#chews-erotically writes

    Ezra’s cot stayed where it was moved that first night, sidled up with yours. You’d first held onto one another’s hands each night as part of a new ritual between soft words and sighs. You’d drifted slowly closer in cover of darkness, eventually tucked against him when you awoke in the morning. It began to be like this more often than not.

    You’d refrained from trying to broach anything more physical from him for the time being as you healed from your injuries. As you slowly came back to yourself, your desire for him returned. One night, instead of latching onto his hand, you’d beckoned his arms around you and aligned your back with his chest. His breath bloomed sweetly against the back of your neck as you ran a warm palm slowly up and then down the arm around your waist. Your skin felt electric against him. Slowly he responded to your languid touches with his own, rounding his own burning palms over the curve of your hip. A sense of fullness began to build between your legs, and pressure was cresting to an aching burn as some hidden part of you roared awake. You were dimly aware of your breaths becoming heavier, more explosive.

    The string snapped. Without warning Ezra ground his hips into yours and attached his hot mouth to your neck. You could not stop the moan that escaped your mouth, it surprised you in its volume. Ezra moaned in answer to you and placed his lips to the shell of your ear.

    “Is this real? Is this really happening?” His voice was impossibly low, husking and landing in plosives against your ear. The feeling of the low force of his words were like an electric shock that arched straight to your cunt.

    Your eyes were squeezed shut, you were convinced that at any second he might evaporate. You gasped and arched your back involuntarily when you felt the tip of his hot, wet tongue against your lobe. He hadn’t even touched you yet and you felt as if you would explode. He strained forward to meet the cleft of your ass and you felt him, impossibly hot and hard. Your voice left you strangled.

    “Ha...oh...fuck Ezra…pleasepleaseplease touch me. I’ll die if you don’t touch me…”

    His lips still held to your ear, he murmured to you as his own breath gasped and hitched.

    “Dove, you have to know that this cannot be a one-time encounter. I intend on ruining you for anyone else.” His teeth nipped at your neck, you gasped and shuddered. You were going to cum just like this, his breath and his words and his length pressed against you and he hadn’t even touched you yet. 

    You actually sobbed when his hand finally connected with you, you had expected his fingers to go first to your breasts like the well-established patterns of foreplay the men before him ascribed to, but instead his hand had curved down the swell of your ass and had slid between your legs to cup your weeping core. You couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t speak, you keened out into the darkness and ground yourself desperately against the heel of his hand. 

He pressed against you and your cunt was volcanically hot through the thin fabric of your thermal pants.

    “How are you so hot?” he whispered, as if almost to himself. “How is this divine sex so ready for me?” His voice was impossibly closer. “Answer me, angel.”

    You craned your head backward to seek his mouth. His words were molten, you felt like you were flying apart.

    “Ezra, please…..”

    Before you could blink, Ezra was ripping your pants down your legs, barely pausing to unhook them from your ankles, tossing them violently to the side.

   Getting back on the cot he rolled you onto your back before plunging his hand back between your legs. His fingers slid through your slick, and the groan that ripped itself from his mouth was filthy.

    “FUCK.” He was panting against your mouth, his lips hovering, not touching, just beyond your grasp. You inhaled as he exhaled desperately, gasping him into you the way you needed him inside you elsewhere.

    “Kevva wept, I have never felt a cunt like this, if this is what I am doing to you I’m as good as deified.” You gasped when he removed his hand and brought it up to your face. Your slick was coating each digit like a perverse film, webbing in strands between his fingers.

You should have shook with embarrassment, you thought, but your eyes widened in fascination as he brought his sodden fingers to your mouth and slowly painted your lips with your own arousal. You flicked your tongue out to taste yourself. 

    “Oh my God,” you whined.

    It was then that Ezra finally kissed you, dipping his own tongue into the cavern of your mouth before following with his feral lips. His hand shot back down between your legs and he pressed his first two fingers to either side of your aching clit.

    He moved his mouth against yours with a growl as he pressed down and slid his fingers up and down aside your erect bud, the noises from your soaked core reverberating through the tent. 

    Without warning your orgasm slammed into you like an intergalactic freighter, and you vaguely realized you may be screaming. Your entire body seized and shook, your back arching you off the mattress, and it was nothing like anything you’d ever experienced, you could not control the movements of your limbs and you could feel your cunt squeezing and gushing and bearing down on nothing as Ezra seemed momentarily as surprised as you were.

    His eyes locked on your face, wide with wonder as he kept up a slow, steady pace.

    “My sweet, beautiful girl, I’ve never seen anything as erotic as the spectre of you falling apart beneath me…” His eyes, soulful and sincere, searched yours as his fingers moved lower to your twitching hole. He slid his mouth back to the cusp of your ear and pitched his voice low and the syrup that erupted from his tongue was soaked in sin.

    “Do it again.”

    He slid first one, then two fingers into your grasping channel. The way he moaned when he did so, it could have been his cock instead.

    “Sweet Kevva fuck, I may not survive you.”

    He angled his fingers and zeroed in on a textured, spongy portion of your leaking passage and pistoned his fingers in and out against it. You were immediately brought right back to the precipice as you felt another climax build within you. You were shocked, having never been brought so close so quickly before. In the past you’d had orgasms with women and men, but you were always left sated after one, if a bit overstimulated. You were wholly inexperienced when it came to the razor-sharp lust and hunger that Ezra was spiking in you.

    You were making sounds you’d thought yourself incapable of. You should have been mortified. You were consumed, you could not find it within yourself to care.

    Ezra slanted his mouth to yours and sank his teeth into your lower lip, pulling it outward as obscene wet noises continued unabated. The pressure between your legs was building and you didn’t know if you could handle it, didn’t know how to ride this wave but your legs were shaking, your head thrown back and mouth open.

    Ezra watched your face with his forehead resting against yours, tracking your frantic eyes roaming wide, blown black with lust. He whispered low, almost imperceptible.

    “.....yesyesyesyesyesyes…….”

    When your dam burst this time it was different, deeper. You could not cry, you could not scream. You convulsed, almost folding in half. You had no control over your movements. You were dimly aware that you’d soaked your mattress, you’d soaked Ezra’s fingers and he swore thickly as you clamped and squeezed and fluttered around his hand.

    “Look at you Dove, you’re doing so well for me. So tight, so perfect. I have dreamt of exactly this for endless nights. It has been an exquisite torture to lie mere feet from you and deprive myself of this gift, resplendent before me.”

    Your hands flew to the sides of his face, grabbing the hair that curled around his ears. You pulled his face down to yours and kissed him, groaning into his mouth as your tongue ran along his teeth. You tried to pour into it every ounce of emotion you felt, desire and abandon still flashing and sparking. You ran one hand down his chest, down the front of his pants and through the curls on the soft flesh of his groin. Ezra stilled, mouth open and gasping when you wrapped your hand around his cock. It was larger than you’d anticipated and you paused mid-stroke, stilling your hand on the weeping head. He was hot and leaking onto your hand.

    Ezra’s eyes were squeezed tight, panting rapidly against the side of your neck. He moaned softly as he moved his hand across the flesh of your breasts, pausing to pull and squeeze your nipples. You gasped at the pinching sensation shooting into you; your cunt clenched in response.

    “I want you in my mouth,” you husked out, lowering your hand further to cup his balls. Ezra hissed, his brow creasing.

    “I….I fear I won’t last long enough if that sinful mouth comes anywhere near to where I need you,” he whispered, and his voice was straining and desperate as he thrust into your slick palm. You craned your face upward, teeth scraping against his jaw.

    “Then fuck me, Ezra.”

    He swallowed thickly, then reached down with a trembling hand, rushing to free himself. You glanced down, eyes widening as he came into view, thick and curving up toward his stomach. He looked as big as he’d felt. You moved to help him remove his pants fully, but his hand quickly moved to still your wrist.

    “I meant what I said, it’s been quite a few stands since I’ve indulged in pleasures of the flesh. Next time, perhaps, I will properly show my affections for you, however at present moment I fear I will reach my end by the time I have properly disrobed.”

   Your hand cupped his cheek as you nodded, biting your lip as Ezra moved to settle between your spread legs. Your thighs moved to frame his hips as he positioned himself at your opening. He once again leaned his forehead against yours, locking eyes with you, and began to enter you.

    The stretch was immediate and overwhelming. You thought he may have hurt you, had you not been so primed. His mouth hung open, eyes trained on yours until he reached your end and rolled them backward. You were split open on his cock, you had never felt so full, the sensations an incredible ache of indescribable pleasure. You involuntarily twitched around him and Ezra groaned and panted, seemingly overwhelmed in his own right.

    “I have never…..in all my years. Felt something….as fucking heavenly…..” He drew back, the drag of him forcing your stretched lips to cling to him obscenely. The drag made you drunk on him, you growled and sank your teeth into his shoulder. The sound of him advancing on you once more, meeting your tight resistance and pushing through, was charging the air around you. Electric. He angled his hips downward and stars, he found that spot again, and you could tell he was losing control, he raked your shirt up around your neck and pawed desperately at your breasts and he leaned forward and sighed your name.

    His thumb notched between your lips as you gasped his name back at him.

    “....fuck…”

    He angled his hips back once more, and his next thrust was sudden and unexpected and hard , you cried out after gulping in air and he wasn’t stopping, he drove into you and into that spot over and over and over and you felt the tears streaming down your face. You were sobbing brokenly, you had never felt so powerless over the feel of him breaking you, tearing you apart in a way you never imagined existed. The world did not exist, pain and hurt and suffering did not exist, it was just you and Ezra in this universe, every thrust and gasp a prayer of thanks to whatever God existed that allowed this to happen, allowed you to feel like this. You had lost the power of speech, you could only cry and whimper and gasp, broken with pleasure. Ezra’s rhythm began to falter. He placed his hand around your neck and growled between clenched teeth.

    “Let the whole of the Green hear you, how I mark you deep enough to make you mine for the rest of your days. Let the world shake apart with the force of my love for you.”

    At that, his hips stilled as his orgasm hit. The very act of him coming seemed to trigger your own release, and once again you shook and arched, but you only had the strength to gasp and whimper and sob softly and your hips jerked upward and twitched of their own volition.

    He spilled into you, groaning loudly, biting at any exposed flesh he could find before collapsing onto you. You wound your arms around his neck. You remained dazed and overwhelmed by what had transpired. Your mind was blank, you were wrung out. Ezra slid to the side of you with a sigh and pressed his lips against your temple. His hand reached into your hair and he stroked his fingers in circles against your scalp. His breathing evened quickly, and for the first time since you’d landed on this cursed moon you fell into deep and dreamless sleep.

 ***

     Once on the transport you’d been able to keep your eyes open for perhaps twenty minutes. You’d passed out sitting on the hard metal bench with your head slumped forward onto Ezra’s cot, your hand clasping his.

 ***

     Central was cacophonic. After the eerie quiet of the Green the sounds, chatter, colors and thrumming life surrounding you was beating into your brain like a staccato mace. Your head throbbed. You flinched away from the shoulders brushing past you. You were close to panic, overwhelmed by the sensory overload. You took deep, measured breaths. You stayed as close to Ezra’s cot as possible. You had to resist the urge to climb into it with him and throw a blanket over your head.

    They were going to have to take Ezra away from you. You knew this logically. He was fragile. Needed intubation, needed close surveillance. He was most likely septic at this point and it was uncertain if the damage he’d suffered to his lung tissue would be permanent. You knew he might still die. You knew this, and you wept openly, pitifully.

    “WAIT!” you’d croaked out, shakily grasping the shoulder of the ICU nurse who had begun rushing him down the hallway for STAT bloodwork.

    She’d turned to you with sympathy shading her features.

    You gazed at her name badge through waterfalls.

    “....Mollen. That’s your name?”

    A pause. “Yes,” she’d replied softly. You knew you needed to trust her.

    “His feet get cold at night. Only at night, otherwise he says they’re like furnaces. He can’t sleep well if his feet aren’t covered. Please cover his feet. Please,” you’d choked.

    She had given you a small, sad smile. “Of course.”

    “Thank you, Mollen.”

    You had stood pathetically twisting your hands together with tears coursing unabashed until Ezra turned a corner and disappeared from you.

 ***

     “Prognosis is precarious,” One of the physicians had pulled you into a private room to go over findings with you. You had since been seen and treated; miraculously you had not needed surgery, though you would most likely have permanent nerve damage to your thumb and two fingers on your left hand. You’d been told that you’d most likely be in the hospital for a week or two; you needed IV antibiotics and respiratory therapy in addition to wound care.

You’d requested a private room as close to the ICU as possible, passing a piece of aurelac to the Intake Administrator. He’d accepted with wide eyes, and you’d gotten your room.

    The doctor was solemn as she looked over the rims of her glasses at you.

    “Your partner has diffuse opacities in the lower lobes of his lungs. The left is partially collapsed. We’ve intubated him, as you know, to allow his lungs time to rest and strengthen. He is septic, and he’s being treated with an experimental cocktail of three different antibiotics, dexamethasone for inflammation, and vasopressors to maintain his blood pressure. 

    “Fortunately, his body is strong and his kidney function is improving. He has remained without a fever for the past eight hours, so that is reassuring. If he continues to show improvement I am fairly confident that we can begin planning for extubation within the next two to three days. If he can tolerate extubation and begin breathing on his own, we can start weaning his oxygen and begin to wake him up.”

    Though you knew what you were walking into, you steeled yourself. 

    You entered his room and stood a moment to process the sheer enormity of the amount

of  medical equipment keeping Ezra alive. You took in the tubes and wires, the bags of 

fluid infusing through catheters, the softly beeping sensors. When you were not in your 

room or engaged in your own treatments, you were here. You pulled up the chair that

Mollen had placed especially for you, and you began your silent vigil once again.

    Ezra looked so small in that bed, so fragile. He was dwarfed by the machinations

surrounding him. He was pale, wan. As you always did, you grasped his hand and

squeezed, ran your thumb over his knuckles the way he’d once done with you.

you talked to him softly, describing the room, going over what had happened since you

had escaped the Green. You talked about your own treatments and progress. You 

described Central, how busy and bustling everything was, how many people flooded the 

streets each day. Theatres you’d seen across from your window, coffee shops and 

bars you wanted to explore with him. Your favorite activity was reading to him. You had

spent a great deal discussing all manner of art, and Ezra loved to talk about books both

well-loved and those he longed to read but had been unable to find. As you found

yourself in the incomprehensible position of having more credits than you could ever 

imagine possessing, you had books delivered to your room.

    Ezra was extubated the day you received your last dose of antibiotics. You were due to

be discharged in three days. His organ function had improved at a rate that had exceeded

the expectations of his medical team. His encyclopedic list of medications had shortened reassuringly. He was strong enough to tolerate the extubation and was transitioned to a nasal cannula. You rejoiced in this, though your anxiety spiked as the physicians began the arduous task of bringing him out of sedation. It did not happen all at once as many thought, but gradually and in increments. It happened in sighs and twitches, thrashes and groans. You wondered if he dreamed. You hoped that he could hear you repeat your devotions.

    You had secured a lease downtown, finding a loft a block from the hospital. It was spacious, covered in windows that stretched, floor to ceiling, and opened onto a balcony that afforded you a breathless view of Central. You had never had something so nice in your life. 

    You had been discharged for two days, you had started to plan how to turn your new space into a safe space for both you and Ezra, when you were alerted by the hospital that Ezra had awakened. He was asking for you.

    You doubt if your feet touched the ground as you rushed to the hospital, stopping only to catch your breath.

    You entered his room panting, vibrating. 

    Ezra was sitting upright, the first time you’d seen him not supine in weeks. He was pale, he sported dark and sunken circles under his eyes. His hair was wildly curling, his blond streak sticking straight out. He was sipping gingerly on a cup of water with a shaking hand.

    Your Ezra. Beautiful Ezra.

    “.....Ez?”

    He looked upon you as if you were an apparition. He went to move shakily to his feet, and you were there before he could stand. Enveloping him in your arms, kissing his face, feeling him and inhaling whatever you could of him, of his vibrant life.

    Alive.

    You realized you were both weeping, you chuckled as you took turns wiping the wetness from one another’s face. When he spoke, his voice was rough, you knew it would take time for Ezra to regain his mellifluous cadence. 

    “Beautiful star, our souls cannot escape one another, universe try as it might to tear us asunder.”

    “I missed you, Ezra. Sweet love, I’m never letting you out of my sight ever again. Ever.”

    “I wish you luck trying to part from me at this point, Dove.”

    You knew you’d done something right, standing against him. 

    The first time he’d walked three laps around the unit without any assistance was the day you finally knew he was going to be okay. He was told that afternoon that he would be going home in a week. You had thrown your arms around him as he’d laughed and knocked sideways into his bedside table.

    That night, you’d crawled into his hospital bed, squeezing in beside him. You nestled yourself into his warmth, his arms reflexively winding around you to pull you closer. Ezra sighed and hummed into your hair. You’d thought him still asleep, until he whispered softly into the darkness.

    “.....Dove. Can’t wait to be home with you….” His large, warm hand rubbed up and down your back before circling around your hip, then your waist.

    “....can’t wait to be in a bed with you. A real bed.” His fingers spread, his hand coasted lazily up your abdomen and palmed your breast. Your soft gasp echoed into the dark hospital room as you arched into his palm. His fingers zeroed in on a nipple, tugging through the thin material of your tank top. You mewled, hot explosive breaths against his chest. When he craned his head down to bring his mouth to yours he kissed you slowly, deeply, his tongue darting and curling. You bit at his bottom lip and gasped into his hot, sinful mouth.

    “Ezra, you’re killing me.” You felt his lips curl wickedly upward. He began to speak to you lowly, in hoarse whispers, punctuating each thought with a nip to your throat, all the while pinching and pulling at you through the fabric of your shirt.

    “....Been dreaming of you. How you lose the ability to speak when I’m splitting you open. The sounds you make. The sounds that cunt makes when I rock into it. The way you shake when you fall apart….”

    He had nudged his knee in between your legs, and you found yourself rhythmically rocking your core against his thigh. The burning fullness between your legs was making you leak your fluids onto his skin, your clit grinding desperately onto him. You were certain he could feel you through your cotton shorts. You whimpered pitifully as he continued.

    “It’s killing you that we can’t do any more than this right now, in this bed. Anyone could walk right in, Dove.”

    He released a filthy groan against your mouth when you reached down to wrap your fingers around his hard length through his underwear.

    “Careful...be careful, darling girl. I’m not in a mood to stay demure and restrained. I sincerely encourage you to continue if you wish for this whole building to hear our intimacy.”

    “Ezra….fuck, I want you. Please, I need to touch you.”

    Ezra knocked his forehead against yours. You knew his eyes searched to catch yours in the darkness.

    “I need you to wait and be patient for me, sweetheart. When I take you next it will be in our own bed like you deserve.”

    You leaned forward and bit his shoulder through his shirt. He gave a startled gasp before chuckling darkly. You groaned in frustration.

    “I need something, anything…..s’been so long…”

    “Lie down on your cot, Dove. Touch yourself for me. I want to hear how slick you are as you get yourself off to the thought of me buried inside your sweet little cunt. Touch yourself, and I will do the same. Let us fall apart for one another until I can express my desires to you properly.”

    You barely hesitated before moving off his hospital cot to remove your shorts with shaking hands. No sooner were they discarded than you were splayed on your back on your cot, legs spread wide, wanton. You heard rustling from Ezra’s cot as he maneuvered his shorts down to free his cock. You heard the rhythmic, wet sounds as he began stroking himself in earnest.

    You moaned when your fingers dipped down to your entrance, marvelling at how soaked your slit was. Scooping your arousal with two fingers, you began to circle your hard, aching clit. The wet, sinful sounds of your aroused core reverberated through the room as your fingers circled, pressed. Your breath hitched, your hips arched off of the cot and thrust of their own accord. You both moaned and gasped into the still air.

    You could hear Ezra’s cot creaking. He was mumbling half- sentences, pausing to whimper and you could hear him stroking faster. You pictured his hips cana was as  ting up as he fisted himself.

    “Fuuuuuuuck. Fuck I’m so close. Can you hear me Ezra? I need you to hear what you’re doing to me.”

    “Divine cunt. Mine….I can smell it. Smell you….. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holyshit…”

    He stilled, screaming lowly as he reached his end. Gasping, breath hitching.

    The fingers of your other hand pushed themselves into your passage as your other hand, still circling your clit, began fast, rough. The rhythm of your hips faulted as your orgasm suddenly slammed into you. You bit your lip so hard you may have drawn blood. You gasped and groaned as you felt your cum spill out of your seizing hole and coat your hand.

    “Ohhhhh.. Oh fuck. Oh fuck…….” Your breaths melted into whimpers as your hips slowed their twitching. Finally spent, you yawned deeply and turned on your side to face Ezra.

    “Still not the same,” you whispered up into the outline of his face. “But if we ever do this again, I want to see you.”

 ***

    You got to the hospital as early as you possibly could on the morning of Ezra’s discharge. You had helped him pack what meager belongings he had the evening before to bring to your apartment. You’d cleaned every surface furiously, and adorned your balcony and interior surfaces with wildflowers and vining greenery you’d purchased from a local nursery.

    You brought with you new clothing, something comfortable and casual for him to wear, as well as a pair of loafers lined with fleece. You did not know what he preferred to wear; as well as you knew him, you’d never really seen one another in anything other than threadbare sweats or protective suits. You smiled to yourself as you thought of Ezra being able to buy himself nice clothing, of purchasing music he’d talked to you about for hours on the Green. Large, glossy hardcover books whose spines cracked when you opened them for the first time.

    You knew you still had a lot of firsts coming with Ezra. You walked into the bustling lobby and quickly found his room. Ezra was pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath. When you entered he’d immediately stopped and came to you with a wide, beautiful smile.

    “I have dreamt of this day for countless stands, sweet love,” he crooned as he wound his arms around you, crushing you to his chest. “My feet will deign not touch the earth in my haste…”

    “Slow down a bit, Ez. I brought you some clothing...I hope you don’t hate them.”

    He gazed down and you saw how his eyes shone in the early morning light. You loved him so much that your chest ached.

    “I could never hate a single thing that passes from your hands to mine, Dove. They are perfect, as are you.” He craned his head down to ghost a kiss across your parted lips. It was chaste, soft and brief, yet you still felt the jolt settling low in your belly, growing warm and tight. You had not forgotten his promise to you during that one desperate night.

    Ezra changed quickly as you waited. There was no need to excuse yourself- you’d both been through too much to be bashful. When he’d finished, he stood before you grinning with hands on his hips.

    “How do I look, Dovie?”

    “Like an angel.”

 ***

    You could tell that Ezra was overwhelmed by the bustling streets of Central. His head whipping around, unsure of what to focus on. Eyes darting, mouth set in a line. You’d grabbed his hand and led the way through undulating throngs of bodies that squeezed, nudged, jostled. Your heart ached with sympathy as you recalled the chaos of your own first experience. You knew he needed time, as you had.

   You wasted no time when you arrived at your brownstone building, briefly greeting the doorman on your way through the lobby. Confusion crossed Ezra’s face as he took in lush carpeting and the ivy that wound itself up an exposed brick wall.

    “Pray tell, who was that man at the door, Dove?”

    You giggled, pressing the button on the elevator. “That is Brice. He’s the doorman, he’s very nice.”

    His eyes were wide. “We have a doorman?”

    “I know, crazy, right?”

    You entered the elevator. As the door whooshed closed you noted apprehension on Ezra’s face. You reached out to squeeze his hand reassuringly, and his features smoothed once more when he caught your small smile.

    Soon enough you were at your door. You turned to Ezra and handed him a thick metal keycard.

    “This is yours. Try it.”

    He paused only momentarily before swiping the card. He reached out to the door handle, holding his breath. You bounced on your heels like a child, pushing him forward.

    For one of the few times in all the days you’ve known Ezra, he was speechless. He roamed slowly through the wide open foyer, basking in the natural light streaming through the windows. He reached out a hand to gingerly caress a granite countertop. He caught site of the doors to your balcony and stood before them, hands hanging motionless at his sides.

    You sidled up next to him, winding your arm through his.

    “Do you like it, Ezra?” you asked softly, looking out over the city beside him.

    Ezra turned to you, holding your eyes steadily. His hands moved down to grasp yours.

    “I could never have imagined something so grand. This hardly feels real. Truthfully, I am unsure that I did not perish on the Green…” His hands moved up your arms to cradle your face. He leaned in slowly, exhaling into the cup of your ear.

    “Show me our bedroom, Dove. It’s been long enough.”

    You grabbed his hand, pulling him behind you down the hallway. He reached out to grasp your shirt as you stumbled and bumped into walls, desperate to feel you. You assisted him as best you could, and when you entered a room easily four times the size of your former tent, you heard his gasp.

    You had spent an especially long time considering what you had wanted in a bed. It had been far too long since you’d had a proper bed, and so you spared no expense in finding the softest mattress, the sturdiest headboard. Your bed extended down an expanse of wall, covered by soft, downy blankets and piled with pillows.

    “It’s...magnificent,” he murmured, reaching down to run his hand across the silken texture of the coverings. His hand moved up to hastily push aside the pillows and pull down the blankets. He hastily disrobed, shoving his shirt up while you joined him in freeing him from his pants. You divested yourself of your own and he caught your lips in a desperate kiss as he tumbled you backward onto the bed. You rolled him onto his back and straddled him, grinding your hips against his hard, swollen length. Ezra was moaning loudly, straining up to maintain contact. Between the sinfully soft blankets and mattress at his back and the heat from your cunt as you spread your arousal on the throbbing skin of his cock. You leaned forward to capture his lips, your hands restlessly moving over his shoulders.

    “My beautiful man,” you crooned. “This is what we deserve. You are worthy of this. I need you.”

    “Then take me. Ride me, sweet girl. Bless and baptize my cock with your heavenly slick.”

    You positioned your dripping core over his head. You sank down slowly, feeling his thickness stretching you open, breaking you. You could not hold back the low moan bursting out of you as his cock reached the end of you. You stilled, after so long you had to allow yourself a moment to adjust to his size. You panted in low groans as your walls twitched and fluttered around Ezra’s incredible length.

    Ezra gazed up at you reverently, biting his lip. He whimpered when your cunt squeezed him, hands reaching out to fasten on your hips.

    “Fuck….f-fuck, sweatheart. Forgot how fucking perfect you feel. Sweet Kevva. Use me, sweet girl...take what you need.”

    You drew yourself up until he was almost out of you, keeping his head trapped in your leaking hole. Without warning you slammed your hips down. The sound that left Ezra’s mouth was feral, animalistic. You began a steady pace of lifting and dropping, eventually falling forward onto Ezra’s chest. You started babbling in between your desperate whimpers and sobs. He hit that one spot inside you in this position, you quickly discovered. It made you roll your eyes back in ecstasy, mouth hanging open between bursts of speech.

    “Hngh….oh...my...fucking Gods, so good, you feel so good how is this soo goooood…”

    Ezra met your gaze with his eyes wild, teeth gritted. He threw his head back, his hands gripping your hips as he urged you to move faster, harder, while he spoke out into the air in a broken, shaking prayer.

    “So good for me, please come for me. Come on my cock, sweet Dove, mark me, soak me before I paint this fucking perfect cunt…”

    You were covered in a sheen of sweat, movements faltering from the sustained effort of using him the way you needed. Sensing this, Ezra wrapped his arms around you and crushed your chest to his. Shifting under you, he began to piston himself into your slick, hot sex as your cries became sharp and loud. You lost the power of speech as your breath left your body in explosive gushes against the side of his straining neck. You came with a strangled scream, Ezra struggling to keep you atop him as your limbs shook and bucked of their own accord. You dimly felt the gush of your come running out of you to soak his swollen cock

    “That’s iiitt, let it happen, so good for me, taking your pleasure with me so…..deep….insideyouSHIT….” He stilled as his own orgasm crashed around the both of you, head back and groaning loud enough that his voice rattled your soul, your racing heart beating a staccato beat within your chest. You worked through your highs, your bucking hips and shaking legs slowing down incrementally. Your breath eventually slowed, and you stayed nestled against his neck as he, too, came back to himself.

    You stayed like that, with him softening inside of you, as he reached down to cover you both with a blanket. You felt limbless, untethered, so mortally sated that you did not care if the world around you was burning to the ground. You barely felt the ghost of Ezra’s lips on your forehead as you drifted out of consciousness. One word, repeated through the haze of dwindling thought was your anchor to everything around you that you had killed and bled and cried for, unbelievably real and soft and unflinchingly kind.  

    Blaster raised you tried to make yourself tall on the Green. You kept your eyes fierce, zeroed in on the two mercs. Ezra was beside you, thrower cocked at his shoulder. Neither of you spoke. 

    The mercenaries, by virtue of being in a clearing, noticed both of you immediately and met your approach with weapons drawn and guttural shouting. There had been a time in the past when Ezra would have approached the situation with melodious bargaining and other clever salesmanship before resorting to violence. This was different, every atom in the atmosphere was charged with desperation, vibrating with finality. Either they die or you do- there was no in-between now.

    Before either could fire Ezra leveled his thrower at the first merc and discharged it. There was a muffled bang that reached your ears as you saw blood bloom in the fabric of the merc’s chest. He fired a beat later, but the shock of impact threw his shot well wide of you and ricocheted somewhere to the left of the clearing. The second merc, momentarily thrown by sight of his partner sinking to his knees, recovered and raised his own blaster toward you. You aimed your own weapon and pressed the trigger.

    Click.

    Shit.

    You barely had time to process the fact that the blaster had jammed on you before an explosion of white-hot pain hit your shoulder. You were spun like a top. Your world was tipping, spinning. Rotten air was knocked out of you and you were on your back. You looked to your shoulder to see crimson spreading. More blood on your suit. It hurt so much you couldn’t speak, only hiss through clenched teeth. You forced yourself to sit up and face what was coming- you refused to die on your back. You wheezed audibly, heard Ezra’s breathing match your own over your comlink.

    Ezra. You looked up from your place on the ground to see him upon the second merc. You did not need to see his face to read the intention on it. Ezra killing with his hands was its own unique form of dark intimacy, and you could picture his eyes wide and dark, jaw clenched with rage. You knew that every single thing he did, either gentle or feral, was accomplished with an abundance of emotion. You saw the knife in Ezra’s hand that he’d removed from his boot and you watched him plunge it into the chest of the mercenary again and again. When the thrashing body finally stilled, Ezra shambled to his feet. His breathing sounded like an underwater turbine. Agonal. He was coming toward you, swaying slightly. You were struggling to get to your feet. Your shoulder felt as if it was skewered by an iron pike.

    He shakily held his hand out to you. You stumbled, almost pulling him down with you. Finally you stood, swaying drunkenly in the clearing. You noted Ezra’s suit, covered in blood spatter and gore, mirrored your own when you had first met. His face looked gray and ashen, his eyes hollow and sunken. It became quickly apparent that his actions had taken any last reserve he was saving. He was closer to his own end than you were, and for the first time you were overcome by terror. You needed to keep your breathing even to save your deteriorating oxygen. You needed to swallow your tears and prevent any further dehydration. Yet here you were, gasping and sobbing. Ezra looked like a ghost and his lips were so dry, so cracked, with a faint tint of blue seeping into his flesh. You didn’t care about your shoulder, you’d hack it off in an instant to prevent this man from ever having to look like this to save you, to exert himself to the point of death because your blaster had jammed.

    I can’t lose you.

    I can’t lose you.

    My fucking Gods I cannot lose you.

    In desperation you were tugging him, pulling him toward the cruiser. You paused only to grab the blaster that lay in the moss beside the ruined body of the mercenary. The prisoner had come back to himself somewhat during the fracas, he was clumsily priming the thrower, his hands shaking. You walked up to him and pressed the blaster to his helmet. He paused as soon as he felt you and made a grab for the back of your knee. You thought of the dying bird.

    You fired. This time, there was no jam. The helmet imploded with a muffled pop and the prisoner slumped backward.

    You pushed Ezra up the ramp. You felt like it took hours to find the toggle that would retract it and close the cruiser door. You then searched frantically for the button that would switch on the air filter. When you found that and slammed the heel of your hand into it you clawed at the clasps to your helmet. When you’d finally managed to whip it off one-handed you took your first gulp of optimally filtered air in months. 

    Ezra.

    He had managed to reach the passenger seat of the craft before he’d collapsed. His helmet was still on. You did not have the strength to rush to him on your feet, so you crawled to him on your knees. You unclasped his helmet clumsily the way you had your own and removed it as carefully, as reverently as you could. You realized you’d started crying again.

    “Ezra,” you whispered, cradling his head in your hand.

    He stirred slowly, he sounded like a man drowning. His eyes fluttered open, vague and lethargic before finally focusing on yours.

    “Dove,” you could barely hear him. “......don’t. Don’t leave me.”

    You didn’t know how, but you were crying harder. You felt snot touch your upper lip, your breaths hitched and croaked.

    “I will never leave you, Ezra. I am bound to you, always. We’re getting off this moon. We’re going. Now.”

    He leaned his head against the back of the seat.

    “I love you, Dove. So much…”

    You leaned forward and pressed a shaking kiss to his hairline, right below his mallen streak. You reached out to smooth away the wetness you’d left there.

    “And I love you. And I’m getting you help as soon as we get to the sling. I’m buckling you in, okay?”

    It wouldn’t have taken you so long but your fingers felt numb, clumsy. It was necessary for you to use both hands to fasten his clasp and you bit down a cry as you pressed down to engage the clasp. You noticed the top of your suit was becoming saturated. You felt wholly indifferent to your injury while you ensured Ezra was as secured as possible. He had soon lost consciousness, his head lolling to rest on his shoulder as he breathed steadily, if not quietly.

    As soon as you finished you crawled to the pilot’s seat and noted with relief that as the cruiser was a rental it had an operations manual at the console. You followed the steps you had with Ezra in ensuring you were properly strapped in, this time ignoring the stabbing heat in your shoulder. You followed each step pictured and gasped out a rough, rattled laugh as you felt, then heard the boosters engage.

    Since the events with the Sater had transpired the tension between you had seemed to grow exponentially. You’d found yourself idling on Ezra’s face more than you cared to admit to yourself. You’d unintentionally begun cataloguing the nuances of movement contained in his hands, the reactions on his expressive face to the things you said. More often now, you took note of that dark intensity returning to flash across his features when he thought you weren’t looking. This did not scare you; rather, it left your skin feeling too tight for your body, your core aching and burning until you had no choice but to shut yourself in the refresher and furiously bring yourself off, biting at your sleeve to muffle your guttural scream when you came seizing and shaking on your fingers. Something you’d once thought shameful now left you somehow ravenous. When you’d re-entered the common space of the tent you’d done nothing to hide the flush in your face or mussed hair. You’d shot Ezra a wide smile as he’d quirked his brow, his expression otherwise unreadable. You’d exited the tent as you felt suddenly faint- is this who you were now? Ezra made you feel wild and alive, like you had finally managed to snap out of a trance. Or wake up from an unending, uninspired dream of safe decisions and mediocrity.

    You mused on this in your suit on the Green, the suit still bearing faint tepid stains from your original sin. You were not paying attention, having almost certainly made up your mind to make Ezra aware of your feelings when you returned from the day’s work.

    Thus, you were doubly taken aback when the stone connected with the side of your helmet. With a dull cracking noise you fell to the dust. Your head ricocheted against the interior of your dome. Your ears rang; you tasted blood. How did you get here?

    A steel-toed boot connected with your ribs, forcing the air from your lungs. You gasped, you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t force air in. Pain exploded once again, exquisite in its intensity. A cracking sound- bone or helmet? You curled in on yourself, stunned, trying to process what this was that was happening to you. 

    Get. Up.

    Part of you wanted this whole farce to be over. The Green, the tent, this unseen assailant. Just end it. If this is how it’s supposed to happen, who are you to challenge fate? You could only hope for quickness, the pain is too much, this life is too much, you are a fool, how could you even consider someone like Ezra could want you. You are a weak, sniveling, invisible slug. You are going to die. You will rot and fester and become toxic, like the air on this cursed moon. Unknown and forgotten.

    Get. Up.

    Another kick, this time to your kidney. This time you found your air, cried out. It was weak, pathetic. You noted the mist of blood across the window of your helmet, so similar to before, except this time it was on the inside. It was yours. It caused a switch to flip on in you, sudden panic blooming in your chest. All at once your body called back to its evolutionary directive to survive. 

    It took everything within you to move. Blinding pain behind your eyes like needles as you rolled onto your front, then onto your knees. Your stomach roiled- you swallowed bile as you craned your head upward to finally view your assailant.

    It was the Sater. Of course. The dose of sedative you’d shot into his thigh had not been enough to kill him, merely incapacitate him long enough for you to escape with the precious med kit. He had recovered and now he had found you, and he was going to kill you. This so perfectly encapsulated life on the Green that you could have laughed. It was almost poetic.

    You could not hear his words, but you could see his sneer. He cocked his leg back to land another blow to you as you squeezed your eyes shut and waited. The blow did not come.

    Instead, you heard the sound of bodies connecting, and an unearthly snarl.

    Ezra.

    You opened your eyes and Ezra was upon him, a frenzy of fists landing over and over wherever he could reach. The Sater was overcome, had no time to react. The sounds that escaped Ezra’s mouth through your connected channel were almost inhuman in their ferocity.

You watched through the pain of each shuddering breath as he yanked the air hose from the Sater’s helmet, then grasped wildly at the connecting clasps of the helmet. Finding the seal, he pried frantically, finally freeing the dome and exposing the Sater’s face to the atmosphere. His fists connected with whatever was revealed, ruining and rupturing. 

    You had known that Ezra had sometimes had to be brutal in order to survive here. You knew that you had had to do the same. But seeing him like this, the unleashed rabidity of his rage unleashed on another was almost too much. As Ezra exhausted himself upon the Sater’s demolished face you found yourself having to turn away. The blows finally slowed in frequency and intensity when it became increasingly apparent that the Sater was no longer breathing.

    Ezra stood and gazed down at the body of the Sater, his lip curled. He turned to you, to where you knelt in the dust, and his expression melted into a mask of pain. It was almost as if the Sater had been pummeling him. You blinked and then he was beside you, his hands were on you, so unbelievably gentle as he swept up your stomach, moved carefully across your shoulders and down your arms. You met his gaze, mortally exhausted, and thought that perhaps you could still die here. Your ears rang and your head throbbed. Your stomach and chest ached, and you wondered from a faraway place if you could be bleeding internally.

    Ezra was crying, his eyes were red and swollen. He must have been crying while he killed.

    Through the beating static in your brain, you heard his voice asking if you thought you could stand. 

    You had tried, but a wave of nausea and vertigo had you swooning back toward the ground almost immediately. Ezra caught you and held you close against the breast of his suit until you felt a bit steadied. His heart thrummed wildly in his chest, and it served to center you.

    “We have only to trek back to the tent, sweet Dove. I will carry you if need be, but we cannot negotiate an alternative option.” Your nod was almost imperceptible, and you began a stumbling, shambling walk back to your tent. Ezra kept his arm close around your waist and draped your own limb across his shoulders. When you finally entered the interior he assisted you onto your cot. He helped to divest you of your helmet and suit before hastily removing his own, his eyes never leaving yours. Each wince of pain was answered by his own sympathetic sounds and mumbled apologies.

    “I am so sorry, sweet girl. My Dove, my Star...I will spend the rest of my life and whatever is beyond making it up to you….”

    You were too sore and numb to be embarrassed as he undressed you, carefully inspecting every inch of your skin before covering you back up. He carefully cleaned the dried blood from your nose and mouth, pausing briefly to cradle your face in his large, warm hands. He rested his forehead against yours before placing the ghost of a kiss at your hairline.

    You knew you were concussed, and so Ezra kept you awake. Kneeling on the floor He used dulcet tones and soft inflections to keep you engaged. He told you what he knew of the ancient Greek myths and incestuous dealings between gods and men. He expounded on the constellations and how the old prospectors would time their harvests according to the position of the stars in the sky. He told you of his childhood home on Earth and growing up in a poor parish in Louisiana. He talked about his only sibling, his older brother Isaiah, who he’d worshipped and followed blindly into the realm of prospecting before drink and women left him dead in some back-planet alleyway, robbed and stabbed.

    Finally you begged in mumbling tones to sleep, your eyes weighed down and feeling full of sand. Ezra acquiesced, but not before pulling his cot to join with yours. He lay on his side next to you, grasping your hand carefully as if it were glass. He moved his thumb over your skin in circles that soothed you as your eyes closed and eased you into dreamless slumber while Ezra’s deep, even breathing anchored you to his side.

    Ezra was nothing if not perceptive. He would softly comment on the mournful gaze that would cross your face and cloud your eyes. How it was agony for him, how he would do anything to take this away. You did not want to burden him, you hated that he worried about you. You would flash him as winning a smile as you could muster, but it did not reach your eyes. Your only comfort was in his arms, in the way that he’d come to you in the tent and wordlessly wrap his arms around you. Hold you so close to him, as if he were trying to absorb you, to siphon off your sadness. Sometimes he held you because he was sad too. At night, you clung to one another as if afraid you’d drift away.

    It was during one particularly hot and oppressive morning that you awoke once again alone. It happened from time to time, more often now than in the past. Ezra would awaken before the dawn, suiting up and trekking out into the Green, looking for other life, any sign of anything that could help get you gone from here. He would invariably return and remove his helmet with a heavy sigh.

    “Next time, perhaps.”

    “We’re getting low on food, Ez.”

    “I know.”

    “We can’t eat aurelac, Ez.”

    “I know.”

    “We need to come up with a contingency plan for when it happens.”

    “We will do whatever we must.”

    Something you didn’t discuss as often was the dry, hacking coughs you were developing. Your air cycler was working less efficiently, a product of unavoidable overuse. The cyclers were meant to be finite, replaced every few months. You’d taken to cleaning the filters as well as you could, but you’d had to wear your helmets while you cleaned, and those filters were beginning to fail as well.

    So when you awoke on that particular morning you were coughing so forcefully you retched. You leaned over the side of the cot and spit. It was grey. You knew now you would die here, and it would be torturous and slow. The spores would build in the sacs of your lungs until you could do nothing more than gasp weakly for each gulp of air.

    When Ezra returned, he whipped off his helmet much more forcefully than usual. He rushed to you and fell to his knees. You knew immediately something was different- his eyes were wide and wild, his hands trembled on the thin, rumpled blankets.

    “I saw a streak. In the sky. A vessel burning up on entry. Someone landed just west of here...it happened right before my eyes. We may have a spectre of hope in this hell, Dove.”

    You stared at him, eyes wide and unbelieving.

    “You…..you’re sure??”

    “I swear to you, may Kevva strike me down where I kneel. It has to be a cruiser or drop-pod by the size of the flames.”

    You reached out to grab his hand, squeezing. His eyes searched your face.

    “I’ll get dressed.”

    This was a gift, and you viewed it as such. But you knew that you both needed to be so, so careful. You did not know who these interlopers were, you did not know their intentions or the condition of their craft. Landing could be rough in the heavily forested Green, if the vessel was a smaller one, as Ezra seemed to think, it may work to your advantage. You needed to be sure.

    You quickly suited up, helmet on, filter rattling weakly. You took what you could, but you did not plan to return. The aurelac you’d harvested over the course of months was packed away to bursting in your rucksacks, and there was room for little else. You’d each grabbed some water and a few nutri-bars. You paused to sweep one last look around the tent where you’d cried, where you’d held low conversation and read and fucked. Events of the past few hours had happened so fast that your head was spinning, strangely blank. You were leaving. You were going to a means of escape or to your death. You felt calm about either option in the stillness of the morning.

    You thanked the tent silently, and you hoped it burned.

        Ezra led the way, and you started your journey. He’d estimated that you should reach your target by early afternoon.

    Your filters were connected for the time being to maximize filtration. This did not stop your unease as you watched the condensation of your breath forming against the plexi of your viewing portal. Every few minutes either Ezra or yourself would cough. It was a dry, barking sound over the static of the comlink. For the most part you remained silent and tried to stick to hand signals when a change in terrain or pace needed to be relayed between you. You had to conserve oxygen, and speaking was an undue exertion unless strictly necessary.

    You’d come upon the burned clearing a bit before Ezra’s projection, judging by the position of the anchoring planet in the sky. The vessel was indeed a cruiser, which was fortuitous in that it moved quicker and offered more stability than a pod.

    You both crouched well away from the cruiser, out of sight. Ezra held his thrower at his side, you had his blaster at your waist. You waited.

    A particularly nasty coughing fit doubled you over at one point. You coughed so long and hard that your vision began to swim, black dots sparking over the horizon of your sight.

    Ezra held onto you ensuring you would not fall over into the moss under your feet. His arm circled your shoulders. When the fit had eventually and blessedly passed his hand was rubbing firm circles into your back. His helmet knocked against yours. When you raised your eyes to his,  fear and heartbreak were plain on his face. You understood that things had progressed to the point where he could no longer hide this from you. Your chest ached and burned.

    A commotion ahead in the clearing broke the spell of your mutual despair. You both froze before turning forward towards the craft.

    The hatch was opening, there was movement from within. Eventually a platform extended to the ground below, and two figures shambled forward with a third held between them.

    They appeared to be mercenaries, holding fast to a restrained prisoner. The prisoner kicked and pulled weakly between them- they had most likely been sedated. Not enough to feel numb to the agony of suffocation, but enough to be handled without too much trouble.

    You were looking at an execution crew.

    The mercs were grunting and growling back and forth in a language you did not recognize.            

    Ezra remained frozen beside you, eyes trained ahead razor-sharp. Predatory. 

    Your hand on your blaster, you cleared your head of thought as the first waves of adrenaline started pumping through you. Slowly, so slowly, Ezra reached for you. He clasped your hand. Squeezed three times. His eyes moved to catch yours. An imperceptible nod.

    You nodded back. 

    They had to die.

      Your new lives together began as a languid chapter of existing slowly, of lazing like cats. You often stayed in your bed, at times going hours exchanging soft words and insistent touches. You stayed unclothed for days on end, only donning a robe to accept the occasional delivery. You drank wine and ate fruit and cheese and read to each other from the books you’d begun amassing. It was heaven, bacchanalian. 

    Ezra would sometimes come up behind you at the kitchen counter and press against your back wordlessly, his arousal begging entry. You’d sigh, tilting your head back onto his shoulder as he slid home and made love to you lazily in the patch of sunlight that streamed through the glass to cut a warm diamond across the checkered French tile. You reveled in one another in such a way that each touch was a devotional, each kiss a promise. You had paid for your sins and for the violence of your past mistakes and bloodied intentions with pieces of your souls. What was left were holes you saw fit to fill with each other.

    By the end of that first blissful week, you began entertaining how you would begin to reveal Central to Ezra. You had often walked past a small cafe that had an attached book store on your way to and from the hospital. It was small and intimate, and seemed tailor-made to entertain his whims. Two streets over you’d spied a tavern that seemed outfitted with copies of retro Earth-style advertisements and poorly taxidermied animals. You itched to walk in every time you passed it. After so much isolation, stress and heartache you were desperate to drink in any vestige of civilization, any morsel of culture you could find.

    The first few times you’d brought up venturing out to Ezra, he’d been able to steer you easily with insistent kisses and roaming hands. 

    “Why would we dream of leaving this heaven, that we have sweat and sacrificed and toiled over, for hours unending?” he’d said softly into your neck as his hand crept downward over the slope of your stomach.

    Eventually in your growing restlessness you grabbed his hands as he once again attempted a seductive distraction and you squeezed them until the stream of words slowly died off on his clever tongue. You met his eyes.

    “Ezra, why do you try to distract me when I bring up leaving the apartment?”

    The corner of his mouth twisted upward, but the gesture did not reach his eyes.

    “Sweet love, we have both been through tours of the realms of seven layers of hell. We have almost perished time and again and have committed our fair share of sins too inumerable to count. Please, do forgive me if I deign to want some modicum of comfort.”

    “You can have comfort, Ez, we can both have it. But don’t you want to peak at what’s outside as well? Aren’t you just a bit curious for what wonders Central may hold?”

    As you continued to speak, the mask slipped away from Ezra’s face. A deep crease of worry, of fatigue, formed between his heavy brows. His eyes became distant, focusing on some faraway and unknowable misery. You reached out to cup his face and turned his mournful gaze upon you.

    “Talk to me, my love. Please don’t hide yourself away.”

    Ezra took a shallow, shuddering breath before responding.

    “I fear I may have lost myself down on that accursed moon, Dove. Where I was certain of so much, I now find myself questioning even the simplest machinations. I find such mundane things as choosing clothing or food to eat almost insurmountable when tasked with the quandary of completion. I’m having dreams at night of things I cannot recall, but I’ve begun to awaken paralyzed, with the weight of a succubus upon my chest. 

    “It is a great humiliation to admit to you, dearest, that the thought of leaving this sanctuary, at present, is one that imbues me with an undue panic.” He was no longer meeting your eyes at this point, his gaze moving to focus on a vague point of focus somewhere past your shoulder.

     You fought hard to swallow past the nefarious lump in your throat, lip trembling and vision blurring. You felt heartless. You had spent so much time reveling in every new and good comfort in your life that had stayed so foreign for so long that you had failed to notice Ezra’s pain. You were a selfish fool. You moved to turn away from him in shame.

    Ezra did not let you. When he noticed your actions, his hand reached to grasp your shoulder. He turned you back to him. He enveloped you in his arms, releasing a steadying breath into your hair. He allowed you to weep against his shirt.

    “Ezra,” you gasped into his chest. “.....please forgive me. I can’t believe I’ve been so blind.”

    He held you against him as if trying to anchor you. He stroked your hair and the side of your face and murmured to you.

    “Dove, you have been my one saving grace. If I am expressing this to you now it is only because you implore me to do so. I have tried valiantly to act as if everything were copacetic since I awoke in that soulless hospital room. Please do not torture yourself with blame when it does not belong to you.” 

    “It kills me that I didn’t notice, Ezra. We’re supposed to be able to take care of each other.”

    “You care for me better than any I’ve known in my long and wretched life, my dearest love. I have these demons through circumstances both within and beyond my control. If not for you I would be rendered truly wretched, unworthy of the lowliest glance from the dregs of the universe.”

    Your hands framed his face, your tears slowing incrementally as his words flowed through you like pure rivulets of gentle intention. You kissed him so gently, so reverently, as if he were a secret thing only reserved for those beholden to the designs of the old gods. Forgotten and precious. Sacred and profane.

     “My soul will always seek out yours, beautiful boy. I will do whatever it takes to help you through this. I will ask nothing from you, ever. If you want to stay here forever I will be by your side. There is truly nowhere else I’d rather be.”

    Ezra’s voice hitched with emotion. He kissed over and over your eyelids, your nose, your cheeks, before settling his parted lips to the crook of your neck, where bore witness to the fluttering of your pulse beneath your skin.

    “I will try, Dove. For you I will move planets. I will raze Kevva themselves to the ground and condemn myself to eternal damnation. For you, I will try.”