#tbatb

While the low volume had been appreciated, I still couldn’t manage anything more than a groan.

The bastard chuckled. His fingers worked carefully to correct errant strands of hair that had knotted and fallen in unpredictable patterns. Even that kind gesture felt like sandpaper to overly sensitive skin. The little bit of light filtering through my eyelids was enough for me to finally understand why ancient cultures saw the sun as a vengeful God.

“How’s your head?” my very unhelpful boyfriend asked.

As I opened my eyes, I repeated my previous reply followed by an even more pathetic whine. But for all my complaining, I had to acknowledge that the sight of his smile eased some of the pain.

“I’ll get you some medicine, okay?” he offered along with an already opened bottle of water.

I accepted the kindness—as soon as I could see straight and sit up. Thankfully, within what seemed like seconds, he’d returned and handed me a savior in the shape of tiny gel capsules. Still, he seemed unsatisfied by my obvious state of displeasure.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked.

I knew that if I didn’t respond quickly, he would’ve found some reason to leave again. And no matter how brief and well-intentioned it would be, I would miss him more than whatever relief his absence might render.

“I’m okay,” I said through a lopsided smile. “Thanks.”

The longer he looked at me, the more his features betrayed the normalcy of the morning. Not unlike how it looked when he lied, Spencer’s eyes seemed scrutinizing and somewhat apologetic.

Memories of the night before came back like the haze of haloed taillights. I chased the meaning behind worn vocal cords and a sore stomach only to flinch at what I found.

Before I could apologize for the mess I’d thrust upon him, though, Spencer spoke.

“I’m sorry about last night.”

He didn’t have to, but I’d appreciated that he had. In my mind, there was no question as to why he’d felt like he failed. I already knew his explanations. I had understood his missteps the moment I’d seen his face the night before.

I would always understand the terror in his eyes. If not the cause, at least the feeling. But I let him speak because I knew how badly he needed to do it to let it go. In a way, I knew it would help heal something in me, too.

“I wish I had a better excuse for reacting that way, but… I-I just got scared. And I wasn’t as nice to you as I should’ve been.”

I opened my mouth to accept the apology, but he stopped me to say, “I never want to treat you that way. Not even when I’m afraid.”

The distant cry from another night came to mind. A night filled with accusations, tears, and bruises. It wasn’t until halfway through one memory that I recalled another.

But this time was unlike the others. This time, I had been the catalyst. I had been the one to try to hide information from him. I was ashamed about my inability to live up to my own expectations.

I had my own apology to issue, and I knew he wouldn’t like it.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t being fair to you, either,” I sighed.

“No, you didn’t—,” he started.

It only took one glance for him to retreat back into the silence. But as he pressed his lips together, I saw an almost imperceptible smirk. A little hint of pride at my willingness to insist over his objection.

“You were right. I was being insecure,” I admitted.

I hadn’t expected that concession to hurt him so deeply, but I saw how his smile dropped, and his eyebrows knitted with concern.

“Bunny, I—.”

“I know,” I chuckled, “I know you love me.”

“I really do,” he said, anyway.

His smile returned at the same time as mine. Our hands raised in tandem, reaching out to hold onto each other while we confessed to faults the other couldn’t care less about. In that quiet, fleeting moment, I remembered the way I had looked in the mirror. I recalled the rage and frustration and the girl who’d let it happen.

“I actually don’t think I was feeling insecure,” I corrected after much thought.

Spencer froze, seemingly out of fear and confusion.

Mercifully, I explained myself with the utmost confidence.

“I just don’t like her, and I wanted to rub it in her stupid jerk face that you love me.”

A laugh sputtered from his lips. Our bodies swayed closer together in the early morning light. We looked at each other with eyes and bodies still touched by sleep. Our hands roamed over heated skin and soft sheets and found security in the vulnerability.

Even through the laughter, he teased, “You had a different word for her last night.”

But I was deadpan when I answered, “I’m trying to be better about my temper.”

He was equally serious when he answered, “God, I love you.”

As deft as always when it came to loving me, Spencer pulled me closer and wrapped a firm arm around me. His crushing embrace was welcomed with the same enthusiasm as the kisses that followed across my brow and down the sides of my jaw.

I giggled and squirmed until he awarded me what I sought most. A simple, chaste kiss on the lips.

Spencer didn’t want for anything more. He seemed so content, pressing his forehead against mine and letting his eyes flutter shut. I allowed him a few heavy exhales before I faltered.

There was no real reason for it. I had no pressing need, no undying desire to know the fullest extent of Spencer’s wounds. As far as I was aware, he’d never lied to me before.

But there was something about that fear that made me feel as though I was fighting a ghost of a memory. Sure, perhaps his years of law enforcement had made him slightly paranoid, but…

‘I wasn’t in love with any of them!’ he had said about the last two women he’d been with.

But Spencer had been in love before.

Hadn’t he?

“Can I ask you something?”

Still caught up in the chaos, he was quick to confirm,  “I haven’t kissed anyone else since I met you, much less slept with any of them. And if the ‘stupid bitch’ is who I think it is, I’m afraid she might have misdirected her grudge against me onto you.”

The characteristically candid nature of the reply made me chuckle.

“Yeah. That sounds right,” I assured him before explaining, “but… that’s not what I was going to ask.”

“By all means,” he offered freely.

“Have you ever been in love before?”

Just like that, all confidence was lost. His eyes opened at the same time the walls began rising.

“I…”

He stopped before he’d even started.

I turned my attention away for a split second and Spencer was quick to grab hold of my hand to stop me from leaving.

But I hadn’t been leaving. I’d just shifted enough to grab hold of the plush bunny wedged between our pillows.

He released a shaky breath and half the pressure from around my hand. I smiled, and he reciprocated the simple action with relief.

“It’s okay if you have, or if you don’t want to talk about it,” I whispered. “I just… wanted to hear about it.”

Spencer’s ever-emotive eyes fell away from me for what seemed like the first time. I watched as galaxies spun like gears, recalling lifetimes since passed.

I realized in that moment how very little I knew about the women he’d loved. I didn’t know how they’d met or how he’d lost them. I didn’t know how long of his life had been spent with someone else, although context clues told me it hadn’t been much of it.

Certainly, there had been heartbreak. Even without his words, I could feel it in the way he kissed me. So gently, so reverently, like he was loving something he knew he could lose.

I braced myself as I waited because I was so certain that Spencer would tell me a story of his first love that I would forever envy.

But he didn’t. Instead, he just shook his head in disbelief, all while wearing a smile.

“You know, it’s weird. A few years ago, I would’ve answered yes without hesitation but… I think I was wrong?”

What a rare, terrifying sentiment to hear from the bona fide genius. Yet he hardly seemed afraid. If anything, he seemed freer than before—even when his brows knitted and his eyes filled with tears.

“There’s only one woman I would say came close but, in retrospect… I didn’t really know her at all.”

Unsure of what to say, or how deeply I’d wanted to prod into the tale of the mystery woman who’d managed to trick Spencer Reid into believing in love, I just nodded.

He seemed relieved.

So, naturally, I had to ask another question.

“Why did you break up with Max?”

Spencer sat up. His eyes darted away unlike before. There was no introspection; no need for complicated contemplation. He knew his rehearsed answer and shared it without hesitation.

“She already told you. I kissed someone else.”

But that wasn’t what I meant.

“Yeah, but… Why did you do that?”

Caught off guard by the follow up, Spencer let a dark secret slip between his defenses.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged indifferently, “I wanted to.”

I winced. He didn’t.

“That’s an awful reason,” I reminded him. For a moment, he almost seemed to feel bad.

It was short lived, however. As quickly as it had come, the apathy was swept aside by a rip current of rage and something else. That self-loathing was accompanied by… pride and pain that felt like poison.

“She was also threatening to hurt people if I didn’t. But… I’m not going to lie about how I felt. I wanted to do it, too,” he said with a sharp tongue aimed only at himself.

“I wanted to,” he repeated. A quiet whisper of defeat.

I had recognized the shame bleeding through each word and, when I winced that time, it had been for an entirely different reason.

What I had heard in his words was something similar to how I’d felt about myself when I’d admitted to kissing Kyle. I’d accepted his crown of thorns despite the fact he’d forced it on my head—tricked myself so easily into thinking that I’d somehow implicitly asked for the very thing I’d rejected time and time again.

It suddenly made sense to me, then, why Spencer was so quick to tell me that he wasn’t mad at me. A boy’s broken nose seemed less like an overreaction.

‘What happened to you?’ I’d asked him that night in the park. He’d dodged the answer then, but I saw what he’d wanted to say between bitten lips.

Exactly what I deserved.

“Spencer…”

He snapped back to reality all at once, pulled from the darkness with a hard blink of his eyes and a sharp intake of breath.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay.” I swallowed the sentiments I’d wanted to share but felt would be unwelcome at present. Instead, I smiled at him. “I’m not mad at you.”

He didn’t fight me on it any further. I couldn’t tell if it was because he’d believed me or because he simply wanted to move on, but I would respect it either way.

In typical Spencer fashion, though, he couldn’t let the story simmer unfinished.

“Some part of me does feel bad for what I did. Max is amazing,” he said with an increasing genuineness. “She’s strong, beautiful, clever, kind… but I wasn’t in love with her, and she wasn’t in love with me.”

“But you didn’t love the other woman, either?” I asked.

His eyebrows jumped and pulled the corners of his mouth up with them.

“Not even close,” he scoffed… then laughed. “Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone as much as I hated her.”

The past tense told me all I’d needed to know about the truth behind Max’s joke. That, too, gave me insight into the pride intertwined with the pain.

“Did you go to her execution?” I asked.

He hesitated before he answered without fanfare, “I did.”

“Did you say goodbye?”

“Yes,” he said just as simply.

 But when I asked, “Did she love you?” his breath caught in his throat.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “Probably not.”

“I think at least some part of her did,” I suggested.

At first, Spencer seemed to bristle at the thought. But then he looked up at me and returned to softness with a blink of pathetic puppy dog eyes. 

“Seems impossible not to love you at least a little bit,” I chuckled.

Spencer shook his head with a smile. He paused, then repeated the action with a laugh—almost as if he was saying goodbye to something. Or maybe someone. Either way, he was downright triumphant as he closed the already small space between us. Strong, impatient fingertips pressed into my cheeks and pulled me forward.

Our lips collided in the middle, tasting faintly of sweetness and saltwater.

The kiss made me think of the mourning dove. Spencer had told me all about that beautiful bird with her soothing coos. About how she could drink brackish water without succumbing to the salt. She was so in love with comforting that she’d even sought out the taste of tears.

But, oh, she was so beautiful. The way Spencer always said I was. The way it felt when he looked at me in that usually unpalatable moment, with my hair knotted and distant remnants of makeup and mess smeared over my skin.

Spencer beamed with delight at the sight. 

“I don’t have any doubts about how I feel about you,” he whispered. It was stated like a promise, but he asked for my assurance, anyway. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I do.”

The sun looked at the moon and he smiled even brighter before paying mind to the fact his affections could be blinding.

“I love you,” he said right before he kissed me.

The action had already been interrupted with laughter when I answered, “I love you, too.”

I’d seen over nine thousand sunrises in my lifetime, and I craved the warmth of many more exactly like this one. Ones where Spencer couldn’t pretend to be polite any longer, and instead devolved into a flurry of kisses and ticklish hands.

“I have something that might brighten your spirits,” he whispered in my ear like a secret.

The feeling of his breath made my body shiver. The words, however, brought a different kind of excitement with them.

“Oooh, a present?”

After taking a moment to bask in the joy of anticipation, he offered an uncharacteristically slow and vague explanation.

“Sort of. I received an invitation for a party tonight, which will undoubtedly be much, much better than last night…”

“Wait…”

Skeptical but oh so hopeful, I tried to remain calm as I whispered back, “Do you mean…”

He didn’t even need to hear it. He knew what I was asking and didn’t hesitate any further to confirm, “Yes, I do.”

“I get to meet the whole team?!” I screeched—without an ounce of decorum and hurting my own aching head in the process. I couldn’t care, I could hardly feel my body’s protests as I rambled off every name I could remember.

 “David Rossi? Section Chief Emily Prentiss?”

“Yep,” he nodded, “they’ll be there.”

The author, the phoenix, the legends. My mind was racing and my body was shaking until it ran into a conclusion with a record scratch stop.

I gasped, hoping the air would help with the buzzing in my fingers and toes. I grabbed onto his forearm anyway, holding onto him like a lifeline.

“Do I get to meet… Doctor Lewis?” I asked.

There was a flash of an almost imperceptible wince that I chocked up to my nails digging into his skin. But then Spencer laughed again.

“She’s very excited to meet you, actually,” he said.

“Really?!” I screamed.

“Careful, Bunny, or you’ll make me jealous,” he grumbled through a smile.

When it only made me wiggle more, my boyfriend sighed. He smoothed a hand over my hair and held me as close as he could despite my squirming.

He savored whatever was left of the moment because he knew what was coming next. In a flurry of frantic movements, I quickly came to a set of conclusions.

“Oh my god. I have to… I have to go take a shower. I smell like old beer and cigarettes,” I gagged. Playfully, I pushed Spencer away and rolled out of the bed with as little grace as could be expected.

As I scrambled towards the bathroom, I shouted, “They’re going to think I’m a hooligan!”

I could feel his eyes on me like I always could. Lovingly tracing my silhouette with a calm but unrelenting lust. The perfect, powerful combination of something innocent and something wicked.

Between the two of them I found a silent sentiment; the very same one I’d whispered to him earlier.

“They’re going to love you,” he promised.

‘How could anyone not?’

There are many legends about the hummingbird. The mighty, iridescent little bird with its fast-beating heart has inspired humans since the first time they flitted by.

The ancient Mayans even told tales of how one of those birds was the sun itself, frolicking through golden fields as a playful courtship for the moon. It was an understandable legend, considering how often we would gaze upon their feathers and confuse them for rainbows.

Hummingbirds were, undoubtedly, marvelous creatures. A feat of evolution that seemed impossible without some divine intervention.

Yet they seemed almost dull compared to my Bunny.

Perhaps, I posited, that was why the female fledglings didn’t bother with the colors. Perhaps they knew to trust the sun to follow them and kiss rainbows against their necks.

As my arms wrapped around her, she bubbled with laughter. She pulled her hair and soft fabric from my path to stop it from wrinkling, but her face crinkled with the hope that it would. Let it be another permanent reminder, a testament to how happy we were.

Once they were free to, my lips descended upon feverish skin that was already dusted with glitter.

My darling girl only continued to laugh, humming between the sounds until she’d near melted in my arms. She looked so beautiful like that. Perfectly preened and prepared to be presented as my most previous marvel.

There had been a time when I hadn’t felt it acceptable for me to hold her like this. But in that moment, I couldn’t imagine a fate where my hands hadn’t known her. They ran down her body but refused to settle. Instead, they continued to move as they guided her to turn to face me.

My Bunny beamed at me through painted lips. I was too afraid to kiss her the way I’d wanted to—too worried that I might ruin the efforts she’d so graciously offered to make sure that the night would be perfect.

So, instead, I traced along the side of her jaw with a careful finger that came to rest beneath her chin. And rest followed, coming to her and allowing her smile to fall to no more than half its previous brilliance.

Her hummingbird heart accepted the comfort of a familiar nest, and I realized all at once that I hadn’t wanted anything more than for her to come home to me for the rest of our lives.

The conclusion was so natural that the words tumbled from my mouth with no grace but a lifetime of yearning.

“Move in with me,” I begged.

Her eyes snapped open.

“What?” she asked.

“When your lease runs out at your apartment, come live with me instead,” I clarified, in case it hadn’t been clear.

It must not have been, because she asked once again, “…What?”

And I suppose if someone hadn’t been inside of mind, the request would have seemed a little out of nowhere.

But that was exactly why I knew it had been what I wanted. Because behind the minutiae, somewhere behind the self-hatred and shame, my heart was screaming for something within my reach.

Underneath the layers of scar tissue and aching bones was a heart that knew it was meant to love her, and only her, forever and evermore.

My Bunny must’ve known that already, but she deserved to hear it, anyway.

“I’ll buy you a house,” I said, “I’ll pay it all off and sign it over to you. I’ll keep two apartments, and you can leave the second you have any hesitation.”

With each passing second, her heartbeat grew faster and took my voice along with it.

“I don’t care how, I just know that I want to wake up to you every morning and fall asleep with you every night for the rest of my life. And I don’t care if that makes me sound insane because I love you. I love you, and I love you, and I want to be with you.”

So swiftly, I was silenced by her lips against mine. With her permission, I kissed her exactly how I’d wanted to. I held her so tightly that no air could pass between us. I drowned in the honey of her and didn’t care when the feeling of it all brought tears to my lashes.

It only stopped when she laughed. She laughed, and I followed until my bottom lip shook too hard to kiss her properly.

“You don’t have to buy me a house, Spencer,” she told me with an ecstatic sort of sureness.

“Well, I would!” I blubbered, anyway.

“My answer is yes.”

My heart yearned for something more, for her words to be in relation to a second question still making its way through the labyrinth inside my chest.

But for now, I just choked on tears so endlessly happy that I almost couldn’t stand it.

Before she could utter one more word, I kissed her again. I kissed her over and over, each time revolving into an even more brutal type of love.

Any concern about her appearance had vanished the second she’d told me yes. From that point on, the only thing I could think of was how to commemorate one of many moments where she was mine.

How could that be? I thought as her dress fell to the floor.

The glitter on her skin shimmered like the sun and I threw my arms around her, wax wings be damned. I held her the best I could before I began to lower her down against satin sheets.

How could it be? I thought with my heart leaping into my throat.

She’s mine.

I sat with the feeling for a moment longer. I let the full weight of the realization set into my bones. Bones that felt lighter yet more powerful than ever.

The confidence set in, my ego inflating as I smoothed a scarred palm over her body. She squirmed beneath me, displaying her chest to me while her nails dug into her thighs.

“I love you more than anyone could ever love anything,” I told her.

My darling girl just giggled, reaching her hands out to me until I could join her on the bed. She waited patiently while I shed my clothing.

“You are an impossibility that I hope to never be proven,” I continued to ramble. Each point was punctuated with the crumpling of fabric on the ground. “I want to be baffled by your existence until my heart stops beating and my lungs stop breathing.”

The longer I spoke, the more the laughter faded until there was nothing. Tears welled in her eyes, and I prayed they would be kind to her. Just in case they weren’t, I hurried the last few movements to close the gap. I kissed her lips first. Then I littered her with them, pressing harder against her temple.

As my lips lingered, I whispered with little breath, “I will be yours until the death of the last star and the universe as we may never come to know it.”

My Bunny’s hands were gentle but insistent. She pressed soft palms against my cheeks and pulled me back.

Universe-colored eyes burned into me, tore through all my defenses and left me trembling in her hold.

“I don’t care about the stars, Spencer,” she whispered with longing I’d never heard from her before. “There is no universe for me if you aren’t in it.”

I could see how much she felt it—the weight of the world. I looked into her eyes and saw a love that, beyond all odds, I could finally comprehend.

I’d nearly had the nerve to ask her right there. Bare and defenseless, I could’ve ended any potential of a lifetime without her.

But something told me that the time wasn’t right. Not yet. So, I trusted my heart, and I made myself wait. In the interim, however…

“I’m here, Bunny,” I assured her between tender kisses down her breast. “I would be a fool not to take full advantage of that, too.”

This time, teary giggles were surely from pleasant sources. As I made my way down her body, my Bunny’s hands twisted knots into my hair but never even tried to slow me down. If anything, wiggling toes helped urge me forward faster.

My heart ached, moans spilling from my mouth at the thought of her ushering me towards her defilement. She’d come so far from the green young girl who’d needed me to beg before she let me taste her.

But, oh, I would beg for it forever.

When my lips reached her navel, I slowed my descent. I savored the sweet taste of salt on her skin while I guided pliant legs over my shoulders. I kissed those, too, suckling on sensitive skin just to feel her shiver.

I gave her no warning before I turned to taste her. I had wanted to hear her cry out for me, to feel her nails drag over my scalp as she pulled me impossibly closer.

My tongue felt cold compared to the heat of her. I buried it further into her, reaching for whatever I could reach between honeysuckle petals.

Her body writhed harder the more I held her down. But I couldn’t stop myself; I wanted, needed to gorge myself on the sweet nectar now smeared across my face.

“S-Spencer,” she squeaked between licentious moans.

I wanted more. My tongue ran through her folds, lapping at the excess and seeking to make more. I focused my efforts on the small pearl at the apex of her. I lavished it, loved it as the most sacred extension of the woman that was mine.

At the same time, I released one of her legs while my other hand carved crescent moons into her thigh. My Bunny immediately utilized the freedom to squeeze her legs relentlessly around my head. I groaned with satisfaction at the feeling of her desire. I fought through the pressure so that my fingers could join my tongue.

While pressing two fingers between tight muscles, I smiled. I opened my eyes to see a frantic and ecstatic woman nearly thrashing on my bed.

“Professor,” she whined.

It wasn’t my fault. She made it so easy to tease her.

I moved slower, taunting her with the goal she sought but couldn’t quite reach. It hadn’t been out of cruelty—only selfish desires. I’d wanted to watch her, feel her whole body giving in to the exhaustion just before I thrust her over the edge.

Tense muscles twitched and rolled in my grip. I could feel how tightly her walls held my fingers. I felt how badly she sought something more permanent.

It was only then that I’d noticed how hard I had been grinding into the mattress beneath me.

She hadn’t been the only desperate one.

Out of selfish greed, I shifted my approach. All at once, I returned to my previous worship. I could barely breathe, but it hardly mattered. Oxygen would only get in the way. I hadn’t needed my mind to know how to love her. It was instinct.

The same instinct that told me to keep going, harder and faster until her muscles seized. She tugged hard enough at my hair that I could feel my heartbeat in each follicle.

My nose pressed harder against her pubic bone, my mouth salivating over an already soaked pearl while my fingers beckoned me closer from inside her.

Each twitch, each pulsing wave of her muscles called me home. I kept going until her body hung limp in my arms.

Only then did I allow myself to breathe. Oxygen-starved lungs greedily sucked in the heady scent of her bloom. I missed the taste of her immediately, but I could tell from her spasming that my Bunny needed a break.

I tried to be careful as I withdrew my fingers. She still whimpered from the loss. Those adorable noises continued when I cleaned them with an equally tainted tongue.

“You are made of ambrosia and honey,” I grumbled as I licked the last of her from my fingertips, “I could worship you forever.”

My Bunny wasted no time.

“But I miss you,” she whined.

The sound shot straight through me to the throbbing ache between my legs.

“So needy,” I chuckled, dark and filled with desire.

As I made my way crawling back over her body, I took note of the sated look in her eyes. Her body was visibly exhausted—to the point she could hardly keep her head all the way up. Yet when I’d finally made it back to her lips, she was quick to spread half-limp legs. The head of my cock bumped against her, and she sighed so dreamily that I barely managed to keep control.

I held my own burning heat, hoping that it might alleviate the impulse to sink into her without warning. I rubbed the head between soaked petals and I groaned.

“Is this what you want?” I managed to ask.

“Yes,” she breathed.

There was no waiting. With one smooth motion, I pushed myself to the hilt inside her.

My Bunny gave a small, silent scream from parted lips. Her trembling body still felt like home.

“Look at me, Bunny,” I ordered between heavy breaths.

Half-lidded eyes met mine without wincing. I withdrew slowly, watching all the while. I watched as the anticipation grew in her eyes. Then, as I slammed back into her, her jaw fell open with praise.

“Spencer,” she cried, “I love you so much.”

“I could never have enough of you,” I said just before I thrust into her even harder. “Even if I have you every day, I will always want you more.”

Each word was emphasized with a collision of burning skin. My blood raged in my veins, making me fuck her harder in the hope that evidence of our longing would be painted in bruises.

I knew that it must hurt, to love someone like me. I knew that my love was a terrifying sort of violence. But I couldn’t hold myself back when she seemed so content to bear it.

“I love you so much, Spencer,” she mumbled. Even with tears streaming down her face from the unmuted pleasure of it all. “I wish I had more beautiful words, but I…”

My hand dropped to her hip, pulling her waist up so that when I thrust into her, there was nowhere left to go. I bumped against the end of her, shivering with satisfaction at the feeling.

“I know, Bunny,” I growled. I rut against that innermost point, making sure to hold her down when instinct told her that I was almost too close.

Her arms, albeit tired, scrambled and scratched her presence against my back.

“I’m almost finished, I promise,” I chuckled. I almost withdrew, but then groaned and fucked back into her when her walls tightened around me.

“Take your time,” she panted so sweetly, “love shouldn’t be rushed.”

With those words, her body begged me to find my release there. Every atom of our beings sought to end this the way it ought to be, with my desire warming her most intimate point; granting her the serenity of part of my soul in a permanent fashion.

Small movements were all I could make, too afraid to stray too far from that most special place, still untouched by sin.

I was on the verge of collapse. I lowered my weight down onto her while still making sure to hold her hips against me. My face found its way against her neck while I remained buried between her legs.

I made love to her, cradled her body against mine and begged the universe to let miracles exist.

“I love you,” I sobbed against sweet sweat-laden skin, “I’ll love you forever.”

And finally, I found my peace. With no space left between us, I let go of everything I had. The warmth surrounded me and burned its way back. I took my time, riding each pulse of pleasure without restraint.

Even when it was over, my limp body kept trying for a few moments longer.

Eventually, we settled into the quiet. Our hearts bounced back and forth between our chests until I could speak again.

“Thank you for loving me,” I said under my breath.

“You never have to apologize for who you are,” she answered with her whole chest. “I love every part of you, Spencer.”

I smiled. A simple, true testament to that moment.

“I know, Bunny,” I said.

For once in my life, I knew.  I knew how little I had known before. I knew the sweetness of love as clearly as I knew the lies uttered in its name. I knew the ways that the others have bastardized what is, always and innately, beautiful.

I knew that she was beautiful not because of purity but because she was human. She was perfect not for lack of fault but an abundance of it. She was, no matter her misgivings, shamelessly her, and somewhere between her being unabashedly, impossibly, wonderfully her… she loved me.

She loved me, and I knew.

All at once, I was invincible. A man made of hubris with his arms wrapped around the sun. I had made it with or without wings. No longer fallen, but full of hope.

As I opened the door to usher her indelibly further into my life, the soft summer sun bathed the world in a honeyed hue. I watched as she basked in the light. So innocently unaware of how brilliant she was.

If she hadn’t been holding my hand, I would’ve fallen to my knees and worshipped at her feet. Instead, I squeezed her hand harder. I pulled her back half a step; clung tighter to this moment before it would be overshadowed by another.

In my pocket sat a ring made of rarities like precious gems and metals and a promise for forever.

Yet a simple glance over her shoulder far exceeded its value to me. Even when she knitted her brow and huffed, “Shoot! I’m sorry! I must’ve left my wallet upstairs…”

“So forgetful,” I scoffed sarcastically.

Her jaw dropped, her mouth agape with astonished laughter and a similarly sarcastic defense. “Well, I got a little distracted by my boyfriend threatening to buy me a house!”

I nodded in thought before I shrugged.

“He sounds like a keeper,” I suggested.

“Mhm. He sure is,” she begrudgingly accepted.  “I love him to death.”

The familiar phrase sparked thoughts like fireworks. It was so strikingly similar, so seemingly fated, that I was even confident enough to ask, “To death or til death?”

My clever, darling Bunny bristled the same as she’d done the last time I made a joke about proposals. Sternly, she reminded me, “You still have to ask me, you know. It’s not a given.”

An adorable attempt at a lie.

I recalled my earlier promise to her and the accompanying promise to myself.

“When I ask you, I promise you that there will be no doubt.”

And there was none. No doubt that after four decades of waiting, I’d finally found the fated end. The light at the end of the tunnel, the other, better half of my heart.

I had made it to her, to that wonderfully impossible hummingbird-hearted lavender girl. To my Bunny, forever and evermore.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her with a gentle smile to hide the excitement in my veins, “I’ve got a plan.”

For the third time that day, her mind got caught on the thickets of a pleasant surprise.

“What?” she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Go get your wallet,” I said in lieu of an answer she likely already knew. “We’re already late because of your stupid boyfriend.”

After the briefest pause, she shook off the suggestion of another question waiting in the near future. Her normal exuberance returned, revitalized by a new realm of possibilities.

“Hey, be nice!” she scolded, “I love my stupid boyfriend!”

“He loves you, too.”

Forever and evermore.

I had been so sure of it—the inevitability of our end.

But fate always had a funny way of reminding me why certainties are never as sure as they seem.

The winter was almost over. It was only when the sun disappeared behind the night sky that the dying breaths of the frost could be noticed. Any plants too quick to search for the summer sun would wilt before they could bloom.

As I approached the car, I truly thought nothing of the chill in my bones. The only thing occupying my mind was her, the young woman flitting about my home—what would become our home—and how I hadn’t wanted her to feel Winter’s cruel bite any longer than necessary.

I should have done more, should have thought and fought with fate.

But I didn’t. I kept my eyes forward as I climbed into a familiar seat and was greeted by an even more familiar feeling.

The frozen kiss of a gun against my temple.

“Hey there, stickbug.”

My skin burned with the heat of a blue flame. I didn’t move, barely breathed as tightened my hands around the steering wheel.

It was a dizzying instinct. A mixture of every possible response to adrenaline. My mind recalled every time I’d ever seen, felt, smelt, tasted gunpowder on my skin.

“Don’t worry, I already took your gun out of your glovebox,” the man assured me, “No need to go looking for it.”

I turned my face towards him without an ounce of emotion present in my features. I faced with him all the apathy he deserved.

“Thanks,” I sighed.

He looked as miserable as the last time I’d seen him, still covered with the stench of methamphetamine and sewage. It had been so long that he’d been forced into the shadows, I could see them etched into his skin.

In a strange sort of way, I pitied him more than I hated him.

“You had to know I was coming for you,” he chuckled like an old friend.

“Yeah. I did,” I conceded without a fight. “Just hoped I’d have a little bit longer.”

“Fate waits for no man,” he drawled.

What an odd voice for fate to choose. What a cruel twist of its knife, to have my company here and now.

Although I suppose it never was going to be anything different.

“No, it doesn’t,” I whispered back.

That quiet admission had been the first sign of my resistance, and the only indication of fear I planned on providing.

Looking back, I almost wish that I’d fought him harder. But I hoped, perhaps foolishly, that if I trusted fate, it might forgive me enough to show me mercy. Despite its having made its opinion on my union obvious over the past year, I hoped that even the universe could allow me happiness—just this once.

There was no fight left in me, I suppose. As I faced the inevitability that I’d almost convinced myself I could change, I turned my cheek to return to the one thing I hoped never would.

I could see my Bunny’s shadow through the window curtain. I saw her with a clarity unlike ever before.

She was so beautiful, so innocent, so pure in a way I could never be again. It was what drew me to her and what had kept me away.

Maybe it made me a chauvinist to hope that I could preserve pristine petals for a few minutes more. But I didn’t care.

“Could you do me a favor?” I asked.

He pressed the metal harder against the side of my face. I greeted its embrace with a familiarity and understanding.

I waited until the light flickered off and her shadow disappeared back into the night. Then, I took a deep breath and allowed my voice to shake.

“She’s coming back soon. Just… don’t make her watch,” I begged the devil, “Please.”

“You’ve got a gun leveled to your head, and that’s the favor you ask for?” he returned.

“Yeah,” I said, “It is.”

After a moment, he shrugged.

“Suit yourself.”

Briefly, and with a deafening sound, the world went black.

From somewhere far away, though, I felt the cold hands of fate take hold of my heart and whisper in my ear.

It’s not over yet.

“Spencer!”

A blood curdling scream, a horrendous sound of snapped violin strings and wildfires ripping through the forest.

“Somebody, help!” she screamed at the same time I felt her hands on my burning cheek.

“Spencer, can you hear me?!”

The angry sound of sirens roared in the background, broken with periodic cries.

“Somebody, help!” quickly followed with, “Spencer, please, please wake up.”

I’m so tired.

The smell of her perfume cut through the gunpowder and made me think of spring.

I could almost see her at Elysium. I could see her among frost bitten fields and and two thoughts occurred to me with a gut wrenching blow.

The first was that I hadn’t been able to love her through the spring yet.

Perhaps that was why I had to go—perhaps the only way to allow her to bloom was to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do.

Let her go.

The second thought, by contrast, was nothing but a product of my own selfishness. My foolish hope that they were all right when they’d said that your life flashes before your eyes when your time has come.

Because I saw her. I saw her in the spring.

Open your eyes.

Yet no matter how much I wished for it to be true, I could see the light in her. I could hear the desperation from the universe in her screams, not asking me to stay, but begging me to let her go.

“Spencer, look at me,” she urged me, turning my head and letting the blood fall over her fingers.

The crimson stained her dress the same as it had in my dream, and I hoped that she would still find a way to sprout lilies in my wake.

“Bunny…” I mumbled.

Please don’t cry, sweetheart. You’re breaking my heart.

“Yes!” she cried, a wavering smile appearing beneath the tears, “That’s me! Your Bunny! Stay with me, Spencer.”

“So beautiful,” I breathed. Burning iron covered my lips that trembled with every breath. Still, I croaked, “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” she blubbered. “I love you, just—just keep your eyes open, okay?”

I swore I did. I used every ounce of willpower left in me to fight the inevitability. It wasn’t until then, until she called my name again that I realized this wasn’t fair.

“Spencer?”

No.

The cruel hands of fate covered my eyes with a curtain of darkness.

No, wait, please.

“No. Spencer, no, no, no,” she cried in tandem with my pleas, unknowing that she was begging the wrong person when she yelled, “Don’t leave me, Spencer, please!”

I didn’t want to, but I hadn’t been given a choice. With eyes seemingly still open, I focused only on the feeling of home I found in her hands.

“I love you,” she sobbed, and I allowed myself to find a modicum of peace within the sound.

“You promised.”

I did. And it hadn’t been a lie.

I love you, I had promised.

And oh, had I loved her. Too much for the universe to allow, I thought.

Then again…

Over and through the sound of sirens, I heard a familiar melody. A haunting but familiar song from the radio; one that I’d heard a million times before.

My baby never fret none

About what my hands and my body done

If the Lord don't forgive me

I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me

In some nearly lost memory, I could almost hear her singing along as it lulled from staticky car speakers.

When my time comes around

Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

Fate always did have a funny way of proving me wrong.

No grave can hold my body down

I'll crawl home to her.