you requested wasn’t shelved where it was catalogued.” He holds it up. A slim, cloth-bound volume that you’ve been needing for two weeks. “It was misshelved in the adjacent section. I saw your request in the queue.”

You look up then.

He’s standing under the arch, one hand braced lightly against the shelf, holding the book out with the particular ease of someone who went out of his way and sees no reason to make a production of it.

“…thank you,” you say, after a moment.

“The misshelving is a recurring issue.” He steps closer and extends the book to you. “I’ve submitted three formal complaints. The archivists continue to find creative new ways to disregard them.”

“The audacity.”

“Indeed.” He glances at what you’re reading over your shoulder, and you’re aware of how close that puts him. The alcove is narrow. There isn’t very much space. “You’re using an inaccurate translation.”

“It’s the one I had.”

“It’s the one that perpetuates the mistranslation of the specific terminology. The debate we were discussing—” He reaches past you, and his arm grazes yours, an incidental contact, reaching for the shelf and pulling a different volume. “This edition is more accurate. Here.”

“You just had that ready.”

“I know where things are shelved in this section.”

“You’ve built a mental catalog of the entire library.”

“I find it useful.” He opens his edition and finds the relevant passage with the economy of someone who’s been to this page before. “Here. Compare.”

You look at the passage. Then at the one you’d been working from.

“…those are not the same translation.”

“No. Your edition uses ‘observation’ where this one correctly uses ‘witness.’ The distinction is significant.”

“The distinction is substantial. That changes the entire argument.”

“Yes.” Alhaitham says it without I told you so in it, which is somehow more pointed than if he had. “It usually does.”

You close your book with a soft sound. In the quiet of the alcove, it’s loud.

You’re very aware, suddenly, of the particular quality of the light here. You’re aware of how little space there is. You’re aware of him.

You have, over the course of this bet, become extremely aware of him.

Which is… fine. That’s nothing new, you tell yourself, not entirely honestly. He’s always been—you’ve always known he was—

You glance over.

Alhaitham’s reading the passage again, or appearing to, book open in one hand, his expression doing that particular thing where it gives nothing away but suggests an enormous amount is happening behind it.

His profile in the light is… well. It’s not a new observation. The clean line of his jaw, the particular angle of his features, the gray of his hair catching what light there is. The earpieces. The bare line of his arm below the sleeve.

He is extraordinarily good-looking, and you have spent considerable energy not making that a problem.

It is, increasingly, a problem.

“Are you going to continue with the experiment,” Alhaitham says, without looking up, “or were you planning to do that for a while longer?”

Your face heats. “Do what.”

“Look at me like that.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.” He closes the book and turns to look at you. And there it is again: that quality of full attention, the kind that makes you feel found out in ways you haven’t consciously announced. “The third instance. Was that the intention for today?”

“It wasn’t planned.”

“It rarely is, with you.” Alhaitham tilts his head, just slightly. “That’s not a criticism.”

“It sounded like one.”

“It was an observation.” He holds your gaze. He’s very close, in this narrow space, in this amber-going-to-shadow light. “You could simply proceed.”

“You could stop watching me like you’re grading my methodology.”

“I could,” he agrees, “but then I might miss something significant.”

Something does something in your chest that you don’t have a clean name for. A warmth with edges to it.

“You are a lot to deal with,” you tell him.

“You’ve managed so far.”

“Barely.”

“Better than everyone else,” he says, and there’s something in the quietness of it that lands differently than its words. Better than everyone else. Just stated as a fact.

You look at him.

He looks back.

And the particular problem with Alhaitham is that he never reaches first. He doesn’t lean in, doesn’t press, doesn’t give you the easy signal you could meet halfway.

He simply is. Waiting with the patience of someone who has already thought several moves ahead and is content to let the board catch up.

Which means that you are always the one who moves.

Your fingers close around the bracelet first. A reflex, brief, the kind of thing you do when you’re about to do something you’re not certain about and need a second of ground beneath your feet.

His gaze tracks the movement.

He has, you realize, seen you do that before.

You drop your hand and step into his space, your hand going to the shelf behind him as you close the remaining distance.

He doesn’t move back. He never moves back.

You kiss him.

For one second it's what the previous ones were. Controlled, your hand at his collar, a defined beginning and a defined end.

And then his hand closes around your waist and pulls, and the breath goes out of you all at once, and the shelf meets your back, and there is no more geometry to it at all.

You kiss him like you mean it.

Because you do, and his mouth is warm and unhurried and certain in a way that short-circuits something in your chest.

You reach for him properly this time, your hand finding the front of his coat first, then the line of his shoulder, and he is solid in a way you were not prepared for even though you knew, in theory, what you were reaching for.

His other hand comes up to the shelf beside your head.

And the whole careful architecture of this is a game, I started this, I know what I'm doing comes down.

His grip at your waist has spread, warm through the fabric. The faint catch of his breath when you press closer. The particular way he tilts his head, a fraction, an adjustment, and you feel that in your throat, your sternum, lower. A slow heat that moves through you and doesn't stop.

You slide your hand from his shoulder to his jaw.

The line of it under your fingers. The slight shift of muscle when he angles toward you.

The way his mouth moves against yours is not the action of a man running an experiment.

It is the action of a man who has been paying very close attention for a long time and has finally decided to apply everything he noticed. And he noticed a great deal, and he is thorough, and it makes you lose your ability to think.

You make a small sound you will never acknowledge.

His grip tightens.

His other hand leaves the shelf and finds your waist too, and now he is simply holding you, and there is nowhere to put the fact of that except directly in your chest where it lands and stays.

When you finally pull back, you don’t go far.

His forehead drops to yours.

You can feel his heartbeat.

His.

That’s how close you are, your hand still at his jaw, his hands still at your waist, the heat coming off him like something you could lean into and not find the edge of.

His breath is uneven.

The library is very quiet. The amber light has gone to shadow. The world outside this alcove does not currently exist.

You stay there for a moment, the two of you, close enough that you can feel the warmth coming off him, close enough that the next move would take almost nothing at all.

His hand is still at your waist.

It has not moved.

“…that was different,” Alhaitham says.

“It was the same.” Your voice doesn’t entirely cooperate.

“No.” His hand is still at your waist. He hasn’t stepped back. “It wasn’t.”

You look at him.

Up close like this, it’s almost unreasonable. The particular clarity of his eyes. The way they hold you in a gaze that is too thorough and too certain and far too close for you to perform indifference into.

“You’re analyzing again,” you say.

“I’m not, actually.” A pause. The quietness of it is different from his usual quiet. “This one was different. That’s not analysis. That’s acknowledgment.”

Your chest is very full.

“…we should continue as planned,” you say quietly.

“Of course.”

Alhaitham steps back, and you let him. His hand leaves your waist.

He retrieves his edition from where it ended up against the shelf and straightens it with the same composure he always has.

You think: he is not actually unaffected right now, and he knows that I know it, and he is choosing not to address it.

Which means he’s thinking about it.

Which means you are both now standing in an alcove thinking about the same thing, and saying nothing.

He leaves with the same unhurried composure he always has.

You stand in the alcove for a moment longer than necessary.

Your hand is still on the shelf.

— ✦ —

Alhaitham awaits you in his office on Wednesday, same as promised.

You’d brought the text. He was already there when you arrived. Which means, you have come to accept, that he was there first, having presumably arranged himself in advance of the agreed time because this is the kind of person he is.

A pot of tea, inexplicably, on the table between you. Two cups.

You sit down. He slides a cup toward you without comment.

“You made tea,” you say.

“The afternoon light is better for close reading, and extended close reading benefits from adequate hydration.”

“Those are all true things that don’t explain why there are two cups.”

“You drink tea in the afternoon. You have for as long as I’ve known you.” He opens the text in front of him. “Show me the passage.”

You show him the passage.

But you’re thinking about the coffee.

Months ago, on a Tuesday, you had arrived at the Akademiya early and found him already there, and without thinking about it particularly, you had detoured and brought back two cups, and set one in front of him, and sat down.

He hadn’t commented. You hadn’t explained.

But you had done it again the following Tuesday. And the one after that.

And at some point, your hands had simply decided that arriving at the Akademiya now involved a brief stop at a café, and you have not interrogated this decision because it doesn’t feel like a decision, it feels like a habit, and habits don’t require examination.

He looks up from the text, finding you looking at him.

“The coffee,” he says.

“…what about it.”

“You’ve done it every Tuesday for months.”

“The café is on the way.”

“It isn’t.”

You open your mouth. Close it. “…it’s close enough.”

He holds your gaze for a moment.

“Why?” he says.

You consider deflecting. You consider several very good deflections, actually, each one technically true.

Instead you lean back in your chair and look at him with the easy confidence you’ve always been better at than honesty and say:

“You almost smile when you drink it.”

A pause.

“And,” you continue, lightly, “I simply prefer looking at you like that.”

It is sixty percent flirtation and forty percent the most honest thing you’ve said to him in three years, and the ratio has been shifting lately in a direction you’re not examining.

He holds your gaze for one moment that is slightly longer than his usual moments.

“The passage,” he says.

“The passage,” you agree.

But he picks up his tea and takes a slow sip before opening the text, and you look down at your own cup and do not think about the fact that you are smiling.

What follows is not what you expected, which is to say: better.

Alhaitham doesn’t simply translate. He explains the underlying structure of the language.

He is, when he’s talking about something that holds his attention, different. More present, somehow. More detailed.

He uses his hands occasionally, tracing the structure of a sentence in the air, and you watch him do it and find yourself thinking that this is what he’s like when he forgets to be contained about something.

“You’re doing it again,” he says, without looking up from the text.

“I’m listening.”

“You’re watching me explain and making an expression that suggests you find it entertaining.”

“I find it interesting. There’s a difference.”

Alhaitham glances up. “What kind of interesting?”

“The kind where I can tell you actually care about this.” You rest your chin in your hand. “You have an expression.”

“I always have an expression.”

“You have a different expression. A—” you think about it, “—animated one. Comparatively.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“It’s the accurate assessment,” you say, deliberately, returning his phrasing back at him.

Something moves in his face. Not quite a smile. Something that would be a smile in a different person, or a smile in him on a different day.

“The grammatical argument in the third section,” he says, returning to the text, “is the important part. The translator was working from a copy that was itself already a second-generation translation, which compounded—”

“Alhaitham.”

“—the interpretive errors in the—”

“Alhaitham.”

He pauses.

“What.”

“Where are we going after this?”

“We’re not going anywhere. This is the arrangement.”

“You made tea for two and you’ve been explaining this for— “ you check the light outside, “—fifty minutes longer than a reasonable tutorial would require.”

“The subject matter warrants thoroughness.”

“You enjoy explaining it. That’s different.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive,” Alhaitham allows. “The argument has specific relevance to your research area, which makes it — “

“My research area,” you repeat, glancing up. “Which you’ve decided is?”

“Knowledge transmission across transitional periods. Specifically the desert region.” He says it the way he says everything. “You’ve been working on it since your second year. The focus sharpened after your trip to Aaru Village.”

You stare at him.

“…you knew about that trip?”

“You came back with a fragment of engraved stone tablet and spent three weeks being insufferable about the epigraphy.” He pauses. “You were right about the dating, incidentally. I checked.”

You stare at him.

He had checked.

Alhaitham had, at some point, taken the time to verify the conclusion you’d drawn from a fragment you’d carried back in your coat pocket from a trip he had apparently known about and remembered in enough detail to bring up now, in a small room, three years later.

“I didn’t know you were paying attention to that,” you say, carefully.

“I pay attention to things that are worth it.”

The sentence falls into the quiet of the room and stays there. He’s said it before which doesn’t make it less meaningful.

You look at him.

He looks back, with that expression that gives nothing away and somehow gives everything.

And you think about your uncle’s stories, the ones that made you want to study in the first place.

The desert peoples and their long memory. The way knowledge travels through generations in fragments, in objects carried across distances, in a copper bead on a worn cord bracelet. The way things persist past the point where anyone expects them to.

He noticed the trip. He checked your work. He remembered.

Three years, you think. What else has he been filing away?

You look at him for a moment. “You’ve been to Aaru Village too, though.”

“Yes.” He says it without particular emphasis. “The terrain is inconvenient. The sand finds its way into everything.” A beat. “I’ve since revised my estimate of it.”

“Revised how?”

“Downward for the sand. Upward for everything else.” He glances at you. “The oral histories the village people carry. Things that never made it into any archive. The kind of knowledge your uncle would have understood better than most of our colleagues.” He pauses. “It’s worth the sand.”

You think about the fragment you’d carried back in your coat pocket. The way the village had felt like a place that remembered things the rest of Sumeru had agreed to forget.

“You should go back,” you say. “Properly. There’s a whole lineage of desert astronomical knowledge that is worth looking at from different angles.”

“Mm.”

“I could send you the references I’ve been compiling. It’s mostly Vahumana territory but the linguistic layer is—”

“I don’t typically take on joint research,” he says.

You know this. Everyone in the Akademiya knows this. One prior collaboration had been eough: he’d closed the door and never mentioned it again.

“I know,” you say. “I wasn’t suggesting—”

“I said typically.” A faint, dismissive sound. “I didn’t say categorically.”

You go still.

He reaches past you, his arm grazing yours, and opens it to the relevant passage with the composure of someone who has not just said something significant.

“The third section,” he says. “You said you wanted to walk through it.”

“…yes,” you say.

“Then pay attention.”

You continue for a while, but your conversation keeps drifting elsewhere. Neither of you acknowledges that the translation is no longer the point.

Alhaitham looks at the text. Then at you.

“There’s a section of Treasures Street that has a good evening stall. The proprietor sources from Aaru Village. The quality is consistent.” He says this in the same tone he uses for grammatical arguments. Entirely matter-of-fact. “The evening timing is better. Fewer people.”

You hold his gaze.

“Are you describing dinner?”

“I’m describing a food stall with reliable quality and favorable crowd conditions.”

“That’s dinner.”

“It’s a practical—”

“That is dinner. You are describing dinner. You can say the word.”

He looks at you.

And then something happens that you have seen approximately two dozen times in three years and still find slightly disorienting: the corner of his mouth moves.

Not a full smile, something more restrained and therefore somehow worse, because it is clearly being contained, which means there is more of it underneath, and you have no idea what to do with that information.

“Dinner,” Alhaitham says.

“Was that so hard?”

“Tedious,” he says. “Not hard.”

You look at him for a moment. The almost-smile that is still there at the edges, the evening light that is catching his features, the complete composure that has a very specific crack in it right now that only you are positioned to see.

Oh, you think, helplessly. I am in so much trouble.

You press your lips together to keep the smile from being too obvious. “Of course it is.”

“If you’d prefer to go somewhere else—”

“I didn’t say that.” You gather the texts, stacking them with more care than necessary. “Let me get my things.”

“The translation—”

“I’ll finish it tonight. You can check it tomorrow.” You glance at him. “If you want.”

“I’ll add it to my schedule,” he says.

You look at him for a moment longer, something warm and complicated doing a slow turn in your chest, and then you go get your things.

Treasures Street is the version of Sumeru City you’ve always liked best: lively and authentic.

The stall Alhaitham knows is tucked between a lamp vendor and a textile merchant who has, apparently, been having a years-long territorial dispute with the lamp vendor over two feet of cobblestone that neither of them technically owns.

Alhaitham explains this with the tone of someone who has observed this conflict on enough separate occasions to have developed a theory about its origins.

“You come here often,” you say.

“The food is good and the vendor doesn’t attempt conversation.”

“High praise.”

“It’s accurate.”

The vendor, it turns out, also doesn’t attempt conversation with you, which earns him a level of regard from Alhaitham that you find quietly charming.

You eat walking, the same as the last time. Through the quieter part of the streets, the city settling into evening around you.

“The linguistic argument,” you say, because you’re thinking about it again. “If the original translation was already corrupted, how much of what we take as settled scholarship in that period is—”

“Contested at the foundations? Most of it.” He says it the way someone says water is wet. “The academic consensus rests on a chain of citations that, if you trace them back, converge on approximately four primary sources. Two of which have translation problems.”

“That should be—that’s alarming.”

“It should prompt a systematic reexamination, yes.” A pause. “I submitted a proposal to the Akademiya to that effect, two years ago.”

“…and?”

“And it was tabled on the grounds that it would require significant revision of existing published work.”

“That’s the point—”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m aware.”

You look at him sideways. “That must have been spectacularly irritating.”

“I documented my objections and moved on.” He hums. “The knowledge is still true regardless of whether the institution acknowledges it.”

“That’s very—” you search for the word, “—you.”

“Is it?”

“Entirely. The I am correct and eventually the world will catch up posture.”

“The evidence is what it is regardless of current academic fashion posture,” he corrects.

“Same thing.”

“They’re not—”

“They’re the same thing,” you say, and laugh, and he glances over, and you are in the middle of thinking that he looks good in the evening light when you realize that you’re standing outside his house.

You got here without noticing.

That happens, sometimes, when you’re talking to him. The time and distance slip.

The street around you is quiet.

“…four,” you say.

The word comes out softer than you intended.

Alhaitham turns to look at you.

His expression has the quality it’s had a few times recently: not different from his usual, but deeper. Like the usual expression is the surface of something, and this is what’s underneath it.

“Yes,” he says.

You move without the staging of before. You simply step close and kiss him, and it is unhurried. The way things are when you’ve stopped pretending there’s no weight to them.

Alhaitham’s hand comes to your jaw, and it is careful in the particular way that careful things are when care means something. His thumb traces once against your cheek and you feel it in the back of your throat. Your hand finds the front of his coat and stays there.

You stay in the kiss, and neither of you does anything to stop it.

When you finally draw back, there’s a silence between you that has warmth in it. You’re close enough to see the slight unevenness in his breathing.

You’re about to say something.

You genuinely don’t know what it would have been.

The door opens. Kaveh appears in the doorway at full conversational velocity, mid-sentence with someone behind him, and stops.

He looks at you. He looks at Alhaitham. He looks at the general situation. The proximity, the lamplight, whatever is currently visible in both your expressions.

His entire face does something complicated and delighted and like a person who has been waiting for exactly this moment for an unspecified number of months.

“I—” he starts.

“Inside,” Alhaitham says.

“I’m just—”

“Kaveh.”

“—I live here—”

“You can continue to live here if you go inside.”

Kaveh goes inside with the specific energy of a man banking an enormous number of things to say for a later date.

You press your fingers to your mouth to keep from laughing and almost succeed.

Alhaitham turns back to you.

His expression is unchanged. Entirely. As if the kiss simply didn’t register as anything remarkable.

“One remaining,” he says.

“One remaining,” you agree.

Your heartbeat is doing several things.

You walk home with it still unsteady, the evening warm around you, thinking about his hand on your jaw and the specific quality of the silence before Kaveh interrupted it.

One left, you think. This is fine.

You think about it the whole way home.

— ✦ —

You shouldn’t be nervous.

You’ve been telling yourself this all day, with decreasing success, in the manner of someone trying to use logic to address something that has become specifically immune to it.

There’s no reason for nerves. You know exactly what’s happening.

You proposed it. You set the terms. You’ve completed four without incident, relatively speaking, and the fifth is the last one and then the bet is over and everything returns to whatever normal was before you started this, which you’re increasingly failing to remember.

That’s fine.

That’s absolutely fine.

“Five,” you say, when you find him in the late afternoon, in the reading room where this all began. “Last one.”

Alhaitham looks up from his book.

You’ve seen this moment many times now. The slight shift of his attention, the way he sets aside whatever he was doing with no visible reluctance.

You’ve catalogued it without intending to. The thing about him is that attention from him is never accidental. He gives it or he doesn’t, and right now he is, entirely, and you are trying very hard not to find that unbearable.

“Then you should proceed,” he says.

Just like always. Composed.

Your chest tightens. You cross the room. Up close, the light falls across him in long gold lines. Across his shoulders, along the gray of his hair, catching the edge of his jaw.

He is exactly what he always is, and you have made the disastrous mistake of paying too much attention.

“Don’t analyze this one,” you say quietly.

Alhaitham studies you.

Your fingers are at the bracelet. You’re not sure when they got there.

Something moves in his expression, too quick to name.

“Very well,” he says.

You breathe. Then you close the distance and kiss him.

It’s softer than the others.

Not tentative—you’re past that now, or past whatever you were pretending was tentativeness— but not playful either. There is no teasing in it, just something honest.

Something that slips out before you can reconsider it, carrying the weight of four kisses and the slowly dawning recognition of what a mistake you made when you thought this would be simple.

Your hand rests against his chest. You feel his heartbeat. Steady. Unchanged.

Of course it is. Because he’s Alhaitham, and he told you from the beginning that the experiment wouldn’t work, and he was right, he’s always right, and you are—

You pull back.

“There,” you say. Your voice is quiet. “Five.”

You don’t look at him.

“Then the bet is concluded,” Alhaitham says.

The words land in exactly as you knew they would.

“Right.”

You find a small smile from somewhere. “Looks like I lost.”

“Apparently,” he says.

“Well.” You exhale softly. “That settles it.” You glance at him, finally, holding your expression in place with the ease of long practice. “Thank you for participating. I’ll try to come up with a better theory next time.”

You turn before he can respond.

You don’t run.

You walk, at a normal pace, with perfect composure, and you do not let yourself think about the fact that somewhere between the first kiss and the fifth, you stopped trying to win a bet and started trying to make something true.

— ✦ —

You avoid him.

At first it’s almost easy. The Akademiya is large, your schedules don’t always align, and you have always been very good at directing your own attention toward things that are useful.

You throw yourself into the Nabu Malikata research. You request three new source texts from the archive borrowing system.

You attend a lecture on archaeological methodology that you would normally have skipped.

You sit in the back, and you take notes, and you think about the argument in the third section of the translation, and then you think about the alcove, and then you put your pen down and stare at the middle distance for long enough that the scholar next to you asks if you’re alright.

“Fine,” you say. “Thinking.”

You are not thinking about anything useful.

It happens on a Thursday when you’re reaching for a text on the upper shelf.

Your hand finds the shelf for balance and you stop.

Because the wood is cool under your palm and the light is doing that amber thing it does in the late afternoon and your body, apparently, has a better memory than your judgment, and for one very specific moment you are completely back in that alcove and there is nothing you can do about it.

You stand there with your hand on the shelf.

You think about his breath against your forehead. The weight of his hand at your waist that had not moved. The way he’d said it wasn’t the same with the particular quietness of someone stating something true that they have no intention of softening.

I knew before the fifth kiss. I probably knew before the first one.

You take the text off the shelf and go back to your table.

You open it, and look at the first line, and read it four times without taking in a single word.

Your fingers find the bracelet.

He checked my work on the Aaru village fragment.

He has a subsection for Farhan.

Every Tuesday he is already there when I arrive and he has never once told me to go somewhere else.

You close the book. You sit with that for a while.

And then, because your mind when left alone tends to keep working whether or not you’ve given it permission, you think about something he said once. Almost two years ago, briefly, the way he mentions things from his past: as facts, without weight attached, as though the weight is self-evident and doesn’t need performing.

His father had been Haravatat. His mother, Vahumana.

He’d said it once, in passing, in the context of something else. He’d moved on from it immediately. You’d filed it and not thought about it again because there had been something else to argue about.

You think about it now.

The argument you’ve been having with him for three years. The one neither of you will concede.

The one that, looked at from a certain angle, is less an argument and more a conversation between two halves of the same question. The question of how you understand anything at all. Whether you start with the text or the context. Whether meaning lives in the word or in the world around it.

He grew up between those two schools.

He is that argument.

You have been standing on one side of it, and he has been standing on the other, and you have both been enjoying it enormously, and he has never once mentioned that he grew up at exactly the intersection you’ve been arguing over.

He noticed, you think. Of course he noticed. The moment you introduced yourself as a Vahumana scholar, the moment you came to him with a translation problem.

He would have noticed immediately, and filed it, and said nothing, and kept arguing with you across the fault line that ran directly through the center of his own history.

Three years.

You put your book down. You stare at the table. Your fingers close around the bracelet.

— ✦ —

You are again thinking about this, alone, when his footsteps announce him.

“Your productivity has decreased,” Alhaitham says.

You don’t turn around. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“No,” he says, moving into the room, unhurried as always. “But only one of them is true.”

You hear him stop behind you. Not too close. Not far.

“I know,” you say, before he can continue. “I owe you a question.”

“Yes.”

“Then ask it.”

A pause, longer than you expected.

“…you’re not going to try to negotiate?”

“I said I’d answer. I’ll answer.” You close the book in front of you and turn around. He’s standing a few feet away, composed, watching you with that particular attention you’ve spent the last week avoiding because it sees too much. “Go ahead.”

He looks at you. Then he says: “No.”

You stare at him. “…no?”

“The terms of the bet are void.”

The silence that follows is very specific. The kind that happens when you expected something and received something else entirely.

“…what.”

“The experimental parameters assumed a neutral starting condition.” He says this with the same tone he would use to explain a translation error. Entirely unruffled, as if this is simply a fact he’s presenting for your consideration. “A baseline of zero. No pre-existing variable on either side.”

You stare at him. “You’re trying to—are you seriously—”

“I’m identifying a structural flaw in the methodology.”

“You’re trying to void the bet on a technicality—”

“I’m pointing out that the results were compromised before the first instance.” He holds your gaze, absolutely steady. “The experiment was designed to test whether a particular outcome could be induced. It cannot accurately test for induction if the condition already existed.”

The room is very quiet.

“…if the condition,” you say slowly, “already existed.”

“Yes.”

“Prior to the bet.”

“Significantly prior,” Alhaitham says. “The variable was already present. The bet didn’t create it. It simply confirmed it.”

You look at him.

He looks back.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he says: “You were doing the bracelet.”

You go still. “…what?”

“During the fifth instance. Before you asked me not to analyze it.” His voice is entirely even.

“You do it when something matters more than you want it to. You’ve done it since the first afternoon you came to find me.” He pauses. “I noticed then.”

The library is very quiet.

“…how long,” you say carefully, “have you been paying attention to that?”

“Since the second month.” He reaches up, his hand settling against your jaw. “I found it— “ the briefest pause, the closest he gets to searching for a word, “—clarifying.”

He is standing in a library in the late afternoon and informing you that he was already in love with you when this started. He is calling it prior data. He is keeping his expression completely level while he does it.

You don’t know whether to laugh or—

“So you’re saying,” you say, carefully, “that you were already—”

“I’m saying the control variable was contaminated,” he says. “The bet cannot be adjudicated cleanly. Therefore, the terms are void.”

“That is the most elaborate way anyone has ever—” you stop. Compose yourself. “You realize I can see exactly what you’re doing.”

“I’m applying logical framework to—”

“You’re deflecting.”

A silence.

“…I’m identifying a methodological flaw.”

“You are deflecting because you lost the bet before it started and you would rather cite experimental contamination than say it plainly.”

The silence that follows is, by Alhaitham’s standards, quite loud.

Then: “Those are not mutually exclusive.”

You laugh.

You laugh and it’s real, startled out of you, warm, the kind that undoes some of the tension that’s been sitting in your chest for a week.

His expression shifts, just barely, in the way that means he’s letting himself register something.

“Fine,” you say, when you can. “Void. The terms are void. We’re even.” You look at him. “But you have to say it.”

“…I just said it.”

“You said prior data. You said contaminated variable. You have to say the actual—”

“The actual conclusion,” Alhaitham says, with the smallest possible increment of expression that constitutes him being moved by something, “is that I’ve found you consistently worth the difficulty.”

You blink.

“Worth the difficulty.”

“You’re argumentative. You annotate books that don’t belong to you. You ask questions you already know the answers to and call it conversation.”

He takes a step toward you. “And you’ve been right, on more occasions than I find convenient, about things I would have preferred to be wrong about.” Another step. He stops close. “I find that singular. You’re singular. That’s the prior data.”

Something in your chest does something you couldn’t describe if you tried.

You look up at him.

“That’s the most backhanded declaration—”

“It isn’t backhanded.”

“—anyone has ever—”

“It’s accurate.” His voice is quiet now. The library is quiet. Everything is quiet in that specific way that happens when something is about to shift irrevocably. “You’ve always been the exception. To most of my preferences regarding people.” He pauses. “I thought you were aware of that.”

“You never said—”

“I added you to my schedule,” he says, with the gravity of a man who has just revealed something significant and knows it. “Repeatedly. Voluntarily.”

You stare at him.

He stares back in the way he is about everything he’s actually decided on.

“…that’s your love language,” you say. “Voluntarily adding people to your schedule.”

“It’s a meaningful allocation of a finite resource.”

“Oh.”

“Time,” Alhaitham continues, as though you haven’t spoken, “is the only thing I don’t have more of than I need. I’ve been— “ he considers the word, “—liberal with mine. Where you’re concerned.”

“Liberal,” you repeat faintly.

“Yes.” He reaches up, then, with that same careful deliberateness from the payoff, his hand settling against your jaw, thumb tracing once across your cheek. “So. We can continue.”

“The translation,” you say.

“Among other things.” His eyes hold yours. “The translation is unfinished. The argument has several more branches worth examining. And I find—” something small and certain moves in his expression, “—that arguments are better when you’re in them.”

Your heart is very full.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” you say softly.

“It’s a factual assessment.”

“Still counts.”

He looks at you for a moment longer.

Then he closes the remaining distance and kisses you.

And it is nothing like the other five.

It is not controlled or structured or framed by anything except his hand at your jaw and the quiet of the library around you and the very simple fact that this is what it feels like when Alhaitham stops observing and just chooses. Without reservation.

He kisses you the way he explained the argument to you that first afternoon. Thoroughly, with full attention, as though there is nothing else currently worth his time and he sees no reason to pretend otherwise.

His thumb traces along your jaw and you feel it everywhere.

You reach for him, fingers curling into the front of his coat, and he makes a small sound that lands in your chest like something settling into place after a very long time out of it.

You press closer.

His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, gentle, certain, and the gentleness of it specifically is what gets you.

Because it is deliberate, because he does nothing without intention, which means this is him choosing to be careful with you and the distinction matters enormously.

And you are thinking about this while he is kissing you which means he is kissing you well enough that your thoughts have given up organizing themselves into anything useful.

You had wondered, somewhere in the back of your mind, over the last five attempts, what it would feel like when it was initiated by him.

It feels like being correct about something you weren’t sure you were allowed to believe.

When he finally draws back it’s only by degrees. Close enough that his forehead rests against yours, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath, close enough that neither of you is in any particular hurry to change the geometry of this.

His hand stays at the back of your neck.

Yours stays in his coat.

You stay there for a moment. In the quiet of the House of Daena, in the late afternoon light, in the particular stillness of something that has finally stopped pretending to be something else.

“For the record,” you say, against the quiet, “I was also— “ you search for the word— “significantly prior.”

A pause follows.

“I know,” he says.

“You knew?”

“You argued with the third theorem in the margin of my annotated copy eighteen months ago.” His voice is entirely even. “You were right. I noticed then.”

“And you said nothing—”

“You were pretending not to be paying attention,” Alhaitham says. “I was waiting for you to stop.”

You look at him.

He looks back.

“I really do find you insufferable,” you tell him.

“Consistently,” he agrees. “And yet.”

“And yet,” you echo.

He reaches for your hand, with the same absence of ceremony he brings to everything. He just takes it, tucks it into his in a matter-of-fact way that is somehow more quietly devastating than anything else that has happened today.

“The translation,” he says. “Tomorrow. Bring the other edition.”

“Fine.”

“And not yours.”

“I know—”

“You’ve made that mistake before.”

You walk out of the library with your hand in his, arguing about translation methodology.

It feels, extraordinarily, like everything.

⋆ ✦ ⋆

A/N: Thanks for reading. I really love Alhaitham, so this was very special to write. I hope you enjoyed it. :)

he looks at you, noticing the sleep shirt and tiny shorts you’re wearing, how your nipples are sort of pebbling through the shirt because of the cold night air, how smooth your legs look like you just got out of the shower (probably waiting for your pizza for dinner). this is his last delivery on the clock and he’s already too tired to care. he swallows hard, making a mental decision.

“yeah, i mean… there is something.”

so that’s how you found yourself face down, ass up on your couch, with the pizza delivery guy pounding into you from behind, his thick fingers pushing your panties to the side. your arms latch onto the couch armrests for dear life as your ass ripples against his abdomen, tits bouncing with each thrust. one of his legs is bent while the other stays on the floor, trying to keep you steady. the couch already seems diagonal by several degrees.

his large hands grab your hips roughly as he goes back all the way to his tip and slides in, groaning as he feels your wet cunt spasm against his thick length.

“what sort of person takes cock as payment?” he says hoarsely, a strain in his voice. you can only moan in response, saying small yes’s as you get closer to your release. in his defense, the only reason he’s doing this is because you agreed to his offer, so you can’t really blame him for asking that question right?

in your defense, he’s handsome as hell.

he palms your ass cheeks, moving them in time with his thrusts, trying to slow his pace so he doesn’t cum right then and there.

“nghh diluc… diluc, please-” you whine out, not really sure how you remembered his name. maybe all that time you wasted at the door sifting through your wallet actually counted for something.

“p-please what?” he grunts out. your cunt gushes around his cock as wet, squelching sounds fill your living room. the ‘mondstadt pizza’ cap lies on the floor, along with your shorts and morality.

you can only give a small mewl in response.

he snakes an arm down to your clit, using his middle and ring finger to stroke it languidly.

“ah- diluc!” you clench down on him, pussy fluttering around him.

“fuckkk you’re so wet” he curses, voice low, “nasty girl. i bet you have money somewhere and you just wanted me to fuck you this badly.”

to that, you can’t help it, you clench further, arousal dripping down your thighs and onto your couch. turning with tears in your eyes, you see his red bangs hanging low on his face, hiding the small blush that occupies his cheeks. his dress shirt is completely unbuttoned and his abs are slick with your arousal.

he grips the back of your head unexpectedly, turning you around and pushing you into the couch cushions. his length practically throbs inside you, threatening release.

you straighten your arms up to the best of your ability, reciprocating by fucking back into him. your eyes all but roll back into your head as he grinds down on you, cock throbbing deep and warm inside you.

“i’m going to-” you cry out but not before you feel him release inside you with a strained groan, his cum warm and thick. he really didn't expect to finish that quick. almost immediately after him, you finish too, trying to buck yourself off as he holds you in place against his red happy trail.

you’re overstimulated as he exits, leaving you on the couch with dry tears and a fucked out expression. he pushes his cum inside your hole as sparks trail up and down your clit at the aftermath.

he backs up and you watch him as he zips up his khakis, buttons up his wrinkled black uniform shirt, and dusts off his cap from the floor, placing it back on his head.

“enjoy the pizza, miss.” he says as he leaves, customary to the strict door protocol that ‘mondstadt pizza’ employs.

not that he’s followed any protocol since he got here.

you notice, however, that he’s left his number on top of the cold pizza box.

you’ll definitely be calling him again.

The warmth it leaves on your skin as it dips below the horizon and the sun-kissed haze it leaves in your apartment…it fills you with a sense of accomplishment and peace.

You’ve done it, ____. You’ve successfully created a new space for yourself - free of some of the memories that plague you at night.

Your eyes trace the lines of marble on your kitchen countertops, giddy with thoughts about all of the meals you can cook and wines you can have on the counter during dinners with friends. The idea of reviving your social life after moving for so long and connecting with certain people has your heart fluttering, although your concentration is broken when your phone buzzes on the counter.

You slide your finger along your phone’s screen without another thought, your smile immediately growing when you see who it is.

“Hi, Yvonne!”

You watch as her signature bangs pop up on screen, followed by her sparkling eyes and sweet, dimpled smile. Yvonne is one of your closest friends from college: one of two people who were able to drag you away from your textbooks and into a mall or a karaoke room during the weekends. She was there with flowers and snacks after you defended your thesis perfectly to become a fully fledged pediatrician, and you were present with her favorite chocolates and a reservation to her favorite restaurant when she passed her nursing exams with flying colors.

Simply put, she’s your rock and you don’t think you’d be able to exist without her.

“My favorite pediatrician’s back!” She cheers, and you laugh when you see her spin in her office chair. “How do you like your new apartment?”

“The west facing windows are incredible.” You pick up your phone and flip the screen so that she can see the sunset through your wall-length windows, and she gasps at the magnificent view.

“It’s gorgeous!” She rolls her chair closer to her phone, and you giggle when she presses her nose up against the screen so she can really squint at the painting-like sky you’re currently showing her. “Wine and dine nights are about to be so good at your apartment.”

“I’m just excited about the kitchen island and the second bedroom,” you sigh in response, picking up your phone and walking around with it. You walk towards the front of your half built shoe rack, sliding on some shoes as you continue your chat with your friend. “How’s work been so far?”

“Same old,” she responds. You watch as she unties her hair from its slicked back bun, shaking her head vigorously and massaging her scalp so that she can release the tension. “I was the charge nurse today, but we thankfully didn’t have any new admits.”

“That’s good!” You grab your leather tote bag and sling it over your shoulder, making sure your keys are on your wrist before you shut the door to your new home behind you. “When are you off, by the way? I have to go to the university to pick up my materials and meet with Dr. Chung, but we need to meet up in person.”

“I’m free a week from now if that’s okay? It gives you time to set up your apartment and get the first couple of classes out of the way.”

You hum at her words, nodding and giving her a thumbs up. “That sounds good! Now go and don’t let the doctors get you down.”

Yvonne laughs at this, waving as she hangs up the call.

There’s a pep in your step as you walk to Linkon U - your new apartment in the university district of Linkon City. There’s a pleasant vibe as you listen to your favorite song, strides unhurried as you take in your new workplace.

When you’ve been far away from everything you used to know, you don’t realize just how small things were until you step back into your previous environment and really take it all in. That’s the case for you as you walk into the health department - smiling fondly at the trophy display case by the entrance of the grand hall. You let your eyes wander as your feet take you into the vague direction of the administration offices, until-

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

You shake your head and smile sheepishly, breathing in deeply to calm your nerves at bumping into your new colleague. You find that it’s a big mistake, however, because it’s the smell you find yourself craving.

The crisp smell of pine body wash and jasmine detergent, mixed with something that makes you know that it’s him.

You feel yourself heat slightly as you dare to look up, embarrassment and something more heady roiling in your stomach as you stare directly into the golden flecked green of Zayne Li’s eyes. They’re carefully blank, his mouth pressed into a straight line and posture so rigid you would think he’s had a ruler permanently tucked into the waistband of his pants so he’s always straight-backed.

But you know that’s not the case.

No…you know that it’s because of how things ended between the two of you.

You wipe your mind of a kneeling man and salty tears streaking your cheeks as you carefully school your features into a pleasant, albeit lackluster smile. Your hands gently grasp at the shoulders you’ve dreamed of and you step to the side as you move past him, focusing on the small plaque with Dr. Alistair Chung: Head Director of the Linde School of Medicine engraved on it so you don’t lose your composure being in such close proximity to the man who’s never left your mind.

“It’s nice seeing you again, Dr. Li.”

And you mean it. He may not act like he cares, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to.

With that, you nod your head once before walking towards Dr. Chung’s office.

To your surprise, however, Zayne begins to follow you.

To Dr. Chung’s office.

You barely have time to process what’s happening before walking into the office, Zayne closing the door behind the two of you softly. You watch as your old mentor lifts his eyes from the file he’s poring over before sitting up sharply, a warm smile gracing his face as he registers who stands in front of him.

“Ah, Zayne! You’ve found Dr. ____!”

“Hi, Dr. Chung.” You barely hesitate to walk over when he lifts his arms out to you, and he envelops you in a hug that has your heart softening and anxiety calming when you step away from him and back by Zayne’s side.

“Look at the two of you!” He laughs joyously, clapping his hands. “Why, it feels like just yesterday that the two of you were undergrads entering the graduate program!”

You force a laugh from your throat, though it dies awkwardly when you realize Zayne is stone-faced next to you. You clear your throat once again, grasping at something to try and make the atmosphere of the room feel somewhat normal.

“I sometimes look back on those days. Some days with fondness, other times with pain” you say. Zayne’s breath stutters next to you but you ignore him, giving Dr. Chung a real smile. “I get the same amount of sleep from back then but I still look back on those days fondly.”

“Likewise, my dear.” He winks at you quickly before clearing his throat and picking up the document he was previously reading. “We’re thankful and honored to have you serving as an honorary co-professor here at Linkon University - your intellectual prowess and care for knowledge will surely be beneficial to the classes you’ll be overseeing this spring semester.”

You pause at his words, heart stuttering slightly when you hear the prefix “co-” in front of “professor.” What does that mean, exactly? Aren’t you supposed to be leading this semester’s medical intro class by yourself?

“Dr. Chung, I don’t mean to intrude,” you begin softly, but with enough assertiveness that you efficiently cut off his ramblings. “What did you mean by co-professor?”

Beside you, Zayne’s breath sharpens and his previously frosty demeanor goes even more rigid if possible - making your anxiety come back with a vengeance.

No…no-

“Well, Dr. ____, it means you’ll be hosting this semester’s course with another doctor.” Your jaw clenches tightly when Dr. Chung’s tone takes on a teasing sort of lilt, his eyebrows wiggling jokingly at you. You force a fake laugh, trying to quell your rapidly beating heart before asking the question you know the answer to, even if your heart sinks straight to your ass.

“Who am I co-teaching with?”

Zayne exhales sharply, as if he’d been waiting for you to finally prod at the snoring bear in the corner of the room. Dr. Chung looks at you with mild surprise, eyes flickering between the two of your bodies before laughing once more.

“Why, ____, did Zayne not tell you? You two are going to be co-professors!”

Fuck…you’re going to be teaching with Zayne?!

You whip your head sharply over to the root of your surprise and growing issues, and you note with little satisfaction at the sheepish tilt of his eyes.

“Is this really necessary, Dr. Chung?” Your voice is tight and you clench your fists so that you can still your emotions, taking a deep breath and schooling your face into its usual pleasant one. “Does Zay- Dr. Li not have his own courses to teach here at Linkon University?”

“On the contrary, Dr. ____.” You can see the bewilderment on Dr. Chung’s face as he regards the tension between the two of you, and he has the grace to look slightly embarrassed as he continues on. “You’re the leading expert on pediatrics in this region - particularly the study of how Evols can affect a child’s many systems. The seminar this semester will be cardiac and pediatrics focused, and Dr. Li requested yo-”

“If it’s a big deal, we can split the lectures so that you teach the pediatrics part and I teach the cardiac unit.” Zayne’s quick to cut off Dr. Chung’s reasoning, and you don’t miss the wicked gleam in Dr. Chung’s eye and Zayne’s rapidly reddening cheeks as he regards you once again. There’s a depth to his eyes that draws you in - eyes that have been your constant companion in your dreams, eyes that you’ve wanted to look at you with soft tenderness.

You know you can’t have those eyes in your life, though.

You release a breath you didn’t know you were holding before smiling up at Zayne, a bland sort of grin with no teeth and emotion. “It’s all right, Dr. Li. We want to be efficient with this, and it’s easier to explain Evol’s effects on the heart within the realm of pediatrics if we’re both in the room.”

If you were a different person not fully accustomed with Zayne and his emotions, you wouldn’t have seen the invisible war he wages between the facts and his heart flickering on his face. But having known him and his emotions for years at this point, you can see it happening in real time: the way his eyes move back and forth as he scans your face before lifting to the ceiling slightly in thought, the way his hands twitch ever so slightly, and the way his tongue quickly darts out to wet his lower lip. It’s little things you’ve tried to rid yourself of in your time apart from him, but you’re forever cursed with the knowledge in your head.

After what seems like a millenia, Zayne sighs softly and shakes his head. “All right, if you’re okay with it we can do the joint lectures.”

His tone holds a gravelly undertone, and a small part of your stomach erupts in a frenzy of butterflies. You open your mouth to speak but you’re prematurely cut off with a loud ringing coming from his pocket.

Zayne breaks his eye contact with you to reach into his pockets, and he slides his thumb across the screen without even looking. You watch as he answers his phone, face going from curious to severe before settling into a calm that you recognize; the sort of calm you feel when something urgent happens at the hospital.

Zayne hangs up his phone, and he looks at Dr. Chung apologetically. “Called in for emergency  heart surgery, something related to a Metaflux fluctuation that triggered an underlying condition.”

Dr. Chung’s eyes sparkle and he nods his assent at Zayne. “Go on, Dr. Li.”

Zayne turns on his heel and begins to walk out. You force yourself to keep your head on Dr. Chung’s nameplate as you hear the door open, but before the door closes shut you hear him pause.

“It was nice seeing you, ____.”

A soft click signals his departure, and you shake yourself off internally.

What a meeting, and it isn’t even your first day lecturing yet.

How the fuck are you going to survive this?

“I think I need to take my leave as well, Dr. Chung.” Your eyes dart back to the man’s bemused smile, and you sigh internally to yourself. What does he know that you don’t?

You nod to him once more before turning on your heel to leave, but-

“You know, Dr. ____…we still have that permanent head of pediatrics position open.”

Dr. Chung’s voice stops you in your tracks, hand hovering above the door knob to his office. You turn your head back to look at him with a bewildered expression. “Sir?”

“It’s been empty for years,” he continues. He peers at you through his glasses, and you suddenly feel like you’re back in grad school - standing in front of him and a panel of your professors skillfully answering questions regarding your thesis. “I can’t think of anyone better than you to lead our pediatrics department.”

You shake your head at this, a bashful expression overtaking your face. “Respectfully, no thank you, Dr. Chung. I don’t think I’m fit for hospital politics - I’d rather be hands on with my care.”

“You, not fit for it?” The laugh that escapes his chest isn’t in a derogatory manner - in fact, it’s full of disbelief that you even think of yourself in that way. “Ms. ____, you fearlessly defended your thesis some years ago before going on to win heaps of awards and researching new scientific breakthroughs for diseases that plague young children. You’ve accomplished feats most of my colleagues barely even get to touch by the end of their career, and you’re still at the first couple of years in your glowing career. Why, you and Dr. Li are of the same caliber! Why are you so afraid of giving yourself time to rest?”

You flinch at the mention of his name as a comparison to your own, but you try to hide your sudden shock as you shake your head harshly. “No, I don’t think I’m quite right for it yet.”

Dr. Chung’s eyes soften at your sudden walls, and he sighs. “Seems I hit a nerve.”

You avert your eyes as he gets up from his chair, approaching you with gentle steps. He stands in front of you and holds out his hand, and after a bit of hesitation, you give him your own. He holds it gently as he regards you with a familial kindness - one that makes your heart ache ever so slightly.

“____, there’s no shame in stopping and resting.” He squeezes your hand and you fight back tears as you squeeze back. “Let me tell you, you’ll never be right for anything - but you can always let yourself grow in your new home and learn. That’s the beauty of our field.”

You bite your lip, willing yourself to get your emotions together before you look up at him and smile as brightly as you can manage. “The semester hasn’t even started yet! Let me get through the courses first - and let me navigate working with Dr. Li while also doing my dailies at Akso and balancing observations. If anything changes I’ll give my response by the end of the semester.”

Dr. Chung sighs, shaking his head. “All right. But just know that by the end of the semester, I will be sending you a couple of insistent emails.”

With that, he lets you go and you wander back down the hallway you came from. As you walk aimlessly, you catch sight of the office door the two of you were by. A shiny nameplate sparkles with the name Dr. Zayne Li, Head of Cardiology engraved on it, and you sigh at your past self’s lack of awareness.

You should have known.

You know it’s foolish of you to think, but is he thinking of you as he’s washing up and preparing for the sudden emergency surgery sprung up on it? Did you consume his thoughts as much as he did in your time apart?

Or have his feelings for you eroded into nothingness?

You shake your head once more, squashing down the disappointment that settles in your stomach before making your way out of the academic office wing.

You don’t have time to think about him. You have lectures to write.

You can’t fight the nervous butterflies that erupt in your stomach when you walk into your assigned lecture hall the following week.

You’ve done a lot of hard things through your career; you can practically do high risk surgeries and retake the Doctor’s Exam in your sleep if you needed to. Public speaking was never really your forte, though - which is hilarious considering you’ve had to speak at international conventions and teach lectures before this.

The more you analyze your feelings, though, you realize that they’re good butterflies.

You don’t know why it feels so different this time. You’re still the same you - maybe with more degrees and an even bigger lack of sleep when you were in undergrad but still, it’s you. Maybe it’s the fact that you’re in a familiar environment that feels so new. 

Maybe it’s the person you’re going to be teaching with.

You can’t allow yourself to falter, so you swallow your nerves and open the lecture hall’s computer - waiting for it to boot up so you can access the slides you’ve carefully put together.

You hear the tell-tale sign of the door creaking open, and you hum as you log into your work account. “Hi! Class isn’t in session yet-”

“I would hope not, I don’t want to be late.”

Your stomach drops slightly when you note the soft, slightly frosty tone of your co-lecturer. You clear your throat and steel yourself, looking up to see Zayne holding a stack of neatly stapled papers and his own bag. He sets his bag next to yours on the hook behind the desk before setting the syllabi down onto the desk in front of you.

The air around you suddenly feels too thin, and you reach for a packet so that you can distract yourself from the thin line his mouth is pressed into and how his white shirtsleeves are pushed up to his elbows and hug his biceps in the way you so love- loved. You ignore the way your hands shake as you flip the paper, noting the class schedule and when exams would be before nodding once.

“Glad we both agree on the content schedule.” You cringe internally at how your voice wavers, and you clear your throat once again before scanning the class recommendations once more.

“When would we do observations?” You lift your gaze from the paper and look at him pointedly, tapping at the dates listed. “There aren’t any concrete dates, and with exams and other classes we should let them know in advance so there isn’t any confusion.”

“We should schedule it around our personal timelines.” Zayne’s voice is clipped as he pulls out a pen pouch from his bag and sets it on the desk. “We need to make sure that no major procedures are impeded on when we bring med students around.”

“That’s practically impossible with how fast things change in the hospital and you know that to be true, Zay- Dr. Li.” You catch your near slip and you clear your throat, grabbing a pen and writing down five potential dates. “How do you feel about these?”

Zayne takes the paper from your hands, and you try to fight the shiver that threatens to race down your back when his hands lightly graze against the back of your hand. The tips of his fingers are as callused as you remember and though they barely brush across your knuckles, you fight the gasp that bubbles up against your lips and disguise it as a really shitty cough.

You watch as he purses his lips, scanning through his personal timeline in his head before nodding once in agreement. “All right.”

Your heart sinks at how quickly he agrees - his clipped, almost bored voice letting you know that he intends to spend the least amount of time with you so that he can be rid of you quickly. Did he really disregard you that much - does he really not care for the past couple of years you’ve spent together, even if the ending was horrible?

“I know you don’t want to work with me, especially with how things ended.” You mumble as you avert your eyes so you don’t have to see his expression. “We just have to last the semester and then…well, I’m not sure. But I’m sure you’ll be rid of me by then.”

“What makes you think that?”

His voice is quiet, severe, devoid of any and all emotion that endeared you to him - but he still moves a little closer so that he’s encroaching on your territory. Not enough where he’s all you can feel, but enough that it sends a shiver up your spine when you smell his signature pine and jasmine scent.

“I don’t know.” Your honesty is bare for him to take in, and you swallow thickly when you realize just how vulnerable you’re being with him. This isn’t something that should be happening right now - not with students on their way to the lecture hall right now.

And you definitely shouldn’t be sharing feelings with your fucking ex-fiancé.

“It doesn’t matter.” You swallow thickly before schooling your expression into the bland smile you always seem to have when you’re around him these days. The fire in his eyes gradually dims before frost takes over his expression again because he knows.

He knows that you’re not going to listen to him, not this time.

So you turn back and wave hello to the incoming medical students.

And if they sense the frost between the two of you, they don’t dare to say anything.

“...And that’s how I ended up in this situation.”

“Holy shit, ____.”

“Yeah.” You’re careful as you flop back onto your couch so that you don’t spill the wine you’re holding, rubbing your eyes as you process all that transpired in the past couple of days.

“This is the romance story of the ages.”

Your eyes snap open from shock at Yvonne’s half joke, and you toss a cat shaped couch pillow at her head. “Yvonne! He’s my co-lecturer!”

Yvonne laughs at your reaction as she holds her hands up, half in surrender and half so that she doesn’t spill wine all over your couch. You think she’ll stop the teasing, but…

“You know, most if not all of the health college’s heads set up betting pools on when you and Zayne would start dating.” You groan at her words, throwing another pillow at her laughing head.

“You’re making that shit up!” You slouch on your couch, folding your arms dramatically.

“Am not!” She gasps. “My nursing professors put a lot of gold in the pool for the month of March because of White Day.”

You feel a hot flash of embarrassment when you remember how he had bought you a box of chocolates and a bouquet of your favorite flowers, and you rub a hand at your temple when you recall the classmates and professors that had flocked around you and asked who it was from with a touch of too much intensity. “Oh gods…”

“Now that I think about it, I think Dr. Chung won the whole thing. No wonder he’s so insistent on you working at Akso and becoming the Head of Pediatrics.” Yvonne moves to sit down next to you, placing her wine glass on your coffee table before settling her head on your shoulder. You place your head on top of hers, letting her presence be a safe space for mulling over your thoughts.

“That damn Dr. Chung,” you grumble, much to her amusement.

“It could be worse, ____.” Yvonne’s voice takes on a tone of comfort, and you sigh as you close your eyes. “You’re just lecturing a couple of classes and doing a set of observations with Zay- Dr. Li. Make it through that, you can make it through anything.”

“You can call him Zayne,” you mumble back. “Hearing his name won’t kill me.”

“Well, it sounded like making a little bit of eye contact with him was going to set off cardiac arrest.” Her voice is back to teasing and you make a noise of frustration.

“It was charged and intense!”

“Just say you were eye-fucking him and go, ____!”

The absurdity of Yvonne’s statement makes the both of you burst out laughing, you clutching your stomach as high pitched squeaks escape the both of your lips. There’s something about the two of you absolutely giggling your heads off at something so preposterous that eases your nerves with your current situation at hand. 

Maybe it is that easy. All you need to do is survive this semester and then you can transfer to a different city and work in a different hospital and university. Maybe Dawnlight City or somewhere near the Arctic in a sleepy little town.

Somewhere far away enough where you don’t have to be reminded of all of your memories and history involving Zayne.

“All of this would be a lot easier if things weren’t the way they were.” It’s a quiet statement, tinged with a fraction of the sadness that lurks deep in your soul. You want to blame it on the wine, but you know that it’s something that’s been festering within your body ever since that night.

“It’s not on you, ____.” Yvonne’s voice is firm and she squeezes your hand tightly as she bumps you lightly with her shoulder. “It was a mutual agreement to keep the engagement private and you guys were so happy. Transferring to a different hospital was reasonable and you did it so you could move on - no one faults you for that, ____.”

You freeze slightly when you hear move on - a phrase loaded with implications and uncharted feelings.

Have you moved on? You reflect back on your life and you find that things have gotten easier for you. You have a new step stool that’s only allowed in the kitchen because you picked up his annoying habit of placing your dishes on the highest shelf even though you’re shorter than him. You have a car and are more comfortable driving, no longer as reliant on public transportation or your friends. You’ve grown to like eggplant parmesan, too.

But those are little things in your life that you’ve done to fill his absence. You still see and feel flashes of him when you least expect it: in cloyingly sweet lattes that remind you of late night study sessions, in lavender bouquets that surround you with the smell of your first kiss, and with the chibi snowman sitting on your nightstand - the same one you don’t have the heart to throw away because he made it for you when you were bedridden with the fever and he didn’t want to leave you alone, even though he had his own thesis defense rehearsal to prepare for that night.

As much as you’ve tried to move on, you know that you’re just plugging in the gaps for the spaces he used to live in. Deep down, you know that there’s no moving on from him - from the man who wrapped you with his own coat with laughter even though you were the one who insisted on leaving without a jacket, from the one who wiped your tears away and cried with you after you experienced your first loss as a doctor, from the one who tapped his finger three times against your nose before you went to sleep.

No, you can’t move on. Not when you’re still so deeply and irrevocably in love with Li Zayne.

“I haven’t moved on.”

The whisper hangs in the air above your heads and Yvonne stiffens ever so slightly, taking in your confession.

“You’re not over Zayne?”

Her response is a quiet gasp, and you sigh as you rub your hand over your face before shaking your head once, twice, three times - confirming the truth that’s been bubbling in your chest ever since you moved away all those years ago.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been over him.”

“Shit, ____.”

“Yeah,” you mumble.

You let yourself reflect back on that rainy night - the night where everything fell apart for the two of you. He had just been promoted to head of cardiology at Akso - draining his time and his affections from you. You had started seeing him less and less, dark circles forming under his eyes and his cheeks growing gaunter by the second. The two of you had gone back and forth on the subject until everything just…snapped.

“I never see you anymore, ____.” It was lethally quiet after you had said the unspoken truth, venom injected into your tone. “You’re working yourself to death, you’re going to bed when I’m waking up and it’s not good for you-”

“I’m working for us.” Zayne’s voice was icy and he had balled his hands into a fist so tightly you were afraid of him accidentally breaking his own skin. “Weddings are expensive and this is all for you-”

“I don’t want it to only be for me, Zayne! This is supposed to be for us!”

It had burst out of your chest, and in the heat of your anger you had marched up to him and pointed your finger in his chest. “You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. You’ve distanced yourself from me. We don’t even sleep in the same fucking bed anymore, Zayne!”

Zayne’s anger had rolled over, clouding his judgement as he pushed you away from his body. Your hands had fallen to your side as he said the words that have since been engraved in the twisted, self-hating part of your brain with a coldness that had your entire body shaking. “Sometimes there are more important things than you, ___.”

The living room had gone eerily still, the words punching your gut before you had even processed what he said. There was a breathlessness that had consumed every fiber of your being, and the only thing you remember saying in response to his wide eyes and kneeling position as he clung to your legs and begged for forgiveness over and over again was a simple “We’re done.”

You had pulled off the diamond ring that was nestled on your finger and thrown it at him before walking out of his apartment into the rain, wandering aimlessly until you somehow made it onto Yvonne’s doorstep. She had answered in a mild panic and she held you as you sobbed.

And now you’re in the same position, holding hands while feeling empty.

“Have you talked to him since that day, ____?”

Yvonne’s soft musings break you out of your stupor, and you shake yourself of the past as you process her words. “What was that?”

“Have you talked to him at all?”

“No.” You pull away and rub your cheeks with your hands, hoping that the sensation pulls you away from the dark haze still threatening to consume you. “How would I even approach that conversation? Leaving was the best thing for the both of us.”

Yvonne hums and watches you as you pick up your wine glass and drains it of its remaining liquid. You sigh and wipe the back of your mouth, your thoughts flying out of your mouth as you pour yourself more wine and force yourself to smile. “It’s just a couple of months doing lectures and observations with my ex who I’m still in love with. All I need to do is keep trucking along and not look at him too long and I’ll be okay!”

“You’re deflecting again, ____.” Yvonne’s voice is deadpan, but you can see the glimmer of concern that flashes in her eyes as she reaches over and takes your wine glass and the bottle away from your hands. “And what makes you think he doesn’t feel the same about you?”

You shake your head rapidly at this, refusing to even entertain the idea with her as you try to reach for the bottle once more. “No, I think he was pretty clear when he said other things were more important than me.”

“That’s a big fat lie and you know it, ____.” You scowl and petulantly cross your arms when Yvonne shakes her head and places the bottle and glass on the side table next to her. “No more wine for you, you’re going to have the worst headache tomorrow if we don’t stop now.”

“It’s a good bottle,” you grumble, although you know she’s right.

She rolls her eyes and settles back down next to you, her tone measured as she starts on her train of thought. “You of all people know Zayne the best. He wouldn’t be teaching classes with you if that were the case - fuck, ___, he probably wouldn’t have even approved your guest professor spot if he wasn’t okay with you.”

“Maybe there was no one else available with the same type of expertise?” Your half-hearted joke dies on your throat at the glare Yvonne throws in your direction, and you shrink back as you prepare for her overprotective best friend mode.

“Of fucking course there’s no one else with your expertise, ____!” She heaves a breath, and you sigh heavily.

“Yvonne, no matter how much I want to be with him again, Zayne’s moved on from it. The best I can do now is bear it and try to move on too.”

“You just…just talk to him, ____.” You look at her in bewilderment and Yvonne throws her hands up, shaking her head in exasperation. “I’m not saying I’m defending him or that you need to get back together with him, just…talk to him. He’s changed to the point where even I can see it, and I was his number one hater.”

“You don’t think he’s moved on?” Your voice is tinged with nerves, and Yvonne shakes her head empathetically.

You sink back into your cushions as you mull over your new knowledge, and you feel dangerous feelings of hopes spark in your chest. If Yvonne, the nurse he’s closest to, thinks he hasn’t moved on, then…

“All right, I’ll talk to him.”

This is it.

This is the day you talk to Zayne and try to make things semi-normal with him again.

It’s also the first date of in-hospital observations, and you’re extra conscious of it in the way you triple check that you have your ID badge and stash multiple pens in your pockets for your students. Sure that you’re ready, you walk into Akso Hospital’s cardiac ward in your scrubs and most comfortable shoes, holding a box full of mini cakes labelled “for the ward with the most heart!”

Is it a little bit cheesy? Yes, but you need cheesy if you’re going to get back into a certain cardiac surgeon’s good graces.

For how long you’ve spent in Akso’s cardiac unit in the past, you still can’t remember the exact way you need to take to end up at the cardiac ward’s offices. You were always with Zayne, and he was the one who picked you up and led you to his office so you never really bothered to learn the directions you needed to take because he was always there with you.

You’re certainly cursing your past yourself out for not paying attention now.

You scan your surroundings, lighting up when you see a receptionist’s desk towards your left. You walk around the family waiting room and approach the desk, scanning for a familiar face. You’re a little disappointed, however, when you see a new receptionist.

A handsome looking new receptionist.

As you approach the desk, his head lifts and his eyes widen before giving you a friendly smile, waving hello to you. You give a cordial smile back, letting your feet stop in front of the table and plopping the box in front of you so that you can give your hands a break.

“Hi, I’m looking for the cardiac ward’s offices. I’m meeting a doctor and some students there for observations today?” You cringe when you hear the tilt of a question on your tone, but the receptionist beams at you and nods.

“Yes, of course! And what was your name again?”

“Dr. ____, pediatrics.” You hold out your hand, and he smiles as he grabs hold and shakes it firmly.

“Michael,” he replies easily, and you feel your stomach clench uncomfortably at the way he holds your hand for longer than necessary. You cough and pull yourself back, schooling yourself into a generally nice attitude as you regard him.

“Do you happen to know if anyone else is in the office right now?” You shift your weight around, trying to think of a reason to get going. “It’s fine if it’s the other doctor I’m following for observations today, but I want to get this to the other doctors of the ward before the day starts.”

“Hmm…” Michael’s voice tapers off as he scans his computer before shaking his head empathetically. “Nope, no one’s in right now. I can certainly take the desserts from you, though!”

His laughter fills the air, and you choke out a laugh just so you can try and feel less awkward. You grab at your box though, just to ensure that he doesn’t grab them from your grasp. “Ah, no, it’s okay. I’ll just get going, then-”

“Are you sure?” You feel yourself die a little bit when Michael stands from his desk, walking around and placing an unwanted hand on the small of your back. “I can walk you over-”

“That won’t be necessary, Matthew.”

The voice breaks the awkwardness, and you find yourself filling with cold relief as you turn around and find Zayne walking into the waiting room. He’s pulling on a white coat over his scrubs, and you try to suppress the dangerous thoughts that flare in your head when you see the slight way his fingers twitch at the sight of Michael’s hand on your back.

“Dr. Li!” Michael smiles, although you can see the tightness in his eyes as he registers Zayne using a wrong name. “I was just going to take Dr. ____ to the ward’s offices-”

“And I’m here now.” Zayne’s standing next to you before you know it, swatting his hand away and replacing it with his own. You relax slightly, unconsciously stepping closer to Zayne’s solid body as you give Michael a fake apologetic look.

“Thanks for your help!” Your tone has a soft sarcastic edge - one that has Zayne loosing a soft breath as he begins to push you away. Your movements are stopped though, when you feel a hand wrap around your wrist and tug you back.

“Wha-”

“I was going to help you!” Michael’s voice is tight as he throws a barely disguised look of annoyance at Zayne, who’s jaw ticks dangerously when he sees how Michael holds your wrist. “Zayne doesn’t need to take you-”

“On the contrary.” Zayne grabs Michael’s wrist and yanks him off of you, your eyes widening at the sudden display of calculated aggression from him. Zayne steps from your side and all but pushes Michael back to his seat, the latter’s cheeks burning bright red as he sits defeatedly back at his desk.

You watch carefully as Zayne steps back by your side, noting the way his jaw ticks dangerously when he regards Michael’s sweating face once more. Scoffing just loud enough for you to hear, he places his hand back on the small of your back and tilts his head back to Michael in a dismissive show of goodbye.

“It’s Dr. Li to you, Matthew. I suggest you remember respect.”

With that, the pressure on your back grows stronger as Zayne gently pushes you in the direction of the offices.

Once you’re out of earshot, you step away and regard him curiously. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“You were uncomfortable and Michael messed up some important appointments, I could have done worse.” Zayne’s tone is bored but you can hear the tightness in his voice as he swipes his keycard. He pushes the door open with his foot, and you’re greeted with the sight of a doctor you vaguely recognize and Yvonne, who looks like she’s about to fall asleep on her feet.

“Dr. ___, everybody.” You look at Zayne curiously, but he doesn’t give anything else away as he ushers you towards the two empty chairs at the head of the table. You shake your head at Yvonne’s small smirk, but the smirk only widens when Zayne pulls the chair out for you and gestures for you to sit.

“I’m Greyson!” The doctor with ruffled brown hair and thick glasses smiles at you sweetly as he shakes your hand, and you widen your eyes at Yvonne who’s face suddenly flushes once she sees you’ve come to your realization:

This is the doctor she has a crush on.

You’re never going to let her live this down.

“____,” your voice is warm as you shake his hand, and you give a small wave to Yvonne who’s suddenly avoiding your gaze sheepishly. Your smile grows even wider and you open your mouth to tease her subtly, but you’re interrupted with a cough.

You turn your head to look at Zayne, who’s looking at the box still in your hands with curiosity and something softer - a look he reserved only for you in the past. You watch as his eyes scan your penmanship on the box, and your heart stutters when you see the small upward tilt on his lips.

“‘For the ward with the most heart?’ There better not be a real heart in there, ____.”

“No, not at all.” You pull the lid of the box open, and you watch as Zayne’s face shifts from relaxed to something unreadable.

In the box are little tea cakes, reminiscent of the ones you and him would pick up for your coworkers. You had randomly picked out a variety when you picked them up this morning, but as you look at the innocent little cake jars you feel yourself freeze.

These were the same flavors you and him always gravitated towards when the two of you were still together.

You hold your breath as Greyson makes his way closer, picking up a small jar of earl grey cake piled high with a light whipped cream. Greyson looks towards Zayne with an inquisitive quirk on his brow. “Isn’t this your favorite flavor?”

“I-” Zayne begins, but you clear your throat and snatch the cake from Greyson’s hands.

“They’re meant to be shared!” Your voice wavers, and you shoot a pointed look at Yvonne who you can tell is trying not to die from embarrassment for you. Yvonne, getting the hint, moves to stand next to you and peers into the cake box.

“Chocolate raspberry!” She picks up the little jar and playfully elbows you, resulting in a little oof escaping from your mouth as she inspects the cake with glee in her eyes. “You’re the best, ____.”

“I like that flavor too!” Greyson moves towards Yvonne in an attempt to steal the little jar, but Yvonne moves away with ease and sticks her tongue out at him childishly.

“Get lost, Greyson! I claim this one!”

Their bickering fades when you feel another presence next to you, though you can tell it’s not as frosty. You turn your head towards Zayne, who’s looking at you with an undecipherable expression on your face.

“You didn’t have to get the cakes.” You feel your stomach drop at the tone of his voice - one that doesn’t give away his emotions. Why is he so hard to read now? Are all of your plans going to shit before you can even move them into motion?

“I wanted to.” You let your eyes dart away to compose yourself, and you find yourself scowling at the sight of the little cake jars. Maybe he didn’t want them at all? Why are you always second guessing yourself with him? “It’s okay, though. You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to, I can take them-”

“Who said I wouldn’t eat them?”

A soft pressure encircles itself on your wrist, and your body stills as a comforting cold starts at your wrist and grounds yourself in your present. You look up to see Zayne’s softening gaze, clearly reading through your facade.

“I’m grateful you got them for me- us.” Zayne’s lips tilt up once more, and you feel yourself melting slightly at the sight. “The ward appreciates it, ____.”

“I’m glad,” you reply. “I wanted to get us off on the right foot, with observations and whatnot.”

You inject your voice with your hidden implications, and you watch Zayne debunk it in real time. You wait with bated breath to see if he’ll accept your tentative olive branch-

-and you exhale in relief when he nods slightly.

“After today’s observations.”

As if on cue, your first students knock on the office door and Yvonne and Greyson stop their bickering to open the door. You nod at him once before pulling away and putting on your best professor smile.

And this time, it’s not as forced as it used to be.

Observations are going well.

You and Zayne had been efficient with introducing Greyson and Yvonne to your class as the accompanying doctor and charge nurse for this set of rounds. You had been thorough with your students’ expectations: take diligent notes, let the four of you handle the brunt of the work, and respect the patient’s privacy.

The first couple of rooms had been peaceful, full of patients who were doing well and willing to chat with a select number of students. You watch with a soft smile as Zayne leads this demonstration with one of your students, an elderly patient giving your group a smile and a thumbs up as you herd them out of the room.

Soon enough, you reach the last room. You scan the patient’s file, frowning when you see the information written on the page. You take Zayne’s lax position as a chance to approach him, walking up to his height and tapping the paper in your hands.

“I don’t exactly know how this file came up in the approved files for observations, are you sure this is okay?” You ask as he scans the profile. His eyes widen and he looks at you, the concern you feel in your stomach mirrored in his eyes.

“Escalated emotions leading to spiked heart rate…” he muses softly, and he scans over the rest of the information before he nods to himself and looks back at you. “As long as we maintain a calm environment for her and direct our students to do the same, it should be okay. We have to be careful though.”

You can’t shake off your unease, but you nod with him. “It’s important for them to see different situations. I’ll take this one.”

With both of your approval, you and Zayne lay down the rules before opening the door to the patient’s room.

Your eyes soften when you see the patient on her bed - a girl no older than the age of ten. She has an apprehensive look on her face that she disguises with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and your heart aches when you note her slightly shaky hands.

You put on your own smile, one you hope that puts her at ease as you approach the bed. You feel Zayne’s eyes bore holes into the back of your head as you sit at the edge - breaking obvious protocol, but different scenarios call for different solutions.

“Hi, I’m Dr. ____! What’s your name?” You see her shoulders loosen ever so slightly at your soft tone, and you take it as a win as you hold out your hand for her to shake.

“Mine’s Grace,” she responds, and you melt when you feel the slight tremor stop as she shakes your hand.

“Well, Grace,” you begin, pulling out your files and selecting her file. You make a big show of flipping through the pages, and she giggles at your theatrics as you find her case details. “It says here you’re due for a heart transplant because of an Evol-related accident. Can you tell me some details and how you’re feeling right now?”

Grace clears her throat, a sudden seriousness taking over her face and making her older than she appears. “I’m 100th on the waitlist. I’ve been on the waitlist for two years, ever since a Wanderer attack created Metaflux waves so strong it affected the chemistry of my body. I feel…tired. Doctors keep telling me I’ll be okay but I don’t feel it.” She suddenly looks at Zayne, her eyes sharp as she regards him. “Am I going to die, Dr. Li?”

Your students pause their frantic notes, and you can feel the energy of the room go down at the sudden morbidness even though you and Zayne barely blink at her question. Maybe because the two of you are accustomed to situations turning all of a sudden, but you know that this won’t end well if you don’t redirect now.

“You’re not going to die.” Your voice is still soft but much more serious as you reach out and grasp Grace’s hand once more, letting her sink her nails into your hand so that she can grasp at her reality.

“I’m dying, Dr. ____.” You can hear the telltale sounds of tears welling up in the back of her throat, and you’re quick to wrap her in your arms as she begins to cry. You can tell that this is her breaking point and you’re cursing yourself out in your head for even bringing students into this room.

“I’m scared to die,” she sobs into your chest as you stroke her hair. Her heart rate begins to pick up on the monitor, and Zayne’s eyes flash as he hears the sound. You know immediately you need to try and get it under control - her heart spiking could lead to dangerous effects.

You will yourself into a calm place in your mind as your hands move up and down in soothing movements. The room grows quiet when your hands begin to emit a soft glow, and you whisper softly into Grace’s ear as you direct your Evol into her body.

“Dr. Li, what’s Dr. ____ doing to the patient?”

You ignore the student’s question and focus solely on Grace’s breathing, guiding her body’s energy into a tranquil place that allows for her heart rate to settle and for her tears to subside. All the while, you rub circles into her shoulder and whisper, “You’re not going to die, Grace. Dr. Li and I will make sure of it, sweetheart.”

Grace’s breathing evens out, and she pulls away with a soft sigh. Her eyes are slightly swollen, but her face looks serene, even a little bit sleepy as she gives you a small smile.

“Thank you, Dr. ____.” Her brow furrows when she looks at your face and you automatically reach up to make sure your smile isn’t slipping off your cheeks. “You look…different now.”

You know. You can feel it in the throbbing of your skull and how your cheeks probably lost some color but you shake your head, pushing away slightly and ignoring the way your hands shake.

“I’m okay, sweet girl.” You give her hand a soft pat before standing up, wobbling slightly on your feet. You brush off the concerned gasps and murmurs, instead electing to look at the bright EXIT sign above the door so you don’t accidentally make eye contact with the other doctor in the room.

“Dr. Li will finish up this round of observations.” Your voice trembles yet leaves no room for argument, and you ignore everyone’s worried glances at each other as you make your way to the door. “Reflections due midnight this Friday online.”

You’re dashing out of the door before you even hear a confirmation, briskly walking the halls of the ward so that you can try to find a quiet spot to collect yourself.

Your Evol isn’t a secret - in fact, it was quite well known in the medical world and the Hunter’s Association. You had been tested rigorously when you were younger because having the ability to control emotions could be dangerous in the wrong hands, but the results came back stating that you could only calm and soothe.

The results didn’t mention how it affected you, however. If done at too intense of a frequency when your energy’s low, it could cause damage to your own emotional being. Stop while administering the Evol and you risk permanently affecting the receiver’s psyche. Do it too many times with no adequate rest and you’re basically irreparable.

Hilarious that you can’t fix your own troubles with your Evol.

You somehow find your way back to the office you were in earlier and you swipe your key card against the sensor, feeling tears prick at the corners of your eyes when the sensor beeps red. You try to swipe again and almost kick the door in frustration when it beeps red at you once more, and you’re ready to fall asleep on the wall when a hand on your shoulder stops you.

You let the cool touch guide you away from the door, and you don’t speak as Zayne pushes the door open and gently ushers you inside. Somewhere in your tired mind you can feel the sour mood of the room, but you’re thankful that he doesn’t speak as he pulls out a chair and all but pushes you to sit on the hard plastic.

Your eyes slowly drift shut as you massage your temples, hoping the ache goes away soon so you can run off and take a nap. All the while, he’s a quiet yet agitated flurry of movement, filling a paper cup with water and pulling a chair closer to you so he can sit in front of you.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Zayne says as he settles down. There’s a dull clack as he sets the paper cup in front of you a little too harshly, and you barely crack your eyes open to find it before grabbing onto it and taking a small sip. You find that the water helps alleviate the ache, so you take a bigger gulp as you eye him with a bit of annoyance.

“It was a mistake bringing the students into her room so I found a solution to help ease her anxiety.” There’s no warmth in your tone and Zayne sighs in frustration because he knows you’re right - it was an oversight on both of your parts, you just happen to be the one who fixed it.

“We could have found a solution together,” he responds, and you fight back the bitterness that settles on your tongue at the worry that finds its way into his expression and voice.

“Why does it matter?” You don’t mean to sound angry, you really don’t, but being with the man you still hold incredibly complicated feelings for is clouding your judgement and manifesting itself in this way. “Who are you to care?”

The implications of your words hang heavy in the air, and Zayne’s mouth snaps shut as you avert your gaze.

Why is he still so worried about you?

Isn’t he the one who said that there were more important things than you?

Why is your heart aching right now?

“This is stupid,” you grumble, and you push yourself up from the seat even though you wobble slightly. “I’m going to go home and take a nap.”

You sidestep his chair and walk for the door, reaching for the doorknob and pretending not to hear the scrape of his chair against the floor-

-but he stops you, pushing you back down into your chair.

Zayne doesn’t speak, simply opening the box of cakes still on the table and pulling out the earl grey cup with whipped cream - the same cake he was eyeing earlier. With a newfound gentleness, he sets the cake down in front of you alongside a small fork before grabbing your paper cup and going back to the water dispenser to fill it up.

“You’re always drained after using your Evol so you need to get your blood sugar up.” His voice is still concise and clear, but there’s a softer look in his eyes as he hands you back your water cup and lets your hands muddle together. “Eat, ____.”

His fingertips linger on the back of your hand and you watch a war of emotions flash in Zayne’s eyes before he sighs heavily, allowing his hand to reach up and run along the underside of your jaw. The room goes too still and you’re suddenly overaware of him - of his jasmine and pine scent, of the calluses on his fingertips as his thumb barely ghosts over your lips, and the myriad of emotions that flash in his eyes.

Your hand reaches up before you can stop it, and you rest your palm against his own hand. Your breath trembles, but you still find it in yourself to tap your pointer finger three times: a signal only the two of you know.

His eyes widen, but his thumb taps against your bottom lip once…twice…

“-Zayne, there you are!”

He pulls away too soon, and you’re cursing Greyson in your head for walking in on the two of you all of a sudden. Greyson’s eyes widen at the scene but Zayne’s pulling away before you can even blink, quick to stand and move next to Greyson while his hand flexes ever so slightly.

“I want the cake jar empty and a text saying you’re home and asleep by the time I come back.”

And with that, he leaves the room - leaving you flustered and warm all over.

The next few weeks are…infuriatingly pleasant, to say the least.

There’s an unspoken agreement of peace between you and Zayne. While things obviously haven’t gone back to how they were when you were…together, there’s an air of familiarity that you both sink into with an alarming quickness - and to be honest, it has your head spinning.

It’s the lunches sent to each other’s offices without another word alongside neat stacks of assignments, sticky notes of “Do you agree with this grading?” written in penmanship only the two of you understand.

It’s coffee runs early in the morning at the times you always went: 7:00 am, and while you may not talk to each other the silence is comfortable with glances from your end when you think he isn’t looking.

He’s actually staring at you when you actually aren’t looking, with a yearning that would have made your heart stop if you had caught sight of it.

And it’s the subtle touches that catch the attention of students and faculty alike - creating a flurry of rumors that he somehow is oblivious to but you’re completely aware of.

“Did you see the way he moved her away with his hand on her back? That was so romantic!” You’re passing by a group of your students after class, and your head immediately whips to the girl who sighed that statement.

“What was that, Lisa?” You’re not trying to tease or put her on the spot, you just kind of want her perspective on the situation because you were hyper aware of it, too. You watch as both of her companions snicker and she flounders for an answer, cheeks turning pink and games cast to anywhere but your scrutiny.

“N-nothing, Dr. ____!” She bows hastily and all but runs away, her friends bowing at you as a farewell gesture before chasing after her. The laughter that leaves their lips makes you shake your head, and you can’t help but smile to yourself as you walk to your temporary office in the academic advisory wing.

Your office is barebones, but there’s a little blind box figurine on your desk that marks it as your own. You smile at the silly little figure checking its watch while carrying a briefcase, placing your own bag down and pulling out a thick stack of reflections and a red pen. You flip your office sign so that it says you’re in before settling into your chair and reaching for the first packet because you know in your heart that the chances of you receiving a visitor are slim to none.

The minutes pass in quick succession and you’ve gotten into a groove as you reach for another reflection. You’re so engrossed in the soft violin of the classical music you have going on in the background that you almost miss the knock on your door, but being alone for close to an hour has you attuned to any abnormal sounds.

“Come in!” Your voice cracks slightly from lack of use and you feel yourself heat from embarrassment, but your posture relaxes only slightly when you see that it’s Zayne walking through the door with a plastic bag in one hand and his work bag in the other.

“Have any of our students come in yet?” He asks as a greeting, and you shake your head while ignoring how your heart annoyingly speeds up when you hear him say “our.”

“I’ve gotten through about half of the reflections, I’ll be continuing with them so I can try to finish before the end of the night.” Zayne slightly grimaces when you say that, and you watch with a quirk in your brow as he pulls a chair so that it’s next to yours behind the desk.

“Come eat first.” His voice is soft as he pulls the plastic bag container towards him, untying the knot before pulling a takeout container and utensils from the bag. With his free hand he lightly sweeps the papers from the desk, ensuring that the space is clear before he sets the container in front of you.

You regard him curiously as you pry open the container, and you feel yourself soften when you see the thick soy garlic noodles with a side of broccoli and orange chicken. It’s been your go-to order for ages now, and your stomach grumbles happily as you turn to look at him.

Zayne’s settling into his chair with his own container, eyeing his classic platter of fried rice and char siu pork with an evident hunger. You pick up your platter and begin to pick up food with your utensil, laughing softly to yourself when you see that he’s even asked for extra garlic with the broccoli - just the way you like it.

“What is it?” He asks, but deflect by shaking your head as you place a piece of chicken in your mouth so that you can ignore how your stomach clenches in an odd way.

“I forgot how good this takeout is,” you reply. His eyes scan your face but you pretend that nothing’s brewing in your mind as you continue to eat through your food.

“It is, isn’t it.” His voice tapers out, and he settles for eating beside you. With the soft music in the background and the academic atmosphere, it almost feels like you’re back in grad school with him - taking a break in between the chaos of your schedules and finding solace in his presence. You swallow thickly around some noodles at the thought, fighting the breath that threatens to leave you by grabbing your water bottle and taking a deep swig.

“Remember when we were presenting the first drafts of our research projects to the academic board?” Zayne’s surprisingly the one to break the silence, and you tilt your head to look at him curiously as he places his now empty container back on your desk.

“And Carter was violently hungover but still tried to pass that presentation off as his work?” You scoff, placing your own container onto the desk. Zayne chuckles at your annoyance - you never liked Carter, and you’re thankful Zayne was able to switch his research project before the studies got too serious.

“Nice to know he still gets on your nerves.” There’s a teasing edge to his voice but you simply roll your eyes as you lift your arms up above your head so you can stretch out your back.

“He ruined your first semesters of grad school, of course I still hate his guts,” you reply, letting a soft moan slip through your lips unknowingly when you feel a crack along your spine. You feel yourself flush a little at the unwarranted sound, and you look over to Zayne to see if he caught it.

Judging by the slight tick of his jaw, he did.

You stand up too quickly, clearing your throat and beginning to reach your hands out so that you can clear your desk, but a hand on the small of your back stops you dead in your tracks.

“Zayne, wha-” you begin, but Zayne’s quick to settle you back into the plush cushion, turning you around in your office chair so that you’re facing the wall. You scowl petulantly, but his hand on the head of your office chair restricts your movement.

“Stay there,” he says, and though he tries to sound nonchalant you can hear a strained undertone that has your heart racing.

“I can clean my own desk,” you try to argue, but your mouth falls shut when you feel a whisper of ice forming on the back of your chair due to his fingers digging into the leather a little too tightly.

“I brought the food, I will clean up.”

You cross your arms, trying to remove the cross crease of your brow as you hear him place the containers into the plastic bag. Your toe taps against the floor as he ties the bag shut, sighing to himself deeply before letting go of your chair and allowing you to spin back around to face the desk.

You both fight to ignore each other’s glances, Zayne throwing the trash away in the garbage can outside of your office while you drink water to keep yourself alert and clear-minded. By the time he walks back into your office you’ve both composed yourselves and you’re reaching out to grab the next stack of reflections to be graded. You expect him to pick up his bag and leave, but to your surprise he’s settling back down in his seat and pushing his sweater sleeves up.

“Are you going to go home?” He asks as he unbuttons the top of the shirt underneath his sweater, and you shake your head in response while putting everything you can in ignoring the appearance of his arms.

“I want to finish these reflections.” You tap your pen against the opening page, eyes widening when you see whose paper you’re about to grade. “Lisa Zhao, huh…”

“What about her?” Zayne’s rolling his chair closer to your’s, hovering his head above your shoulder just enough so that he can also read her proposal.

“It’s nothing, really. She was just muttering something about romance and her friends were laughing at her.” You fight to focus your attention on the words printed on the paper, but Zayne’s presence has your head spinning in a way you can’t decide if you like or not.

“Odd,” he replies. You turn to look at him head on, but your heart stutters painfully at the sight that greets you.

His eyes are slightly unfocused behind his thin rimmed glasses, hair pushed up just enough where you can see the concentrated crease of his brow. Against your better judgement your eyes drift lower to his chest, and you gasp softly when you see his bare neck and a little bit of his chest because of the way he’s leaning beside you.

“-!” A soft noise escapes your lips when his nose slightly brushes against your’s, and you push your chair away from him so that you can try and catch your breath. There’s a sudden shift in the air and you need to gather your wits and tell him to leave because if you don’t you might do something you might regret like pull him in for…you don’t know but you don’t want to find out.

“Are you all right, ____?” There’s genuine concern in his voice, you know, but you suddenly feel so angry at him.

“What game are you playing?” You push yourself out of your chair, trying to fight the way your vision swims from the sudden movement as you glare at the way he stands from his chair.

“What do you mean?” He asks, although you can tell by the carefully neutral tone of his voice that he knows - of course he does, when he knows every little thing about you.

“The food,” you begin, lifting a finger for each reason you can come up with. “The soft touches on my back and across my knuckles, taking care of me after the first set of observations, coffee in the morning the way we like…Zayne, what’s happening?”

Your voice breaks off at the last word, and you reach up to rub at your face to quell the frustrated tears that begin to pool in the corners of your eyes.

You’ve admitted it to Yvonne and to a tiny part of yourself: you’re scared. Scared of how easy it is to fall back into this routine, at how you and Zayne are too quick to bury your past and return to almost-normal with a frightening comfort that has you believing you’re still his.

And therein lies the issue: you’re absolutely not Zayne Li’s and it’s going to ruin you and the feelings that have just blossomed tenfold since you first re-met him in Dr. Chung’s office.

“I…I want to take care of you.”

It’s a quiet confession that has your heart racing. You bury your face in your hands even tighter, but a gentle sweep of his thumb across your knuckles has you loosening your grip. When he sees that you won’t peek up to look at him, he sighs and taps his thumb against your knuckle once.

“The lines between us are blurred right now, and that’s my fault.” He admits. You lift your head up slightly, and he exhales in relief when your hands begin to lower. His own hands are there to replace them, and your fingers wrap around his wrists as he gently massages your cheeks with his thumbs.

“All I know is that when I saw your name on the potential list of candidates to co-teach, I wanted it to be you immediately.” He taps your cheek, and your eyes slowly drift shut at his comforting contact. “I knew things couldn’t go back to the way they were immediately but…but I know I want to try.”

“Everything has been so hot and cold with you.” Your voice has dropped to a whisper, and against your own wishes you feel a tear slide down your cheek. “I don’t know what to believe or expect. Will I get cold, avoidant Dr. Li? Or will I get Zayne?”

The room stills as he absorbs your words, music long done from how long it’s been. Even though you know it’s way past your office hours, you know that anyone could walk by and see this compromising position. That alone is enough to begin to untangle yourself from his embrace, but his hold on your face tightens just slightly enough for you to stop.

“I haven’t been the clearest with you, but I want you to know that I want to make amends with you.” His forehead comes to rest against yours, making your grip on his wrists tighten at the contact.

The two of you stand like that for just a moment, and you feel something in your chest ignite when his pointer finger taps your nose gently. You pull away to look at his flushed cheeks and slightly parted lips - a look you know is mirrored on your own face.

“Can we even get to that point?” Your voice bares all of your fears and emotions to him, and you can see the exact moment Zayne’s heart cracks slightly in his chest.

“I’ll spend the rest of this semester and whatever time you allow trying and making it up to you if you’ll let me,” he murmurs in response.

You look up at him, noting the sincerity in his face and the myriad of emotions that lie beneath the surface. They reflect and resonate with you because they’re exactly the ones you feel in your own body.

It feels a little different now, though. You feel a little bit lighter and ready to try.

And by the way Zayne’s face breaks out into a breathtaking smile when you nod in his grasp, you know he feels the same way, too.

As it turns out, his trying includes inviting you to a karaoke party with the rest of the cardiac unit.

“Don’t worry,” Yvonne reassures you as she helps you put on your favorite necklace. “Zayne made sure to not include Michael tonight! It's just the cardiac ward’s available doctors, nurses, and you.”

“You’re making that sound like it’s a bad thing,” you reply teasingly, and Yvonne laughs as she slides on her heels.

“It’s definitely not, especially when you look this hot!”

A burst of confidence makes itself known in your chest, a smile spreading across your face as you look at the floor length mirror by your bedroom door. Your navy blue dress is appropriate enough to wear to a work function but the low back and silky fabric makes you feel bold, even with the white cardigan you end up pulling on.

Yvonne pouts as you button the top closed, shaking out her loose hair and messing with her bangs so they look tastefully messy. “C’mon, ____! Let Dr. Zayne see his beautiful lady, take the cardigan off!”

“It’s cold!” You laugh in response. You wiggle your eyebrows teasingly and she groans because she knows what you’re about to say. “You’re all covered up though, no Greyson?”

Yvonne’s face flushes a light pink, and you can’t help but laugh at the way she scans her white off-the-shoulder long sleeved top and black flowy pants. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

“So he is coming.” Yvonne groans at your giggles, shaking her head and making her way to the front door of your apartment with an alarming quickness.

“We have a cab to catch, ____!” You follow after her, laughing all the way down the elevator ride and on your way to the karaoke bar.

The good mood continues when you enter the building, arms linked with Yvonne as you scan the rooms the cardiac ward rented out. Soon enough, you find a screen that says Akso Hospital’s Ward with the Most Heart, and your heart flutters as you enter the room because you know Zayne named it after your lame joke.

You say hi to the nurses and doctors that approach you and Yvonne, giving hugs and accepting compliments for your outfits. You put your cardigan and purse next to Yvonne’s on the designated table before being whisked away to the bar in the corner of the room, away from the karaoke screens and crowd of cardiac surgeons belting a ballad with increasing passion.

Yvonne waves the bartender over, ordering two cocktails while you surreptitiously scan the room for a certain raven-haired head of cardiology. Zayne was never one to spend too much time at work events, even if he’s the one helping plan and pay for said events. If you remember correctly, you and him would show up for an hour at most before doing…other activities.

Your skin heats very briefly, and Yvonne eyes you curiously as she hands you a pink cocktail. “What is it, ____?”

“Just remembering something,” you murmur before lifting the glass up to your lips. You wince at the slight alcoholic sting but you find it’s much easier to drink, making you look at Yvonne suspiciously as she rapidly downs her own drink.

“The tab’s on the hospital,” she answers as a reply to your curious stare, holding her hand up again for another drink. You shake your head and laugh, placing your mostly full glass on the counter before waving the bartender over to you as she pouts.

“Can we get two glasses of white?” You ask, and before Yvonne can protest you shake your head. “The goal is to feel good, not get fucked up. Your cocktails will fuck us up.”

“Okay, okay, ____,” she sighs, and you hand her a glass of white wine before making her promise she’ll go easy on herself.

You hear cheers and greetings on the microphone, and you turn around to see Zayne and Greyson entering the room. Your breath catches in your throat when you see Zayne - eyes wandering down his frame before you even realize what you’re doing. Your fingers tighten ever so slightly on the stem of your wine glass when you see the neat lines of his tan slacks and the way the embroidered birds on his sweater ripple across his chest when he turns his body to scan the room. 

His eyes catch yours and you’re rendered breathless as you scan his face. There’s a hint of weariness behind his thin rimmed glasses, hair slightly more mussed than how he usually has it done. But his eyes flash with something dangerous before his lips tilt up ever so slightly, making you squeak as you turn back to the bar.

“What is it?” Yvonne’s eyes widen as you down your wine in one gulp before reaching for the cocktail you had left untouched. She yelps as you try to down it too, but you’re only able to get a little sip before she successfully pries the glass from your palm.

“I need more if I’m going to make it out-” you say hastily, raising your hand but Yvonne stops you and orders two waters.

“Okay, so we’re going to drink water and gather ourselves because we should not be letting men dictate our feelings,” she declares steadily, and you sigh heavily before begrudgingly drinking the cold water. The coolness of the liquid clears your head, although it doesn’t stop the soft buzz that’s still coursing through your veins as you finish the glass. You and Yvonne place the empty glasses on the bar, eyeing the mounting energy in front of the karaoke screens as everyone jumps up and down to a classic party song.

“I think it’s a mistake for me to be here!” By now you’re having to shout for her to understand you through the din, and she shakes her head empathetically as she grabs your hand and begins to drag you to the floor.

“No it isn’t, ____!” She begins to dance, spinning in a circle and making you laugh as you begin to sway your body back and forth to the beat as well. “You’ve worked hard with observations and teaching, it’s time for you to relax!”

You’re quick to let loose, letting yourself open up a little and dance with Yvonne and the other nurses of the cardiac ward to a fun pop song. You go for a little spin during the height of the song, the girls cheering you on as your skirt billows slightly around your ankles and making you feel really, really good.

The dancing continues and you move from crowd to crowd, smiling and dancing with your coworkers. You lose Yvonne in the crowd but you don’t mind it, finding your way to the edge of the crowd and dancing with the first group you had been with. Soon enough, the next karaoke singer chooses a slower song - the crowd groaning but still finding partners to dance with. You take it as a chance to move back to the bar so that you can take a break and try to find your best friend. There’s a wide smile on your face as you order a glass of water, gulping it down greedily before placing it back on the counter and leaning against the solid wood.

“Having fun?”

You tilt your head to the side to find Zayne standing next to you with his elbows propped on the bar behind him, his sleeves pushed up past his forearms and hair even more mussed than when you first saw him. There’s a softness on his face as he regards you, and you feel your knees go slightly weak when you see him scanning your figure with a slow, calculated sweep of his eyes.

“Yes.” You don’t mean for it to sound so breathless, but you find yourself growing bolder when his jaw tightens ever so slightly. You gather your courage and slide yourself closer to him, your fingers reaching up to push his hair back from his face. His hand twitches on the bar, fingers tightening on the wood as the tips of your nails softly graze his forehead before you smile and pull your hand back to copy his stance. “Are you?”

“Somewhat,” he sighs, and you fight your shiver as he moves himself closer so that he can tilt his head towards you. The rational part of your brain is telling you that it’s just so that you can hear him better, but the majority of your brain is melting - especially when he lays his arm flat across the bar so you’re half in his embrace.

“Oh?” You fight to keep your breathing even as you tilt your head up to regard him. “I saw that you and Greyson came in late. Is everything all right in the cardiac ward?”

Zayne’s eyes light up at your words, and you watch with a soft feeling in your heart as he begins to speak once more. “We found a donor so we were organizing who would be doing the surgery and whatnot. It took longer than expected, I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“I’m glad you’re here now,” you reply. You playfully bump his shoulder, your smile widening when you see the corners of his lips tilt up. “Now you get to relax!”

“It’s hard for me to relax.” His head dips down lower so his lips are right by your ear, and you feel yourself shiver at the way his mouth barely brushes your skin. Eyes threatening to slip shut, you reach up and wrap your fingers around his bicep - earning yourself a low groan and another thrilling sensation racing up your spine.

“And why’s that?” You’re tilting your body so that you can place your palms on his shoulders, smoothing the barely creased fabric so that you can put some semblance of normalcy at this clear flirting going on between the two of you. Zayne gets the hint though, and with a bemused smile forming on his lips he places his hands on your waist to pull you closer.

“Too loud.” His right hand picks up your own absentmindedly, and he begins swaying you around in a circle. Your feet follow along without a second thought as you stare up at him - in tune with him from the times he led impromptu dances during late nights in the kitchen while you two were still together. There’s a pang in your chest when you come to that realization, but it’s quickly soothed away with a gentle squeeze on your waist that has you melting even closer to him.

“It certainly is,” you hum back as you allow him to give you a little spin. The skirt of your dress whooshes around your ankles and you giggle softly when he directs your spin back into his safe embrace. His hands are quick to settle on your hips, long fingertips brushing against the warm skin of your spine and making you gasp softly as he regards you with a sudden heat in his stare.

“There’s another reason why I can’t relax,” he confesses softly. His fingers trace up to the middle of your back, tapping three times slowly as he pulls you closer. The swaying slowly stops until it’s the two of you just…staring at each other, noses brushing and eyes unblinking as one of his hands reaches up to cup your face.

“What’s that?” It’s a breathless, rhetorical question that you both know the answer to. It’s a question that has equal parts desire and anxiety pooling in your stomach at how he may respond, your heart beating so loudly you wonder if he can hear it above the din of his coworkers singing horribly on the mic.

“A beautiful vision before me.” It has you gasping as his nose slides against yours, lips barely brushing. “She’s dressed in navy blue silk and she’s made it hard for me to think rationally since I saw her name on a list of potential candidates to teach with.”

“Zayne-” you begin to whisper, but his lips are quick to bend down and press against yours. Your eyes immediately flutter shut at the contact, arms tightening around his neck as you pull him closer to you. His hands are no better - pulling you as close as you can get as he angles your head up to deepen your kiss. His tongue darts out to swipe against your bottom lip and you whimper against his mouth, allowing for him to bite against your lip softly.

Your head spins as he slowly comes to a stop, pulling away ever so slightly. Your eyes open lazily, and you find that he has a hazy look in his own eyes, scanning up and down your face in a way that has you smiling up at him.

“Hi,” you begin softly. Your fingers trace soft circles at the base of his skull as you tilt your head up at him so you can watch his expression carefully. “How are you?”

It’s like his body temperature goes down in a millisecond, eyes widening rapidly as he all but pushes himself away from you. You watch as he runs his fingers through his hair, hands shaking and gaze avoidant as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and clears his throat.

“That was a mistake.”

Your heart cracks.

It’s like you’re watching in the third person, powerless to stop what’s about to happen to you. Your hands itch to reach out to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, hold him close, something, anything - but you do nothing and watch as he takes one step back.

And then another, before he’s turning on his heel.

He barely spares you a glance as he briskly strides out of the room, taking the warmth from your body until you’re shivering by yourself, cold to your hollow core.

You don’t know how long you stand there, lips tingling and heart shattering in your chest as your hands flex by your side, trying to process it all. Being kissed by the man you’re in love with and then being brushed away without another explanation…what’s happening? Did you do something wrong?

You barely register Yvonne pulling on your wrist, guiding you out of the room before stuffing the two of you into a cab. Your head spins and yet you feel nothing at all, staring straight ahead blankly because if you open your feelings to her you’ll fall apart and you don’t know if you’ll be able to repair yourself.

You’re back in your apartment with Yvonne sitting you on your sofa when the first tear falls. No sounds escape your mouth but it’s enough for Yvonne to panic, placing the glass of water she filled for you on the table as she hastily sits in front of you to cup your face and brush your hair back from your temples with her fingers.

“Are you okay, ____?”

That one sentence is enough.

You begin to sob, collapsing into her arms as your cries shake your entire body. She’s silent except for the occasional soothing sound, rubbing her hands against your back as she attempts to help you weather the storm of pain that’s thundering through your chest.

You know there’s no making it out of this one, though.

Not when the hands you crave are the same ones that took your heart and crushed it in between his skilled fists.

You assign your work through an online medium the following week.

Dr. Chung had been confused when you asked for a week to yourself, but he had been quick to put two and two together when he entered the room with a stack of material and you all but ran out of the office.

There had been an email a couple of hours later with a simple message: Talk to him, Dr. ____. Please.

You left it open on your desktop, simply electing to stare out of the windows at the beginnings of sunset.

Was it really a mistake? You don’t think so. You wanted- want him with every fiber of your being, so much that it feels like he’s robbed you of the air you so desperately crave when he walked away last Friday.

Yvonne had been furious once she found out the full story, seething and yelling on your behalf while you sat eerily still on your couch. She had prepared meals for you, sometimes even feeding you spoonfuls when she returned to find your food barely touched. You could sense a shift halfway through the week where she wasn’t as angry, though - more reflective and quiet.

“What is it?” You asked when you find her staring off in the sunset.

“Nothing, ____,” she murmured back, squeezing your hand reassuringly.

You find yourself reflecting back on that change and why Yvonne is suddenly too quiet. Is there something she doesn’t know?

Against your will you find yourself thinking back on that kiss. For a split second it felt like everything was going right - on the path of reconciliation and maybe even love. Just for a singular moment everything felt perfect, like your world was spinning properly and the crack in your chest felt whole.

But now? Now you even feel more broken.

It’s the last day of your leave and you’re desperately trying to pick yourself up. Despite being off from both work and teaching at Linkon you barely got any sleep, staring up at your ceiling at night because being asleep meant dreaming about the man who both haunts and comforts you.

You’re sorting through the last of your graded papers before putting them into a manila folder and packing them in your bag, rubbing your eyes as you do so. You’re trying as hard as you can to focus on your objectives at hand but you find your eyes wandering to your phone and reaching out to grab it. You scowl when you realize what you’re doing, shaking your head and returning to packing your work bags.

There’s a knock on your front door and you walk towards it without another thought, peeking your head out so that you can let Yvonne into your apartment. You freeze, however, when you see a bouquet of lavenders.

Your eyes wander up, and you feel them widening when you see his tired eyes and serious face, though it softens considerably when he sees your face from by the door.

“Can I come in?” Zayne asks quietly.

You let him in without another word, turning and settling your body onto a barstool by the kitchen. You will yourself to take deep, steady breaths as he places the lavenders on the counter and props himself directly across from you, focusing your vision on the tip of his chin so that you don’t completely crumble under his steady gaze.

“How are you?”

Your laugh is humorless at the question, fingers tapping on the counter as you spill the truth from your lips. “Shit.”

There’s a shallow intake of breath from him, but you don’t allow him to speak as you continue on with your thoughts.

“It’s hard feeling okay when you reconcile with your ex-fiancé over the course of a few months, learning how to live and breathe and work with someone who’s somehow still your everything.” Your vision wavers but you swallow your tears, finally pushing yourself up from the counter and walking around. “It felt like things were finally going right when you said you wanted things to work.”

Your eyes finally look up at him and you feel yourself rendered speechless when you see the expression on his face. He looks every bit vulnerable and hollow as you feel in your chest, eyes shining and lips pressed in a thin line.

And you don’t know why, but you feel hot rage consume your body at the sight. How dare he look broken when he’s the one shattering you.

“But then you kissed me and it was the best kiss of my life.” Your voice rises as you step closer to him, poking your finger at his chest as your anger begins to affect your reasoning. “You kissed me like you meant it and everything felt like it was back in place for a split second until you pushed yourself away and said it was a fucking mistake.”

“____-” he tries to begin, but your voice rises to a yell as you finally let everything spill from out of you and into the air, even if it means permanently ruining whatever foundation the two of you still had.

“You said we would try. You said you would make it up to me.” You can’t quite stop your tears now, but your voice is still steady even if your hands shake. “Do you not mean it?”

“I do.”

There’s a brokenness in Zayne’s voice as he reaches out to cup your face, and against your better judgement you press your palms against his. He tilts your face up to look at him and you’re rendered breathless from the vulnerability on his face - open for you to see his deepest feelings.

“It was a mistake because we were only just starting again,” he says, voice thick with pain and unshed tears. “That kiss was something I’ve dreamed about since you left all those years ago - something I’ve craved to do when I’m alone with you. But I know that it’s not right to kiss you - and it’s not fair to kiss you for my own greed.”

Your breath stutters in your throat, chest aching as you absorb his words. Taking your silence as permission, he continues. “I’ve hurt you far too many times and I…I don’t deserve you at all.” His breath is shallow, washing over your face as he leans his forehead against yours. His finger taps your cheek three times in quick succession, a featherlight touch that makes you think you conjured it up. “Please, ____…let me make it up to you. Let me earn your forgiveness.”

You freeze.

You want nothing more to make things right, to patch things over and go back to the way things were. But can you ever truly go back to how things were? With how much has been said and what’s been done in between your bodies, laying at your feet?

Can you even forgive yourself if he shatters the remaining parts of you? Fix what’s been broken for the third time if it happens again?

There’s no way that this is going to end well for the both of you, so you resign yourself to the sad ending that’s been written out for the both of you long ago. The fire of your anger is gone, replaced with your salty tears as you look into his eyes and say, “I’m still in love with you, Zayne.”

His breath hitches.

You step away, keeping eye contact as you curl your hands into fists to keep yourself steady. “I’m still in love with you, but I don’t think you realize the gravity of how much I do. I love you enough to come back to Linkon and teach, even if I was apprehensive at first. I love you to try and fill the gaps you left. I love you enough to try again over and over again, even if it costs me every single time.”

You shake your head, a sob escaping your chest as you hold your hand up so that he can’t step any closer to you.

“I love you enough to know that I’ll shatter myself over again, but I can’t keep breaking.” Your voice shakes as you register him moving to stand in front of you. Your breath hiccups when you see him slowly sink to his knees, wrapping his hands around your thighs while tilting his head up so he catches your eyes.

“Forgive me, ____,” he all but begs, and you’re transported back to that first time he broke your heart. To when he knelt and groveled for forgiveness, only for you to push your diamond ring into his hands and run out of your shared apartment.

There isn’t a ring now, but there’s still the desperation on his face and tears streaming down your cheeks as you reach out and place your hand on his cheek delicately. He pushes his face into your hand, breathing deeply and kissing your palm as if it’ll help - but you know it’s far too late.

You’re not going to let your heart break for a third time.

“Please leave.”

Your hands emit a soft glow, allowing for Zayne’s emotions to calm down enough for him to understand your words. His eyes widen as he registers the soothing emotion wash over his body, gaze flickering as you continue to soothe his emotions - a sort of parting gift.

A way to soothe him in the way you’ll never be able to be comforted.

He’s on his feet to pull your hands away but you take it as an opportunity to push him out of the door, him going with no resistance due to the shock of you using your Evol on him. You’re barely able to open the door and unceremoniously push him out before you collapse against the door, trying to stop your relentless flow of tears.

You cry for what feels like hours, mourning the loss of the person you love with your entire being. You try to tell yourself that it’s for the best - you can’t keep letting yourself get hurt, he can’t keep apologizing and trying to make it up to you.

But when you sink into sleep that night, you can only see gold flecked emerald and warm hands brushing your tears away, tapping three times before leaving you empty.

You feel like you’ve lived lifetimes ever since that night.

You had sent a curt email to him with Dr. Chung CC’ed, dividing the last of your classes and finals schedule evenly so that you wouldn’t have to cross paths with him again. Your students had been confused, but your steady voice and sharp gaze had put a stop to all prying.

You had effectively closed yourself off, simply going through the motions and giving non-committal hums whenever Yvonne asked a question or if you were with a group of friends. You spent most of your time on your desktop, rifling through open positions in Chansia City and refining your resume.

You don’t think you can stand to live here, not when your heart still aches for him. You need to just get out and force yourself to move on, even if it means moving oceans away.

You’re almost there, you tell yourself. You’re sitting in the pediatric ward’s offices, grading some final papers and eyeing your pager warily. You had come in early even though you were technically scheduled for the night shift, but you had shooed away the attending doctor scheduled for the morning and have since been using the empty hours to grade papers and try to distract yourself from the aching in your chest.

Your pager beeps the same time one of your charge nurses bursts through the door, breathless and shaky. You eye the code, feeling a sense of tired calm wash over you at the CODE BLUE flashing on the screen.

“Evol-related car accident,” your nurse gasps, and you’re up out of your seat and walking briskly towards the scrub down room before she even finishes giving the summary.

You enter the surgery with a clear understanding: your patient (female, age 6) has a punctured organ due to being in a car accident caused by a Wanderer attack. Her mother is currently in surgery as well, but her wounds are more severe. Nevertheless, you put all of your focus on your patient as you begin the operation.

The hours pass, your charge nurse noting the time as you extract shrapnel and tie sutures as gently as you can. Your fatigue begins to eat at your concentration, hands shaking as you call for a different pair of scissors but you force it down, honing your laser sharp focus so that you can save this little girl's life.

After twelve hours of work you tie the last stitch, making sure that it’s clean before nodding to the assisting surgeon. He nods at you once more before beginning the removal procedure, instructing the other nurses and anesthesiologist in the room on how to transport the patient to the ICU. All the while you bow to them in thanks, mustering a small yet genuine smile as you express your thanks for their help.

Your scrub down is slow and methodical, taking your time to clean yourself off so that you can look half-decent when you report the results to what family may be waiting in the waiting room. You briefly think of your patient’s mother - is she okay? Did she make it through? You desperately hope so. Losses are never easy to digest and share, so you hope with every bit of your being that she made it out okay, too.

You’re in the waiting room before you can even register you’re there, your tired mind guiding your body on autopilot. You clear your voice before announcing, “Is the family of Lilian Hsu here?”

Immediately, a harried looking man jumps to his feet and rushes to stand in front of you. His eyes are bloodshot as he reaches out to grip one of your hands in between his own shaking one’s, and you allow him to grip at you as he looks at you with primal eyes.

“Is Lili alive? Is my little girl okay?” Mr. Hsu blurts out, frame shaking as he stares at you with all the hope in the world. You nod slightly and his face crumples, tears beginning to race tracks down his cheeks as he begins to sob.

“There were some complications with the Evol-laden shrapnel so we had to make sure her body’s chemistry wasn’t too affected.” His breath hitches but you’re quick to placate him with a soft squeeze on his hand. “Her vitals are stable and nothing seems wrong so we were able to wrap up with no other complications. She’s in the Children’s ICU right now.”

“Oh, thank gods,” he breathes, squeezing your hands once more. “Thank you, Dr. ____, you saved my little girl’s life-”

“Is the family of Amy Hsu here?”

The voice is more somber, and you turn to see Greyson with a tired look on his face. He nods at you in greeting, but you feel something in you sink when you see the grim line of his mouth and the way his eyes shine with unshed tears.

Oh no.

Mr. Hsu senses it too, and his face crumples as he realizes what happened.

“I’m sorry,” Greyson says softly.

That’s all it takes. Mr. Hsu collapses onto the floor, hysterical sobs beginning to wrack his body as he processes the news that was just given to him. The earth-shattering news that his wife is gone but his daughter’s alive…

You bite your lip, tears welling in your own eyes - from sheer exhaustion or empathy for him, you don’t know. Your head spins and you know that you could easily just leave, find an empty hospital room, and go to sleep. It would be so easy to walk away for anyone else, so why can’t you?

Empathy and compassion. Service for others before yourself.

The Hippocratic Oath reverberates through your brain, and before you’re even processing your actions you’re kneeling in front of Mr. Hsu and wrapping him in your arms. Using the last bits of energy you can muster, you begin soothing him while wrapping him in your Evol.

“I’m sorry,” you susurrate quietly, hands stroking up and down his back. He clings onto you and sobs into your neck, and you fight the tears in your eyes and the fuzziness of your vision as you continue to target his energy - soothing the pain and bringing forth a semblance of peace for his turbulent mind. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The hallway is silent, charge nurses and patients watching with equal parts curiosity and horror as your hands begin to emit a stronger glow. You push down the feelings of regret and sadness that spiral in you as a result of expelling the man’s own sadness, although you can tell by the way your hands shake and your breath leaves in exhausted puffs that you might exert yourself past the point of no return.

In the back of your mind you hear frantic steps behind you, and you register an ice cold voice injected with…something, you’re not quite sure. “Stop her, now.”

“Dr. Li, once she starts she can’t stop.” Greyson’s voice is timid and tinged with concern, but you thank him in your brain - he knows better than to deter you from doing your job. “If she does, you know it risks permanently affecting the receiver’s emotions.”

“I don’t care-” the voice above you wavers in and out as you fight to maintain your concentration. You briefly note how the man’s breathing evens out and his sobs subsiding, though you notice your breath is leaving you in unsteady puffs as tears course down your cheeks.

Keep going, keep going. Even through the pain of it all. Endure.

“She’ll risk bleeding her own energy dry and it will affect her psyche permanently and I can’t live with having her go through that-”

The argument above you rages on, but you soldier on. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” Your voice leaves in gasps as you continue to give your all. The man slumps onto your shoulder, his breath steady as he dozes off but you continue to inject your Evol onto him so that you can spare him of the pain of a splintering, broken heart. It’s the worst feeling in the world, one you don’t want anyone to live with because you’re living with one right now.

Spare the hurt. Take everyone’s pain and keep it to yourself. Rid the world of its sadness and strife, even if it means you’ll suffer for an eternity.

You barely register the man being lifted off of you through the heaving, shuddering sobs that shake your entire body. With nothing else to support your weight you fall to the floor, curling into a ball and digging your nails into your palms as you scream from the sheer anguish coursing through your veins.

“Everybody move out of my way!”

It’s agonizing, the hollow feeling in your chest spreading through your entire body and the tiny voice in your brain telling you that you’ll never amount to more, be able to do more - that no one will ever be able to help you with what plagues you. Your breathing stutters and your head spins as your vision fades in and out, and you thank the universe that it's finally sparing you of the pain of your broken heart and the knowledge that you'll never get to fully repair yourself - and that you’ve pushed away the one person you want.

No, need. You had the best thing in the palm of your hands, but you pushed him away - thinking it was for the best. He slipped in between your fingers and you’ll forever live with that regret. You vow to run again, if your energy isn’t forever ruined. Spare you and him of the pain that somehow always emerges when the two of you are together.

You find comfort in that fact. Your vision begins to darken and your eyes slowly shut.

Finally, some rest.

Your ears ring and you’re about to slip into the abyss-

-but ice wraps around your hands, pulling you through a pine forest and into the warmth of a hearth with jasmine flowers in a vase.

“-hear me?” A familiar voice swims above you, and against your better judgement you fight your impending black out. “-breath out your mouth, my love.”

The tone is gentle, full of an emotion that you’ve craved during many of your sleepless nights. You begin to follow the voice’s commands, taking an unsteady and short breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.

“-my chest, ____. The rhythm will help-”

Right. You put everything you can into the rhythm of the hearth’s beat, allowing for the steady presence to guide you back to your senses. The ringing of your ears slowly subsides, although exhaustion settles deeply into your bones as your breath hiccups.

“You’re doing well, ____. Keep breathing, my love.” The feeling of hands rubbing up and down your back has you melting against a solid chest, and you feel deft fingers pull at the clip on top of your head. Your hair falls down and the fingers rub against the back of your skull, making your eyes slowly flutter shut at the soothing contact.

“Zayne…” It leaves you in a breathless gasp, and you half curse your stupidity in your exhausted brain because how do you even know it’s him? But you’re placated with a finger tapping three times against your nose, a sure-fire sign that it’s him.

“Are you with me, ____?” His voice is soft, although it’s colored with something heavy. Still, he rubs his thumbs against your temples as he ponders something. “Can you tell me the major chambers of the heart in clockwise order?”

It’s an easy question, yes, but you know it’s his way of checking if you’re back with him. You scramble through your tired mind, trying to piece the answer together and you finally whisper: “Left atrium, left ventricle, right ventricle, right atrium. Aorta on top.”

“Good.” There’s a tired undertone in his voice that has you leaning against his chest, fingers blindly gripping at his scrubs. All of a sudden, you’re being lifted into the air, and you gasp and wrap your fingers tighter against his coat as you fight the fatigue that addles your brain.

“-in my office,” Zayne begins, and you register that you’re going in and out of consciousness. You continue to fight your brain so that you can listen in, but the strong scent of pine and jasmine coupled with the steady rhythm of his heart engulfs your senses and you feel yourself begin to shut down. “-not disturb, I’ll be the one to make sure Dr. ____ is okay. No pagers, no questions-”

You don’t register anything else, the steady steps carrying you to an unknown location lulling you into a trance-like state. Maybe he’ll dump you on a hospital room bed and leave you there.

“No I won’t.” Zayne’s voice is severe, and you feel hot embarrassment in the fact that you’re mindlessly babbling out your thoughts. “You’re staying with me, ____.”

You don’t say anything else, simply curling up against his chest and holding onto his shirt tightly. His grip on your remains steadfast, and he continues to walk until he comes to a stop. You vaguely hear the beeping of a keycard paired with his foot kicking something, and before you know it you’re in a pleasantly cool room.

You feel yourself being gently laid down on a plush sofa and you sigh as you sink against the soft pillows. You feel him begin to untangle himself from you, but you grip onto his shirt as a feeble whimper escapes your lips.

“Stay.”

It’s a helpless plea, a hopeless request, and your one greatest desire in this entire world. You want Zayne to stay with you, in this moment and for the rest of your lives. You don’t know if this will be fleeting or forever, but you’ll take the fleeting touch if it means you can have it in your brain forever.

The moment feels like a lifetime, but not even a minute later Zayne slides onto the couch with you. He arranges himself so that he’s laying on his back and you’re wrapped in his arms on top of him - the both of your favorite cuddling positions, one that has tears welling in your eyes once again.

One of his hands reaches up to massage the back of your head and you sigh against his neck, your fingers gently stroking the skin of his jaw. His chest rumbles in response to your contact and you nuzzle yourself further into his neck, breathing in the scent that’s brought you back from over the edge time and time again.

Your eyes begin to drift shut when his chest moves up, a soft humming in his chest as he whispers something. You strain your ears and you hear it: “I don’t deserve you, ____.”

“Mmm?” you mumble sleepily.

“I don’t deserve you,” Zayne says again. His fingers never stop in your hair and on your back, but you feel something new. A wetness on your forehead, sliding down to meet the previous tear tracks that still lay on your cheeks.

“Zayne?”

“I’m sorry, ____.” A shuddering gasp lifts your body, and your arms tighten around his neck as he tries to swallow his tears so you can hear him clearly. “I don’t deserve you, but I will make it up to you forever if you’ll let me. Please let me.”

“What if we aren't meant to be?”

It’s a soft whisper, but your fears are laid bare for the both of you to analyze. You want so desperately to make this work, but you don’t know if it’s meant to be after what’s happened.

His arms squeeze you tighter, his voice thick with tears yet steady with conviction. “We are, ____. I will work and beg and apologize and kneel at your feet until you forgive me and we build something new. We don’t have to force it - we'll go at your own pace and I will follow until you’re ready because you’re the most important thing in my life.”

His words sink into your skull, and for the first time you find tranquility instead of turbulence. Your lips brush against his pulsepoint once again before you whisper the single word that dictates your future with him:

“Okay.”

You barely feel his breath of relief and the tender kiss he brushes against your forehead as a peace that you haven’t felt in a while envelopes your bones. You snuggle further into his chest and allow yourself to finally succumb to sleep - lulled into a kind part of your brain by Zayne’s fingers in your hair.

Before you finally surrender, though, you hear it:

“You will always be my heart, my love. I hope I can earn yours again.”

It’s finals week, and your body feels lighter than it’s felt in a while.

There’s a soft smile ever-present on your lips, and it’s something that’s aided your students somewhat. When faced with a gentle smile, they relax and do better on their tests.

You tell yourself it’s to make them feel at ease, but you know it’s for another reason entirely.

Zayne’s back in your life, finding ways to show his fondness and apologies in your everyday life. It’s subtle but for you it makes a world of difference - texts asking about your day, your favorite food delivered at your apartment and the pediatric office, and flowers addressed to you and Yvonne because he knows that earning your forgiveness means earning hers tenfold.

She had scoffed the first time he had sent her a bouquet of peonies, even though her eyes sparkled when she saw her favorite flower. “Why’s he sending me some?”

You had sniffed your own bouquet of jasmines and lavender, pointing to the card that was attached to her bouquet. “Read it and tell me what it says!”

She had grabbed the card and you carefully watched her reaction, her eyes widening before filling with tears. You had been filled with alarm, reaching out to hug her but she had shaken her head and held the card tightly.

“What a jerk, making me cry…” She had mumbled, but the smile on her face let you know that his apologies were working on her, too.

There were also the talks after lectures and in between check ups - any time you could find each other, really. They were serious, filled with tears but also with a comfort that you two were finally talking - not skirting around the issues that made your foundations crack in the first place. While things are still a little soft, you find that the cracks are filled with gold - making the foundation of your relationship stable with new meaning.

Your thoughts stop with a knock on the lecture hall door, and you lift your head to see Dr. Chung waving his hand at you with a friendly smile. You scan your students in the crowd; most of them have their heads down, teeth gnawing at their lips and brows furrowed in concentration at the test you and Zayne had put together. Sure that they won’t need you immediately, you nod at Dr. Chung and make your way out of the lecture hall.

Once outside, you regard him curiously as he produces a manila envelope from his side and presents it to you with a flourish. There’s a gleam in his eyes that has your heart pounding as you open the envelope shakily, pulling out the neat packet of papers and reading “OFFER OF PERMANENT POSITION WITH THE LINDE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND AKSO HOSPITAL.”

“I told you I would pester you about it during finals week,” he teases with a smile as you look at him with wide eyes.

“I-” you try to begin, but he’s quick to cut you off with a reassuring squeeze on your shoulders.

“You are leagues above the medical world and it would be an honor to have you with us, Dr. ____.” His voice is full of warm conviction, giving you a wide smile as you flounder for words. “I’d also like to be happily retired when you and Dr. Li have children.”

“Alistair!” You ignore formality for a scandalized whisper of his name, but he only laughs as he pats your arms reassuringly.

“I did put a lot of money on a betting pool back when the two of you were in undergrad and won it back tenfold,” he replies cheekily. Dr. Chung gestures to the packet once more, eyes full of hope as he scans your face. “So? Are you ready to step into the shoes that have always fit you perfectly and send me into an early and reassuringly calm retirement?”

Your hands shake, but your smile is steady as you look at him.

You’ve always known the answer, you think.

There’s a knock on your door as you finish inputting final grades for the semester later on in the week.

You quirk your eyebrow when you eye the door, not expecting any visitors or students. It’s Friday, and by the time the sun sets below the horizon students and faculty alike are off to hot pot restaurants and karaoke bars to celebrate the end of the semester and the beginning of summer break. You know you’re supposed to be alone - you saw each of your coworker’s lamps flicker off one by one, their laughter echoing through the empty hall as they waved goodbye to you or tried to goad you into a night out.

You’re definitely supposed to be alone.

Still, you clear your throat and answer. “Come in!”

Your eyes widen when you see Zayne, an unusual ruffledness to him as he shuts the door and flicks the lock closed behind him. He’s wearing blue scrubs, white coat draped over his arm and hair mussed as he looks at you with an intense stare that has your body beginning to melt from the inside out.

“Alistair said you accepted the offer.”

It spills out of his mouth almost unwittingly, and your lips tilt up at the corners when you see how his cheeks flush. Still, his eyes never waver from yours as you stand up from your desk and smooth the thin blue cotton of the long summer dress you had pulled on earlier in the morning.

“Yes,” you confirm as you walk around your desk to stand in front of him. His posture relaxes at your simple word, jaw releasing its tension as his gaze softens.

“Do you know what that means?” He asks. It’s gentler, full of unanswered questions he wants to know the answers to because you know that he needs to know your thoughts.

You reflect back to your analysis of the document, immediately noting that Zayne was signing on as one of the two directors of the Linde School of Medicine.

The reason why you know that is because your name was slotted next to his as the permanent head of pediatrics and a potential candidate for the position of interim director.

“Yes,” you say again. You’re standing in front of him now, head tilted up as you regard his gaze curiously. “I read all of that in the packet. I even gave it to my personal lawyer to ensure that there was nothing problematic in the agreement-”

“I’m sorry, ____, but you know that’s not what I mean right now.”

Zayne’s voice trembles as he steps forward to meet your body, dropping his white coat onto the floor. He cups your face in his hands and tilts your head up so that he can look directly into your gaze. You melt into his touch, reaching up to hold his hands in place with a gentle pressure.

“I need to know if you’re okay working with…me,” his voice is gravelly and filled with anxiety, something that makes your heart clench at the vulnerability of his words. “I need to know that you’re okay working with me and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable when we just started mending things between us-”

“Zayne.”

It’s your turn to interrupt him and he shuts his mouth immediately, leaning down to press a kiss against the palm of your hand. You smile at the contact, letting him kiss your hand to alleviate his anxiety before clearing your throat and starting.

“I’m more than okay with it.” Your pointer finger taps against his cheek once, making his eyes widen as you step closer so that your chests are barely brushing. “I wouldn’t have accepted the position and scheduled the seemingly endless meetings and interviews for the interim director position if I wasn’t okay with it.”

He breathes a deep sigh of relief at that, sinking his face further into your hand while you tap your thumb against his chin.

“You’re comfortable with me?” He asks, eyes full of yearning as he moves his hands to settle on your hips. He pulls your body flush against his, making you lose your breath as you stare into your favorite shade of emerald. “Are things…”

“I’m more than comfortable.” Your finger drags a line past his Adam’s apple up to his jaw, eliciting a shaky breath from his lips when you run the tips of your fingers up to his hair to play with the inky strands. “In fact, things are going pretty swimmingly from my vantage point.”

Your pointer finger traces a dangerous line from his jaw to the edge of his mouth, and your eyes hood ever so slightly when you tap his bottom lip once.

“My question is,” you whisper as you tiptoe up to meet his face. “Does the doctor who hasn’t left my mind since I moved back feel the same way?”

A beat passes - a singular moment when you feel his heart beating in tandem with yours. His eyes widen at the implication of your words, registering your hidden meaning before a true smile spreads across his lips.

That one smile solidifies everything for the both of you. He leans down and presses his lips against yours, stealing your breath and the last bits of all rationality away from your mind.

You’re quick to respond to the movements of his lips, running your hands up the back of his head and gripping the inky strands of his hair in between your fingers. A deep rumble reverberates through his chest when your nails scratch his head slightly, making him step back and press you against your desk.

You gasp when you feel the smooth wood against the small of your back, the pressure making your eyes roll back into your head and grip his hair tighter. He pulls away though, eyes flying open at the little sound. He immediately moves to cradle your face in his hands, tilting your head in his touch as he scans you for any sort of hesitation or sign of hurt. “Are you okay, my love?”

“I am,” you reply, melting at the slip of his pet name. He doesn’t notice, simply peppering your face with soft kisses until you’re giggling in his hold and wrapping your arms around his neck tighter.

“Good,” he says with a soft twinkle in his eye. His hands reach behind your back, and your eyes widen at the sound of papers and your little plastic cup of pens clattering to the floor before you squeal, your arms around his neck tightening when he lifts you by one arm up onto your desk.

“Zayne, what-” you try to begin, but he simply leans back down and kisses you deeply, stealing your breath away and eliciting a soft moan from between your lips. He groans in response, spreading your legs apart on the table and bracing his left hand on the wood behind your back while pulling your leg up with his right hand up around his waist. He steps in between the newly formed space, allowing his hips to roll slightly against yours in a way that has you whining from the contact.

Your hands move, tilting his head to the side so that you can kiss him deeper. A stroke of your tongue against his bottom lip has his mouth falling open, allowing for your tongue to push in slightly to brush against his. Simultaneous gasps escape your mouths at the same time, and he pushes himself deeper into your mouth so that he can get a taste of you directly from the source.

Soon enough though, the need for air has you pulling away, leaning your forehead against his as you both catch your breath. You giggle breathlessly when you see the marks your skin left on his glasses, the cloudiness making it difficult to see the real emotion on his face. Your hands begin to lift to pull at them but he beats you to it, simply grabbing at the thin frame before tossing them somewhere to the side.

“Your glasses!” You try to yelp, but he leans down to nip at your bottom lip, making your mouth fall open once more.

“They were getting in the way,” he grumbles, and you laugh as you allow him to recapture your mouth with his once more.

The kiss this time is slower but just as needy on your end, the brush of his lips soothing the worried part in your mind. He discards any lingering doubt in your head, cementing him as yours - and the giddy feeling swallows you whole.

His lips make a path from the corner of your mouth to your jawline, soft presses of his lips making your skin heat from his touch. The stimulation has you whining, tugging on the collar of his scrubs to try to get them off of his body. Your needy movements make him chuckle darkly and he pulls away just enough so he can pull the top and his undershirt off of his body, giving you access to his glorious body.

“Zayne,” you murmur softly, drinking in the sight of his body once more. It’s a sight you’re intimately familiar with but it still has molten desire pooling in your stomach, and you let your eyes wander past the planes of his chest and the chiseled softness of his abs before biting your lip at the sight of the thin, dark hairs that lead below the waistband of his scrubs.

“What are you thinking about, pretty lady?” His breath catches when your hand presses on the skin above his heart. He shuffles closer to your body which allows you to press a kiss directly on his heart, and you smile to yourself when you hear a soft gasp above your head.

“You,” you say back, grabbing his hand and letting your fingers trace the fading scars on his forearm. His breath hitches in his chest when you bring his arm to your lips, gently ghosting your lips along the skin reverently. 

“Is that so?” He gently pulls his arm away from you, instead placing his palms on your thighs and giving them a gentle squeeze.

“Yes,” you breathe, wrapping one arm around his neck to pull him closer. Your other hand trails down his chest and past his abs, fingers toying dangerously with the elastic waistband of his thin scrubs. You smile sweetly up at him as his eyes flash dangerously, playing innocent while your hand slips underneath his scrubs to cup his bulge above his boxer briefs.

“You’re still a little minx,” he groans. You laugh as you begin to massage the tent in his pants, but you gasp when he pulls your thighs up to his waist, making your back fall against your desk.

“Zayne, what-” you try to begin, but your words die in your mouth when he slides your skirt up past your thighs so that it pools at your waist. He gently pulls your hand from his pants so that he can spread your legs even more, folding them so that they’re up in the air and he has a clear view of your dainty white panties clinging against the silken folds of your core.

“Pretty,” he says softly, running a single finger up against your slit. Your mouth is too dry all of the sudden, falling open at the muted stimulation of his finger rubbing your clit above your panties. Your wetness drenches the thin fabric even more, and it has you grinding your hips against his single finger while mewling in a bid to feel even more.

“Still impatient and needy for me, my love?” He places one of your legs on his shoulder, letting you wrap the other one around his waist as you grind against his hand - desperate for his bare skin against the place you need him the most.

“Yes,” you breathe. You pout up at him and he laughs, leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss as you continue to grind yourself against his hand. The pleasure builds in the pit of your stomach and continues to rise, but you huff in frustration when you feel it plateau instead of bringing you closer to the edge of your end.

“Zayne,” you gasp, looking up at him imploringly. His eyes flash at your need and without another word he moves his hand, pulling your panties to the side and finally allowing you to grind your bare pussy against the warm skin of his hand. A small cry leaves your mouth, head tilting back as you rock your hips against the palm of his hand.

Zayne looks down at the goddess that is you, writhing on your desk as you chase your high. The ruffled straps of your sundress fall down your shoulders, accentuating the way your breasts heave as your chest rises and falls with the onslaught of pleasure wreaking havoc on your body. If the two of you weren’t in the academic offices and he had more time on his hands, he would have torn your dress off a long time ago, pinching your nipples with his skilled fingers until your eyes went cross-eyed and all that left your mouth were moans and babbles of his name.

Another time, he thinks to himself when he sees the scrunch of your nose. There are plenty of other times to shower your body with love.

Your eyes snap open when he pulls his hand away from your core, a noise of protest beginning on your lips as to why he moved away. It quickly dies, however, when you see him pull his straining cock out of his scrubs. He pushes you down onto your desk once more, jacking himself with your wetness rapidly so that he’s ready too. All the while, he looks down at you with a heady glance, leaning down to kiss you once more.

“Are you still on the pill?” He asks breathlessly. He slides his cockhead against your pussy, and you both moan when he slaps his tip against your clit.

“Yes,” you confirm, eyes going hazy when he drags his cock down to your sopping hole. The tip catches slightly and you whine, tightening the hold your leg has on his waist. “Z-zayne!”

“I got you, my love,” he groans back, and you cry out softly when he begins to push himself into your pussy.

Your head lolls back, eyes rolling back into your skull with each thick inch he gives you. Even with how slick you are, the pleasurable stretch still burns - enough to make you pant when he rolls his hips.

“W-wait-” you gasp, and he’s quick to stop his pace, leaning down to press his nose against your neck. He leaves soft kisses against your pulse point and across your collarbones as you breathe deeply, trying to get used to the feeling of him pulsing inside of you after so long. 

Soon enough, though, the burn gives way to nothing but heady pleasure, and you roll your hips against his to sink him further into your cunt. His hand tightens on the leg he has propped on his shoulder, eyes looking down at you with worry as he checks to make sure that you mean it.

“Are you sure?”

You nod once, and while he knows that you do mean it his eyes darken mischievously. He rolls his hips slowly, leaving you moaning as you attempt to roll your hips back to meet his - even with his sturdy grip on your hips.

“Use your words, Dr. ____.” His authoritative voice and use of your title has you clenching down on him, making you whimper and him grip your calf even tighter so that he doesn’t lose his mind. He groans as he thrusts shallowly once more, drinking in your moans that fill the air. “Use your words to tell me what you need.”

“You!” You all but cry out. “P-please Zayne, I need you fully in m-me-”

“Good,” he huffs. He kisses your ankle before sinking his cock all the way into your soaking pussy, making your back arch as you moan. He pulls out slowly, letting your walls pulse sporadically around his cock until only his cockhead remains in your cunt, making you whine at the emptiness. There’s only a whisper of respite from the fullness, though, before he pushes himself back in and elicits a cry from your swollen lips.

“Shh,” he murmurs, moving down to kiss you deeply. His hips never stop their pace, pistoning in and out of you at a relentless speed that has you seeing stars. “You don’t want anyone to catch us, right?”

“I-it’s late night though-” you try to begin, but your mouth falls open when he presses himself all of the way and nudges against your g-spot.

“There she is,” he says with a grunt, thrusting once again so that he can continue to press against that spot. “I was wondering when I would meet her again.”

“-ah!” You cry out in response. Your head falls back as the pleasure continues to wash over your body, bringing you closer and closer to the precipice of your orgasm. Zayne, seeing you begin to near your end, maintains his pace, reaching down to rub and pinch your clit in tandem with his thrusts.

The added stimulation makes your nose scrunch, moans and whimpers the only thing you can manage as your pussy spasms rhythmically around him. Your stomach tightens, and you’re barely able to gasp out his name before he leans down to kiss you once more, stealing your breath away.

“Cum with me, ____,” he breathes, and he swallows your cries with his lips when you finally fall over the edge.

The pleasure is overwhelming, crashing onto you as you dig your nails into his shoulders and making him groan. It leaves you seeing stars in your eyes, your head spinning as you try to control your breathing. You vaguely register your cries of his name and moans falling from your lips, but you can’t find it in yourself to care at how loud you're being - not when it feels this good.

Zayne, all the while, ruts his hips against yours - the pulsing of your slick walls driving him mad and prolonging your pleasure. A whine of his name has his moaning, cumming into your wet heat as he sinks his teeth in the skin between your shoulder and neck to try and keep a hold of himself. You gasp at the bit of pain, letting it mix with the heady pleasure of your orgasm until everything fades away, leaving just you and him in the afterglow.

“Mmm,” you moan softly as he kisses the bite he left on your neck, shivering slightly when he licks the tender skin.

“We’re going to need to make this our office,” he says softly against your neck. The statement makes you throw your head back to laugh, and he chuckles softly alongside you as he gently lowers your leg from his chest to wrap around his waist.

“You’re right,” you tease in response. “Can’t let anyone else have this office after what we did here.”

“Mhm,” he mumbles, moving his head up to kiss you once more. You let him press the sweet kiss against your mouth, a stark juxtaposition to the way your shaky legs are still wrapped around his waist.

He pulls away softly, and you push his slightly sweaty hair up above his brow so that it isn’t plastered onto his forehead. You tap your finger three times against his nose, and you feel yourself soften at the breathtaking smile that overtakes his entire face.

“Me too, my love,” he murmurs back, tapping your nose three times - like the two of you have always done. He leans over you to kiss you once more, filling you with that pure feeling of love that has you smiling against his mouth.

And by the way he smiles against your mouth, you know he feels that same love for you too.

August means the start of a new academic year at Linkon University.

You hear the nervous chatter of the fresh-faced medical students currently seated in the lecture hall outside of your shared office and you turn to look at your handsome co-lecturer with a half serious expression on your face while you watch him struggle with his tie. You step closer and help him fix it, straightening out the crooked fabric before smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles on his perfectly pressed white button down.

“Don’t grill them too hard, Dr. Li.” You say softly, amusement coloring your voice as Zayne lets out a scoff. “You want them to want to continue med school.”

“No promises, my love.” He swoops down and kisses you - the kind that steals your breath away and makes you weak in the knees. You kiss him back, smiles forming on your mouths as you relish in the quick contact before pulling away.

“Ready?” He asks, and he offers his arm out to you as you gather your stack of syllabi and notes. You beam at him and place your hand in the crook of his arm, nodding once.

“With you? Always.”

And the two of you walk out of your office and into the lecture room - taking your first steps toward your shared future together as the head lecturers and directors of the Linde School of Medicine.

“I-I’m a reporter from Fontaine!” you blurted, “I swear, I’m just here for a story!”

He glanced down at your belongings, then let go of your wrist only to snatch up the notebook, flipping through the pages. His thumb brushed over your hasty sketches of the Dawn Winery. “Erase this. Now.”

“Not for free.”

His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“You want me to erase days of work? Fine. But you have to give me something for it.”

“What do you want?”

You hesitated, then said the first thing that came to mind. “Make me some wine.”

For a moment, you thought he might laugh. But his face stayed unreadable.

“You’re asking me to brew wine,” he said, “in exchange for your silence?”

“Fontaine would kill for the real thing. I want one bottle. Then this-” you gestured at your notebook “never existed.”

Finally, he exhaled.

“Fine. One bottle,” he said, “Come to Dawn Winery tomorrow at dusk. If you ever follow me again,” he murmured, “I won’t be so forgiving.”

You swallowed but managed a nod.

“Deal.”

---

The bottle weighed heavy in your hand as you drifted aimlessly through Mondstadt’s sunlit streets. The trade had been fair, but now the silence felt heavier than the wine itself. The pages you’d given up still burned in your mind: the truth, the danger, the hidden side of Mondstadt. What good was being a reporter if you had nothing to report?

You wandered out through the city gates, letting the breeze tangle your hair as you trudged along the grassy slopes just outside the walls. Somewhere in the distance, a bard’s melody floated through the wind.

“Psst. Hey!”

You froze. The voice seemed to come from nowhere, until a rustle of leaves made you look up. There, draped across a thick branch of a wind-swept tree, was a boy, or at least, he looked like a boy.

He swung one leg lazily, grinning down at you. “So you want to hear about Diluc Ragnvindr, huh?”

“Who are you?”

He pressed a hand to his chest with a dramatic flourish. “Venti. A humble bard! And you—” his gaze flicked to the bottle in your hand, “—seem to have something I really want.”

You hugged the wine to your chest. “This? I worked very hard for this.”

“I’m sure you did!.” He perched himself upright, leaning down so his hat nearly brushed your hair. “How about this? You give me the wine...” he winked “and I give you something much tastier. Rumors.”

You squinted at him. “What could you possibly know about Diluc?”

He giggled then flipped down from the branch in one graceful leap, landing so lightly the grass barely bent.

“Oh, I know plenty.”

You weighed the bottle in your hand. With a sigh, you handed it over.

Venti popped the cork right there, tipped the whole thing back, and in a few gulps, the priceless vintage was gone. He smacked his lips like a cat that just lapped cream. “Ahh. Glorious! So, about Diluc…”

“He doesn’t let anyone get close, you know? But-” Venti poked your shoulder with a grin. “Donna.”

Your eyes widened. “Donna? The flower girl?”

“Mhm!”

You stared at your empty hand where the wine had been. When you looked up again, Venti was gone.

---

You were so close, Donna’s flower stall was right there, and you could already picture the shy blush on her cheeks when you asked about Diluc Ragnvindr. Another angle for your story, your story that must be told, no matter what your promise said.

But just as you lifted your hand to wave, a hand slammed over your mouth, and you were yanked back into a narrow passageway between two stone buildings.

Instinct kicked in - your training, all the rough Fontaine street brawls you’d survived - you twisted, stomped, elbowed. Whoever had you didn’t even flinch.

“Stop.”

He turned you just enough that the fading light caught his crimson hair.

“How did you..?” you hissed when he loosened his hold just enough for you to speak. “How did you know?”

“I know everything that happens in my city. You were not keeping your promise.”

“I didn’t leak anything! I haven’t printed a single word!”

“But you’re still digging.” he cut in, “You’re dangerous because you don’t know when to quit.”

Your fists clenched against his coat. Before you could snarl back, a sudden gust whipped through the alleyway.

Diluc’s hold faltered for the barest second, enough for the wind to slip under your feet. Then your boots landed back on solid stone.

Venti, perched atop the stone arch beside you. “Told you I’d help, didn’t I?”

“You... you can’t be serious,” you hissed up at the bard. “He’s going to kill me..”

“Oh, he won’t kill you.” He hopped down, landing in front of you, “Come on, my dear little quill. You want a story? I’ll give you a story.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tonight,” he whispered, “we visit the lion’s den.”

And before you could protest, Venti twirled his hand and the wind rose again, swirling you both up into the night sky like two dandelion seeds on the breeze. You landed, not in the plaza but among moonlit vineyards, rows of grapes, the Dawn Winery looming ahead like a dark secret waiting to be poured.

You turned to Venti, who winked, pressing a finger to his lips. “Ready to snoop? You did say you wanted everything…”

It became a game, in the end. Each night, Mondstadt slept, and you and Venti didn’t. You’d crouch in the shadows of the Dawn Winery’s sprawling grounds. Venti’s laugh would flit through the rows like a playful breeze, carrying you closer and closer to something.

And every time, without fail, Diluc would find you.

He’d yank you out from under a bush by the collar of your coat. He’d appear behind you in the cellars: “Out.” He’d catch Venti perched like a cat on the balcony rail, your camera in his hands and snatch the film before you could even snap the shutter.

At first, he’d been cold, irritated that you kept testing him.

Then he’d grown familiar. Almost weary in the way he’d sigh when he found you halfway up the library shelves. “Again?”

You’d grin like a child caught stealing candy. Venti would hum excuses about the “freedom of the press” and get flicked on the forehead for his trouble.

You started to wonder if you enjoyed being caught as much as you enjoyed digging.

One night, you didn’t come.

Diluc stood by the window in the dim hours past midnight, gloves off, hair loose around his shoulders. Outside, the vineyard rustled softly in the wind. The leaves should have held whispers, a muffled laugh from Venti. The thrill of the hunt waiting for him to slip out into the dark to drag you both back into the light.

But tonight, there was only silence.

He waited longer than he’d admit.

The hour grew later. He found himself standing by the old grape trellises, the ones you favored for hiding when you thought you were clever.

Why does it feel… Empty?

----

You’d planned everything. This time, you told yourself, you’d get something. Venti, swaying half-drunk on cheap cider, had laughed so hard he nearly rolled off the crates you’d stacked as a planning table.

Venti’d promised fireworks before promptly passing out on top of your stolen stash of pyrotechnics.

So when the time came, it was you who hauled him onto your back, fireworks and all, stumbling under his weight as his braids tickled your ear and he mumbled nonsense about wine, freedom, and apples.

You were halfway down the forested path when the underbrush rustled. A low, wet squelch, then a ripple of green, and the faint glow of Dendro energy pooling at your feet.

Slime.

“Venti, get up!” you hissed, shoving at his side.

But he just snored. You turned, just in time to see the Dendro Slime lunge, You braced for the hit, but it never landed. Instead, the Slime split in two under a single clean strike, dissolving into burning sap.

You nearly dropped Venti right there. Because standing behind the dying embers was him.

“Diluc!!!” you squeaked, and before you could stop yourself, you flung your free arm around his coat. “My savior!”

His chest was warm. Smelled faintly of charred vines and something sharp and sweet. For half a heartbeat, you felt safe.

Then reality smacked you upside the head. You were hugging Diluc Ragnvindr.

You jolted back, hands up. “Haha! Never mind, thank you! We’re fine, no more slimes.. gotta go!”

You elbowed Venti hard enough to make him grunt awake. He peeked over your shoulder, blinking blearily at Diluc. “Oh. Hi!”

“Run” you hissed, already shoving Venti down the path as Diluc’s eyes narrowed.

---

You found the fireworks, right there, dumped neatly at the edge of the vineyard by the old stone wall.

Venti cackled when he saw them. “Oh, our fiery bird left us a gift! How thoughtful.”

You just glared at him. “Light it.”

And so, just as the sun dipped, Venti flicked a spark of fire from the tip of a matchstick. Color exploded into the sky, reds and golds and crackling silver that showered over the vineyards like a festival.

While they all rushed out to gawk at the spectacle, you slipped through the side gate, quick as a mouse. You were inside.

Your boots padded across the polished floors. You found yourself in a wide, echoing hallway, lined with expensive vases and portraits whose eyes seemed to follow you.

Carefully, you brushed your fingers against the rim of a massive porcelain vase teetering on its pedestal.

It wobbled. You nearly died right there. You steadied it, sweat breaking down your spine.

“Put it back.”

You froze, your reflection wavering in the smooth vase surface. Swallowing hard, you turned, and there he was. Leaning against the doorway.

“Uh… hi?”

You’d never seen him this serious.

One heartbeat he was leaning in the doorway, the next, he’d crossed the hall, his hand snatching your wrist and dragging you away from the teetering vase.

“Hey! Let go!” you hissed, stumbling to keep up as his stride devoured the distance.

He didn’t. He pushed you through a side door, into a wide courtyard behind the manor.

“Fight me.”

“Fight..what? Are you insane?!” you yelped, backing up so fast your heel scraped over the flagstones.

He pulled the claymore out in one smooth motion. “So that I can get you out of my head.”

“Are you insane?! I don’t even have a Vision!”

You dove, rolling sideways as his blade cracked the stone where your shoulder had been. Sparks danced up into the night sky like startled fireflies.

You scrambled back on your hands. You ducked another swing. Another. You knew how to slip a punch, throw an elbow, but this?

And just when your lungs burned and your legs gave out, the wind rose, like a hand cupping your shoulder. The breeze wrapped around your chest, your throat, your wrist where you still clutched your battered camera.

Your eyes widened as your hand lit pale green, just for a breath, just enough to send a swirl of wind cutting sideways. Diluc stepped through it like it was mist, grabbed your shoulder, and sent you sprawling on your back, the wind dying out as soon as it came.

You lay there, gasping, staring up at his hair haloed by the moon. His chest heaved, not from exhaustion, from holding back. You realized he could have done worse. He didn’t.

You’d lost. Of course you had. But you were alive.

Your camera, jammed under your spine, whirred, and a single photo fluttered out, drifting to the stones between you.

You stared at it. Now you work? Now?!

You snatched it up just as his hand darted down. You twisted away, holding it out of reach.

He lunged again, not with his sword, just his arm, reaching to tear the picture. Your free hand hit his shoulder. His palm slammed into your ribs, off-balance, and the world tilted. Your back hit the stones. His weight pressed yours down and then his mouth crashed into yours.

You both froze. Your pulse pounded so loud you thought he’d hear every stupid word in your head.

“Up you get!”

Venti’s voice, bright and bubbling behind you, the wind snatched you both apart like a playful tide.

Next thing you knew, you were stumbling back through the vineyard, half-dragging your aching limbs while Venti perched on your shoulder like an annoying parrot.

Hours later, you and Venti ended up at the Angel’s Share, ironically, snuck in through a side door. You drank yourself warm while Venti crooned a song about your “fearless midnight kiss” that made you want to drown him in the last bottle.

When the tavern lamps burned low, you slumped over a table, the photo pressed flat under your cheek, Venti giggling in his sleep beside you.

A weight settled across your shoulders. You squinted up through bleary eyes.

Diluc. He said nothing, just tucked the blanket tighter, brushed your hair from your forehead.

---

You’d told yourself you’d keep the promise. You’d told yourself the photo would stay tucked away. But back in Fontaine, the temptation was too strong. You could see it so clearly: Master Diluc Ragnvindr — the stoic, scandalously handsome lord of Mondstadt’s finest wine. The perfect hook. The perfect lie to feed the hungry crowds desperate for foreign romance and scandal in their next glass.

And so the presses ran.

The front page: a half-shadowed photo of him in his courtyard.The headline: “Secrets of Mondstadt’s Famed Dawn Winery - Meet the Master Behind the Flame.”

It sold out the first day. Then the second. Then the third. Fontaine’s merchant ships started docking at Mondstadt’s port, each one carrying squealing nobles and tourists desperate to taste the vineyard’s ‘secret vintage’, to catch a glimpse of the brooding noble on the page.

A fellow reporter got to Mondstadt to interview the tourists.

“Excuse me, sir! May I ask why did you choose Dawn Winery for your tasting today?”

The merchant, cheeks flushed from a little too much red, slapped down the wrinkled newspaper as if it were proof enough.

Diluc Ragnvindr definitely knew this.

Back in Fontaine, you sat in your cramped room, window open to the smell of rain. Another fresh stack of newspapers sat at your feet, the proof of your new fame.

You could almost feel the storm rolling across the sea toward you.

a couple people have walked past, not seeing or hearing you but it did bring some excitement as you watched them. you were starting to grow impatient so maybe it’d be a shorter video for the channel.

meanwhile, miguel was coming back from taking a jog at his usual trail and was on his way back home. he did more than usual so he just walked back when he suddenly walked past a car and heard a moan.

he stopped in his tracks and couldn’t help but look into the small opening just to see you fingering yourself with your eyes closed. his eyes were wide and he couldn’t believe the sight.

this was something straight out of a porno and although you didn’t see him, the camera sure did.

his head was out of frame and the black wife beater was stuck to his skin. his arms were out and that was all the camera would be able to see of him.

his breath shortened and he gulped, absolutely shocked he’d be able to witness something so dirty but also hot. and by a gorgeous girl too?

he’d have to get a lottery ticket after this.

he straightened up and thought of what he should do. realistically he knew what he wanted to do but he was a complete stranger, maybe it was too much.

…

but then again there wouldn’t be another opportunity like this.

he watched you for a few more seconds, admiring the way your tits bounced while you fucked yourself harder. finally he made his move. he cleared his throat and lightly tapped on the window making you gasp and turn your head to the left to see a handsome man looking at you.

hopefully it was your lucky day.

“are you alright?” he asks and you quickly nod, “i am now..”

his cheeks grow warm and he’s not sure what to do next. you give him a smile and decide to go for it, “i’m filming a video and was hoping i’d get lucky enough to get some help…”

“do you wanna help me?” you ask, looking directly into his eyes as he just nods.

you pushed the button and made the window go all the way down then reach for his right arm. he reaches inside, getting as close to your car while you guide his hand to your tits. you pulled the top of the dress down, exposing your tits to him then made him touch them.

he squeezed the right one first making you moan because another persons hand would always be better than your own. he went to the other one and squeezed your nipple gently, you spread your legs a bit more just so he could have enough space.

he was too busy groping your tits to notice, at least that was until you pulled his arm up to your face. you grabbed his wrist and slipped two fingers into your mouth, sucking on them with your eyes boring into his while you made sure they were nice and wet.

you pulled them out with a plop and quickly brought his arm down between your legs and he slipped them inside without hesitation. he moved slowly, giving you time to get use to it while you moaned and held onto his arm to urge him to do more. he took notice and went deeper, your slippery walls entrapping them while he set a fast pace for you.

“oh f-fuck- yes!” you moaned and bucked your hips up. his fingers were much thicker than yours, actually able to stretch you out unlike your own. it was just what you needed.

miguel was watching the way your pussy just took his fingers in, your wetness already dripping down when he’s only just started. what he didn’t know was you’ve been edging and just having a complete stranger do this could make you cum at any second.

you held onto his arm, holding on tightly as he pumped them faster and harder making you a moaning mess for him. he felt his shorts become tighter and he knew he was done for.

“you like that baby?” he murmurs and you quickly nod with a slight pout on your lips.

your brain was already mush, not actually thinking one of your fantasies would come true but happy they did with someone so fine. and the fact that he knew what he was doing was the cherry on top.

“such a dirty girl huh? playing with yourself in public like this?” he murmured and you clenched against his fingers.

you whimpered and laid your head to the side by the seatbelt while he continued, “so fucking wet too, you really wanted this to happen didnt you, baby?”

you nodded, not trusting yourself to speak as you felt a knot form in your stomach. you let go of his arm and brought your right hand to quickly rub your clit, feeling the strong urge to squirt, knowing you should stop but it’d feel so good.

“that’s it baby, such a good girl. gonna cum for me? just gonna cum for a stranger?” he murmured lowly, able to feel you squeeze and just watching your body contort in pleasure.

“fuck- p-please don’t stop-“ you whimpered out and felt your legs start to shake.

“i’ve got you gorgeous, come on give it to me.” he purred and that did it for you.

you cried out as your juices quickly came out of you, he slipped his fingers out and replaced yours on your clit so he could make sure every drop comes out. you whimpered and moaned as he went from rubbing your clit fast while you reached your climax to suddenly slow when nothing else came out.

he stopped and left his hand on your thigh, murmuring sweet praises as you calmed yourself down and closed your legs. you closed your eyes, deciding that if you didn’t look at the disaster then it simply wasn’t there. not only are you too tired to clean it all up, you were in absolute shock that actually happened.

your breathing was steady again and you opened your eyes, turning to look out the window and at him. he really was gorgeous and if you weren’t so beat you’d offer to suck him off in the backseat but you were exhausted.

“thank you, stranger. gonna have to make a rain check on when i can make it up to you…” you say and he chuckles.

he shrugs and gives you a smile, “there’s really no need. can’t deny a pretty girl when she needs help.”

you grinned and shrugged, turning to open your center console, grabbing a business card and then handing it to him, “well if you change your mind…”

he grabbed it and nodding as he put it in his pocket, “i’ll let you know.”

They’re all horrible, really. Horrible people.

This all started earlier that morning when Diluc was running late for work, and you were the one to locate him in the living room to give him his tie. He seemed thankful, and a bit bashful — you assumed that he was probably being like this because this was one of the first times you’d caught him forget something — before inching closer to you and raising his chin. However, when you grew confused and asked what he was doing, the man froze, before quickly averting his gaze.

“I – I thought—“

“Hm?”

“Nevermind. Thank you, my love.” Diluc politely coughed with his fist and took the tie.

You were literally a huge question mark when your lover left after kissing you on the cheek. Thankfully, the maids, especially Adelinde, who witnessed the spectacle, decided to rescue their future lady from spiraling.

You felt like an idiot after they informed you that Diluc wanted you to tie his tie for him. Even more so when you told them that you didn’t realize and didn’t know how to tie ties. And now, failing lots of times for a simple task such as tying a knot in front of these “experts” isn’t in your to–do list today, and you desperately wish the ground to swallow you up from the humiliation.

“Ooh, she’s improving, girls, she’s improving!”

Hope forms inside of you as you look down. “Really?!”

More giggling. “Nope!”

You groan, before loosing the tie, and trying again. Horrible people. “Why should I make a Windsor knot? There are other easier knots!”

You hear them chuckle. “Oh, she doesn’t know it yet. . .”

“Poor thing.”

“Shut it, just tell me already!”

Adelinde hushes them. The woman of the hour. “Ladies, that’s enough. She’s trying her best.” You almost whimper when she begins approaching you and teaching you the basics again. You recall how she has returned to your spot five times now, and you can’t help but be grateful her for her patience.

“You see, our dearest, a lot of married men in Mondstadt prefer this knot. Do you know the reason?”

“Why? So their wives can suffer every morning?” You huff sarcastically.

As the crowd gathered around to spectate the competition between the former cavalry captain and the giant, you watched with bated breath as the countdown went down. You mulled over interrupting their business, there were a lot of grown men cheering and yelling making bets on who would be the victor, you decided not to, because there was also a part of you that was curious on what would happen.

When someone hollered for them to begin, everyone expected some kind of struggle. But there was only a curt and loud thud.

Diluc, in one swift motion, easily overpowered the bigger man’s arm by pining it firmly on the surface.

You underestimated him. Diluc really took his training seriously, and it would be more evident ( in his physical growth ) as he got older.

So now, in the present, your sober self will probably regret this proposition you just made with him once you wake up tomorrow.

“We don’t really have to do this, my love,” Diluc says, a worried frown plastered on his handsome face. “You’re not in the right state of mind – you ought to go to bed.”

Archons only know where you gained your confidence. After two pints of beer in his tavern ( in which he vehemently disapproved of but allowed you to indulged only this once ), you were immediately red and intoxicated.

( Thankfully, it was closing time when you started sputtering out unintelligible comments and murmurs. Diluc wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he enjoyed the way home to the manor because you kept on spoiling him with small kisses on the cheeks, and how he was so “strong” and “so great.” It was going to be a secret between the two of you.

Now that you both were finally inside your shared bedroom, Diluc’s plan was simple: to give your affections back tenfold by relishing on your adorable self’s clinginess and cuddling you before succumbing to slumber. But apparently, after changing into comfortable sleepwear, you had other plans. )

“Am not drunk!” you exclaim, before clumsily pulling him closer. Diluc assists you by easing himself right into your embrace. “How dare you say that, you—“

“I did not even say that you were inebriated,” Diluc retorts, and you catch the small smirk on his kissable lips. Wow. You really want to wipe the smugness in his face by kissing him. Or you want him to kiss you. Eh, both is good. “You are staring. Do you need anything? Maybe we should rest now and—“

“Nuh–uh.” You shake your head stubbornly. You tighten your hold around your beefy husband who looks down at you with obvious softness in his scarlet eyes. “Arm wrestle with me. Please?”

Diluc caresses your cheek with his thumb. “I do not think that is a good idea.”

You grin, “But that’s what you think. I, however think that it is a good idea!” Unaware, you start to roam your hands under his silky shirt. Diluc visibly stiffens, when you reach certain spots in his defined muscles. “Pleaaaasee?”

You wonder if Diluc has caught on, with the way he begins to blush from your insinuations. For a moment, he sighs in defeat, and then presses his lips on your forehead. He whispers, “Alright.”

You celebrate when he takes you to the dresser. He gently lets you sit on the plush stool, while he takes another chair to be beside you. You excitedly swing your arm, waiting for his own, and you cackle in delight when his warm fingers intertwines with yours.

“Don’ flirt with me. ‘s not a good a strategy,” you claim, and Diluc surprises you by kissing you promptly on the cheek. “Diluuuuc. . .”

“I cannot help it,” He confesses, looking a little timid and apologetic. But you know that he may do it again. “But if that is what you wish, then—“

“Later,” you pout. It’s not like you don’t like his kisses. There’s a more important thing to do here! “e’re gonna compete first.”

As you explain the rules of arm wrestling to him despite the basics already ingrained in your brains, you fail to notice how Diluc keeps on gazing at you with such fondness.

“Also, just because you do lifts and I don’t doesn’t mean you’ll go easy on me,” you boldly say. Diluc has as advantage, sure, but you believe that you can find a way in breaking his victory streak. You just can feel it in your bones. Trust.

But as always, Diluc keeps on defeating you. But the good thing about it is that your husband continues to dote on you even more, even if you grumble at him.

“you didn't even make it to the cake,” you add, shifting in his lap. “which means they'll be looking for us soon.”

he brings your hand to his lips, placing a soft kiss upon your knuckles and making your heart flutter. “i've already had dessert.”

your face warms considerably against his skin as he chuckles, releasing your hand in favour of slowly smoothing his palm down your side, resting on your hip. he’s more than content to abandon his birthday party entirely in favour of being here in bed, watching the sunset over the fields of your home and bathing you both in golden light.

“well, it’s your birthday party,” you say softly. “even if your actual birthday is two days away, i still want you to have everything you could possibly want. and if what you want is to sneak away from your party to bed me so thoroughly, who am i to argue?”

his heart starts to thump so loudly in his chest that he fears you can hear it. he does want something else, an answer to a question that’s been stifled by shyness, fear, and uncertainty.

“and if i wanted…something else?”

your fingers trace idle patterns across his arm as you hum. “i’d do my best to give it to you.”

he knows you would. which is why he’s been waiting, making sure you want this just as much as he does.

“kaeya said something to me earlier,” he starts.

“please tell me this doesn't end with you hitting him.”

“of course not.” well, not this time. “he asked when i would make him an uncle.”

your movements pause, and diluc wonders if he'd messed up, if it was too soon–

you sit up immediately, grasping his shoulders. “he told you i was pregnant, didn't he? i knew adelaide wouldn't be able to keep it a secret. she’s been knitting baby socks since last week.”

wait.

wait.

“you’re–”

“i wanted it to be a surprise,” you deflate, a frown tugging on your pretty lips. “on your real birthday. adelinde was the only one i told, only because she’d caught me throwing up in the rose bush she’d just pruned and insisted i get checked…”

diluc’s hardly hearing you, your rambling slowing to a stop as he holds your face in his hands.

he needs to hear you say it.

“we’re having a baby?”

you place your hands atop his, nodding. “we’re having a baby, diluc.”

he presses his lips against yours, one firm kiss before he rests his forehead against yours. you are and will always be his favourite person, the only one who could give him a gift as special as this.

_____

BONUS:

“lavender bisque. whispering peach. sweet potato surprise…” adelinde murmurs, hunched over a few sheets of paper.

“what is that? is that the menu for tomorrow’s party?” kaeya asks, peeking over her shoulder.

adelinde sighs, shaking her head. “they're sample colours i had sent over for the nursery.”

“nursery?”

“yes–” the colour drains from the poor woman’s face as she realizes her slip. “oh dear!”

the realization takes a few moments to sink into the cavalry captain’s “my brother had sex?!”

The reasoning for your arranged marriage with him is not lost on you - Ragnvindr is a household anyone would want to be part of, the Young Master was the most eligible and the promise was made between your father and Crepus a long time ago. The two, from what you understand, had been close friends in their youth and worked closely with one another, even if you - personally - never met his sons. Of course, once Crepus had passed - a few months before your own eighteenth birthday - you figured that the arrangement was done and over with, and your mother would cart you off with some older man in another country.

Except, that wasn't the case - three years later and you received an invitation from the Dawn Winery. Diluc was still keeping up his fathers promise, but the two of you hadn't even seen each other in adulthood. And your first meeting after that was uncomfortable and awkward - he'd done his engagement with you, but it was clear that he had no idea how to navigate any of this. (Not like you did, either).

The wedding still happened - you'd begged for it to be small, but your mother does not do things small. And Diluc merely wanted it to be done and over with, and you'd spent your entire wedding day apologizing profusely and him reassuring you that he doesn't really care, the mora doesn't matter.

And now, four months into the marriage, you're still trying to even get a glimpse of your elusive and quiet husband. The two of you don't even share a bedroom, and you often find yourself in a confused haze, wandering around the Winery and vineyard with very little to do. A good wife stays at home, cooks and cleans, but you can't do that because he has maids doing that and they shoo you off if you even try to help. Your embroidery skills have a lot left to be desired and whenever you offer assistance in the vineyard, you're told not to worry about it.

Boredom left you asking the head maid for something to do and Adelinde had given you a few tasks to do, you just had to organize things and that was about it. The manor is well staffed, there isn't much work for you to do, is what she'd told you. Perhaps Master Diluc would like your company.

Oh yes, your dear, beloved husband who seems to be avoiding you. Archons, you'd much rather be working for the Adventurer's Guild. You're proficient in archery because you had begged your mother into letting you learn, it was the only way she could get you to do anything else she'd wanted. Of course, being someone of nobility means that your only job is to be a dutiful spouse who bears children and stays at home, but you're going insane.

What most people don't know about the manor is that he does have a small weapons collection - some swords, a few bows and arrows, his great sword, and other things. You're not sure why he needs this armory, but you'd happened upon it one day in your usual afternoon hauntings of the hallway when staff locked you out of the busier places they'd be. (Of course, you'd be more than happy to receive guests but apparently, that's the Head Maid's job and you feel slightly insulted your husband can't even trust you with the business of the Winery)

With the bow and a few arrows in hand, you meander outside - unnoticed by the staff as they rush around for one reason or another (rumors have it that the Traveler is visiting today or someone equally important) - and find a secluded spot to start shooting.

Place the arrow, draw the string, shoot. Repeat.

You're, by no means, an expert but you like to think you're pretty good. You knock down quite a few apples, but you never aim for animals - you repeat this until your fingers are sore and hurting. Still, you load up the arrow again, point, and -

"What are you doing?"

The voice cuts your concentration and you let out a yelp of surprise, releasing the arrow in a loose and awkward manner.

"Archons! I could have shot you!" You shout as you turn to look at the person who broke your concentration. It takes you a few moments to realize who had approached you, arms crossed over his chest, and an unimpressed look on his face. "Oh, sorry, Master Diluc. I thought you were someone else."

"I didn't know you do archery." He says, hardly acknowledging your words as he steps closer. "You're pretty good."

"Of course I am," you boast. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He considers his words and you frown at him, as if daring him to say anything untoward and awful. "Not a lot of nobles take it upon themselves to become proficient in weaponry," he finally answers. You're pretty sure he's spoken to you more now than he ever has in the entire time you've known each other. "Anyways, Add- Adelinde was calling for you. It's time for dinner."

"Will you be joining?" You ask as you pick up what fallen arrows you could, frowning when you realized that there's no way you could re-use them. At least you have yourself a handful of apples. "Or will you be assisting the Traveler with some things?"

"Ah - well," Diluc seems to be stumbling over his words now. It's as if he's remembering he's married to you, and you're not some familiar stranger who has decided to hunker down in his home. "If I have your okay, I would certainly like to join you for dinner."

You're handing him the apples, and he's taking them into his arms without question. You wonder if you could get away with just...handing him things and if he'd noticed. Because his eyes are trained away from you, at the horizon. His face is a tiny bit red.

"Are you not the master of the house and my husband?" You prompt. "Why would you seek permission to have dinner in your own home, with your own spouse?"

He opens his mouth to say something and closes it again. He doesn't know how to talk to you, you realize.

"What are all these for?" Diluc asks, awkwardly changing the subject.

"You eat them." You answer, as if he doesn't comprehend what apples are for. "Obviously."

He makes a noise that sounds like an annoyed growl but seems to drop the subject as he is a good husband and carries the dozen apples back, just for you.

Dinner is quiet - he's been joining you for dinner nightly now, and every time, it's just quiet. The soft clinking of silverware, and he keeps his head down as if it's hard to look at you. Sometimes, Adelinde whispers something in his ear and he'd have to look up, but not at you.

You think this is worse than eating by yourself. And he's always quick to leave once he's finished, thanking Adelinde and uncomfortably wishing you a good night.

One thing you noticed now, is that you're not without apples since that day. And there's more arrows stocked in his armory.

"Master Diluc thinks they're your favorite fruit," Adelinde explains as you ask her one day. "He ordered quite a bit. I think it's a bit too much for one person to eat, and I can only use them for so many recipes."

"Rumors have it that the Anemo Archon loves apples," you tell her. "Leave 'em out as an offering."

The head maid laughs a bit. "Perhaps. I'm not sure why he won't ask you about the things you do like."

"He'd learn things about me - and I, about him - if he stayed longer than the thirty minutes it takes him to finish his dinner." You say as you inspect one of the red fruits. Bruiseless, perfect, round. And juicy, when you bite into it. (You're sick of snacking on them, but hey, he bought them so you might as well make sure they don't waste away) "I timed him one night." You clarify after a moment.

"Yes, well, the Master is a very busy man." Adelinde says, after a moment. You're unsure if she's displeased with your comments about him - the staff is very loyal to Diluc. Of course they would be, he’s their employer and he treats them way better than most people of his status. You’re pretty sure he pays them pretty well on top of that - considering the servant houses are well constructed and well kept. "It cannot be helped."

"Sure," you simply agree, not wanting to anger the one that is in charge of quite...literally everything in the household that Diluc doesn't oversee. "But perhaps he could make time in his busy schedule for me?"

"One could only hope." Adelinde says. "Perhaps you'd like to entertain yourself with other means?" It's a polite way of kicking you out of her kitchen.

You grab an extra apple and head out. Diluc is in his study - you're surprised that he's stationed himself there. You're even more surprised when he looks up at you.

"You missed breakfast and lunch." you say, after a long stretch of silence. A small part of you wonders if you'd be having children right now if you had a husband who actually wanted to be at your side, instead of carrying an apple in your hand. "Have you eaten?"

Diluc regards you for a moment, before glancing at the small plate with crumbs of some confectionery on it and an empty tea cup.

"...At some point." he says as he looks back down at his papers.

You set the uneaten apple down on his desk.

"We apparently have an overabundance of apples," you inform him with a small smile. "Do your part and eat some then."

Diluc stares at it as if he's never seen an apple before. "Right," he says, after a moment. "Right. Yes. Thank you." The way he says your name sounds lovely but strange, like he's sounding it out. "There's a target range outside."

You quirk a brow and head out.

The target range is simple - it resembles something the Hilichurls would use, but you can at least practice your aim.

Your evening goes quietly - Diluc joins you for dinner again. Tonight it's your favorite meal.

"How come you don't go to Mondstadt anymore?"

Huh? You look at him with surprise.

"Well, I guess...I don't know. Most of my friends are married and have kids or like, moved." Because if you saw your parents, you might cry is the real answer.

"The maids tell me you're bored." You're likely to become the tale of a poltergeist haunting the Ragvnidr mansion, a tale for the children to tell for ages to come. "You can get a job in the city if you'd like. Come work at the Angel's Share."

"With you?"

His face tinges red and he clears his throat. "Maybe."

"How 'bout the Cat's Tail?"

A silence. A grumble.

"If you must." Diluc sounds resigned at the thought - you, however, find yourself wanting to work with the cats at that cute tavern but you wouldn’t actually do that to Diluc, regardless of the current standing you’re both in. You’re not even sure what kind of work you want to do, but bar work doesn’t sound all that great for you (or a match). You decide to let him think you’re willing to work with the competition.

It's in the middle of the night when you're woken up to something - a sound. You've always been a light sleeper and the Manor is always so silent at this hour. There's some shifting, you let out a breath when you feel a familiar but comforting sense of energy around you.

When you fully wake up, you're met with your Vision at your bedside. It flows with familiarity, glowing when you touch it. The Electrical element gives you more energy than you thought you’d ever imagine-

You'd received it in your teens and your mother confiscated it from you. She claimed you had no need for it - someone like you does not deserve it. After all, Visions are only for people who are worthy and who are you to believe you're worthy of such a blessing?

How?

You wonder if Adelinde had quietly dropped it off or if -

Would he? Diluc? The man who can barely stand being in the same room as you? Hardly. Maybe an Archon chose to give it back to you.

With energy that you haven't had in ages, you dress and head down for breakfast. Diluc is there.

"Good morning," he says, barely glancing at you. His face is tinged red again.

"What a lovely surprise," you say. "Truly blessed by the Archons today to see my husband."

He makes a soft 'hmph' sound. "Were you not complaining about never seeing me?"

"I'm glad you came."

Diluc gives no answer.

He heads to Mondstadt Proper, offering you a chance to come along - but you decline. You'd rather practice what you were blessed with. Also, you’re not really up for seeing anybody you know at the moment - you’d rather not field questions on what it’s like to be married to the Diluc Ragnvinidr. Sure, it’s bragging rights but neither of you even share a bed and barely speak to one another as is.

He is back by lunch.

And you are a bit singed - bruised but energetic from practicing with your Electro Vision. It glows at your side.

Diluc looks pleased.

"You seem happier these days." Adelinde says as you enter the kitchen for your daily snack of the never ending abundance of apples. They even taste sweeter. "Have you told the Master to stop ordering these apples for you?"

"I prefer that they become part of our nightmares," you answer her with a small shrug. Adelinde gives you an odd look. "'sides, they're an alright snack." 

You snag one extra one and bid her a quick goodbye as you head to Diluc's office. As before, you set the apple down for him to eat.

This time, you stay.

"Is there something you need?"

"Thank you."

"Whatever for?"

So, you gesture to the Vision that hangs at your side. “If you brought this to me, thank you.” Diluc peeks at it and says nothing. “The apples too, but the maids seem displeased with those.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Am I bothering you?”

“No.” he answers, tensely. “I’m just…don’t worry about it. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” Silence falls over you, and you look everywhere but at him as he pointedly stares at his desk. “Um-”

“So why are you ordering an over abundance of apples?”

“Do you not like them? I can order something else. Sunseittas, those fruits from Fontaine, anything-”

“N-no, they’re fine.” You force out, interrupting him before Diluc works himself into some sort of anxiety induced panic attack. “They’re perfect, thank you.” You need to learn to put your foot down, but you didn’t want to accidentally upset him and think you hated how kind he was, even if the apples were a bit much. Hopefully Adelinde will talk to him instead.

–

It's been a week since the two of you have last exchanged any sort of conversation or words - the schedule went back to relatively normal. He’s there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner now - sometimes, there’s an uncomfortable invitation for tea and no conversation to flow with it. You find yourself wondering if Diluc even knows what he wants at this point, even when you try to better engage with him, he seems to barely meet your eyes this days and barely responds so you tend to dominate the conversation.

“Is something wrong, Diluc?” you finally ask, during afternoon tea, one day. He’d barely touched his own tea and his eyes lowered with shame on his beautiful face. “Did something happen?”

“No,” he says, after a moment and clears his throat. “My apologies, I was daydreaming, that’s all.”

“About me?” You tease, unable to help the fact you noticed how he looked at you earlier - with this strange look of longing and hunger. But he always acts as if there is a barrier between the two of one, and if he broke that barrier…of what might happen afterwards. You have to swallow a giggle when his face goes redder and he looks away. “Wait - really?”

“M-my apologies. It seems I have some important matters to get to.”

Now it’s your turn to be red faced and shying away - watching as Diluc walks away before you can muster up the bravery to call out to him to come back.

What a great start to your marriage, you think sarcastically as you wander the halls again - confused as to what to do. It’s been what, two months? Since the two of you got married now. Something like that, and what looked like behavior starting to change for the better, was now becoming a problem again. You let out a heavy sigh and sit down on a bench in the garden, burying your face in your hands. Maybe this marriage really is a sham - maybe you could get a divorce, no harm, no foul. Nobody would blame you for that, right? Or him.

You do not go down for dinner that night - feeling way too humiliated over what had happened between the two of you. It takes a week to be brave enough to be in the same vicinity as him, or well, you would be but your husband isn’t anywhere to be seen. With a sigh, you decide to venture out on your own for a while, armed with the wooden bow that’s intended more for practice than actual self defense and some arrows. It isn’t like there are any hilichurls or treasure hoarders who linger nearby or even in the vicinity of the Dawn Winery. 

As you wander along the shore of the riverbank behind the Winery, you find yourself lost in your own thoughts - puzzling together the enigma that is your husband. He avoids you sometimes, and a lot of the time, doesn’t seem to know what to do with you, as if he’s surprised you’re there whenever he sees you. You know you can be pretty shy, but this man takes it to another level. You know Diluc had suffered a tragic loss or two, and you know he can be pretty closed off and rough around the edges, but this feels just ridiculous.

You pluck flowers as you go along - Calla Lily’s, Lamp Grass, really, whatever catches your eye. You figure you could spruce up your room some with decorations, now that it’s been bare for close to five months. It’s not as if you’re forbidden from decorating, it’s just that you haven’t felt like it just in case something happened within your marriage that would ruin that time and effort.

When dusk hits the horizon, you finally force yourself to trek back to the manor, flowers in one hand, your makeshift weapon in the other. As the manor appears in your sights, you decide you won’t go inside just yet - though you’re sure everyone is worried about your disappearance, you don’t particularly care right now.

Diluc is sitting on a stone bench in the garden, his eyes downcast and a small frown on his face and you stop dead in your tracks. You can’t help but think of how beautiful he looks with the sun setting behind him, casting soft hues on his face, his red hair down and waving with the soft winds. Beautiful but sad.

“Hey.” you greet, finally catching his attention.

“Where have you been?” he asks, quickly getting to his feet. “You left and you didn’t say anything to anyone, I thought you were hurt!”

“Sorry, Master Diluc,” you say, sheepishly. “I just went for a walk and lost track of time.” Diluc reaches out, as if he wants to touch you and hug you but withdraws just as quickly. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, I should have said something.”

You hold the flowers you had plucked from your impromptu adventure.

“Some flowers because everyone deserves flowers.” You echo something from the past and his beautiful red eyes widen for a moment. “Remember? You said that to me once. So here, some flowers because I think you need some.”

Tentatively, he reaches out, accepting them from your outstretched hand. Your face, you realize, is red and not because it’s sunburned.

“Thank you.” he murmurs. You remember, once, that Adelinde had mentioned he likes Lamp Grass.

–

Diluc puts any flowers you give him in vases that sit in the best spots in the manor - you’d found that he really likes to receive them as gifts, so you go out of your way to find them out in the wild and present them to him like a dog presenting the fruits of its hunt. He always looks much happier when he receives these flowers, and the manor looks a bit better too - the artwork, you always thought was a bit bleak (but never said anything because apparently Master Crepus painted some of them) and the whole place just needs more color.

He stays around now, to talk to you or to be around you even if neither of you talk. It feels normal, like what a normal, married couple would do. But maybe the two of you just aren’t normal - he most certainly isn’t.

Sometimes, Diluc leaves for the city in the evenings and always says that it’s a night shift at the tavern so Charles can have a night off or two. You don’t think much of it, so long as you can actually see your husband more frequently, he still has his job to do.

It’s late, and you haven’t even considered going to bed yet - despite having taken a bath and switching into a nightgown because summer nights in Mondstadt are hot and you’re a bit too absorbed into the book you’d been reading since after dinner time. So, you’re slung on the couch, with a blanket on your lap and legs (sliding off, of course) as you get more and more engrossed in the mystery romance that you’d found in Diluc’s library. The downpour of the rain outside only adds to the ambience and it makes you quite sleepy.

Neither of you were sure when the Master of the house was going to be home, so when it came close to midnight, you insisted that Adelinde head to bed. You’re Diluc’s spouse, after all, you can greet him and take care of him when he gets home. There was a moment where the head maid looked like she was going to argue this with you, but she’d decided against it. It’s about two in the morning when you’re falling asleep, half slipping off the couch yourself when you hear the front door open a bit louder than usual. This startles you from your sleep, and you get up, making your way to see who has the audacity and the bravery to try to break into the manor.

“Diluc?!” you gasp as you rush forward, trying to quell the Electro energy that had been surging in you, ready to attack. He looks like a pathetic wet cat at this moment, hair sopping wet and sticking to his face, clothes just as drenched, his clothes askew and torn, he smells a bit burned. “Are you okay?” Your arm is already snaking around him, and he can’t even look at you. “Archons, you’re warm. C’mon, let’s get you upstairs and in bed.”

“I’m -” he stutters out. Clears his throat. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” You answer, a bit more snappishly than intended. He doesn’t fight you as you help him up the winding staircase and down the hall - into the master bedroom. “What happened?”

“I got caught in the downpour is all.” he says, still unable to meet your gaze. You’re already working to unbutton his shirt to make sure he isn’t injured anywhere that you can’t see. There’s a few bruises and welts forming on his body. “H-hey, I said I’m fine.”

“Why won’t you let me help you?” You ask, pulling away - feeling more hurt and exasperated than you think you should be. “Diluc, I’m your wife and you won’t even look at me.” Despite your words, he’s doing his best to look everywhere but at you. “Diluc, look at me.”

Carefully, he lifts his gaze to yours - his eyes are so enticing. His face is a little bit red, and you think you catch his eyes drifting downward for a moment before meeting your own eyes again.

“What happened?” You prompt.

“I got caught in the downpour.” Diluc answers, simply. “There was a - there was a treasure hoarder lurking outside of Mondstadt’s walls.”

“You got into a fight?”

“Yes, but I’m fine. They aren’t worth much energy or attention.” You sigh and rub your forehead. “It’s just a little bit of rain, I’m honestly more lucky you didn’t try to electrocute me.” It’s an attempt at a joke, one where he’s forcing a smile but you can’t bring yourself to return it. “I…I don’t know what you want me to say or do.”

“As long as you’re okay.” you tell him, finally resigned. “It’s late, we both should go to bed. Um…Adelinde will lose her mind tomorrow when she sees you tracked mud on her clean floors but I’ll take the blame for that.” You bid him a quick good night, turning to leave him to his own devices if he doesn’t actually need your help.

“Hey, wait.” His voice is slightly strained. Your hand is on the brass knob and you look over at him, watching as he gets up and takes a few strides towards you. Before you could ask what he needs, his lips brush up against yours for a brief moment. The kiss is soft and he breaks away after a moment, his thumb caressing your cheek. You tilt your head to the side, trying to comprehend what he just did. “I’m sorry.” He mumbles. “I should have asked.”

“So ask.” You whisper, feeling oddly cheeky.

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing as he does so. He clears his throat, a nervous habit of his. “Then, may I kiss you again?”

“Yes.” You murmur and he pulls you in for another kiss, this time more certain - needier. You find yourself melting into his touch, leaning against him as the two of you make it back to his bed. Clothes start to scatter around, his skin is weirdly dry to the touch (and you attribute it to his Pyro vision) but lovely anyways. There’s scars all over his body, your eyes rake over the muscle and old injuries, you start to ask him what happened but he stops you with another searing kiss. Tongue in mouth, teeth nipping at your lips. Soon, those lips, that hot mouth, find their way to your neck - biting and sucking.

But he always stops short of going down further, looking at you with hunger, looking unhinged with those red eyes and wild red hair and the soft glow of the candlelight. Your body aches with need.

“I wish to touch you.” he whispers.

“So touch me.” you breathe. That seems to be all he needs for him to remove those damn gloves, tossing them to the side. Teeth graze at a nipple, making you gasp and arch as his hand teases your other nipple. Lips move down further and further, searing kisses with soft bites that follow, and he tries to get every inch of your skin.

“So beautiful,” he breathes and gently bites your hip bone. Diluc kisses the area above your pubic bone, before moving to kiss along your thighs - teeth digging in deeper and he stops his ministrations right before hitting the spot you want him to focus on. Your eyes lock together. Your heart skips a beat when he bends down and presses his lips against your clit, tenderly kissing at your wet cunt and you gasp. His tongue pokes out, giving your slit a curious lick before diving right in.

His lips and tongue work at you as if he were a starving man - the noises that escape you are lewd and embarrassing as he licks and sucks, a finger slowly working at your entrance. You gasp when he presses a finger inside of you - it’s bigger and thicker than your own, and you can’t help but squirm at the intrusion. Much to your dismay, he pulls away from your soaking cunt to look up at you, his face a mess.

“Are you okay?” his voice is raspy and he’s definitely drunk on your pussy. His face is about as red as his hair at this point, he’s panting slightly and oh, he looks more like a demon of temptation than anything sweet or angelic. Want is etched on every bit of his features and your slick shines on his lips.

“Just - ah - unused to the feeling.”

“Mm,” he gives your clit a lick and you gasp, tightening around the appendage that gently presses in a bit further. “Tell me if I hurt you.” At your nod, he dives right back in - and he slowly adds in another finger and you whine, your fingers finding perch in his soft, but soaked hair. He pays that no mind as he starts to move his fingers in and out, slowly stretching you until he curves them upwards and - oh. You see stars.

“Diluc!” You moan out, grinding against him now. “Fuck.” You’re pretty sure he’s probably grinning to himself. He continues to eat you out and fuck you with his fingers until you’ve ridden out your orgasm, and are more of a mess of noises and moans, fingers pulling at his hair.

He pulls away soon enough, and you stare up at him with slight disappointment - your body trembling from your orgasm and the cold air that hits your heated skin. Diluc trails his fingers along your torso, playing with your breasts for a few moments.

“You’re perfect like this.” Diluc murmurs. Unable to properly formulate a reply, all you can do is reach to meet his hands for a brief moment until you find him gripping one of your legs and under your waist, pulling you flush close to him. “Remember to tell me if I hurt you too much.” You nod, watching him give his cock a few pumps, some pre-cum shining at the tip and you can’t help but feel a sense of nervousness. Sure, you’ve had sex with a partner or two before but that still doesn’t alleviate the anticipation or worry, considering his size. “We don’t have to do this.” He tells you, softly.

“I want to.” You murmur. He guides himself to your slick entrance, gently teasing your folds with the head of his cock for a moment, watching in delight as your eyes close and you push yourself closer, trying to encourage him. Once his head penetrates, you can’t help but reach to grip his arm. He shifts, gently pushing himself in, inch by inch, and your hands finally find each other. Soon enough, Diluc’s bottomed out - your legs on either side of his waist as his hands hold yours down on the bed. And oh, you feel so full - stretched out on his cock.

He stays still for a few minutes, peppering your face and neck with kisses as he whispers words of affirmation - before slowly pulling out and pushing back in. He keeps a slow pace at first, watching your face and kissing you whenever you look like you’re about to cry out.

“So wet for me,” he breathes against your ear. “So good for me.” And those words go straight to your cunt, clenching around him. “Look at you, so needy for me.” Archons, you wonder what else you can get him so say in that tone. Maybe even filthier things.

Your arms wrap around his shoulders and you cling as he continues to fuck you - your second orgasm hitting you as hard as your first, this time you let out a shrill sound and a sob, your nails digging into his back. You think you hear him let out a hiss at that, but you don’t care as you dig your teeth into his shoulder to try to muffle your cries. There’s a taste of copper in your mouth so you let go, giving the bite wound an apologetic kiss.

“Mine.” he groans out, pace quickening. “Ah - I’m gonna -” His thrusts become harder, deeper and your legs lock around his waist as he bites and sucks at your throat, leaving hickies in his wake. He groans as he cums, his pace slowing down to shallow thrusts - the wet noises filling the air. Your muscles feel weak as your legs slowly free him, his cock finally slipping out - followed by a mess of his cum. Your arms fall away as well and much like before, his hands find yours as he kisses you, deeply. He shifts a bit so he isn’t caging you.

The kiss breaks, a string of saliva hangs between both your lips and he looks at you with want - like he could easily go another round.

“We should get you cleaned up,” he murmurs, shifting to get up. “Do you need anything?” You reach out, catching his arm before he can actually get up and off the bed.

“Just…lay with me for a while.” Diluc looks at the mess you both made - or well, mostly him - with a sheepish and slightly ashamed look but he lays down next to you. “I just want to be next to you.”

“Okay,” he murmurs and nuzzles the crown of your head. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He’s silent for a moment and you open your eyes. “Diluc, for what?”

“Avoiding you.” There’s some shame in his voice. “I-you don’t know how long I’ve been wanting you but couldn’t have you.”

“And why not?” you prompt as you sit up. “We’re married, aren’t we?”

“Well yes but -” he pauses for a moment, as if thinking. “I figured you hated me or resented me for our…arrangement. I didn’t want to impose.” You stare at Diluc, slightly stunned. “I know I sound ridiculous, but I would have thought you’d be against an arranged marriage. I remember when we were kids and you were telling everyone you’d never get married, that you were going to join the Adventurer’s Guild and become a famous adventurer.”

You snort. “You remember that?”

“Of course I do. You know, we were introduced when we were young, and when father said that the two of us were going to be married, you told him straight to his face that you’d never marry a boy.” Diluc lets out a soft sigh.

You snort back your laughter. “Did that upset you?”

“N-no.” He lets out a soft laugh. “I wish we’d been able to speak more while growing up but…I was busy. I think the last time we actually ever interacted was at some ball or party, you were crying over something and…”

“You gave me flowers.” you finish, quietly. “I remember that very distinctly. Honestly, you made my night way better for that. I’m surprised you remember that moment.”

Diluc frowns at you. “Of course I do. Father actually had a few choice words to your mother about making you cry like that.” He lets out a soft breath. “I actually went off out of the city to find the perfect flowers to give to you in hopes that it’d cheer you up. I…was lucky you hadn’t already left the city when I got back.”

“Thank you, Diluc,” you murmur. “Really.”

A comfortable quiet lapses between the two of you - his fingers stroking your hair. You could fall asleep like this. “If you still want to join the Adventurer’s Guild, I would not be opposed to it.” He finally says, quietly. “Or if you want to work in the city - it isn’t uncommon these days, and I fear your family was a bit too traditionalist in how they raised you.”

“Maybe.” you mumble. “I could work at the Cat’s Tail, give you a bit of trouble.”

He leans down and kisses you on the lips. “I’d much prefer you joining the Guild.” he murmurs against your lips. “I might even have bragging rights if you get better at not breaking my weapons that you get your hands on.”

“Hmm, I’ll consider it.” You curl up close to him, your eyes drooping shut. You feel him relax and rest next to you, his breath warm. “Diluc?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” You feel him kiss the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his hair tickling you as he does.

He'd memorized every detail you shared with him, because you were just so fascinating to him. Diluc hated the way Kaeya's arm slung around your shoulders as if the two of you have been buddies your entire lives. Rosaria barely graces you with attention, simply electing to enjoy her drink with two extroverts intent on disrupting her peaceful night. You do not care for any rude putdown, allowing it all to roll off your shoulders.

When Kaeya becomes too drunk - supposedly - to carry on a decent conversation with you, Diluc picks up the slack. It's awkward and uncomfortable at first. Your name is sweet in his mouth, he tastes it and swirls it around some and fears that if he speaks it, he may taint it.

Interacting with you was a different level for him, it was strange because you were the first one in his life to make him lose his footing, make him lose his breath, and make him nervous. But not in the same way Adelinde makes him nervous when she places her hands on his hips and gives him a disapproving stare when he tracks blood and mud on her clean floors, not in the way Jean makes him nervous when she challenges some of his more intense ideals. This nervous was different, like if he messes up, that's it. His words are carefully chosen, he practices your name every morning, trying to get used to saying it in hopes that if he sees you around, he can call out to you like it's a normal, every day occurance.

And he does see you around sometimes, in the green uniform assigned by the Adventurer's Guild (truly, you would look much better in the clothes he could provide if you were his-) but you're always too busy to stop and engage in conversation. This does not stop you from waving at him, acknowledging his presence when he accidentally stops and stares for a little bit too long. Sometimes he gawks like a teenage boy and he can't help himself.

Diluc is a gentleman, he knows better than to have thoughts about you - it feels wrong when you creep into his mind too late at night and leave him wanting. His hand around his cock, his fingers working quick as he guiltily thinks what you might look like undone because of him. Wonders what you might taste like, how your legs would quiver around his shoulders while his tongue laps hungrily at your folds, and wonders what you'd sound like when you call out his name in desperation.

When those nights happen, he can't even look at you in the eyes when he sees you next. Diluc knows all of this is normal, but it doesn't feel normal for him.

He has your favorite drink memorized - you aren't a heavy drinker, alcohol wasn't much of a thing in Fontaine unlike coffee and tea. So, always one drink, nothing heavy, but it you like it sweet and fruity. Unlike Kaeya, he lets you have a free drink every once in awhile, tries to relish in the way you look at him with wide eyes and a bright smile. Tries to ignore the way his heart pounds and his breath quickens when you thank him. (You could ask him for the entire world and he will try to get it for you)

Diluc tries to recall all the lessons his father gave him on romance and dating, realizes that many of those lessons are a bit outdated and perhaps, would not work on someone like you. He considers asking Adelinde before deciding that he didn't want the third degree from his head housemaid (who is more like a mother to him).

So, he elects to watch you from afar - learn your likes and dislikes because talking to you is somehow harder than fighting a Mirror Maiden or being involved with a particularly difficult business partner.

And it dawns on him how stupidly mundane and normal it is to have a crush on someone. Diluc wasn't ever sure he was capable of normal. He can't do things normally and he's come to accept this at some point.

By some happenstance, he learns of your favorite flower and orders a bunch of them to be sent to you - anonymously, of course. Although, he wishes he could have your attention when they arrive at your doorstep from Fontaine, wondering if you're happy to receive them or not.

"Someone sent me flowers," you mention to him, one evening. Lately, you've been coming around more and more without Kaeya with you. You've made your own little group of friends here, easily fitting right in and he always tries to imagine where his place would be in your group of friends and it always spirals to him as your partner, your beloved. Your husband. "The note that came with it was very sweet, but I wish that it wasn't anonymous so I could thank them. I've been missing Fontaine recently."

Diluc swallows the lump in his throat, clears his throat - a strange nervous habit he has.

"Would that not take the romance out of it?" When you give him a strange look, he feels his face grow a bit hot. "I mean, I hear some of the maids talk about how they'd love to have a secret admirer, something about it being more romantic."

"Master Diluc," you gasp. "Are you, perhaps, a secret fan of romance novels?"

"Did I not just tell you I only hear these things from the maids?"

You smile a bit. "You're hard to tease, you know that?"

"My apologies." You blink, confused and he clears his throat again. "So, who do you think might have sent you those flowers?"

You open your mouth to say something, possibly another teasing comment before deciding against it. "I'm not sure," you admit. "I don't often have romantic entanglements. I had one partner back in Fontaine and it ended up as a disaster. We were colleagues and it was so stupid." You sigh. "He was never the type to buy me flowers."

Diluc makes note that he will spoil you proper with flowers when you become his.

After a few weeks, he orders you another batch of flowers - this time a mix of your favorite and another common flower from Fontaine. Rainbow Rose, pretty pink roses that he pictures would liven up the manor, and be in abundance at the wedding the two of you could have.

No, he has to tell himself. You can't get that far.

"What is on your mind tonight?" Diluc asks as he makes your favorite drink. You look at him, as if trying to read him. "That secret admirer of yours again?"

"Yeah. Flowers, again." You say. "No note this time, which is disappointing." You rub your forehead. "Master Diluc, what would you do if you have the feeling some anonymous person was trying to court you?" Diluc gets the feeling you're fishing for answers.

"That has never been a concern of mine." He tells you. "Most women who try to catch my attention are never discreet about it."

"You make it sound like that's the worst possible thing in the world."

"If they were not doing this simply so their fathers could secure a better business deal with the Dawn Winery, I suppose I wouldn't mind it." He doesn't dislike it but none of those women ever really hold his attention, although he's entertained a few of them in his time, the courting never went beyond a few meetings before they'd decide he just wasn't for them.

"You don't strike me as the type to like being given that kind of attention," you admit. "Ever the evasive and strange Master Diluc. Perhaps I have you pegged all wrong."

"Oh?"

"Mm," you say as you take a sip of your drink. "Rich men tend to throw their money and power around to garner themselves a romantic partner. Honestly, it's gross."

"Well, I have never seen the point in doing so." Diluc answers, bluntly, feeling a bit insulted you'd even thought of him that way. "So tell me, then, how do you like to be courted?"

"Well, for starters, as lovely as the secret admirer thing is, I prefer if someone can actually tell me if they have feelings for me," you inform him. "Anonymous flowers once is nice, twice will have me wondering if they even respect my time."

"Ah - would you like other gifts then?"

"No - well, I don't - ugh, that's hard to answer." You push your hair back and he loves the way it falls around your face. He loves that, even though you don't get drunk, you can get a bit more relaxed and looser with your words as you drink. "I mean, I'd like if the person who is...trying to court me as you say, would just tell me and do it properly."

"I see."

"Have you never been in a romantic relationship before, Master Diluc?" Maybe you do know and he should come clean. He swallows, Adam's apple bobbling.

Once, he thinks. Jean and I had this whole fake wedding when we were kids. But that doesn't count.

"Not really, no."

"Oh."

In this moment, he desires to lean over the counter and kiss you. See what you taste like with remnants of that fruity drink on your lips, if you would get angry or if you would lean into the kiss. He desires for his hands to wander, for you to invite him to touch you even further -

"Aw, drinking without me, my delightful friend?"

"Evening, Captain."

"Kaeya."

Diluc is a gentleman, and he is quite the heartbreaker, he knows this. He'd sent many noble women crying by accident - rejection hurts or his indifference is worse. Adelinde would scold him many times for it, reminding him that he should still be considerate of their feelings. But it's never his fault that they get upset for being told he's not interested.

With you, he has fantasized about kissing you, dramatic love confessions (because apparently those are a thing in romance novels from what he's heard Hillie and Mocco say as they worked), or just simply telling you, but it feels wrong to simply confess.

This pining is getting him nowhere, and he worries about sending you more flowers and earning your ire instead.

So, at the advice of Adelinde - after he tried to lamely claim it was Kaeya who was looking for the advice - he starts to write you letters. Many, but none quite fit what he feels. He can give you all the flowery words in the world, but they are not succinct enough. Diluc isn't exactly the best at words, not like Kaeya, who can have both men and women swooning very quickly. He's always held the attention and engagement of crowds and Diluc finds himself envious of that.

Finally, he elects to do something so stupidly simple.

He writes you a letter in the dead of night, exhausted from a days work, requesting if he could court you properly this time around. And he sends it.

Because of course he did.

Because that's what a proper gentleman should do, right?

You are late for your weekly visit to his tavern, and Diluc finds himself wishing he had Charles manning the bar tonight instead of him. Though why should he be acting like a lovesick schoolboy? He is a grown man.

An hour goes by, and you're not in your usual spot and he fears he may have driven you off with that letter that never should have been sent in the first place.

When you do finally arrive, it's an hour before closing and you look beat. But your smile, when you see him, is still as radiant as the sun (though perhaps that's him imagining things, he doesn't know anymore).

"You're...late." Diluc observes as you half slump in your seat, bag dropping to your side. "Are you okay?" Perhaps you haven't read his letter and that's why everything is almost relatively normal.

"I'm okay," you finally answer as he starts to make your drink. "Sorry I'm here an hour before you close, it's been a long day."

He sets the glass down in front of you. "Do you wish to talk about it?"

"Tsarvitch is such an asshole," you grumble. "Tsarvitch? More like Tsarbitch."

"Yes, I hear he can be a bit difficult." You lapse into a silence, watching him. "Do you wish to talk about something else?" You reach down, grabbing your bag and pulling out an envelope with the Winery's wax seal in blue. He has to look away.

"I received this letter from the Dawn Winery," you tell him, pointing to the blue wax seal and the return address. You pull the letter out of the envelope, and it's clear you've read it multiple times since he sent it a week ago. "From someone asking if they could properly court me." He doesn't want to look at the contents of that letter, he was deliriously tired when he wrote it. "Who, at the Dawn Winery, could have sent this?"

"I'm-"

"How come you didn't sign your name?" Diluc can't answer that. He doesn't remember what was going through his head. "My answer, though, Master Diluc, is yes. You can properly court me."

His heart pounds in his chest as he meets your eyes. Of course, the answer was so simple - Archons, why couldn't he have done this in the first place? A few whole months wasted, when he could have spent it with you in his arms.

"Are you sure? I'm-"

"I'm sure." You interrupt. It's not often someone of nobility seeks to date someone who is not a noble, but he can't help it. Diluc just hopes that they won't eat you alive, though he has a feeling you can handle your own when it comes to the more judgmental types. He may have to protect them from you.

"In that case," Diluc says, hoping he won't scare you away. "May I kiss you?"

"Always."

He delights in your answer, moving to step outside of the counter so the damn thing isn't in his way so he can fully and properly enjoy you. He cups your face between his hands, bending down some and pressing your lips together. Soft, sweet - Diluc is a selfish man sometimes and he longs for more when you break away.

You whisper something as he pulls you back in for another kiss. Your hands wrap around his shoulders and entangle in his hair. A small part of him longs to lift you up and take you on the counter, but he needs to take this slow. He is a gentleman after all, properly court before bringing you to bed with him.

Yet, you refuse to let the kiss end this time around, chasing after him.

"I want you," you whisper. "Diluc."

"No dinner first?"

“fine!” your reply is light, “just, i’m a bit tired… is it okay if we just eat leftovers from last night for dinner? i’m really sorry…” when you smile up at him, it doesn’t meet your eyes, nor too do your eyes meet his own.

lies—you’ve never been all that successful at convincing him of them, due in part to the guilt that you can’t keep hidden from your countenance, as well as the callowness of your voice that seems to render any falsity you utter ring with an air of untruth.

“it’s nothing to apologise for.” he says slowly, standing before you as he awaits the hug you always give him when you arrive home from work, the press of your ear over his heart. you up on the tips of your toes as you ask him for a kiss and to cut up a peach so you might feed them to each other as you sit on the sill facing village hills.

you do none of these, and al haitham wonders why.

walking past you, he ruffles your hair, softly scritches at your scalp. “go wash up; i’ll set the table.”

you want to speak, say thank you, but you can find no words. a deep melancholy breaks over you like a hurricane. it terrifies you. but still you lift your head, look past his ear as you smile again to hide all the woe-rapture that festers within.

and this is all it takes for al haitham to resolve that he will do something about it.

the tahchin is bitter on your tongue today. 

grains of rice pebbly between your teeth, chicken tasting far too much of chicken and not the blend of spices it had been marinated in. it’s near unpalatable. 

and just as it is unpalatable, it is a most arduous task to even lift your fork. the weight of your melancholy is clamped to your wrist and your jaw—it makes eating all the more difficult than it need be, and a knot at the back of your throat that feeds the taste of bile into your mouth only serves to darken the shadow that your malaise casts over dinner.

how is it: your favourite dish losing its ability to console, its only purpose to be a vessel for sustenance. yet, even at that, what sustenance does it provide you with when each bite makes you feel as though you might hurl?

“you’re not eating.” al haitham observes sharply, glancing at you out the corner of his eye. it’s a serious shortcoming in his mind, obviously, for someone who does so dearly enjoy her meals.

you shrug despondently and sigh, “suppose i’m just not hungry.”

as much as he may want to, al haitham doesn’t push further—his hand hovering over a button before deciding to leave it untouched in fear of what may come. and you’re grateful, that he doesn’t ask you what the matter is, and simply hums in acknowledgement before returning to his food.

(his silence casts a harsh stroke upon your heart.)

you’re grateful, truly, you are.

(you hear his voice in your head—‘are you alright, habibti?’, and quickly, you seize a grasp of your heart to stop the bleeding that threatens to reach your eyes.)

now you’ve gone and worsened the spoil of your appetite.

resting your fork on the worn wood table, you sigh yet again—this time around a soft wispy thing that does little to soothe the ache of your lungs, and turn your head to regard his profile. 

the relaxed ridge of his brows and the handsome slope of his nose, lidded teal eyes that are always analysing, never idling; he is just as a diamond is. all sharp edges that glimmer and glint, not only in body but also in mind.

al haitham is beautiful by way of his nurturing and guiding in a seemingly unorthodox manner. generous with his intentions no matter how hard he may try to prove otherwise, clever and witty and always five steps ahead and so incredibly attractive in his self-assurance—oh, he is just perfect—as is the ground he walks upon and the air that floats over his head and each word that touches his lips. 

what is he like… winter fields blanketed by the sun and the tips of flower petals after a deluge, bubbles in wine, diamonds, diamonds, all diamonds. he is a brilliant blue diamond in your night sky.

and you, what are you like? 

puerile at heart and loud with your love. a wee bit foolish and entirely silly, always fumbling and mumbling and messing up in spite of trying your best. 

if al haitham is as a diamond is, then perhaps you would best be suited to a pearl—with those little dewy globes resting on your lashes more often than not, a heart smooth to the touch and all the more fragile.

which, yes, does sound rather precious when worded in such a way, but you can’t help but wonder, if for al haitham you are too much.

whether your whimsies are too fantastical, and your brain is too often in the clouds and not in your head where it belongs. or whether the apple-sweet naivety that offers your heart up to anyone who shows you even a modicum of kindness, be it honest or corrupt, is too much of an annoyance to look after. you worry whether your love is too strong for someone like him who has grown so comfortable in his own company, like fire scorching his blood or the waves of the sea crashing along a cliff or the sticky residue of honey on fingertips that just won’t wash off.

these woes slather uncertainty over your spine, and before you can think, you’re already reaching over to clutch at al haitham’s sleeve. 

it’s an effort to command his attention, silently, for if you call him by his name instead, you fear the tears may fly out your eyes and the pathetic hiccups out your throat and you’d weep until the end of eternity. that’s how it feels, anyway.

“yes, habibti?” al haitham wipes the corner of his lip with his thumb and lays down his fork just as you’ve done yours. he waits for your voice to fill the heavy air of the dining room, but when he notices the nervous nibble of your lip and the twiddles of your thumb, he sighs, pulls you in closer by the leg of your chair. “you know, you shouldn’t be afraid to tell me if anything’s troubling you. i’ll do my best to help however i can.”

his hand swallows your fist in a comforting embrace, plucking your fingers free one by one so that he can thread his between yours. it’s a challenge to not look his way when he behaves so darling, and in his eyes you see a certain pleading softness swimming round the edges of his pupils. 

it’d be hard to notice to an untrained eye, what with his acts of romance mostly always lacking the entirety of pomp and blare in the world, but you can tell—of course you can.

it holds you spellbound, compels you to give in, and so, you reach your trembling hands past your ribs and take hold of your burgeoning heart, pay little heed to the rose thorns that scrape and scar it as you tug it free of its cavity. placing the lame organ in front of al haitham, you wince at all its clotted ugliness and self-serving insecurity.

“that’s exactly it… i cause a lot of trouble for you, don’t i.”

(am i too much? am i too overbearing?)

“i’m always clinging onto you… and i depend on you quite a bit… don’t you find it to be bothersome?”

(i’m sorry if my love for you feels harrowing, unbearable, suffocating; i’m sorry the only way i know how to love is like a child.)

“it’s just—” there’s a fracture in your voice and then a whimper that follows. 

you’re quick to avert your gaze from him and down to the worn wood table, at your grubby plate of food. the words, recited in your head over and over slip away from your tongue and leave it laid with only scribbled thoughts; they float up—up—up… and then your eyes squeeze shut and your fingertips press anxiously into the space between his knuckles and your shoulders shirk in on themselves.

as many a time have you weeped before him—over the loveliness of a perfectly sunny day or a particularly sweet and excellent bite into a zaytun peach, over all things nonsensical and silly and things that one ought not to be weeping at. but in this moment, you feel obliged to hide your tears from him.

you’d rather he didn’t see you cry, at least, not over something like this. 

not over yourself.

“it’s just, i can’t help but feel as though you’d fare better off with someone more like you—someone more sound in mind and less chaotic at heart, perhaps. i dunno…” you pick idly at your food, the tooth of your fork accidentally sending a grain of rice flying to the floor under the pressure of its touch. how unfortunate. “i don’t know…”

(i wish i were more like you. maybe then i’d feel like less of a liability at your side.)

in all your days of loving al haitham, you’ve only presented your heart to him as a dog would to its human, but today you’re atoning. it’s near sacrificial—your laments and apologies for being too much, too little, not enough, whatever. 

your heart waits anxiously before him: sliced down the precise centre, carmine, bleeding, beating.

and for the first time since you’ve come bounding into al haitham’s life, his house is silent, though, this silence seems to dislike being broken as he mulls yours words over—save for the sad hymns sung by the wind and the gauche scritches and scratches of your fork atop ceramic.

the tears begin to brim and froth behind your lash-line, like milk on the stove that boils and isn’t being kept a watchful eye over. yet, even as your vision begins to blur, you know al haitham is glancing your way.

he takes your heart into his mouth and cradles it gently within his maw.

“is this what’s been on your mind? silly girl.” 

your lover leans into your personal space and flicks your forehead gently, coaxing your gaze from your lap to his face. 

“your heart is rather big.”

(you make it easy to adore you. and i like that. it saves me so much trouble making myself adore someone.)

“you both love and loathe it in equal parts.”

(you will always be so free and blithe, as you will always be naive and afraid. such is the eternal nature of your heart—it will coddle and weather in its fragility until its last days. won’t you trust it to me to make sure of? to care for?)

“yes—you cry too often, and you forgive too easily, and you worry too much about those who aren’t deserving of your care, and you feel guilt too strongly over things you have no control over.”

(you are so precious, so pure, so full of infinite compassion for the world.)

“it’s easy for one’s heart to be trampled over if it’s held in their palms, for the world to see. just as you hold out your’s.”

(to me, your beauty lies heaviest within your fawn heart.)

al haitham’s are words veined with ice, and your lips freeze in their subtle pout—one that wobbles on the edge of a dejected frown, “it’s not like i mean for it to—” 

“but don’t you realise that’s why i’m here? why i’ll continue to be here? to catch your heart before it has a chance to get trampled over, and to tend to it when it does?” the ice crackles through his words and they all break up, as if it were spring again. “don’t you realise this is what i admire most about you?”

(i love you.)

for a moment, your heart flutters queerly. the veil shrouding your thoughts lifts and you’re left to be shaken and pierced by al haitham’s tender tone.

“it sounds as though you wish you were more like me…” your lover takes the fork from your hand and raises with his fingers your chin, so that you may properly meet his eyes for the first time this evening. “but when we love someone, we love them entirely for themselves, not whatever thing we’ve twisted them into to fit our own image. if that were the case—we’d only be loving the reflection of ourselves we find in them. is this not what you once told me, sweetheart?”

(i love you, in all your adorably jejune whimsies and nonsensical musings and humble tidings. i love the darling tears that cling to the round of your cheek and your great excitability and childish curiosity—all things i lack. and of all things i love your mad, devout love; so… please, please continue to love me as you do without fear of abandonment.)

perhaps, after all, it is okay that you are nothing like him and he is nothing like you. that you are diametric antitheses, like earth and air or diamond and pearl. your eyes falter under his gaze, body rigid in his arms as he manoeuvres you into his lap and presses his palms to your hot cheeks. 

“please, i…” you weaken and he smiles and then you tremble and soften and melt and the tears finally bubble onto your face just as a white rose slips past its sheath. 

like a baby, you sob—free of guilt and shame, it’s the only thing you know how to do when you’ve already spoken the words in your mind.

you press a palm to his chest, fingers splayed out over his heart, head tilted down and hair hiding yourself from him. though, he can still see; and you know he can, even if all that’s in your periphery are clouds and fuzz, wobbly pearls of dew that dribble down your face. he doesn’t ask you to look at him—he already knows why you weep. from catharsis or love or joy or heartache or gratitude… all of them at once or perhaps none of them at all.

“i-i’m really sorry for r-ruining dinner!” your voice is stuffy with sniffles and you hiccup in between your words, eyes squeezed shut awfully tight so that your nose crinkles. how sweet.

there you are again, little flower. al haitham spares you a smile that twists your heart as he leans in to brush his lips against yours, exchanging breaths. i’ve missed you. “you didn’t ruin anything. now—” with one hand, he holds you by the dip of your waist to press you to his chest and uses the other to gather a bite of tahchin on his fork, “you need to eat.”

at the hands of your lover, the tahchin is savoury and full of life on your tongue, nowhere near as nauseating and boorish as earlier. “isn’t it fascinating, haitham?” you part your lips to take another bite and hum softly as the spices flush you with warmth. “how the tahchin tastes so much more delicious now that you’re feeding it to me?”

he watches on in awe as you chew on your food, tiny little hiccups from tears unshed that occasionally rack your chest and fluster you, the ones that have dried coming off your face as gossamer flakes. they’re angel tears, he’s certain of that much. 

“you have the cutest cheeks, you know…” your lover takes the fat of your cheeks between his thumb and index finger as you eat, gently squeezing and marvelling at the suppleness of your powdery skin. “baby's just like a bunny.” 

“stop teasing…” you grasp his wrist gently, swallowing your food and sucking in your cheek to bite down on it bashfully, look the opposite way of prying eyes. they’re lidded and lazy and there’s a smile that lifts them up at the edges—his eyes, you see—but also his heart. because you just make him feel like that: organs and limbs loose and relaxed and thumping with his calm pulse, vision framed by a glowy pink haze as though he were laying on marble under the sun by the sea. everything sweet and wonderful in the world.

“even after all the moments we’ve shared…” he smirks and pinches your bottom lip, bringing you in close. “you’re still just as shy as though it were our first.”

you can't help but burst into a lovely little peal of giggles as he kisses you and pampers you, your tippy toes dusting the floor playfully and your fingertips curling strands of his hair. your cheeks are stuffed with warm food and your eyes burn with the crystalline that brims at your lower lashes when you swallow thickly, so you push back the tremble to your voice and bury it under his love stored in bite after bite of tahchin. 

and even after your plate has been emptied and love is about to burst past the seams of your heart and your tummy, and you lay half-asleep atop him in a growing pool of moonlight—even after much of your aches and pains have been put to rest, al haitham still has yet to be completely satisfied, awaiting to be placated by one final thing.

“come, you must be tired,” he ties your hair for you, takes you by your hand, offers to wash the lingering fogs out of your soul. “should we bathe together before we sleep?”

al haitham’s touch is soft as he strips you of your clothing, kisses downwards of your clavicle after he removes your necklace—your wrist, your rib, your belly, your thigh. he knows just how you like your baths: window propped wide open to waft in the fragrance from blossoming peach trees and the sweet lulls of nightly birdsong, padisarah petals coasting across the water.

he prepares the room for you as such, swathing your frame between his long, broad limbs in the tub, too tiny for two, mind you. yet, he finds it to be a simple task to ignore the annoyance of the ledge digging into his spine when your body curls up against him like this, cheek pillowed by the plush of his chest and your arms draped ‘round his waist.

“you like holding me close, sweetheart?” 

it’s a fun little poke at just how tight you cling to him, but truthfully, al haitham is all the same. a hand on the small of your back or warm fingers massaging your chilly nape—he finds the utmost comfort in feeling your skin on his, familiarity in the clouds of chantilly cream and sumeru rose that seem to linger about in the air around you. 

perhaps he is just as clingy as you are, in how he cuddles you close to his chest and takes a book from the stool next to the bathtub, preparing to read to you from it.

and you listen intently—no matter how the throes of sleep try to whisk you away—to the flip of parchment, the birds keeping you company at the sill, the handsome cadence to your lover’s voice that makes your cheeks feel all bubbly, the beat of his heart dovetailing yours through your back.

he reads to you until the moon casts her light over the water through the window and your fingers are pruned—short fairytales about butterflies dancing on honey cups, maidens falling in love with talking roses—all from a certain emerald-covered book handed down to him from the only person to show him the same tender care you do.

the tension is dispelled from your shoulders, the barely there coil of anguish around you fully snapping and resolving into something lighter, entirely less murky. and as you sit there in his embrace, you feel your nose twitch and the backs of your eyes sting. 

again! again, you cry! how lame you are in love, indeed, silly girl.

because al haitham is romantic in the way he silently cares for you like this, looks at you as though you’re extraordinarily lovely, the greatest bit of knowledge he’d ever be able to wrap his head around; touches you as if you were the most delicate of flowers. 

which, you are, because how can you not blossom under his affection and grow a little love-struck?

“h-haitham?”

the words halt in his throat and he looks down at your face, or as much of it as he can make out when you’ve near buried it entirely into his neck. humming sweetly, he coaxes you on with lithe fingers slipping beneath the water’s surface to rub shapes into your doughy hip. “yes?”

“i love you…” you pick mindlessly at the emerald on his chest, let the words flow freely from the blubbering mess that has become of your voice— “i really love you, a whole lot.”—look up at him and smile toothily, plainly, eyes all watery and full of hope, promise, just like the child in you. “you love me a whole lot, too, don’t you?”

and what can he do but mirror your smile. because from it a picture of reassurance has been born, flooding and twisting and seizing his entire being. sometimes, most times, he doesn’t know how to behave when this thing, this wild love so eagerly breaks his body and pours without end into the hollow of his heart. 

but it is a nice feeling, a sweet feeling: when you look at him like this and he thinks, perhaps, he could learn to love as freely as this too. all he has to do is look. it won’t be hard. 

after all, everything he sees holds your darling smile within it.

but you close your eyes now, your lashes shining with a threat of tears, attempting to ignore the wounds inside of you and go back to focus on what was right now, towering before you. it being alhaitham, the man you loved, so fucking much, pleasing you to his heart’s content.

the scribe traces your muscles with his fingertips before pulling himself in you again, his lips parted and glistening on top of yours. everything considered, there was a strange, almost insatiable sort of pleasure bundling inwardly, he simply never looked at you like this before.

"oh? you're still concerned someone might hear us?"

"no, I'm not," you avert your gaze in denial, but the bitterness on your facial features told the entire story to his sharp pair of eyes. you suddenly close your arms around his neck so you could kiss— and better, shut him up, so that alhaitham would also forget about your panicked outburst and resort back to filling you with pleasure.

"good, me neither, i couldn't give a damn anymore."

"what—" this was probably one of the most miserable dirty talk sessions in history of such— if you can even call that awkward conversation that.

alhaitham silently hooks his fingers under your hips before pulling you off and on him, repeatedly, but this time faster as your lower body automatically arched upwards so he could move you on and off his cock in the most pleasurable, precise way. to have your sweet cunt split by his girth—it's maddening and you feel him throb inside of you as he drags himself against your warm walls, luxuriating in the softness of your pussy.

alhaitham slumps into your body, "i-don't-care-anymore-" and at each full throated groan, he spills a new word to complete his sentence.

now, everything had gotten more hot— scorchingly hot but cold too, precisely all at once and at the same time, your creamy walls being rubbed with passionate rolls of his cock as his pelvis hits yours.

everything between your thighs retorted to feeling swollen and well used, your hips sore enough to give up but you did not want to, not now, not ever, not when there was nothing that made you feel as good and free as this.

yes, alhaitham made you feel free, like you could achieve anything in life and have him by your side at the same time.

in the course of this, you close your eyes before begging him to kiss you again, uncontrollably make out with you until your lips would strain and hurt. and alhaitham notices, pushes deeper in, so deep that his shaft had been entirely webbed in your liquids and made them ooze out whenever he pulled his cock out.

he does it with such ease, like he's meant to do this, "i don't care whether people will spread rumors," and presses his lips on top of yours, muffling.

"because there's only one person i care about."

Loaded with your bags and gifts you enthusiastically knocked on his door and it was soon opened by the man himself. He was wearing a cozy hoodie and sweatpants and looked like he had just woken up from a nap. At least judging by the pillow imprint on his cheek. 

Cute, you thought.

“Hi, sleepy head. Enjoying your time off?” You greeted him teasingly, pressing a quick peck to his lips before squeezing inside past him.

You quickly kicked off your shoes and impatiently waddled behind him, following him into the living room. You were curious to see how Wriothesley had decorated his home for the holidays, so when his back left your field of view and you could finally see the room you saw…

Nothing.

Not even a single Christmas light could be found in his house. There was no Christmas tree, no Christmas cookies on the coffee table, no cozy candles, no ornaments or stockings, no nothing.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”, Wriothesley asked, gently taking your face in between his big warm hands.

“Uuuh…”

Your initial smile faltered pretty much immediately after you had taken in the utterly unfestive atmosphere and he seemed to have immediately noticed it, too.

“Is something wrong?” He inquired with a hint of concern in his voice.

“Where is the Christmas decoration?” You asked baffled. “You know Christmas is only a couple of days away, right?”

Now it was his turn to usher an awkward ‘uuuh’. He quickly glanced over his shoulder, scanning the room, before apologetically looking back at you with an expression that said ‘Sorry, it slipped my mind’.

“Well, uhm.. To be frank, I’m rarely ever here over the holidays so I don’t really… own any Christmas decorations.” He explained with a shrug and donned an embarrassed smile and scratched the back of his head. “Neither have I ever celebrated Christmas properly since I usually just work.”

“No no. This absolutely won’t do.” You lifted your finger up to his face in playful protest. “Go put on some clothes, we’re going shopping. We’re absolutely not celebrating Christmas before every nook and cranny in this house is looking festive and is covered in glitter.” You announced with determination, already marching towards the main entrance again to put your shoes back on.

“Right now?” He inquired in surprise.

“Right now.” You quickly confirmed. “And I pick the decorations – you pay.” You declared, putting your hands on your hips while glaring at him reprimandingly.

“Hey, wait a second! I never agreed to that.” He protested weakly, crossing his arms over his chest. But his smirk betrayed his real thoughts – he was enjoying this playful banter as much as you were.

“Well, too bad. You don’t get a say in this. Now come on, shopping time.”

Not even half an hour later and wrapped in your warm winter clothes, you found yourselves walking along the streets of Fontaine. It had already gone dark and a couple of snowflakes danced in the yellow light of the street lanterns. The shops by the road were all decorated with an abundance of Christmas lights and the air carried the fragrant smell of cinnamon and mulled wine.

You looked up to Wriothesley, who was walking hand in hand with you, while window shopping. When he noticed your glance his lips curled into a loving smile that was barely visible behind the gigantic red scarf that he had wrapped around his neck. His cheeks and nose were reddened by the cold and the snowflakes that got caught in his hair only emphasized how adorable he looked.

You dragged him into some stores that you knew sold various knick-knacks and decorations and bought what felt like an entire month’s salary worth of Christmas decorations. Although, despite all that, he somehow still managed to leave more money at his trusted tea store on the way back home.

Back at his house you quickly unpacked everything that you bought and got to work. While Wriothesley put up the Christmas tree you made sure not a single curtain rod, windowsill, and table was without any Christmas lights or candles. As soon as that was done you helped him put the red and gold glass ornaments on the tree.

All that was missing now was the big golden star tree topper that you attempted to hand to him, so that he could put it up on the tree himself. But before you had any chance to do so, he had already snuck both of his muscular arms around your waist and hoisted you up so you could stick it on yourself.

Once back on steady ground you looked around and marveled at your finished work. Everything was enveloped by a cozy light from all the Christmas lights and it looked even better than you had imagined. This would definitely do!

“I think we got everything.” You announced cheerfully, leaning your head against his broad chest and glancing at the tree to your left.

“Hmm.” Wriothesley hummed contemplatively, his chest vibrating against your ear as he did. “I think one thing is still missing.”

“Huh? What did we miss?” You lifted your head with a questioningly raised brow.

He fumbled around behind his back with a mischievous smirk plastered across his face. You knew that expression all too well by now – he was up to something.

You watched as he pulled out a little green twig with a red ribbon. You were barely even able to identify it as a mistletoe before he had already lifted it up into the air and held it over both of your heads. His free hand quickly found comfort around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

Within the blink of an eye, his lips sealed yours with a passionate kiss, knocking the breath right out of you. You leaned into him with a giggle and felt him smile into the kiss in return. 

In an attempt to be even closer to him than you already were, your hand found comfort in his soft raven-colored hair. Reciprocating the sentiment, he snaked the arm he had held up over you around your midriff as well, hugging you impossibly tighter.

While leaning his forehead against yours and softly rubbing the tip of your noses together, he looked deep into your eyes with the same sly smirk he had donned earlier, before proudly declaring: “Now we’ve got everything.”

ALHAITHAM

With packed suitcases, you and Alhaitham crossed the bridge to your hometown Mondstadt. It was snowing heavily and the cold, biting wind was gnawing away at every sliver of exposed skin. It felt like icy needles were pricking at your face. 

It was peacefully quiet and all that could be heard was the crunch of the thick snow below your boots.  You watched how the snowflakes danced in the wind and how they got caught in the ashen hair and lashes of Alhaitham, who was walking by your side.

Looking at him in this kind of weather was almost comical. He was used to the humid and hot temperatures of the rainforest and had never really experienced the bitter cold of winter. He was treading carefully, trying his hardest not to slip on the frozen ground. His head was almost entirely hidden underneath the big wool scarf he had wrapped around his head as if he had tried to mummify himself with it. His nose and cheeks were reddened from the cold and you could faintly make out the chatter of his teeth. 

It would almost be adorable if he didn’t have the expression of someone who was about to murder the next person who spoke to him.

You bit your tongue to hold back a teasing comment about how he couldn’t handle the cold and instead opted to hold onto his hand that was rather stiffly dangling by his side. He glanced at you over the mountain of a scarf he had wrapped around his neck and immediately saw his expression ease up a little. His brows relaxed became less furrowed and the corners of his mouth twitched upward ever so slightly.

“We’re almost there.” You reassured, which was only met with a slightly grumpy-sounding hum of acknowledgment.

Not long after you arrived at the Tavern. You picked up your room keys and quickly shuffled upstairs to settle down.

Alhaitham quickly kicked off his boots once he sat on the bed and hissed in pain. His toes were borderline glowing in red and blue hues and he wasn’t wearing any socks either. Needless to say, he was wearing his usual boots with the hole at the top. Clearly, everyone could see that they weren’t fit for conditions like these whatsoever.

“You know, these boots are kind of impractical for this weather.” You remarked snarkily. And if looks could kill you would’ve dropped dead on the spot right now.

“Don’t look at me like that!” You shot back before he could usher a word of protest. “You agreed to spend the holidays in Mondstadt after all.”

“And you didn’t think to inform me about all that before we departed?”

“Well, I thought a smart man like you would know that when I said there would be snow in Mondstadt you would naturally conclude that ‘frozen water equals cold’” You remarked in the same snarky tone.

You both looked at each other for a couple of seconds in an intense staring battle. The frown prominent on Alhaitham’s face as he desperately tried to warm his feet with his warm hands. Although eventually, your pokerfaces started showing cracks. The twinkle that started to show in both of your eyes, a twitch of the corner of his mouth, a giggle that was stuck at the back of your throat that you tried to swallow. All of them were telltale signs that your playful argument was about to end in a fit of chuckles, like so often.

And as if on call, you both started laughing out loud at the same moment.

Alhaitham pulled you closer by your hands and you sat down on his lap, facing in his direction. You buried your face in the crook of his neck and slung your arms around him, which he mirrored.

“You’re stupid.” You exclaimed, pressing a quick peck on the exposed skin on his neck.

“Oh, am I now?” He retorted smugly, raising one eyebrow.

“Well, I’m not the one who wore boots with gaping holes in them when there are five inches of snow outsi–” Before you were able to finish the sentence, he quickly began loosely wrapping his thick scarf around your face, effectively shutting you up.

“Rude.” You giggled, muffled by the thick fabric. “Now–” You began, once you had pulled his scarf off your face again. “How about we take a hot bath and then go and visit the Christmas market?”

You could see his eyes wander towards the window. He skeptically eyed the thick snowflakes that were still falling from the sky. Anyone would be able to tell that he really didn’t want to go outside anymore, at least not in this weather.

“I know it’s freezing, but – if we go out, we can go buy you a pair of warm boots and I also know just the thing to fight the cold.” You intercepted before he could usher any words of protest. And after a brief moment of hesitation, he agreed with a loving smile.

After a steaming hot bath, you both found yourself back outside again. Not long after Alhaitham also waded through the thick snow with his newly acquired cozy and warm leather boots and some additional heat-insulating wool socks. He already looked a lot more comfortable than he had when you arrived here.

You walked in the direction of the Christmas market that was being held at the feet of the statue of the Anemo Archon, in front of the cathedral. 

Hand in hand you climbed the stairs up to the plaza. You could already make out the Christmas spices that wafted through the air before you could even see the first booth. And with every step you took your excitement got bigger and bigger. Your heart was thumping loudly inside of your chest and you felt an excited prickle in the pit of your stomach. The last time you were at a Christmas market was ages ago, so you were practically bursting with excitement.

Once you arrived at the top of the stairs, you headed straight for the stand of the Dawn Winery, dragging Alhaitham along with you excitedly. You could already make out the prominent scent of mulled wine and several other hot beverages. No matter how cold the winter was, a cup of mulled wine was always the best thing to warm one up from the inside out.

You bought two mugs of steaming hot spiced dandelion wine and handed one to Alhaitham. He skeptically took a sip, unsure about whether or not hot wine would taste as good as the stuff he was so used to. But when his eyes widened and a surprised hum escaped him you could only chuckle. You had expected this reaction.

“You didn’t lie, this really helps against the cold.” He remarked after taking a couple more sips from his mug.

“See! I told you so. And as you know, I’m always right.” You teased, to which he just rolled his eyes and huffed amusedly. “Don’t you dare say anything now, Haitham.”

He stepped closer to you, embracing you in a tight hug and pressing a quick kiss to your forehead.

“You know, you’re lucky you’re so cute, or else–”, he paused dramatically, not intending to finish his sentence any time soon.

“Or else, what?” You asked, perking your eyebrows.

But Alhaitham had already ventured off to look at the market stalls with a smirk plastered on his lips. He just knew which buttons he needed to press to tease you. And clearly, you wouldn't be getting an answer out of him either.

“Dork.” You huffed, hurrying after him, interlocking your arm with his, leaning your head on his shoulder as you walked around the plaza with your warm mugs in hand.

DILUC

Christmas time was always the busiest time of the year for the Winery and the Tavern. Diluc was basically shipping out orders all day when he wasn’t at the Angel’s Share. During these times you always made sure to help him alleviate some of the stress by taking some work off his hands.

Today you filled in for someone at the Christmas Market stand of the Dawn Winery who fell ill. Your job was to man the booth for the mulled wine and punches and serve them to customers. 

It was the last weekend before Christmas and therefore the Christmas Market was packed to the brim. You barely got any time to take a break and only noticed that it was time to close up shop as soon as Diluc stood before you.

He helped you serve the last remaining customers and clean up the booth before you both started making your way back home to the Winery.

It had already gone dark outside now and the Christmas lights on the windowsills of the houses by the streets wrapped the environment into a warm light. 

Diluc’s hand that was intertwined with yours was comfortably warm like it always was. You could feel it even through your thick gloves.

Both were a stark contrast to the thick snow that crunched below your boots and the cold icy air that pricked at your skin. Every exhale created a little cloud of icy mist in front of your face.

Diluc squeezed your hand a little tighter all of a sudden and nudged his head towards the left, motioning you to follow along.

“Come with me.” He urged, an excited smile playing around his lips.

He led you out of the side gate of Mondstadt, near the Angel’s Share, and headed straight for the frozen lake. He let go of your hand and right in the next moment he was already slithering across the ice with a huge smile plastered on his face

“What are you doing?” You inquired curiously, eyeing him from head to toe as he looked at you expectantly. He stretched one hand out while putting the other behind his back, making him look unbelievably elegant.

“Join me!” 

The way he had slithered across the ice had looked so graceful and almost easy. But you had the inkling it wouldn’t end up being as easy as he made it look.

The way the snowflakes peacefully danced around you both in the yellow light of the nearby lantern made this scene almost feel dreamlike.

There was a comfortable silence in the air right now. As if the Gods had draped a white blanket over the world that muffled everything but the most important sounds. Only yours and Diluc’s steady breathing could be heard, as well as the rustling of the snow-covered trees by the shore and the soft pitter-patter of the falling snowflakes.

You stepped closer to the frozen surface of the lake and carefully put one foot on it to test the waters – or more accurately: the ice. And as expected it was extremely slippery and you almost fell the second you tried standing on it.

Diluc had come closer again and wrapped both his hands around your waist to steady you on the ice. He took hold of your hands and carefully pulled you along with him for a few meters. 

It looked like he was floating over the ice while you looked like a newborn foal that was trying to stand up for the first time in its life. Your knees were shaking and you tried your hardest to not lose your balance. But despite that the mere presence of Diluc made you feel safe.

“Why are you so good at this?” You inquired curiously, almost losing your balance once more.

“I used to do this every winter as a child. Whenever my father caught me he scolded me for what felt like hours because I could hurt myself. Although that never deterred me from doing it again every winter.” He explained amusedly as his ruby-red eyes began shimmering in the dim light of the lantern.

“Well then, is there some special technique to it? Because I feel like I’m going to fall on my butt the minute you let go of me.”

“I’ll simply not let go of you then.” He retorted with a smirk and you could feel how his grip on your waist tightened. “In all seriousness though, don’t bend your knees inward so much. Keep them straight and your soles flat on the ice. Then only bend your upper body forward a little bit.”

“Roger that.” You replied and did as he explained. And much to your surprise, you stance on the ice immediately felt a lot more safe. Your knees stopped shaking and you were able to stand somewhat comfortably now.

“Yes, just like that!”

“It works!” You exclaimed.

“Now, try moving your feet, while keeping this stance.” He instructed while slowly letting go of you, leaving you some room to move once he was sure you could stand on your own. 

He demonstrated the movement to you and you followed him by mirroring them.

Not long after you were still insecurely but steadily moving across the ice.

“Look, I’m doing it!” You yelled excitedly, looking back at Diluc who was watching you with the utmost adoration in his eyes.

“Indeed you are.” He answered proudly as he joined you again, slithering behind you and putting his hands on your waist once more. He carefully pushed you along with him.

You twirled around on the ice with a giggle and it felt like you were two figure skaters in perfect unison, showcasing their breathtaking performance. Although you were sure it looked much more amateurish than it felt. No less, because you weren't actually wearing any ice skates. But at that moment, it didn't matter.

Both of you basked in each other's presence and it felt like you let your inner child run free. The endorphin rush was indescribable. You felt practically invulnerable.

You soon felt comfortable enough to do pirouettes on the ice all by yourself. You had found the right balance to move across the ice and could even move faster than you did before.

You let go of Diluc’s hand and started circling across the surface of the frozen lake. Faster and faster you slithered across the ice.

The problem came about when you wished to come to a halt again. You never asked Diluc how you were able to stop again once you had built some momentum.

And before you had the chance to ask him you slithered and fell face first into one of the big puffy snowbanks that had piled up at the shore.

Snow immediately covered you, got stuck in your hair, fell on your face, seeped into every crevice of your clothes, and made contact with your skin. The icy sensation felt like needles pricking at your skin.

You heard Diluc yell your name muffledly and could make out hurried slithers that came in the direction of where you had fallen. He worriedly pulled you up to your feet again by your hands, patting the snow off your clothes and hair softly.

“Are you alright? I'm so sorry I should've paid more attention. Did you hurt yourself?” He was fussing over you as if you had just fallen down a cliff instead of a bed of soft, albeit cold, snow.

You giggled at his worried expression and slung your arms around his neck, looking intensely at his beautiful eyes.

“I'm alright. Don't worry about me. Although maybe I'm a bit cold now – some snow crept its way into my clothes, I fear.” You pouted with a giggle.

He wordlessly took your hands in his and removed the gloves from your fingers, intertwining his warm ones with yours. You made out a faint flare from the vision on his hip before you felt warmth seep into every fiber of your body, warming you up from the inside out.

“Be careful or you'll melt me.” You teased with a wide smirk. 

At that, he brought his face closer to yours, with an equally wide smile, before ushering: “Only your heart” against your lips, before passionately catching them into a deep kiss.