#sunmad.

The music was a low thrum beneath the laughter and clinking glasses, something smoky and slow winding through the air like perfume. Luc had been watching from the edge of the room as half-shadow, half-spectator, nursing a glass of something old and expensive more out of habit than desire.

His gaze flicked to her before she even approached. Miriam. A bloom of motion in the blur of the party, eyes bright with intent, like she'd already made a decision and was just waiting for him to catch up.

When she reached him, he didn’t speak at first. Just tilted his head, like he was reading something behind her eyes. Something unspoken and burning quietly.

And then: “Careful,” he said softly, setting the glass down with a gentle clink and straightening to his full height. “Ask the wrong man to dance, and he might never sit down again.”

But there was no real warning in it. Just that usual flicker of mischief beneath his tone. That dark-eyed gleam that said he was already hers for the moment—she just had to reach.

He held out his hand, fingers curling in subtle invitation. “Go on, then,” he murmured, a slow smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ask me properly.”

Francis leans against the scratched-up edge of the pool table, their long black coat draped open just enough to catch a flicker of bare collarbone and mesh. Their dark curls are damp from the heat, pulled half-up with a glittery barrette they stole from somewhere. Their mouth—full, glossy, painted pitch black—curls as they aim their cue lazily, hips slanted, wrist loose.

They miss, of course. They’re too drunk to give a damn.

“Fuck,” they say, soft and slow, the word a purr more than a curse. They stand up straight, wiping their hands on the inside of their coat, eyes already drifting toward the other side of the table. Their gaze lands on Miriam—always Miriam, lean and low-lit, all sharp eyes and good bones—and Francis lets a grin bloom. Reckless and dripping with sugar. They notice her glass.

“Buy you another?” Francis asks, tipping their chin toward the empty glass Miriam’s been nursing. Their voice is satin—low, slurred, laced with something dangerous and warm. “Or we could share something filthy. Up to you.”

There it was again... that look. Not love. Not quite. Something older, stranger, more dangerous in its innocence. Miriam looked at him like she had spent her whole life being fed false gods and bloodstained miracles, and now here he was in the dark with stars caught in his eyes and shadows kneeling at his feet, and she did not know what to call him except holy.

Luc let out a slow breath through his nose, the ghost of a smile curling at one corner of his mouth. “That expression,” he murmured, voice low enough to be mistaken for the night itself. “You do so make a creature nervous.” But she didn’t retreat. That, more than anything, fascinated him.

Most people, when faced with the sound of his voice in a moment like that, remembered themselves. Remembered fear. Remembered the thousand subtle warnings stitched into him. Miriam only looked softer. Sadder, perhaps. More certain, which was its own kind of madness. Her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered there with the quiet awe of someone standing before an altar, deciding whether to pray or ruin herself.

Luc watched the decision happen in real time. Then she kissed him. Not boldly. Not hungrily. Reverently. It was the sort of kiss that belonged to candle smoke and bent knees and trembling hands clasped so tightly they ached. Barely there at first, just the brush of her mouth against his, so delicate it might have been imagined if not for the way it set something old and sharp moving under Luc’s ribs. She kissed him like one might kiss the hem of a saint’s robe, or the mouth of a relic unearthed from sacred ground. Like she expected warmth, and terror, and salvation all at once.

Luc stayed still for the first heartbeat of it. Then the second.

He could have broken the spell easily. A tilt of his head, a sardonic remark, a laugh against her lips sharp enough to remind her what he was and what he was not. He had undone far sturdier things for less. But Miriam’s kiss was not asking anything of him. That was the problem. It was not greedy. It did not try to own. It only offered. A devotion so naked it bordered on violence. His eyes slipped closed.

When he kissed her back, it was slow, terribly slow in the way dusk consumes a room. One hand lifted from his stomach to touch her, fingers finding the side of her neck with deceptive care, feeling the wild little pulse there. Human. Frightened. Faithful in all the wrong ways. He deepened the kiss by degrees, not to overwhelm but to answer, and the sound Miriam made was so soft it nearly disappeared into the dark.

There. That.

Luc felt it the way he felt shifts in weather, in fate, in the fragile architecture of a soul. The way she melted toward him was not desire alone. It was surrender dressed in wonder. As if being chosen by him, even for this, especially for this... meant something celestial had finally turned its face toward her. It should have repulsed him, perhaps, being mistaken for something divine by a girl raised on false prophets and holy nightmares.

Instead, it made him ache. Because Luc knew gods. Knew what they demanded. Knew how worship hollowed the worshipper first. His thumb moved once, lightly, just beneath her ear. A grounding touch. Or a claiming one. Even he was not sure.

When the kiss parted, Miriam did not go far. Her forehead hovered near his, breath unsteady, eyes half-lidded and bright with that same unbearable look as if he had reached into the ruin of her and briefly made it beautiful. Luc opened his eyes to find her staring at him like the stars above had all come down wrong and settled in his skin instead.

Dangerous girl, he thought, not for the first time. Not because she bit. Not because she threatened. Because she looked at monsters and made them feel, however briefly, like miracles. Luc’s smile this time was faint and strange and almost sad. His hand remained at her throat, loose enough to reassure, present enough to remind. “Miriam,” he said softly, and her name in his mouth sounded older than either of them. Not a warning. Not quite.

Luc leans in, too close by anyone else’s standard, shadows tilting toward her as though they want the first look before he does. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, measured, wanting to ease any concern with a comforting lilt.

“It looks worse than it feels, I imagine.” A faint twitch of a smile, humor bleeding into honesty. “Ugly. Angry. Like it’s still trying to argue with you.” His eyes flick up to hers then, softer, like he’s making sure she hears the rest. “But it’s clean. You’ll heal. I’ve seen worse left behind on stone walls.”

Luc doesn’t answer at first.

Just stands there, one hand pressed absently against his ribs where the fabric is darker now—soaked, clinging. There’s blood on his palm, smeared along the edge of his coat. It seeps like ink from a cracked page, and he barely flinches.

But her voice cuts through him.

Why didn’t you tell me...

He closes his eyes. Breathes in like it might steady the tremor he never lets anyone see.

Then, quietly—barely above the hum of the air between them—he says:

“Because it didn’t matter. Not if you were safe.”

His voice isn’t cold. It’s tired. Frayed at the edges in a way Miriam’s never heard, like the words cost something. Like every syllable is stitched with too many half-said truths.

“You don’t need to carry what breaks me.”

His eyes lift to hers then— the endless black, not a void but just a depth to them when his glamour began to fail, and she'd seen it before. There’s no bravado. No lie. Just the hollow honesty of someone who’s used to bleeding in silence, and even more used to being left when he doesn’t.

“Besides…” His mouth tilts, a bitter curve that might’ve once been a smile. “You’ve seen worse.”

Luc’s voice is quiet. Steady. The kind of steady that means he’s not.

“Then I’m going with you.”

His eyes don’t leave hers, not for a second, not even when it’s easier to look away from the storm in her face. He doesn’t move closer yet. Doesn’t reach for her. He knows better than to throw lifelines she hasn’t asked for. But the weight of his presence fills the space like a tether anyway.

“You don’t get to disappear into the dark and think I’ll just stay here dry and safe, pretending I don’t feel the pull.” A pause. Raw honesty slipping through the cracks in his calm. “I’ve lived there too long not to know the current. And I don’t mind drowning if it’s with you.”

His tone is low, almost sad now. Like he’s not just saying it for her, but for every version of himself that went under and never had anyone follow.

Luc didn’t flinch when she leaned in—not outwardly, at least.

But something under his skin shifted. Coiled tight. Like a wire humming with static, waiting for a spark. He could feel her breath before he could register her words, soft and warm against the shell of his ear. Slow enough to be deliberate. Intimate.

Whatever she whispered—whatever truth or tease she delivered—it wasn’t just the words that hit.

It was the way she said them.

Luc’s eyes flicked shut for a breathless moment, a muscle in his jaw tightening like he was holding back something sharp. Or worshipful. Or needy.

“Is that meant to ruin me,” he murmured back, voice rough as gravel and twice as raw, “or just haunt me?”

He turned his head just enough that his mouth hovered a fraction away from her neck... close, but not quite contact. His breath dragged across her skin like a dare.

“Because it’s working, either way.”

He didn’t ask her to repeat it. He wouldn’t need to.

1. When She Was Gardening at Dawn

The world was still half-asleep, light spilling in slow over the hills. Miriam knelt in the dirt, hair tied up, hands already stained with earth. Luc stood in the shadow of the porch, unnoticed, a cup of coffee cooling in his hand. He didn’t speak. Just watched the way she moved—deliberate, gentle, like planting was an act of devotion, like coaxing life from soil was her quiet form of rebellion. He smiled to himself. If the world ended today, he thought, at least she gave something back to it first.

2. When She Was Mending His Shirt by Firelight

He hadn’t asked her to. It was just a tear—one he would’ve left. But she sat by the hearth, thread between her fingers, the fabric stretched over her lap like something sacred. Luc watched from across the room, silent as a ghost, wondering what it meant to be cared for in that small, tender way. The fire lit her hair in gold. And when she pricked her finger and hissed. He was beside her in an instant, even though she laughed and waved him off. Still, he stayed close. Just in case.

3. When She Was Singing to Herself in the Kitchen

She didn’t know he was there. He’d come back from a long walk, mud on his boots, war in his chest and stopped short when he heard her voice. It wasn’t for show. It wasn’t polished. It was just hers. Raw and quiet and real. He leaned in the doorway, breathing slower with every note. Watched her move between the stove and counter like she belonged there. Like this world was worth staying in, if only because she was in it. Luc didn’t speak until she turned and saw him. She smiled. And so did he.

4. When She Was Tending to Someone Else

There was a child—hurt but breathing. A scrape, a scare. Nothing fatal, not to Luc’s eyes. But Miriam’s hands were steady as she knelt beside them, whispering low, coaxing calm from panic like it was second nature. Luc stood back, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. But something in him ached. Not from jealousy, not from distance. Just from the way she always gave more than she had to spare. And how little the world deserved her for it.

5. When She Fell Asleep Mid-Sentence with a Book in Her Lap