"pipsqueak" apologist

If Heaven is real, those euthanised may be delivered to a better place, not merely freed from Hell. 

On nights like these, Zayne’s faith shifts. You're not sentient, trapped, and therefore suffering; you’ve never stepped foot in his city, nor its residential districts, nor anywhere the Abominations roam; there can be no plane of existence harbouring souls as pure as yours, because you’re simply a figment of his imagination. Whatever goodness he had as a child crystallised on his twelfth birthday and you’re inside that fragment. During sleep, Zayne’s mind slips down to his heart and peers inside, spectating a rose-tinted existence.

Tonight, he killed a girl about your height, half-turned and disfigured by burns, far too slow to outrun him. What happened to her was awful. Yet as Zayne stares at the dust coating his shoes, he’s preoccupied by a selfish sorrow. If she’d been you, would he have known? 

Essentially that's the risk run by supposing you're real and within reach: most people within reach of Zayne are killed. He tries to look them all in the face and, ideally, speak to them, but some are too far gone; but if you were… 

Zayne bites the inside of his cheek. I would recognise her.

The upper corner of his vision flares white. He looks up at the black, star-speckled sky. If what he sighted was a comet, rather than cosmic debris from the tunnel, it is long gone. Yet so is Linkon City. Zayne can still make a wish, for you.

Gazing at the stars, he tucks his hands into his pockets, and steps out of the alley, onto the deserted street. The great dark blanket smothering the grey world is covered in bits of lint. Distant, uncaring and static, remnants in the thousands. Yet you so adore wishing on stars; you suppose something so far away and unknowable might be benevolent, and entertain your whim. 

The breeze picks up. Chill pricks at his neck. He tucks his throat in to keep his neck close to his collar. (You, wearing a puffer jacket, on a sunlit, snowy slope, do the same, “like a turtle.” Your posture is chastised, so you reply, “posture is a societal construct,” then raise your voice over protest: “I’m a turtle, you’re not getting that; in turtle society, this is great, and you’re weird.”) 

Sickening need gurgles in his stomach. Zayne stares at his breath clouding in the night air. You aren’t with him and you possibly don’t care. He’s cold and tired and wants to lay down, right here, on the street; by morning, he’d be free of— 

The familiar instinct meets a familiar yank of the leash: he needs to live to see more of you. Even after twenty-eight years, new experiences still show up in his dreams; he could never be tired of the well-watched ones, but every new dream means... more of you. No reason to believe the dead dream. Say there is an afterlife, and you're an angel in Heaven. In every way of looking at it, death’d mean never seeing you again.

The stars blur. 

Zayne's coat pockets bulge as he clenches and unclenches his fists. The chill will steal what little sensation remains in them. Staring at the stars is a waste of time. He knows that, but you’d want him to…

You’d want the surgeon to make a wish. You always encourage him to, and perhaps he does; Zayne cannot read the man’s mind.

Zayne would do anything you asked of him. Faith bids him to practice. He blinks and clears his throat. “I will… I will w—I will make a wish.” 

(“Thank you, see, it's easy!” as you’re handed an overstuffed, light grey plush penguin.) After which you make a joke about it still being cold from the Arctic. Sweet as it is, Zayne doesn’t let his mind skip ahead to that part. He likes making replies from you, similar to a ransom letter in the movies: a cut-and-pasted communication. 

Because he too is a criminal! And a strange, ridiculous man. 

(Your voice travelling from shoulder to ear: “Peeking through your ear to your brain right now… There’s no wishes in there!” ‘His’ vision, trapped on the sky as you grant kisses he can only hear.) 

… for her by my side? No. Covetous desires, no matter how ferocious, cannot supersede your well-being. You’re safe in Linkon. By another man’s side, sure, fine, but more importantly, away from danger. Were you here, you’d be safe with Zayne. But your world wouldn't begin and end within his arms; the world outside his embrace would break your spirit to pieces.

But I wish to hold you. I would, I… He digs his nails into his palms. Shut up. Shut up.

Is he a child again?! A giddy, desperate teen?! It is love he feels for you, he thinks, but he is also a mass murderer who couldn’t distinguish love from lust or obsession or fetish if he tried; you are his only point of reference, for whom he has all three. Any will to wish is kicked free. No more toying with hope like a can along the street.

Zayne walks with an emptied mind, heading home, to… bed. Were the ground not so icy, or Zayne’s body not so ruined an instrument, he’d quicken his pace.

The mirror reflects his face. As mirrors do, when observed front-on. Little else to contemplate, though, without getting subjective and subsequently miserable. Zayne's face continues to be reflected in the mirror.

Objectively, his face if soft-skinned, with unburdened under-eyes. (No shadow from hollowing.) His body if it lacked a shirt, this evening (there is moonlight pouring from the other room into the bathroom, and so it must be evening), and lacked stomach or neck scars. The shared scars on each arm seem almost circumstantial, on the surgeon. Wrapped around firmer muscle. More faded.

The surgeon is rarely shirtless, and rarer still does he look himself over. Typically Zayne's spared a view, inch-by-inch, of how the man exceeds him. 

“Guess what?” There you are. You or your voice had to be somewhere. You're in the other room, with the moonlight, but the surgeon doesn’t turn, even when you repeat yourself, clearer: “Guess what I just saw on Moments?”  

Zayne’s eyes stare back at him. No use shouting ‘LEAVE!’ at himself, he knows that much; best to wait like a good parasite. 

“Zayne?”

Each dream feels more vivid than the last. Currently, his hands ache—because, as the surgeon glances down, Zayne can see how firmly the man’s hands grip the marble counter’s rounded edge. His hands ‘ache’ because he's projecting. Hallucinating within what may well be a hallucination. He lets himself ‘feel.’ Delusion hurts no one but himself. The Zayne of the morning, who will wake to a room empty of you, aching and aching and aching and so it’s fine. It’s the price he must pay to see you. He’s made his peace, he’s content; the surgeon seems vacant.

“Are you okay?”

Sheets rustle. You were comfortable in bed! Why won’t the man move?!

“Did you get lost in your eyes? Because that happens to me all the time.”

Zayne huffs out a laugh. 

No he doesn’t.

He just heard the surgeon do so, and can see… the look on the man’s face as he glances up.

… His chest feels different than it did seconds ago. Zayne’s hand raises, splayed, and touches his chest, as he does, and… smooth skin over robust musculature, beneath which beats an eager heart. He can feel that heart twice over. Within, and under his palm.

Footsteps. Yours. 

 “I’m—fine. I am fine. Return to bed.” Return to bed?! While the surgeon’s voice is not hoarse from lack of use, whatever lobe (is it lobe?) of Zayne's brain controls speech must be.

Your footsteps stop. “Ooonly if you join me soon.” 

Zayne has to bite back another laugh. Why? No. You’re… He can’t be here. He can't actually talk to you. It’s not possible. 

(“You aren’t Dr. Zayne. Who are you?”)

Newly aware of his heart’s existence, Zayne endures its sinking. You’ll recognise him as you once did, remind him of what he is not. A rejection he'll spend a year pruning and shaping until it appears a mere misunderstanding. 

“Zayne?”

“Yes.” He’s practiced for this and must not be a coward. One step after the other, Zayne leaves the bathroom. In the bed before him is a remarkably beautiful woman, hair silver-limned by moonlight, wearing a white, oversized button-up, which is unbuttoned; at a squint, Zayne can see the bralette beneath. Relief passes quieter than awe. You're...

‘Right before his very eyes.’ As you always have been. This is a dream; a television show; a painting behind glass. 

Zayne’s staring. 

Your face holds nothing but affection. Like such gormless ogling is welcome. “I’m going to show you something,” you say, holding up a finger. You adopt a mock-stern expression. “I’ll put my phone away right after, I promise.”

He manages a hoarse “mhm.” Avoiding your eyes helps.  

“Look!”

Damn it. Zayne forces his eyes to twitch back toward you, until they meet the phone, and the garishly bright advertisement onscreen. Over a pastel snowy background, subtitled ‘NEW PLUSHIE ARRIVAL AT TWINKLE TOYS’, is a powder-blue mushroom plush. 

“Cute.”

The flat affect should seem normal to you, yet you frown; perhaps this is at a time the surgeon is... better to you. “Is something wrong?”

No. Yes. Zayne could ask you the same thing, if he dared. “I know I don’t…” Words break as he works them free from the cage of his body. “I know I don’t… deserv—” 

“Oops!” You cup a hand to your ear. “You’ll need to come closer. I think I heard that wrong.” 

Zayne makes his way over as delicately as if across ice. He crouches by the end of the bed. “I know I don’t des—”

His knee rumples the sheet, drags it over the mattress, as you drag him, by the face, over the bed and right up to you; when his nose brushes your cheek, the hands he manages to brace under himself almost give out. The two of you are in a private world within a private world, curtained by your hair. The air is rich with… jasmine... ?

“Why’re we talking like that?” you whisper, fervently affectionate. Mint floats from your breath, but what wafts most thickly, right to Zayne’s brain, is more warm, fruity sweetness. The bud on his sill is a thrice-passed echo compared to this... Goosebumps ripple over his arms and neck. You nudge his nose with yours. “Time’s up.”

“O-oh.” 

“The answer was: there’s no reason to talk like that.”

Weak as a whimper, he concedes, “Alright.”

“Okay.”

“I... need to speak to you. Can... I?” 

You soften. “Duh.” 

Duh.

The sheets roll back like the waves of a moonlit ocean. Zayne sits against the headboard while you lay down. The pillows are double-stacked—one silken, one soft—and your hair is a soft spill over silver. When he folds his hands in his lap, a strand of your hair tickles his elbow. Tendrils of you, reaching for him.

He can't resist taking the strand between his fingers. A miniscule part of you, barely held... but he can feel it. You didn't pull away this time. He can feel you. In his peripheral vision, he can see you, staring. Where once there were tingles from your closeness, anxiety now pricks, up Zayne's arm and down his neck and round his spine, sharp as thorns. He releases your hair.

Your hand closes around his wrist. 

“Forgive m—”

“Shh.” 

Your fingertips go up his arm, and back down again; up and down, from his wrist to his bicep, again and again... and there’s no pain. You’re avoiding his scars. At a peek he can see your eyes are fixed on his face. But you never stroke the jagged, aching tissue. So you’ve memorised…

For once he’d like to wake up. 

“I like how much you like my hair,” you whisper—I love your hair—he needs to wake up immediately. 

Silent, Zayne endures the sight of you tracing between each scar. His are the very same. You could touch him this way. 

… You are. You are touching him. Zayne anchors himself to the tip of your index finger, and lets himself feel your skin moving along his. Tender to the point of ticklish. He can't think of what to do next. Let alone what to think or say or...

“You okay?”  

“Yes. I’m sorry. You’re…” … difficult to look at? He can’t say that. The reason why is better, but caught in his throat—“Y-you’re beautiful.”

Your fingers still. You don't reply. 

Awkward silences are too mundane for the realm of dreams where one is led either to desire, or nightmare, or you; you, most nights, are both. Tonight, you’re neither, you are blatantly real. Zayne can feel you and talk to you—and he could, if he liked, touch you—and he made things awkward, instead. Comically typical, considering the miraculous situation. 

“I actually saw online,” you begin, fingers walking up to his elbow, “that women look prettier at a certain point in their cycle? It's from a reputable video creator, though, and I realised how that's honestly true for me, and... I think the two litres of water a day is starting to kick in!”

Zayne drags his eyes to your face. Your smile looks… odd. “I don’t mean tonight,” he says. “I meant every time I have ever seen you.” 

That odd smile falls clean away. Your expression turns severe. Mockingly so, he realises, after a dread-filled moment. “Is another compliment coming?” you ask. “If not, it’s your turn.”

“No. Don’t—”

“So another one is coming?”

“I l-love your hair, I don’t simply like it.” Inadequate. “I like th-the accessories you…” This is pathetic. He’s stammering and nervous and might as well be twenty-six again, practicing what women like hearing about, just in case he'll meet you at the same time the surgeon did.

… He has met you. At twenty-eight, but…

A small bud of hope pokes through thick-laid mortar.

The two of you... are together. Zayne covers your wandering hand with one of his, and lifts it away. “I love you.”

For as long as Zayne has known so, he’s known you can not love him. Therefore it’s no surprise you remain silent. But your eyes widen in shock, just as they once did, and Zayne’s heart freezes. You wouldn't remain silent if you thought he was the surgeon. Whatever allowed him to trespass lucidly has withdrawn its mercy. 

“I love you too.” 

Ah! No, Zayne finally died, that’s all. This is Hell, and you're a demon, presenting temptation. “What?” he asks, brainless. 

“I’m going to have to clean your ears?” Your hand slips free from his shock-limp grip. You sit up and throw a leg over his hip and straddle him—?! Mercy upon mercy, you keep your weight off his crotch. Your eyes are brightened by adoration once more, darting over his face. “Sorry, but I need to do the big question.”

“Mm?” Zayne’s brainless and paralysed and damnation smells like mint and jasmine; he’d like to taste it, so you should kiss him, please.

“Would you love me if I was a worm?”

(“Would you love me if we were two sled dogs? Caveat: the sled is really heavy, so our muscles are sore, and we don’t get to talk much.”) He's familiar with this game, though you're asking a simpler question than usual. The surgeon gives reasonings at length. Zayne simply cannot imagine saying ‘no’ to anything you asked of him, now or ever, but especially now, when you’re in his lap. Keeping his untrustworthy hands at his sides, he answers truthfully.

“I think I would.”

You squint, skeptical. “Really?”

“Yes. Why not? Would you have always been a worm?”

“What if I was?”

“Then how would we have gotten to know each other, in the first place?”

You lean back, tapping your chin. Zayne clenches his fists to better resist reaching for you. “Okay. Fair point. Say I got turned into a worm tomorrow morning.”

“Sadly, yes, I would still love you.” 

“Sadly!”

“Of course I would be sad. You’d have been... bodily transformed.” Zayne wants to do this all night. Zayne doesn't want to do this all night. His brain scrambles between joy and dysphoria; playing the game you play with the surgeon is... wrong... ? Putting his own spin on it might help. “If I were the mushroom. On your phone, the... plushie. Would you love me?”

You raise your eyebrows in surprise. “Mhm. I’d put you on a special shelf, right by my desk, and do this all the time.” You reach forward, and cup his cheek. Fast as instinct, he noses at your palm. Warm. The chap of his lips is more obvious when against your soft palm. 

“Would you love me if I wasn’t a Hunter?” you ask, voice wavering. 

Zayne barely hears the question, so focused is he on not sniffing at you like a fucking dog. “Yes,” he breathes, dampening your skin.

“What if I just read books all day. Like, if I got so sick I just got boring and bleh and I couldn't work?”

His warmed-over brain sluggishly takes in your words proper. “You wouldn’t be boring. We’d discuss the books. I'd look after you.”

“You'd get tired of me.”

Zayne chuckles, hot against your palm, and brushes his lips over the upper curved line. “I could never. I could never get tired of you.” He glances up at you. You're staring at the blanket, chewing your lower lip.  

“I guess the Hippocratic Code could say, 'Dr. Zayne has to look after his chronically ill girlfriend and be really nice about it,' so—”

“Oath. And do you love me even if I'm not Dr. Zayne?”

When you look at him, your eyes hook into his soul and pull; though his face remains anchored to your palm, Zayne's mind sinks into the dark of your eyes. “Would you still look after me?" you ask.

"Yes. Whether you were sick. Or without work. A worm.” Return to mutism! screams his peevish dignity. Zayne has no need of that, and so ignores it. “Even if you were a worm. I'll learn to take care of you, always.”

Your lips part as he speaks. He tries to hold eye contact instead of falling into another temptation.

“Not always," you insist. “You'd need something to do before we talk about the books. If you're not working, you'd have... a lot of free time. Free time, period.”

“Mhm. Watch television.”

You sigh melodramatically. “It’d have to be good television.”

“It’ll be terrible television.”

Your hand slides forward, through his hair. “I bet I’d still love you.” 

“Mm.” Zayne tilts his head to rest on your forearm. You're softer than the pillow. Tingles ripple over his scalp and neck as you crook your fingers. The dark in your eyes swells, sparkling, and he sinks and sinks…

The caress is so close to Zayne’s mind, you may as well be reshaping it; every pass of your fingers meets a more tender man. Eventually, he’s slack all over, eyes hazily drifting between yours. Memorising the shape of moonlight in your eyes. Loving you.

He blinks, and it stings; he stared overlong, did you mind, or notice, or... “I am here because I love you,” he whispers. “There’s no other reason.”

Your fascinated expression collapses. “What does that mean?”

I don't know! “I don’t see h-how I’d… have been… able to meet you in the first place, unless you were someone I was meant to love.”

“I don't want you to love me because you think you're... meant to.” Your brow furrows. “I don't understand.” 

“Because I'm explaining myself poorly and should, really, stop talking altog—” 

“No!” The crease between your brows deepens. “Then you won't say you love me again, and I liked you saying that, thank you.” 

May as well say it again. It’s true. “I love you. And I d—”

You drop your hand from his hair, and poke his mouth. “I love you too, Zayne. Now you say it back.” 

He does, and you return it, back and forth you go, echo-on-echo, name-on-name, until your mouths are so close you’re speaking to each other’s inhales. Zayne speaks in little more than breaths, while you stay sharp and earnest, I love you too, Zayne, scratching away any possibility of any other name or fate but Zayne, loved by you. For so long, he’s floated beneath ice, catching only distant, distorted glimpses of you. Now he can barely see you because you’re so close.

… Are you going to kiss me? “I’m not sure—”

You smother him with a hand. “Nuh-uh.” 

He raises a brow askance. 

“You were about to be mean to yourself. I could tell.”

Behind your palm, he frowns. The man before you ought to submit his soul for your review, as he has not earned your trust. But dissection requires desire; if you would not like to see that beneath your lover's skin lies a visceral gather of sins, maintaining the shape of a man, Zayne won’t force the matter. 

You click your tongue and let him go free. 

Zayne touches where your skin met his mouth. 

… The surgeon never asks permission. 

...

“What're you thinking about?” 

“Nothing,” he admits, and kisses you. It’s a clumsy peck, half a miss, and quickly broken; you make a dissatisfied noise and pull him back, tongue pushing past his lips and you’re kissing him. You kissed him, he can feel your tongue inside his mouth, Zayne can kiss you, you want him to kiss you—eagerness makes him cloddish, fumbling and fumbling until he can hold your face in a manner he assumes is comfortable, as you press your hands atop his. 

Actors kissing on televison don't disappear into eachother like this. They keep their eyes shut, as well, but Zayne cannot keep his from fluttering open occasionally to take in the sight of your blissful expression, the small smile you do between kisses. This is wonderful. He should've kissed you the second he saw you.

The sounds in his dreams felt painfully close, but once given sensation and true, tactile proximity, Zayne realises how dulled even those kisses were. Your moans quiver down his tongue. He draws another out of you, drags the sound of your pleasure deep inside himself, and engulfs you. The two of you are meant to be together. Apart, at first, but together, in the end. Whatever kept you from sagging fully onto Zayne's lap is gone; you're slumped over him, having released his hands at some point in favour of clinging to his back.

You sweep your tongue inside his mouth, and his soul rises to greet its love. Hidden for so long, yours for so long. Through thousands of glimpses from memories not his own, he's loved you for so, so, so long.

This is his. 

A memory you've given him. His first kiss. Though up to the fiftieth by now, most likely, some absurdly high number, as you seem affixed to Zayne; he must’ve improved quickly. You keep tipping your head, inviting him to kiss you deeper, as he of course does—and would regardless of invitation. The elation in Zayne’s body is such that he feels drunk. Addicted to the gratification of licking moans and giggles up from your throat. Too addicted to be anything but overmuch.

His want is a wolf, sweet as a pup when well-fed, but the years without you left him ravenous. He’ll be sweet to you soon. For the moment, he grips your head and waist to keep you as close as can be, drinking from the pure, undiluted core of you, while you clutch at his shoulders, his neck. Whenever he needs to grant you air, you dig your nails into his back.

He hopes for scars. A set of half moons for each breath you kindly held to let Zayne have you for longer. There is finally one after which you break away entirely, gasping. “Stop. Wait.”  

“Yes,” Zayne breathes, and tips his head back, mouth closed. He waits.

“I want to—”

“Yes.” Dizzied by desire, he tries to ground himself by flattening his palm against your back. “Do it. Anything. I’m yours.” There. The wax is sealed on any deal a devil would conceive. It doesn’t matter. You’re the only reason Zayne’s alive at all. Take pleasure from him for eternity.

Instead comes pain. A sting on his lower stomach. Zayne glances down. Your fingers trail over the waistband of a pair of grey sweatpants. The surgeon’s... well, no, they’re on Zayne’s body, meaning you plucked playfully at his sweatpants, and are slipping your hand underneath them to touch Zayne over—

Panic bursts his ribs open. There’s nowhere for breath to hide. Panting, frozen by fear, Zayne watches his abdominals tense and slacken and tense above the lump made by your hand between his legs and under his sweatpants and under his briefs and he closes his eyes, terrified. 

Over the years, dreams provided him voyeuristic glimpses. Mostly of your back, shining with sweat, curved under his (the surgeon’s) splayed hand. Some more invasive sights; the parts of you he (the fucking surgeon) invaded. Zayne tried to never dwell on what you looked like when so compromised. This failed. But he never paid attention to what ‘he’ was doing! What’s he supposed to—

“Ngh—” 

Doesn’t matter. He’s going to die.  

“It’s good?” Gently, you drag the foreskin back from the head of his cock, and he is going to die. “Wait, I should...”

The whine when you let go must be adequate answer. Zayne hears you spit, then you take him in hand again, wet, pumping, stealing his soul stroke by stroke. He gasps and groans so loud he should be humiliated, but conscientiousness, like every fucking thing about him, is washed away by a sea of desperation.. You’ll pull him out to drown. Spreading his arms wide over the headboard, Zayne tries to anchor himself, and breathlessly begs, “Don’t stop.” 

You giggle. “Say pl—”

“Please do not stop.” Zayne bucks his hips to follow the wonderful tightness.

Your free hand meets one of his. Fingers wound together on the headboard. You. You touching him. “I won’t stop.” You're perfect. You're perfect. “But tell me when you need me to, okay?” 

‘When’?! Zayne would laugh if he had breath to spare. While you work him over, sending shivers down his limbs, all he can do is huff. His lungs are aflame. The fire in his chest sparked by your beauty so many years ago, left unattended and uncontrolled, prickles over his skin. He’s unfathomably warm. As if his very blood is warm, and moving all through his body; if Zayne knew being alive could be like that, he never would’ve tried to stop. 

You let out a small, breathy laugh. “This is… Wow.”

This is heaven. This is hell. If the pleasures and torments of either cannot rival the feel of your touch, they hold no divinity at all. 

You kiss up his desperate pulse; his neck’s magnetised to your mouth, arching and tilting until it’s gone—something presses at his lips—a kiss! Too late, Zayne tries returning it. You've long nuzzled up his jaw, to his ear; your voice is inside his fucking head: “Zayne? Zaaayne. Hey.”

“Yes. H-hey.” He can smell your shampoo, and wants, so badly, to open his eyes and see whatever of you he can, considering how closely you're pressed.

Opening his eyes would risk waking up. He can't.

“I want you to feel good,” you say, untwining your fingers from his. The exhilaration fades as your grip slows around him. You exhale by his ear. His brain shrinks away, terrified; if he flinches externally he's very fucking sorry and does not mean it.

“I want you to feel good,” you repeat, right into his ear, and with your free hand, you cover his other ear. The words stay inside his head, warm and wilting his brain. “Please let whatever feels good... happen?”

Sure. Yes. Zayne can do little more than grunt weakly. 

You smear the precome from his slit over his shaft, and his desperate cock supplies more; all of him will give you whatever you want. You're perfect and generous and give him one more pass with your filth-slicked hand. Pleasure punches the air out of him. The headboard creaks. His knuckles hurt. 

You kiss his temple, then return to whispering in his ear. “More?”

“Yes. Please f—” Zayne bites his lower lip to avoid swearing at you. “Mhm. Mhm. M-more. Please. T-thank you.”

The sheets rustle. You firm your grip. Jasmine drifts faintly. Zayne's eyes loll open. You're a blur of silver-lit hair and a bright shirt, wrinkling, as you coax the tension between his legs tighter and tighter.  

Zayne's hands move of their own accord. They shove the shirt further open, off your shoulder, out of view. The world goes dark again; you giggle, maybe, he can't think. There's skin under his mouth. Salt. And when he inhales, the musk of jasmine. Each breath is laden with heady ecstasy but he. Must not. Come. From. Smelling you.

“I love you, Zayne.” 

You love him. you love him . you love him. you love him you love him you love him you love him you love him you love him you love him  

“I—I’m g—ah. I lov—mmph.” Smothered. Loved?

“I know. Relax.”

You know.

You know Zayne loves you. You can sit on him or drain him or marry him or murder him; do you know you should kill him, right now? Because you keep whispering in one ear while pressing on the opposite to make your divinely kind words stay right where you put them and soften every thought in Zayne's head because you love him.

Sweet nothings turn to filth and Zayne’s blood boils molten. 

His brain is a fucking pinprick. 

“... I want to see you co—”

So he does. 

Lightning strikes down his spine; contentment soaks his bones to sponges. While his body jerks in your touch, his mind floats far away. Kiss after kiss is given to Zayne’s freezing cold corpse. He would return them; tragically, he cannot move. Nor think. Thinking is ice-skating. One tiny skid after the other. Across the surface of awareness.

Zayne falls on his ass, into his body. The headboard pinches between the ridged bits of his spine. His hands slipped off it, and you’re holding one; between your joined palms is sweat and gold light. Zayne stares at the glow, mesmerised, until it fades.

His stomach is sticky. 

Also, breathing's suddenly difficult, but he gets there. Talks, too. “Forgive me.”

“For what?” you ask, raising his hand to your mouth.

“For...” Zayne lets the word die in his throat as he cannot think of what to follow it with. You’re trailing kisses over his knuckles; his reacquired ability to think at all is fading. “That was... I should’ve… told you how that felt.”

“You wereee, um. Indisposed.” You lower his hand to the mattress, then let go. “Was it mostly good?” 

Zayne immediately places his left hand on your hip, with the other cupping your cheek; under his touch, your skin warms. You hold back a smile. “Perfect,” he murmurs, and thumbs the corner of your mouth. You set that beautiful smile free. Whatever his own face looks like, he can't imagine. He's giddied by relief. Neither opening his eyes nor climax woke him. Why would this be a dream? It must be Heaven. You're smiling at him. Of the two remaining options, this is Heaven.

You kiss the pad of his thumb. “Cuddle?”

The pucker of your lips; the slight heat of your breath; the delicate tip of your tongue, barely visible; for a second, Zayne floats again. “And finish halfway?” he asks, terribly distracted. “Why?”

“Oh, half—? No, I wanted to make you, uh. And you did. So…”

Zayne drags his thumb to the center of your lower lip. “There ends your desires?” 

Your eyes widen. “Uhm.”

“Do you want more?” 

You nod, and make no indication of what you want, but a level of initiative can be taken. With his left hand still on your hip, Zayne uses the other to tug his sweatpants down. You start to move off his lap, but he holds you fast.

“Stay.”

You make a small noise. 

One shove and the sweatpants slip low enough to free his cock, the tip slapping his drenched stomach.

“That was fast,” you say, staring at the half-hard length. 

“Was it?” he asks. In full sincerity he asks! 

Yet you roll your eyes, and scoff, “Show-off.”

Zayne grabs your waist and yanks you close; ignoring your squeak, he slides his hands under your parted thighs, and uses that as leverage to pull you closer, and closer, holding you open so he can press up to the underwear hidden by the button-up—you’re—not—wearing any. Swears break to bits in his head. You slip along Zayne’s cock as he mindlessly ruts. He needs it, needs it, needs it, needs it.

“Ah-aah.” You bite your lip, robbing Zayne of the sound.

By some miracle he's coherent. “Would you like...” He kisses the corner of your mouth, and forces his hips to still. "A different position?"

“No.” You reach down and take his cock in hand. Zayne almost bites you in the fucking face; you grabbed him like you own him. As you should. The shock of it gnaws hungrily at his restraint. His cock is nudged past your crease, until the muscle of your entrance kisses the tip. “Is—?” 

Zayne doesn't hear whatever else you say. He's already surging up to catch your mouth, licking up your words, sliding his tongue inside you as his hips snap forward. Forward, forward; your muffled cries tremble down his tongue as your body sags, letting Zayne bury himself inside. From where you’re joined, warmth spreads—up his abdomen, his chest, his head, the haze envelops. He takes your right leg in hand and spreads it wider, so his cock may sink even deeper. 

You cry out. The sound hurts his ears. He freezes. 

“I hurt you.”

“Yeah,” you whine. 

“I c—”

“Mm-mm.” You reach around him to grip the headboard. With a furrowed brow, you sink the rest of the way. Zayne’s brain overheats for a few seconds, missing some words. “... ittle bit, it’s good, it’s h—it’s hot, it is, I just. Need a sec.” 

Zayne snakes a hand up your back and grips the back of your head. He presses his forehead to yours. “I’m so sorry, I'm sorry, we c—”

“No, don’t be, don’t stop, we're not stopping; it’s hot, you’re, uh. Really, um. Intense,” you squeak. “Really really hot.”

The compliment should dizzy him, but some absurd resistance is in place while Zayne fights off the compulsion to fuck you senseless. “If I hurt you again, tell me. Hurt me back. I will stop.”

You shove him playfully. You’re stronger than you look, he realises with pleasure. “None of those are going to happen,” you say.

“Then I suppose the last won’t.” 

You bite your lip. “Yeah?” 

'Duh.' The sweat dripping down the valley of his back came from nowhere as far as he's concerned. Adrenaline and adoration outpaces exertion; Zayne can fuck you all night and all morning. You can drag his face against your cunt while he’s half-asleep. Make the most of him.

“Tell me when to... Wait." Zayne tugs at your sleeve. "Take this off. Please." 

Immediately, you do. You peel your arms free, shrug the surgeon's shirt from your shoulders, ball it up and toss it who-cares-where. Maybe you couldn't wait to get it off. If so, Zayne has two reasons to be glad he asked. The fabric of your bralette does nothing to hide your nipples. 

“Thank you," he murmurs, gazing over everything newly bared.

"You're such a voyeur tonight."

"Fine." Zayne takes hold of your hips. The spasmodic clenching around his cock—he ignores it, for you. Ignores his whole body. Not difficult. He presses a soft kiss to your cheek; you turn, prompting a kiss for your mouth too. Your neglected cheek gets one as well. Then he leans back. (How's he supposed to do this?) "Do you want me to move, or... you to move?"

"M-me," you stammer, "first."

"Alright."

The sight of you losing yourself in pleasure is one Zayne could spend hours committing to memory. As you rock back and forth, hand braced on the headboard, whatever sensation his cock brings clearly relaxes you; the residual tightness at your brow smooths, and you let out small, mindless sounds. The sensation between his legs continues to be ignored. Zayne's experienced in removing his consciousness from its cage. And even more experienced in waiting.

He selfishly adjusts you, just a little, to better watch you taking him in. You take him so beautifully. Plush folds bobbing up and down on his length, glistening with your mixed arousal. The muscles of your thighs flex, your stomach tenses with each staggered breath; Zayne must commit this to memory with the time given.

Your hand falls from the headboard to his shoulder. "Please kiss me?"

It takes great restraint to not cut you off by doing so. Zayne drags his eyes up to meet yours, he does, and intends to kiss you on the mouth, but the sight of your breasts, bouncing beneath your bra, the sheen of sweat glistening in the moonlight... As if from a distance, just as before, with the shirt, Zayne watches himself pull your bra straps off your shoulders, and oafishly yank the bra down.

Under your breath you hiss, “That'd count, yep, aaah.” 

Zayne closes his mouth around a nipple; light salt and lighter jasmine and you, tender on his tongue. He sucks, and your whole body jerks. You stop rocking your hips, so he moves them for you, a steady, mindless pistoning. His head's unburdened by true mental process. Following what makes you feel good is all he needs to do. Obeying the sounds you make, the grateful spasms offered by your pussy. You're incoherent, gasping, but your cunt keeps clenching, and so he continues.

He gazes up at you, unmoved, suckling, and pumping his rigid, attentive cock in and out of you. Your expression is one of overwhelm. Your arms slip over his shoulders—your fingers, in his hair—you yank. With a wet pop, he's pulled off your breast. (And stops fucking into you. Obviously.)

You stare down at him. “You're a lot kinkier than I thought.” 

What a privilege it is to be bemused by you. Zayne blinks. “Doesn't that involve chains and... objects?” 

“No, it's... well, you feel like an object. Right now. Which is. Hot. Um.” You scratch your cheek. “Like you're a 'sex machine' or whatever, that sounds stupid—"

"It doesn't."

"—and it's really hot, I'm just... tonight, for our... I really want... you can fuck me. However you want. Like, really fuck me. We're safe, I won't let...” You splay your hand on his clavicle, one of many reservoirs made tonight by his sweat. “We can resonate anytime.”

Resonance. The gold glow. Whatever it does. Zayne's not in the mood to ask. He silently encircles your waist with one arm and braces himself on the headboard with the other. “Tell me again what you want,” he says, tucking his face into your neck. "I'll do anything."

“F-fuck me.”

“Mm.” 

“Zayne.” The throbbing need in his balls continues to be ignored. “I want you to do whatever you want to me, Zayne, please.”

The feral urge to bite you and feel your skin giving way under his teeth, to let himself truly feel your cunt—velvet wet tight pulsing wants him, wants him, he needs to fuck it and your mouth your ass and self-loathing, thump thump thump, loud at the back of his brain.

Fantasy and reality are in the way of the real point: you want something from him. And so it will be done.

Zayne pulls you off his cock, again ignoring your yelp, and turns you; your back meets his chest, and his cock wastes no time finding your hole again. Returning home. The first thrust creaks the bedsprings; the second and third bring your nails to his thighs. Each thereon is accompanied by a whine, a squelch, the wet clap of skin on skin at the end of every stroke, sending sparks through his spine. Your pussy is a tight wet paradise all for him, offering friction that is so—fucking—good.

"Good," he pants. This is good. A good thing. This is goodness. You being used however you like is a moral imperative. He's also delusional. You're also his soulmate who he'll be with until death do you part, and even then, he'll find you in the next life and fuck your brains out there too.  

You tip your head back and nuzzle your cheek against his. “What's good? Is iiitt... me?”

“Yes. You’re perfect. I told you.”

The laugh.you give him is a nervous one; why would that be? Zayne drags his nails down your stomach, you shiver and squirm. “Tell me so.”

“Mmh?”

“Say you’re perfect for me.” He feels your jaw clench; biting your lip, maybe. Zayne slides a hand back up your throat, to your jaw, and turns your head. Biting your lip indeed. One hard thrust knocks that pretty mouth slack. “Say it.”

“I’m per—perfect. For you. All for you just for you plea-a-ase right th… This angle, there.”

Zayne obeys wordlessly, bouncing you on his cock. Fucking you is an automatic matter once again; a thousand times he’s thrust into his fist and thought of you just like this. Just for me. Lunatic need crashes through him; seizing your hips again, Zayne punctuates each word with a thrust: “This—is—mine.” 

Your head rolls back. Shivers wrack your body. “Zayne. Zayne, Z-Za-ayne, I'm...” You slacken so much that he must support you, but your cunt, oh, she squeezes him so tightly he feels it on his nerve endings. It is by some miracle that Zayne keeps his pace through your pussy’s attempts to pull him impossibly deeper. As soon as she gentles, he pulls you free once more, and rolls atop. 

“Hiii,” you coo, dazed and delighted. “Love yooou—”

“I love you more than anything.” Sheer greed has him breaching you again. You laugh, wide-eyed and nodding; greedy too, have the years left you equally deprived? “I never want to leave you again.”

If he wakes (he won’t) he’ll drug himself to see you. Maybe the veil between he and the surgeon’s psyche can be broken in service of possession. Or he must suffer millennia of pain, having his soul sheared through the Tunnel. If you’re at the other end, whatever must be done, Zayne will do. Perhaps you can come to him. Somehow. He’ll look after you. 

For now, he kisses you, messily, sloppily, and fucks into you... lazily. Your ankles are dug into his backside and doing most of the work, trying to coax him back to that delirious height. Part of him wishes you wouldn’t. Zayne’s body is disobediently tired. It’s exhausted and sore and he, a madman, would rather use it to marry you right now. Had he any idea how marriage was organised, he might try.

You whisper something against his mouth. Zayne pulls back to look at you quizzically. Shyness crosses your face, quick as a comet.  

“I didn’t hear,” he clarifies, stilling his hips. His wan arousal ebbs. 

“I want it inside.” 

“It... is inside.” Then comes realisation, and arousal, high as a tidal wave. “A-ah. I s-s-see.”

“Please?” you ask, as if Zayne's actually in his body to hear, not drowning in his desire for you.

He dredges some stamina. “What did I say?” The question puts a panic in your eyes that he can’t fathom; best to give you the answer. “I’ll do anything for you.”  

At your instruction, Zayne scoops under your knees, and lifts your legs. You, so helpful and strong, move your legs higher until you’re utterly spread beneath him, legs framing your jaw. You're folded in half, hole helplessly presented to him. (However you learned of this position doesn't matter. Zayne reminds his irrational jealousy of the waterlogged paperbacks he'd scrounge up in his youth.)

He sinks down, braced on his arms, to keep his weight from crushing you—though you seem to invite that, wrapping your arms around him. “Clingy,” he murmurs, right at your ear.

“Yeah.” You squeeze him. You want to hug while you're folded and fucked? Zayne lines himself up until he's notched at your entrance, then slides his arms under your shoulders to hold you close. Practically slumped over you, he presses inside, kissing your neck until the scent of you fills his senses. Salt, sex, mint on his tongue, jasmine everywhere, his, his, his, his, his.

“You can be clingy,” he murmurs. “I should stay inside you this time.”

“Yes. Please.” Your nails dig into his shoulders. Pain diluted by pleasure. “I missed you so much.”

He chuckles, leaning into the tide-like swell and ebb of stimulation. Beyond the tight strokes around his shaft, however, his balls ache painfully. “You were only without this for seconds at a time, no?”

“No, I mean... I've missed you.”

The ecstasy shaking through his limbs is stoppered, dammed. Zayne freezes. “When?” 

“When you’re, um. ‘Dr. Li.’”

He pulls himself up and finds the world liquid. You’re a breathtaking oil painting not yet dried, malleable by the touch of his hand. The skin of your calf gives way as he squeezes it. 

You hide your face behind one leg, but you keep talking. “I think about you all the time when you’re not here. Sorry. I should've saved this for later.”

Maybe you persist in talking, Zayne can't say, heat and chill are quarrelling beneath his skin, roaring. Zayne’s often wondered if he’s an insane man; now, he’s sure. “Do you dream about me?” he hears himself ask.

You peek at him and nod. When you center yourself properly, lips parted and threatening further response, he slumps over you again and buries his face into your neck. The thud of your pulse matches the sound between his ears. Each breath he takes trembles. Jasmine thickens his throat. Makes its way inside his stomach, his bloodstream, displaces the pleasure until it overflows. Zayne gives up. Chest-to-chest, forehead-to-forehead, fucking you so fast and hard it has to hurt, yet your hands thread through his hair and massage encouragingly. Working happiness all through Zayne’s body, so he won’t be truly empty. 

… He feels happy. Happiness. He feels happiness, an airy sensation brought about by his fluttering heart. Emotions… can be experienced physically.

Every second with you was worth the millions without. Another twenty-eight years would be worth it. None. We’ll wait none. Zayne clenches his teeth and bites the mania off at the root. His head swings up and his mouth prises yours open. Tongue sliding inside you, hips rolling; futile attempts to make his place in you more permanent. There’s no desperation as he has none left. The desperation was just eagerness to discard the weight on his shoulders. As when removing a heavy coat at the end of the day, Zayne no longer has need of it. He’s home. 

Your hands trail down his back, then pinch. A request for release, for breath. Zayne sets you free and busies himself with chasing the scent of your perfume, all the way up your nape. Once he reaches your pulse point, he breathes deep.

“O-oh. Um. I meant to ask if you liked my perfume.”

As an answer Zayne nuzzles your skin with exaggerated enthusiasm. 

“Yay,” you whisper. “I knew you would, I got it from Tara, sh…”

Zayne doesn’t give a shit. The rest of your words fuzz to static. White noise. The solidity of your body is gone; he can’t feel a thing; he tenses all over; now this body can cage you both, lovely! You wore this perfume for another man who doesn’t even have a potted jasmine and wouldn’t appreciate this like Zayne does. You wore no underwear tonight so another man could fuck you easier.

You wanted the surgeon to fuck you. You wanted—you want the surgeon. Right now. You'd prefer if Zayne wasn't fucking here—? 

Bile. Typical aftertaste to pleasure. Should be used to it, isn’t. Masturbating in a dingy mouldy apartment how many times a week? About you, clueless you—Zayne needs to get out of you—but don’t you want him? You want him, don’t you?

“Why?” he rasps.

“Um. Why what?”

“Knew I’d like it.” Panting, nauseous, Zayne splays his hand on your hip and withdraws. He doesn’t know where to look, he can’t look at your face, your body—he forces his eyes down, to his own legs, and tries to ignore what leaks out of you, in the periphery; he’s pathetic, delusional, he’s sick.

“You always make little jasmines with your EVOL f…” Wind through the twisted wreck of his heart, making the wood wail. So sorry. I’m so sorry.  

Zayne rolls off, away, and doesn’t flee entirely for some stupid reason. Inane unnecessary instinct: stay by her side. 

But you never wanted him.

He stares at the ceiling.

“Zayne?”

The turn of his head is as stupid and instinct-driven as the rest of the evening’s been. You’re so agonisingly beautiful. Hair mussed. Lashes wet. Pupils dilated. Biting your lower lip. “That was really, really good,” you lie. “You hit my g-spot a... a lot.”

Zayne has no idea what the fuck you’re talking about but he’s sure you’re right. “It was perfect.” The truth spills from his mouth like blood. He can’t lie to you. (Clearly he can.) 

You smile. His heart cracks further and further apart; you’re the only thing that ever mattered to it. The whole world could rot and Zayne wouldn’t feel a thing so long as he had you. Doesn’t feel a thing as is. Won’t, ever again. Empty empty empty empty. You’re a television character he’ll be unhealthily attached to until he finally fucking dies.

You confessed love to a man that happens to share his face. Loving you in return does not make Zayne that man. How could it? Years and years of saving children’s lives! Inviting them to doodle on his coat with crayons. Always crouching to talk to them. Two other doctors, you, and a stammering boy, and crouching the whole time, Dr. Li—’once you’re asleep, I’m the one who’ll clear away the Metaflux.’ Dr. Li went to the school carnival of a patient and ran the ‘Dad’s 500 Metre’ in place of her father, who didn’t attend the carnival nor her funeral.

Dawnbreaker prefers to aim for children’s heads when murdering them. He saw in a historical documentary brain activity may persist moments after death. Children’s heads are small, but precision’s easier since he’s not exactly acting in self-defense. He’s done it enough times. 

He remembers every word that emerged from under ‘his’ eyes when you were about the ‘500 metre’ and how pissed Akso’s board were. He hears everything the surgeon says so yes, it makes sense you love him; Zayne foolishly misunderstood every single thing about the one, single fucking—It’s fine. You’re still his, as you always have been; his angel, his fantasy… but… you’re real. You are. You’re right here, blinking happily at him like a stray cat. He can figure out a way to show you...

“I think I understand the term lovemaking now,” you chirp. 

The stranger wearing your boyfriend’s face tries to make it smile. “Hm.”

Lovemaking’s collaborative. Was this collaborative? You masturbated Zayne (murderer of children, plural) and then him fucking you (woman in love with his doppelganger.), while you thou… ght…. 

No. 

No. No, no you’re right, of course you are, Zayne did make love to you, because he loves you. He does. He’s loved you since he was a child. Pure love. He’d never hurt you, never, he’d never hurt you 

, so he didn’t—

no . No. no no no. not that

The edges of the world blacken. You’re trapped in a melting vignette of oil. The miracle of you, within reach so of course, wanted fucking criminal

stain it . ruined you. Ruined you 

No. No. no you’re not stained or ruined it wouldn’t do that, it’s jus t thath he;s ruined this  it’s just that he didn’t mean to  . IT should’.t You’re his angel and you'd forgive him. The surgeon is a skeleton Zayne can show you that he's real and loves you more, he’s meant to be with you so that’s why he was. You are in love; your souls are. You meant what you said to him and you love him back.

Your concerned expression is so soft, with such clarity of recognition, it suspends his broken heart in hope thick as amber. “Zayne?” 

“Yes.” 

“Just checking.” You reach forward, and cup his cheek. Reflexively, he covers your hand with his own, and you smile. With one word and a thoughtless touch, he offered you comfort. Everything that came naturally to him reassured you. Zayne can be what you need, just as you are for him.

Fragile happiness blooms in his chest again as you curl your fingers over his cheekbone. The feeling of your warm hand under his fingertips. The softness of your palm. A safe place for his mind to land. Zayne plants a tender kiss there. He’s home once more. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I don’t feel… entirely myself.”

“You seem like you to me.” 

Exactly. “Thank you.” He and the surgeon are not so different! It’s not the surgeon’s life Zayne wants; historical acclaim, expensive outings, awards in a cabinet, mountain peaks, luxury ski gear, wine menus and auroras, they’re nothing, dust. He only wants you. If you want the surgeon, you’ll have Zayne, because you won’t know the difference

That’s. 

vile

that’s .  Reprehensible.  

you would loathe him. you would detest him if you knew but you won’t NOT BECAUSEH E'LL DO IT because

this is a dream that ’s all . that’s lal . it’s just another dream , 

he’ll have another chance you’re soulmates you’re in love a nd he  can  wake up  ri ght now.

NOW.

He didn’t mean to or understand what he was doing therefore it isn’t rape as you had no way of knowing. You would never go near him again. You would never go near him like that in the first place because you love—

“Can you talk?” The pass of your thumb over his temple startles him to proper lucidity; there’s a cold wet patch on the side of his face. He’s been crying. He’s crying? “Please say something.”

Zayne’s hands answer for him, contracting at your lower back. The temptation to hold you wars with his revulsion. 

Your voice comes a little steadier. “Did I—”

He shakes his head vigorously against your shoulder, and kisses it. Chastely. Another kiss, and another, because you cannot for a moment think you did anything wrong. 

You gently push Zayne’s head back, forcing him to look at you. Moonlight haloes your hair. Your eyes are dotted with stars. I’m so in love with you I’m going to throw up. Clueless and cautious, you tuck one hand into his hair, and begin to massage. “Is this okay?”

“Yes.” He can feel his expression growing pathetic as you continue the tender, thankless work of drying his cheeks. 

“Post… um, ejaculation mood… dropping. Right? There has to be a better term than post nut clarity.” 

“Yes.”

Your hand cupping his cheek. Additional anchorage to keep him from the cold black lake. His favourite sweetness. “Can you tell me what you need right now?”

“Please don’t touch my face.”

You pull back your hand. “O-oh. Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologise. I’m dissociating,” Zayne says? “I’ve been dissociating for some time. It isn’t your fault.” 

“I’m—o-oh, I...”

“Again, you’ve done nothing wrong. I’ll be right back.” 

Out of the bed into the bathroom door shuts click locked? click definitely , good

Light clack  

faucet

Wet toilet paper  . dry toilet paper

Excess towelled off towel goes to laundry hamper

faucet again and Something hits Zayne across the face. He blinks. His hands slip on the counter. They’re covered in… white ice? … Of course. Ice is white, and the side of his face is red, burning. He presses his hand—not directly on his fucking epidermis as it would injure him; instead his arm snaps out and grabs a towel and then presses his hand to his cheek. The coolness seeps through the towel.

The white tile grout. Your microfiber hair towel. Water spots on the showerhead. Strand of black hair falling over his eyes. His hands.

Scalp. Tiled wall. Bath mat under his feet. Faucet handle, metal, not-cold-yet.

Water dripping from the showerhead, and his own exhale, and a quick scrape of fingernail on forearm, as he needed a third sound.

The stench from his left armpit, and from his right. Something sour at the back of his tongue. Pathetic sorrow, surging up; Zayne swallows it back and grimaces. Bile? Ah, juvenile melancholy takes ever so many forms!

Zayne closes the toilet lid and sits atop.

He stares at his cock. Limp, flushed, slick with seminal fluid. 

…

For most of his life, Zayne imagined rose petals on hotel beds as a conceit solely present in the early-century romance films you enjoy watching semi-ironically; but no, for about 200 yuan, it can be done. Xiyang Resort's full of ‘cheesy’ things you could try out together, champagne and strawberries and… he just needed to stop working for two days, for once, for you—

Zayne buries his eyes in the heels of his hands. 

...

He’d wanted the first time to be special.

In the pressurised abyss he searches for any echo of your happiness. All he can recall is shoving your clothes off you. Twice. Did you even want… ? His breath hitches. No, please.

...

There had to be something.

...

... You said he was kinky. He swallows back bile again. ... You made... sounds... ?

Did he rut into you, trapped in a fugue of evident disinterest as you lay slack and supposed it was fine?! 

I'll find out when I ask. Procrastination makes the most skilled man nothing but a coward. Whatever pleasure you might've derived from the experience is no doubt souring the longer he's gone.

Zayne yanks toilet paper from the roll, setting it to a noisy spin. He spits on it, drags it over his shaft. No blood, he grimly notes. It would only be mild reassurance to learn your period started early, but any reassurance would be welcome. There’s semen all over his crotch. He could have used a condom which was then removed, but... the bin is in here. And where would one have come from? Did you purchase condoms and hide them somewhere in his home? 

You must’ve, because he must’ve used a condom. You know what he’s like.

… You know what he’s like, how did you not notice—did you notice? Did you—?

The panic stutters, halts; the hitch in his breath eases. Primal awareness, as sure as Zayne’s name: you would never take advantage of him like that. You hid condoms in the house which were then used, or he encouraged risk to your health and his own. As absurd as either are. 

It’s absurd to lock oneself in the bathroom. Is he home alone, aged seven, spooked by polite political canvassers? 

He is indeed home alone aged seven, hiding from Social Interaction; he’s eleven and making ice floes in the bath; he’s seventeen, lining up a skincare routine; he’s twenty-four and perfected his haircuts; he’s twenty-eight and while his mouth murmurs filth into the phone, his mind prays your campsite’s cell service holds steady because you're panting that you're close.

Memories compress back and forth with nauseating rapidity. Possibly symptomatic. He could be developing a neurological issue. Related to the sex or unrelated; due to injury or not due to injury. Perhaps you rode Zayne ferociously—he certainly wouldn’t have discouraged you—and the headboard concussed him. Perhaps, faced with the prospect of finally making love to you, he went into shock. 

The door rattles. Zayne flinches.

It is my girlfriend! 

“You know better, but, um, Google says… you probably shouldn’t be alone.”

Zayne wraps a towel around his waist and opens the door. You’re wearing his button-up. The memory of having given that earlier tonight seems untouched. (“I run a laundry business, actually, just hand that to me!” “May I see your reviews?” "I am a small business.") 

Presumably for his comfort, you’ve actually buttoned it up, and added loose black leggings. You fiddle with your hands as you try on a shy smile. “Hi.” 

Zayne dips his head and gazes at you. “Hi,” he echoes, petal-soft compared to the bright glee blooming in his chest. You look as you ever do, when he examines you this way: you’re restraining that beautiful smile from becoming a grin. Whatever happened cannot have been awful—Zayne’s body trusts yours, and you’re looking at him like he hung the moon. “I’m alright now. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

“You... surprised me. I was frightened for you.”

He takes your mouth in a brief, tender kiss. The sad sound you make when he breaks away means you get another. “And I'm alright,” he murmurs, before giving you a third. “I haven’t been sleeping well. The toll of sleep deprivation is cumulative—”

“You’re overworked.”

“Yes. I should’ve listened to you sooner. Tomorrow I’ll submit a notice for time off.” 

“And the overtime?”

“Will stop for a while. And I will submit a notice. Tomorrow. For time off.” Zayne bumps your nose with his, a clumsy kunik. “After we discuss what dates we'd most like to spend together.”

You resume fiddling with your hands, and start worrying your lower lip. Now isn't an appropriate time to remind you to stop. “When you said you’d been dissociating, like, for a while. Was… Were you, when… Basically, we…”

“Had sex. I remember.” Remembrance of the fact will do for now. “Did you notice any signs I was unwell? Were you uncomfortable?"

“No, I had a great time, which is gross! You were really energetic, and lucid, I'm really sorr—”

“Shh.” Zayne covers your hands with his own. His fear snatches up every word to assuage itself. (Admittedly his ego catches the scraps.) “Post-coital dysphoria is a new experience for me. I overstated my situation. It's common to experience lapses in memory about an overwhelmingly positive event. Like barely recalling a concert. Being with you is overwhelmingly a positive experience. I'm sorry I panicked.”

You splay his hand open and kiss his palm. “Nothing to be sorry for. Is... cuddling okay?”

“Cuddling you is also overwhelmingly a positive experience.” 

Zayne lets you jokingly drag him toward the bed; on the way, he picks a light t-shirt out of the laundry basket. He slips it on while you slip into bed. Your hair spills over the pillow as if upon a silver pool. Every time Zayne looks at you for longer than two seconds, he thinks you ought to be painted. The longer he looks, the more ridiculous he feels, thinking you're prettier than any woman ever painted, or shown on television, or dreamed up by anyone.

You're looking at him like you love him.

He's staring. “I love you,” he offers, to make up for aforementioned staring, and because it's true, and because he fucked you rough when you deserved better. Even that long-awaited confession was inadequate— 

“Love you more!” 

Followed by grabby-hands. 

Zayne obediently joins you in bed and mock-wrangles you into his arms with faked enthusiasm. He's fantasised about you since he was, what, twelve? and here you are, a perfect fit for the curve of his embrace. Kissing at his forearm carelessly, missing every scar. Yet... what he wanted from you feels far from reach. 

Dissociation aside, that he wanted a specific reaction from you is impudence. He should be grateful to be with you at all. Zayne nuzzles your hair and inhales. 

For the first time in a sorrowfully long time, his sleep is free of nightmares.

You’ve gotten to 2:10, transmission 20%, and that cell, like every cell on the spreadsheet so far, features a sad chibi OTTO appended by the spreadsheet’s formula: “BELOW AVG! (◞‸◟；)” 

A Caleb-sized shadow falls across your desk. “Sun must get in your eyes like craaaaazy.” 

Broad shoulders kindly shield you from the wretched burden of the honeyed afternoon sun diffused through the side window; now the glow serves to trim Hunter Grant’s charcoal-grey jacket. The less flattering fluorescents above bounce down and off his laminate badge:

赵俊 ZHAO JUN ⸻ (GRANT)

(He asks women to call him Grant. His introduction goes, “‘Jun’? Please, call me Grant. My mother calls me Grant.” Cue: thoughtful look, amusement, teehee ha ha.) 

“Not really,” you murmur, pausing the Trial playback. “Kind of a permanent golden hour; it’s nice.”

“Golden hour?” Grant asks, and sits on the edge of your desk?! 

Somehow, you resist shoving him off. “You know when the sun’s about to set and everything’s lit softer because the sun’s, like, lower in the sky?”  you ask, eyeing how Grant's drumming his fingers on the edge of your desk. “That’s golden hour.”  

“Huh, I think so...” Grant glances at the widescreen in the middle of the room. “Good view, too.” The week’s weather report’s slowly fading in, one day at a time: MON, TUE…

You look back at your monitor and enlarge the paused Trial recording. Maybe Grant’ll see it and say ‘unrelated to you having another m a n in your vicinity, I just remembered I gotta go.’ Maybe he just needs to know if it’ll rain on ‘SAT’ and can’t see the screen from his own desk. Maybe in Grant’s experience, women prefer instant congeniality; being attractive can mean being accidentally and permanently intimidating.

For you, Grant’s good looks are a footnote. They’re in your mental appendix of Grant’s traits, like the fact he’s allergic to peanuts.

(IS THE WEATHER REPORT NOT DONE?)

Paper flaps loudly from across the office. You look up to see Xavier, sat sidelong at his desk, fanning himself with a stack of… blank paper. His eyes slide to you, then Grant, then you again. On his face is his classic non-expression. His hand slows, he tilts his head, and for a moment, there's something there; a sparkle in those wide blue eyes, sort of, 'gosh, bummer!' Like you're dealing with a printer jam. 

You look back at Grant; he meets your eyes with a grin. “Sunset’s at six on Friday,” he says, nodding toward the TV, “evening shift will get golden hour!”

“Cool, uh, I really need to finish this, so…” You gesture toward the paused Trial recording. The pixellated version of you is in the middle of calling for resonance. Since Grant's not the guy in the footage, looking at it when paused is a (tiny) breach of confidentiality. It’d be a major breach if you hit Play. Grant surely knows he's keeping you from your work.

“Gotcha.” Grant stands—and lingers. WHERE IS THIS GOING, GRANT? “Want me to review you guys’ protocores?” 

NO! “No,” you reply coolly. 

Having gotten the hint a full minute ago, the guy finally takes it. “Gotcha gotcha. See you around.”

You force yourself to say it back. If you’d actually slept last night, you wouldn’t be so irritable. Courtesy or ‘hey, please leave’ might’ve come naturally then... maybe. 

You shrink the Trial recording again so you're back to split-screen, and start to tap out the time entry on the spreadsheet. Boop boop boop bleep DONG (“BELOW AVG ╥﹏╥”) boop boop SKKRRCH.

The scrape came from a few desks ahead; you know, without looking, that Xavier’s pushed his chair back. Nobody else scrapes their chair. 

You let your eyes creep up anyway. Xavier’s stood behind his chair, posture perfect, brow furrowed. A marble statue in a marble-pale uniform, looking down at something on his desk. He starts to tap at the top of his chair, frowning. The illusion of refinement breaks; your partner is but a man who never trusts a device is actually shut down unless he sees it happen.

No need to spectate.

You pull out your phone. You rest your elbows on your desk and open your most recent text conversation.

You hold the phone right up to your face.

Obviously, you're occupied. Xavier can’t try to catch your eye, and you can’t, won't, and shouldn't let him, because he’s a dick. When he came into work today (fifteen minutes late), he went straight to his desk without saying hi (after two weeks of sudden PTO) and now he's... 

You know what he's doing. About to do. Will try to do. Whatever. He’s objectively being a presumptive dick.

Unless he texted you... ?

Banished is the indulgent fantasy of your partner sneaking a few texts instead of doing his work. (And the pathetic, bar-in-hell fantasy of him reading your text.)

Focusing on your phone unfortunately doesn’t spare you from having peripheral vision; there’s a 6'1 white-and-silver figure striding down the boulevard between everyone’s desks. You fight back a frown.

To your right comes a muffled tap-tap. You peek at the outer corner of your desk. Two grey-gloved fingers trail overtop, tap-tap, then slip into a white trouser pocket. You turn around fully as Xavier passes you by. Next to the ‘golden hour’ window, the back of his head's almost blonde. Then it’s star-bright under the ceiling fluorescents. Then he steps into the outer hall, and disappears around the corner.

Anticipatory arousal coiled between your legs the whole time. It is ten in the morning! You squeeze your thighs together, cringing. If you don’t follow him, you can finish this Trial review and maybe get a full solo patrol in. Xavier won't care. If you do follow him, it'll be awesome, until it sucks. 

Last time you let Xavier at you, dirt got all over your shirt, you stained your trousers, and he glared at you when you came. (Or you hallucinated mid-orgasm.) The blurry memory of his narrowed eyes worsens the pulsing between your legs. The bit of your brain warmed by arousal whines, that was in the No-Hunt Zone, though... the stairwell is nice.

The office's internal stairwell has muted warm lighting and a window every couple of floors; burgundy carpet on the landings which doesn’t smell like damp; metal railings it’s evidently someone’s job to polish; soft-grey walls. Concrete, not painted. The fire stairs are nice, for what they are, but last time you let Xavier at you in that stairwell…

⸺

... his hand open-palmed at the back of your neck, brushing the base of your skull. Your cheek smushed against the wall. You, behaving. Gripped and pressed and hurting and moaning about it. Arching your back to deepen the other hurt, the other hand, Xavier's three plunging fingers. Xavier, working your own wetness inside you over and over and over and over.

Anyone would hear it, right away, if they came in. One flight of stairs would be between them and the sight of you, trousers around your ankles. You, pinned to the wall and pistoned into from behind by Hunter of the Month Xavier Shen. You, too fucked-out to care about him keeping the rest of his body well away from you. Your pussy can't be heard from outside, but your moaning might be, you drag your head up right before you truly drown. You kiss the wall.

Xavier's so-so-soft cheek slides over yours. “That's really unhygienic.”

You are on the edge and could not give a fuck. You want to kiss him, anyway—he jerks his mouth out of reach. You whine right into his breathy laughter. He turns you around, grazes the side of your clit with the rough pad of his thumb, smothers your mouth. “Now my palm is contaminated. Will you clean it?"

Xavier's tender and teasing and you're boneless, anchored to awareness by his hands on you, in you. You kiss and lick until the world refocuses and you can breathe. There's a pinprick of pain on your cheekbone.

⸺

You cup your face, tracing the teensy scar with your thumb. A glance around the office proves everyone engrossed in work or conversation. Quiet as can be, you push your chair back.

⸺

You close the stairwell's door behind you just in time.

KTCHHRHRRHRHRHRHRRHRHRHRRRHHFHFHHTTHHCHFHKKCCEEEEECCCCHKCHKCHCKCHKCHCKHCK

Renovating upstairs' meeting rooms apparently includes switching on a lawnmower and then chainsawing into it.

Halfway down the flight of stairs below you, Xavier’s stood with his back on the railing, facing the wall. He plucks his gloves off, one two. Again, he looks at you sidelong; ooh, so aloof! “Hey.”

You join him on the stairs, one step above. “Any good constellations in the little paint cracks?”

“I think you mean, 'any stars',” Xavier says, balling up his gloves. He pockets them. “Each crack in the paint... would be its own constellation. Because of the shape.”

“'Paint cracks' is the collective. Technically I asked if there's any good constellations in the constellations.”

“Technically,” he agrees, “there aren’t any ‘good’ constellations.”

“An—” Wait a sec. “Nevermind,” you mutter. He hadn't agreed with you, he’d been starting a sentence. God forbid About-to-Fuck-You Xavier not taunt you first.

“You came really fast.” 

“I'm super eager to procrastinate.”

Xavier turns so you're faced front-on with ugh self-assured hot ugh, and the genuinely interested look on his face.

“Trial debrief,” you continue, which you shouldn't have. It was a bad idea. So was assuming he was interested. Coming in here at all? AWFUL idea. “Literally any spreadsheet melts my brain lately," you continue-continue, changing gears with a quick laugh. “Like, remember how they asked us if the dust physics looked realistic, so we have to like, memorise... it's so stupid. The survey spreadsheet things. With the chibis.”

“You were watching a recording, though,” Xavier points out, figuratively pointing out the fissure you'd tried to cover.

Awesome! Time to crack it open and jump into the abyssal, dread-filled core! 

“You looked at my screen?”

“I looked at you.” Xavier raises his eyebrows, all innocence. “Your screen was in the…” He mimes quotation marks. “‘Frame.’ When I walked by.”

When I was looking at his texts. Did he notice I was looking at his texts did he notice I was looking at his texts did he notice... Deep breaths! “Yeah, right," you say, stepping down to stand beside him. You fold your hands behind you and lean on the wall opposite him; the leather vambraces protect your butt and hands from the grit. "Trial debrief. It's boring, though, and hanging out with my partner isn't, sooo. What've you been doing today?"

A smirk swipes across Xavier's mouth. “Are you actually asking me that?” He steps forward and you’re crowded against the wall with his chest pressed to yours and he’s looking down at you and his jawline’s sharp even from this angle?!

“Wait,” you whisper, to which Xavier rolls his eyes. Fuck this guy! You frustratedly gesture to the door you came in from. On the landing a few steps away. Sub-10 feet away. Outer hallway! The office you both work at! Risk! "We need to go upstairs!”

Xavier looks at the door to the office, the stairs above, the stairs below. He scratches his cheek. “Wouldn't you get a heada—”

KRRRRRRTCHTCHTCHTCHHHHHHHHRRRRRKKKKKRHRHRHRRHRHRHRTCHHRHRRHRHRHRHRRHRHRHRKTCHHRHRRHRHRHRHRRHRHRHRKTCHHRHRRHRHRHRHRRHRHRHR’TCHHRHRRHRHRHRHRRHRHRHR.

The machines’ roar returns to a low-ish buzz of drill sounds.

“Good point,” you concede, and start down the stairs.

A hand on your hip shoves you, pins you to the wall; another lands on your waist and saves you from tumbling. Xavier dips his head close; your chin tilts up reflexively, your hips do the same; idiotic optimism slams up your throat. Kiss him kiss him kiss him.

This close, Xavier's blue eyes look deep as indigo. You let yourself fall into the abyss of his irises, anchoring yourself to the sinking sensation of being smitten. 

“I guess you forgot,” he drawls, and you're pulled out of the abyss by the stale-sweet smell on his breath. Cherry mineral water? Soda he drank hours ago? You can't imagine the poised Deepspace Hunter Xavier Shen drinking flavoured soda. Your neighbour Xav who lives in a hoodie and rubs his eyes and unabashedly has a specified 'Naptime,' him, sure. He probably drinks soda while snuggled up with Animal Crossing or some shit.

Once his Hunter uniform's on, Xavier's a seperate entity as far as you're concerned. Neighbour Xavier's near-friendly nature vanishes; now, he'd never glare at you...

You push the maybe-false memory away. “Forgot what?”

... He did too glare at you that one time, because he's doing it now! Forehead-to-forehead, you can't make out most of Xavier's expression, but you can look him in the eye, and he's fucking glaring at you!

“The floor below has all the Training Rooms. And the armory. So there's cameras outside, on the landing. Actually...” The disdain in his eyes melts to gooey, poisonous faux-sweetness. “We could go train. Is it the Fluctuant track you're stuck on?”

Heat creeps up your neck. “You know I don't want to go train, Xavier.”

“But you're stuck. The last one we did was easy, I thought.”

“Maybe don't leave again.”

“I won't." Xavier’s hands squeeze your hips and your brain resets to factory settings. You can't think of a response, or smell his breath, or even consider his narrowing eyes. You're His Partner in Autopilot. Perfectly conditioned; comfortably familiar with the impending fuck.

He’ll lean close enough to kiss and then shift to the side. You'll press your face against his shoulder. He doesn't turn you to face the wall anymore, so he can't squash your moans between his palm and the wall. So you’ll mouth needily at the fabric of his jacket instead, muffling yourself there. Xavier, who never makes a fucking sound, will rest his head on the wall, tuck his hand between you and circle your clit ‘til you come. Sometimes he slips a finger inside just as your knees buckle, like you're a fucking fingerfuck-puppet.

God. Damn. It. Shame tries to tug thoughts back into your head while Xavier's fingers trace your belt. I know what you’re doing, you think weakly. As he leans closer, his eyes soften, as if he's affected by the closeness; it's part of the shtick. Getting close enough to kiss.

He shifts to the side, ducks his head, and tells your pulse, “That guy looked seven feet tall.”

You stare at the white shoulder ahead. “Uh…”

“On your desk. Earlier.”

“Oh. Gra-aah," you stammer, voice faltering when Xavier’s mouth brushes the curve of your neck. Like, the skin, like, nearly a kiss. Shivers weave up your back and bloom around your scalp. The hand on your hip slides to mirror its twin at your waist; palms press and smooth up your shirt, tugging it out from where you'd tucked it into your trousers. You take a deep breath and repeat, “Grant.”

“Is that the new 'bet'?”

“What?”

“'Grant.' Is it similar to the slang? 'Bet?'” The warmth of Xavier’s breath moves right under your ear, then over it. "I am super out of the loop.”

You're going to pass out. “W-what? No, the—the guy’s name is Grant, Grant Zhao. You know Grant.”  

“Huh, maybe,” replies Xavier, who is insane! He's speaking conversationally, light and breezy while tucking his hands under your shirt to grip your bare waist. Who gives a fuck about Grant Zhao right now! He’s insane! You feel insane; when Xavier trails his mouth back down your nape, his tongue ever-so-slightly grazes your skin, and your nipples stiffen, wanting. Needy.

You need Xavier to lick your tits. You need to warm his cock while he does it. Sat on him sat on the sofa, suckling and smirking and no, nope, I don't. You press your thighs together and don't need anything. 

There's a quiet metallic click by your clavicle. Your collar opening? Teeth latch onto the side of your neck ow.

Your brain barely processes ow-ow before a tongue presses to your pulse, hard, trying to taste your heartbeat. Pain lances through the muscle there. Your knees buckle, but Xavier keeps you upright by pinning you even harder to the wall. Your ass squashes your wrists, the wall scrapes your palms. A loud sucking sound breaks over the hum of drilling upstairs, and ow, ow, “o-ow.”

Xavier loops an arm around your lower back so you can arch off the wall, crotch brushing his. The thick weave of his jacket is comfy as a cushion; you let him take your weight. His other arm winds up your back, all the way to your head, where his hand splays between your scalp and the wall. 

“Thanks,” says your mouth, gasping, while your brain whines ow, ow, ow. Your hands, now freed, tremble. You put them on his shoulders and tug ‘til he sinks forward, close enough for you to gather the pristine fabric into your mouth, and bite. The dryness reaches the back of your tongue. You barely resist gagging. 

Xavier's sucking on the tender skin of your neck, pinched between his teeth. The arousal long-coiled between your legs starts to clench and spasm. You barely stop your hips mid-buck. At best, Xavier ignores acknowledgement of his cock, even when he’s hard as a sword-hilt (which he seems to constantly be.) This is already bafflingly different; you won't push it. Your body is good, obedient. Most of your body is stone, in fact; the place where Xavier's mouth meets your skin is the only bit of you that’s real, ha ha!

“Haaa.” You need to sink and be a puddle because your lower half isn’t a marble statue, it’s melting. “Xav-i-er.”

‘Krtchhhh.' Drilling. Construction. Miles away to a head emptied by arousal, but it probably drowned you out, because Xavier doesn't react. Before you can repeat the plea, fear surges forth from the limbic deep.

What if you’d said ‘stop’?   

What if he did hear you? You've never said stop, not even as a 'just give me a sec.' Knowing what a person would do if you said stop is probably important!

You consider giving ‘stop’ a go. Tugging his head up by his hair. He's tucked so close that the most you can see of him, if you strain your eyes, is his hair. Fluffier than ever, in this light; soft shadows shade the strands. You consider what he'd look like if you pulled his head up; if his eyes would be half-lidded, if he'd be mad with focus. His lips would be wet, for sure, and... maybe you’d get away with a kiss. A little thank you, for his hard-working mouth. 

Your fingers curl until they ache. That grip becomes leverage when your stupid slut of a pussy presses up to Xavier’s crotch without your permission, needy and traitorous and seeking his cock. It finds his gloves instead, squishes them closer to his thigh, and you get bitten. Then the heat of Xavier’s mouth is gone. The nape of your neck in general is still hot as a volcanic Protofield, though, ow, ow ow ow. You hold back a wince as he steps away. 

Xavier's lips look rubbed-raw; there’s a tiny smile there, quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. He lifts his elbows behind him and rests them on the railing, leaning back. 

“Hickey, that's new,” you manage, sagging against the wall. “What was that for?”

He tilts his head. “What do you think it was for?”

I can barely think at all, so write that down. “Um, you just missed me sooo much th—” 

“So much, yeah,” Xavier mutters. He tucks one hand into his pocket and plucks out his gloves. You watch as he puts them on. And he ignores you.

“Um... Please don't finger me while wearing those. Sincerely.”  

Xavier folds his arms and stares at you blankly. “I'm not going to.” 

“O-oh. Uh.”   

“Anybody could come in,” he says flatly, transferring his blank stare toward the door.

WOW, REALLY?  “Yeah, I know that, but... we were already… Is this because I almost touched your dick? I’m sorry.”  

His eyes slide back to you. Two cubes of hate-filled ice. “Almost?”

“Um.” You're frozen in place. “Did… I? I mean, not like, not like it's sm—”

“Stop talking about it.” 

“Yep.” You fumble with your collar clasp while your mind races. Xavier was flaccid?! Is that even medically possible?! “I really am sorry.”

A small huff. “And I’m sorry you got stuck with Jun.”

“Stuck... where with who? June?”

“Jun Zhao. I assumed, but... that could’ve been Andrew, or… almost anybody, huh. Here.” Xavier steps forward. Click. Your collar's secured; you press along the aching skin to check it's covered. “How many Trials did you pass while I was gone, anyway?”

Owch, owch, no-owch... Absentminded, you reply, "Like, six.” Once confident the hickey's mostly underneath fabric, you return your full focus to Xavier. He's crossed his arms again, and ho-ly shit. Eye contact's just a way for that sapphire gaze to sharpen itself on your eyes. There’s a nerve-deep wince in you, worsening.

“With who?”

“Why do you care?” you ask, and for a split second, he looks genuinely hurt. 

“I don't.” Xavier's eyes flash. He furrows his brow, and the intensity in his eyes has that limbic fear returning. You’re alone with an angered man. Who is fucking FTL-fast. “Are you going to tell me?”

“I would," you lie. Deep breaths. "But you literally don’t know her”—one truth and a lie—“sooo her name wouldn't really do a lot for you?”

He lowers his eyes and uncrosses his arms. “Yeah. Sorry I hurt your neck.”

“Um, you'd kind of have to, for... a hickey, and... oh.”

Xavier's chin bobs towards his chest. His anger and sex appeal evaporate simultaneously; he's about to float into the ethereal in-between of Soft Neighbour and Enigmatic Hunter. Sleepy Xavier.

KRRRRRRTCHTCHTCH.

Xavier, stood perfectly straight, dozes peacefully.

You consider letting him be, but the drop behind him would be Very Fatal, so you step away from the wall and wave your hand in front of his face. “Hey. Come nap in the break room. Xav.” 

When he doesn't stir, you squeeze his shoulder. Your hand’s instantly knocked away. “Mmnope.” After a damp exhale, Xavier steps up to the landing and sinks down on the burgundy carpet. He pulls his knees to his chest, arms forming a cradle atop. “You go. M’gonna stay here,” he says, tucking his head down. “For a bit.”

⸺

⸺

He spared your back, at least, because he sat upright after the first few kisses; you’re straddling him while his back is to the headboard. Your legs, mostly bare due to your pajama shorts, get to rest around his cushy (matching!) pants. But Zayne’s so (wonderfully) broad, and tends to tip his head back while you kiss, so you need to raise yourself up…

A muscle in your inner thigh actually spasms. You force yourself to pull away, and sink onto your heels. “Is this what I get,” you pant, “every time, I have no plans? For an afternoon?”

Zayne smirks. The audacity, to smirk at you like that when his face is 50% flush; the audacity to look like a male model in this light. The sunlight brings out the variegation in his hazel eyes. A leaf pile you’d try to swim through as a kid; green agate amongst gold flakes; ivy on wood, steadily burning to charcoal. Zayne’s hand, open-palmed on your throat, slides up and folds under your chin, nudging your mouth closed. “Breathe through your nose,” he murmurs. Laughably gentle, compared to the fervour with which he’d ravaged your mouth.

Once you’ve caught your breath, you knock his hand away with a nod. He lowers it to mirror the other, gently gripping your hips.

“Done,” you chirp. “So, answer my question. Please.”

“I would, however I’ve no intention of making promises I can’t keep,” Zayne replies, smiling. There’s a sincerity, somewhere… In his tone, his face, or the pause he leaves after the words. Maybe in what you already know about him. He really doesn’t like to make promises he can’t keep. “And it might ruin the mood to remind you how busy I am of late. Perhaps we should make the most of what time we do have, together.”

“Ma-a-aybe,” you say flirtatiously—hopefully flirtatiously.

“Maybe?” he asks, continuing the echo.

“Mhm.”

“I had the distinct, unreproved impression you had no other plans this afternoon.” He slides his hands up your outer thighs. “Was I misled?” The implication—‘misled by you’—is a silent twinkle in his darkening eyes.

“You can put the vocabulary back,” you say, then pout. “My legs hurt.”

Zayne’s fingertips brush under your shorts, past thigh and toward your ass. “Is that your way of asking for a massage?”

“No,” you say quickly, face heating. “It’s my way of saying my legs hurt; shouldn’t a medical professional prioritise my comfort instead of teasing me?”

“My apologies.” Zayne kisses you and thoughts go bye-bye. He’s moving your legs; you let him, Zayne can do whatever he wants. Your arms slide over his shoulders while he crosses your legs around him, which just strains a new muscle in your thigh—

That has to be his phone. Zayne rocks his hips and a second thought is pushed into your skull. There’s no way. The hardness insisting on your crotch is making you really, really understand why erections get called boners.

You squeeze at his hair to try grounding yourself; anticipation buzzes through the very bones of your fingers, and he moans and you’re brainless again. Zayne is less kissing you, and more kissing his way into a slack mouth. The breaths he takes between kisses grow damp, husky; he mumbles each time you part.

“I need… to feel you… f…” Zayne kisses along your jaw until he reaches your ear. “I need to touch you.” He’s gripping your upper thighs again. Your shorts are loose enough that he could just shove forward and take a handful of you. You’re not wearing any underwear; he could fingerfuck your ass, why not, skip all the bases—

“Y-yeah.” You stare at the blank wall in front of you as if you could ignore the red-blooded man breathing right in your ear. As if you don’t have a weak fistful of his hair. Courageous thanks to adrenaline or arousal or some insensible mix of the two, you add, “Anywhere. However you want.”

Zayne wordlessly slides his hands down and tugs the hem of your shorts. His breaths are even, but so warm; goosebumps ripple down your neck.

You actually gulp. “One sec.”

You: release Zayne’s head, uncross your ankles, shift back so you’re just straddling him again, push yourself up onto your knees (despite sore muscles’ protests), tuck your thumbs into your waistband, yank your shorts down until they sit snug under the curve of your backside, and guide Zayne’s hands to cup your ass.

He: looks as if he’s about to faint. His eyes are fixed between your legs. “You’re... I thought… uh… ah.” Underneath your hands, his fingers tremble.

Shit fuck shit. “Was that too much?”

“No.” Zayne looks up at you. “It’s…” He juts his chin up and you accept the bid; you lean forward to kiss him, sparing him from finishing the thought. You release his hands in favour of caressing his neck. Small, happy hums move up his throat as you kiss.

“How’s the touching going?” you ask, resting your forehead on his.

“So far it’s horrible.” Zayne splays both hands, and squeezes. “Thank you for asking.”

“Ha ha. I mean it. Do you want… um.” You tilt your head to peck him on the lips. “Anything else?” (Unlikely. That you’ve gotten this far is crazy. There always comes a kind of breaking point where Zayne moves into ‘minimise bodily contact’ mode. Playfully rebukes you, suddenly remembers something, tilts his hips away, peels your eager hands off him.)

Zayne’s staggered breaths heat the small space between your faces. “What do you want?” He takes hold of your shorts and yanks; they slump down your thighs, pooling at your knees.

You bite back a yelp. “Y-you.”

“For the afternoon, you have me.” Zayne tucks his mouth up to your ear. “What do you want me to do?”

Ohhhh god. “Wh-whatever you wa—”

“Why are you so considerate?” he hisses, and the world whirls.

You’re pulled close by the grip on your ass, so roughly it’s more a shove. It’s a short distance to the pillow, but it still smushes your face when you land. You twist your head to the side in order to breathe. All you can see is Zayne’s neck. Close enough to kiss, you think, loopy.

Spit-damp hair sticks to your panting mouth, your ass is in the air—it’d be fair to feel humiliated, embarrassed, silly. You turn your head so you’re facing away from Zayne’s neck, just in case those feelings catch up to you, but you just feel… very, very wanted. Your ass and upper thighs are being kneaded, Zayne wants you like this; anything else is secondary.

His voice comes as a rasp of heat over your ear. “Always asking me what I’d like. Always thoughtful. Why is that?”

“I l-like you, duh. U-ulterior motive,” you pant, staring at your potted plant.

Again comes the inescapable heat of Zayne’s breath. “To what diabolical end?”

“W-want you to touch m—”

“I thought it would be to have me like you.” You can hear a smile in his voice; you ball your fists up in frustration. “This is purely a sexual attraction? I see.”

“Shut up you know it’s not.”

“Mhm.” Zayne kisses the curve of your ear. “I know.” You’re eased to the side a little, then down, until your front is flush with the mattress. One affectionate pat to your butt, and Zayne’s weight shifts from the mattress to… lower on the mattress? Anxiety scrabbles up your throat; did you say something wrong, is his EVOL backlashing?

You push yourself up just as your shoulders are bracketed by Zayne’s biceps. His hands splay by your pillow; he traps your thighs with his own; you’re forced to sink back down, trapped between his chest and the mattress and staring at the potted plant while Zayne’s erection rocks into the crease of your bared ass.

His whisper is brushed along your neck, as agonisingly tender as a feather. “Should something unwanted arise, tell me.”

“Y-yes. Fuck, Zayne.” Between your legs is a pulsing fire radiating heat through your stomach, your lungs. You rock into the mattress thoughtlessly. “I don’t want you t—I don’t like being teased, for one thing. Please.”

Zayne kisses behind your ear. “While I don’t entirely believe you, I don’t intend…” He wraps a hand around your front. “To leave you unsatisfied.”

Oh my god. “T-thanks.”

“But I’m…” Another kiss. “Unfamiliar with what exactly…” Another. “Is necessary for this...” Another, and his hand slips lower, brushing the edge of your pubic hair. “To be satisfied.”

Oh my GOD. “Um. It depends,” you blurt. “When I’m, by myself, I mean. It changes.”

“Every aspect?” 

Overarticulated because he's trying not to chuckle. The heat in you sparks rebelliously. “You can just ask whether I think about you when I masturbate.”

“I don’t think I need to.”

Rebellion sputters before being smothered with a squeeze, your mound is in his palm; Zayne’s cupping your cunt. Your fucking—friend-turned-doctor-turned...

“Fu-uck.” You bury your face into the pillow.

Zayne’s free hand covers one of yours, linking your fingers, easier leverage as he drags his erection against you. “What do you think of most?”

You driving your cock into me. “This is really close. I don’t use my hands, but, I just imagine… yours… I think about you, okay, please stop teasing me.”

“Tell me what you use.” He gives your hand a soft squeeze. “This isn’t to tease you.”

“Toy. Like. V-vibrator.”

Unmoved, Zayne ventures, “Clitoral?”

“Yeah. Why.”

“Show me.” All at once, cool air coats your body, and Zayne’s weight is gone. The hand curved around your cunt remains, but he moves the other to your ass.

You pull your head up and glance behind you. A glimpse of Zayne’s flushed throat and wild eyes overwhelm you, and you look away. The reality of who you’re with is too much right now. You lean to the side to pull your drawer open, and sift through charging cables and hair ties until you find the tiny drawstring bag your vibrator came in. Zayne’s hands never leave you until you pull the vibrator out of the bag, and turn to deliver it to his waiting palm.

It’s slightly rounded, flat-bottomed, with a puckered hole of silicone that vibrates and ‘blows’. The same pale, elegant fingers that sign off forms addressed to your workplace are now around your vibrator. Zayne circles the puckered silicone with a fingertip, and your mouth waters. This borders on sacrilegious, somehow.

Zayne taps the power button—then holds it. “Ah,” he murmurs, observing the fluttering silicone. He holds the button once more to turn it off. “I think you’ll have to demonstrate for me.”

He holds the vibrator out to you expectantly. Having directed you to masturbate. In front of him. Right… right now.

You take the vibrator, fingers curling nervously. “I can… uh. I’m not sure how helpful it’d be. I kind of… shove it under my underwear and roll over.” (Or you sit and pull your knees up, which’d expose your slit to him entirely, which sounds in-sane.) “Not that I'm wearing my underwear. Just. I need both my hands, for sure; I can’t… do stuff back.”

Zayne’s demeanour softens. He leans forward and noses at your cheek. “So?”

“So you’d be… I mean, are you going to… do anything?”

“I’d like to watch,” he whispers, “that’s all. Does that unnerve you?”

Leftover comfort from doctor-patient congeniality-and-confedentiality floats over your puddle of a brain. When Zayne’s in ‘Dr. Li’ mode during your checkups, you’ve seen him be exasperated or skeptical, but he’s never made you feel… uncomfortable. You only get embarrassed because you let yourself feel embarrassed.

Besides, if a guy literally tells you, ‘masturbate in front of me however you want to,’ and then acts revolted or mocks you, he’d be the issue. You had a pap smear like two months ago and the gynecologist didn’t reveal you have a Notably Weird Vagina or something.

“You’re confusing,” you admit. You nudge his nose with yours. “You’re not unnerving.”

Smiling, Zayne leans back to sit against the headboard again. “Confusing? Aren’t I, to quote: blunt, forward, honest ‘like, diagnostic criteria kind of hones—’”

“Do you want me to stay horny or not.”

Zayne mimes zipping his lips.

You turn to sit beside him, with your back against the headboard. Hastily you kick your shorts free from where they’d tangled around your ankles. They vanish under the sheet somewhere as you slip under the covers. Zayne maybe glimpsed your pubic hair, at most—don’t be embarrassed! Stop!

You glance at the absurdly handsome man next to you. “Um, it’s not rude if I close my eyes?” AGH! STOP!

“Yes.” Zayne turns to his side, legs sort-of-crossed, with one knee up; the closest you’ve seen him to imperfect posture. He lays one arm along the headboard, and rests the other on his knee. “Staring is rude, but I think I’ll have trouble resisting. Can you forgive me?”

‘Y-e-s’ boils right out of your brain. “M-mhm,” you manage, face heating. You close your eyes, and take a hopefully-subtle breath. You nudge the ‘mouth’ of the vibrator between your crease.

Your free hand presses to pull your mound closer to your stomach, just a bit, and give the vibrator room to nestle by your clit. You turn it on. The familiar tingles and ripples of sensation begin to wind their way along your limbs, and hearing Zayne exhale shakes that sensation into waves of arousal rushing through your body; this could be like a thirty-second situation and such a letdown. “I-I take a while, sometimes,” you blather, “or, um, it’s quick, sometimes, I can do it quickly.”

“What, in your mind, brings about the difference?”

“I don’t know.” A giggle breaks loose. “Sorry, you sound like you do in, ah, aah, appointments. The Dr. Li voice.” This is great, the arousal’s ebbing! This is delaying the fuck out of gratification!

“Do you like how I sound when I’m speaking to you as Dr. Li?”

Arousal didn’t ebb at all. It’s just pesky champagne bubbles in your bloodstream now. Your clit pulses once. You bite your lip. “I love your voice, y-you know that.”

That voice moves a little closer, and wavers, breathy. “I understand you’re distracted, but I asked a specific question.”

Oh, fuck. “B-both, I like your doctor voice, and I like—I like you, so…”

“I understand.” Beside you, the sheets rustle. You crack one eye open to see Zayne shifting onto his knees, weight mostly on his ankles. Flush is high in his cheeks again, pinkening his undereyes, and those eyes are nearly as dark as his hair. His hazel-trimmed gaze is fixed on you.

“H-hi,” you whimper, holding back a jolt of your legs. He’s so good-looking.

“Hello.” Zayne smiles evenly, though his attention starts to flicker, between your face, throat and heaving chest.

While your mind is locked on he’s so good-looking, your body remembers the task and the rhythm: hold the toy to your clit; as it builds, hold it just a fraction away; as it crests, pull it away entirely; a breath or two, and then return. A massage. You’re just massaging yourself under the cover while Zayne watches, looking… so good...

“Would it be alright if…” He slowly rests a hand on your knee over the blanket. Even that small contact sends a wave of anticipation down your already weakening shin.

“If?” you prompt shakily, trying to fend off the arousal threading tighter through you. Every time you feel a bit weird, you notice how deeply he’s flushing; what little you can see of Zayne’s ears is red. He had a whole two seconds to reply and didn’t, so you add, “Zayne, you c-could literally ask to fuck me right now and I’d be down—”

Zayne rips the blanket down from your knees; a second later he’s on his stomach, between your legs, broad hands splayed on either thigh. “That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” he murmurs, gazing at your drooling slit.

Your fingers slip from the shock, and the vibrator leaves the sweetest spot; probably for the best or you’d have come in a second. You force your head back and squeeze your eyes shut, whimpering.

Zayne’s fingertips softly brush at yours. “May I?”

Clumsily, you release the vibrator; Zayne catches it quickly. Just as quick, he dips the device down, silicone pucker massaging through juice-slick folds, before pressing it back to your clit.

“Mmm—!” Your knees and hips seize up from how desperately you try to keep them in place; you fist the sheets for some anchorage.

“No no.” Zayne’s free hand slides under your knee to reach one of your fists, and pluck it free. He briefly twines your fingers to squeeze your hand, then releases you and returns to holding your thigh. “You used two hands before, what was the other doing?”

“H-holding m—just, lifting up, for my clit, but it’s–good, what you’re doing—” The pleasure prickling from the vibrator’s buzz is muted, but it’s holy shit is it prickling; your whole body’s just a conduit, now, for the hum of arousal, increasing and increasing. Wetness pulses out of you. Can Zayne see it? Is it slicking his fingers? Is it soiling the sheets, a line of drool connecting your pussy to the bed?

“Spread it for me.”

You obey without a thought. Your fingers knead your outer labia open and Zayne pushes the vibrator firm on your clit, a snug seal for it to whir and suckle and pull pleasure out from your body and all over the sheets. You rock your hips, trying to fuck yourself on it.

“No rushing. Be good.”

“M’kayeah,” you slur, head reeling. You focus on the weight of Zayne’s hand on you, each fingertip, each tiny caress. Sinking further into the abyss behind your eyes, all you can feel is your pussy, thrumming, taken care of; you're a weightless instrument, you're a harp string, plucked and plucked.

“Thank you. Perfect. What a good girl you are.”

Wanton sounds want to burst free. You swallow them back.

"Let me hear." The clinical tone wavers. Like a velvet curtain, it’s dragged back as he speaks, breathier and breathier. "This is even more beautiful than I’d, imagined, please. Let me, let me hear you. Say my name.”

You try. You loosen for him too easily and unfurl until you’re a spill of whines and moans. Zayne presses a kiss to your inner thigh, and keeps his mouth there, breathing deep through his nose.

Your mouth waters, your cunt drools; your body needs release and begins to greedily gather all the pleasure spreading through you until it’s a tight knot behind your navel. “Z-Zayne.”

“Yes. I know.” Zayne kisses your thigh again, then rests his cheek on it. You can feel the side of his mouth as he speaks. He’s watching. He can see how messily your pussy’s begging. “You’re very close.”

Uh-oh. “H-how would you know that?” Regret and shame and stupid, stupid yanks the edge of orgasm far from reach. ‘Uh-oh’?! ‘How would you know’?! He’s a fucking grown man be SERIOUS—

“Hm.” Zayne tilts the vibrator away so you can just barely feel it. You’re reduced to a frustrated whine, arching your hips to follow. “Ah ah.” He tuts and raises the vibrator away entirely. The vibrator’s buzz is much louder in the air. Never have you been so aware that a machine milked orgasms from you.

… Shame is, somehow, pushing your orgasm closer. “I’m sorry.”

Wordlessly, Zayne shifts his head forward on your thigh. He’s so close to your pussy; does he want to lick it? Can he smell it? You feel like it’s coated in its own juices and, and, and, under your inner thigh and under your folded knees are thick slicks of sweat and you’re soaked, everywhere—

“I was r-r-eally close, Zayne, please?”

His exhale stirs your pubic hair. Please please please please lick—

“Which I knew,” he murmurs, “because I’ve read about it; there’s no other reason.” He drags a thumb down your crease, parts you, and nudges right up to your entrance. “There could be nobody else.”

“Zay—”

The vibrator slants over your clit again, sucking.

“Ah, f-f—fuck please please.”

Over the roar in your ears you only barely hear Zayne’s mutter, softer than the muted buzz. “I don’t think I can deny you anything, anymore.” The muscle of your entrance is a pucker around his fingertip, then a push breaks the dam; your cunt kisses down to his knuckle as sweetness spills from your navel, down your legs in jerks and twitches, and out your pulsing hole.

Your head lolls forward as if all your nerves decided to surrender but for the ones between your legs.

Zayne’s forehead meets yours, helps your head stay on your shoulders. “So beautiful. You’re lovely.”

“Hah,” is all you can get out. There’s a click, and the buzzing ceases. Its echo pulses through you. Zayne slowly slides his thumb free from your pussy's clenching; you bite back a whine.

It bursts from you regardless, choked free as Zayne seizes your face and kisses you. He spoke softly a second ago and is now feral, frenzied; teeth scrape your lower lip once before he mumbles an apology, and each time you part for air, Zayne pants, rasping, then invades your mouth again.

He covers your cunt with his hand again and presses; it pulses happily toward his palm. “Is this for me?”

“Yes. Yes. Just you—aaaah.” One finger slides between your soft, drippy crease. Then another on the other side. You’re kept quiet by a kiss while you’re delicately forced to bloom, like a rain-soaked flower. The full length of Zayne’s finger strokes parallel to your crease, avoiding your over-sensitive clit. “I h-hav—mmphzz—Zayne, I have cond—”

“No.”

You’re almost positive his reply was abrupt in order to slam the door shut on his own temptation; still smarts a bit. Then you get a kiss on the cheek and your heart’s goo. “Please don’t make the suggestion again,” Zayne whispers. “Only because I want to, very much; I’m sorry, that was rude of me—”

“You have negative things to be sorry for. I promise.” You offer him a smile.

It’s not returned. “Thank you.” Another shuddering breath. His hand must’ve left your pussy so tenderly you didn’t even notice when; Zayne now tucks it into his pocket as he sits back on his ankles—avoiding your eyes.

Awesome! “Um.”

“Forgive me.” Zayne loops one arm around your back and another underneath you, hoisting you to sit atop him. His hands slide to your hips so you can stay upright despite jellied legs. “I’m catastrophising about my EVOL’s backlash at an inappropriate time. How do you feel, right now?”

“Confused.” You poke him. “See, confusing.”

“You’re right. I was wrong.”

“Otherwise, I feel good, really good; this was great, Zayne.”

He smiles, weakly, which breaks your heart a little bit. “It was?”

“Yeah. Um. I’m going to do the line: was it good for you too?”

Zayne wordlessly tugs you to sit fully on him.

“It’ll stai—” Your jaw drops at the sheer size and rigidity of what meets you. Zayne’s erection throbs needily against your own ebbing aftershocks. There is a near-primal urge in you to grind; you focus on deep breathing, through your mouth, to stave it off; you need him inside you, he’s meant to be inside you.

Zayne presses a comically chaste kiss to your slack lower lip. “Stain me, please.” The words ghost over your tongue, right into your freshly emptied head. “My desire to see your pleasure is overwhelming. The selfish edge to that desire… I want to bring you to it. Thank you for showing me a way to do so, and allowing me to enjoy the... 'stain', the evidence.”

“A-anytime.” Your cunt’s starting to throb again—unless that’s him. You can’t tell. Your eyes fucking defocused?! You blink rapidly. “Literally anytime.”

Zayne smiles. “For now… a nap might be… ?”

“Nope.” You raise yourself on your knees. (The muscle you twinged earlier screeches at you.) “No napping. And no evidence-enjoying.”

His eyes don’t leave yours. “No stain?”

There is absolutely a stain. The white fabric of the brand-new pajama pants is darker at the crotch. If you pressed it close, it might cling to the shape of his… anyway.

Focused, you reach down to yank Zayne’s hand from his pocket. He quirks a brow, but lets you, and when you raise the soiled hand to his lips, the sardonic composure is lost. Zayne’s eyes flutter, and his lips part—doing you a favour. The sheen on his index finger catches the waning sunlight as you push it inside his mouth.

“I can’t leave mess around with a guest over,” you say softly, hearing yourself as if from a distance. You keep pushing and he keeps letting you. Zayne’s fingers spread around his chin to let him sink to the last knuckle. Your eyes burn from staring. Giddy arousal spins your head off your shoulders and reduces you to that primal need; you can’t tease him. “Is tasting better than seeing?”

A muscle in Zayne’s throat flexes. You meet his eyes. He offers you a smitten blink, hollowing his flushed cheeks, and sucks his middle finger in alongside.

The sight of Zayne Li letting you fuck his mouth with his own fingers is going to kill you if you let it. You release his hand. "I don't have plans this evening, either, if, um.”

Zayne’s fingers slide free; his panting mouth hypnotises you a bit. Eyes defocusing might’ve been a survival tactic. "I could easily make a joke, right now.” He swallows. “About dinner plans with you, however..."

You're shoved onto your back; your sore legs sing with relief even as they're parted. Zayne lies flat on his stomach between your legs, and lifts them over his shoulders. "The gracious host should rest." He noses at your crease until his hot breath fans against your slick folds. "Let me clean up.”

⸺⸺⸺⸺

Is he flushing? The moon is not yet risen, it’s too dark to see, if you lit a candle—you are not going to push past him to light a candle!

Perhaps it is the dim light that makes his skin seem so smooth. Perhaps it is weariness softening his expression. Or… that he no longer wears a mask of disinterest; pure affection fills the pretty blue eyes raking over your face.

… Perhaps Xavier doesn’t mind you staring.

He must find you pleasing enough to look at, you suppose, smoothing your skirts down and smile at him. (He smiles back.) Granted the lucidity offered by awkward silence… he’s… remaining. Scuppered is the chance of this being some mindless, lustful impulse; you’re not being pawed at, yet he remains. Your king, right in front of you. Watching you watch him, breath coming arduously through those petal-pink lips…

Your king is too pretty.

“You can kiss me again,” you say, “if you’d like.”

He answers with a smirk, which breaks into a laugh. “I’d like nothing more. But…” He taps the black armour on his shoulder. “I realised the risk of putting out one of my lady’s eyes. I was just thinking of how fond I am of them.”

“Right, I can… um…” You feel along Xavier’s shoulder as he turns, until you find the thick leather strap where pauldron joins to breastplate.

“Did that sound strange?” he asks quietly. He glances at you. “About your eyes.”

“No, no. I appreciate your concern for my, um…” You furrow your brow as you try to yank the metal buckle loose. Leather is tough. Well, of course it is, it’s leather, you simply hadn’t thought it’d be this taut—

“It was the compliment I believe I worded poorly. You have beautiful eyes. I should’ve said.”

His voice is the gentlest you’ve ever heard it. What of the look on his face, you wonder, is it the same?

You resist indulging yourself with a peek. “Thank you,” you say, focused on unbuckling the pauldrons. (As if it’s dutiful work and not a prelude to further indulgences.) At his insistence, it’s onto the floor they go (then kicked, by him, beneath the bed.) The two of you work off the cape, the armour; Xavier tore his gauntlets off at some point to assist you, (likely kicked them, as well.)

Once he’s in his undershirt, you crumple your mental catalogue of ‘what he’s kicked where.’ The very heart in your chest flutters, weak as paper. Over the thin cotton undershirt, dangling from a black cord, around his neck, is, the… 

You drag your eyes up. His catch the candlelight as they narrow. Playfully. Mischievously. Briefly, briefly, you’ve half a mind to leave. 

Xavier reaches behind his neck and unclasps the cord; with twinkling eyes, he lies right to your face.

“No one's ever meant as much to me as you do.” 

The ancient lump of once-yellow fabric goes in the dresser, by the window, middle of the top drawer; he places it atop your linens—

—turns, crushes you to his chest, latches his mouth to yours, drags you onto the velvet sheets.

The slide of his tongue works every thought from your head; the slide of his hands along your waist is all that keeps you conscious of your body. The satin ripples under his attentions. One of your simpler dresses. Xavier need not fiddle around faceted garnets or topaz cabochons. (You're thinking again.) He’s tracing the embroidery… Wherever you’re quite sure his fingers would meet gilded thread, they press firmer. 

… What are your hands doing? … Nothing—nothing?!

You reach up to dig them into his hair. Instead, they graze cold metal, sharp. His crown. Of course, you didn’t remove that, it could tumble and break, or cause injury… You yank your face away, to get a proper look. Around his head it firm sits, even as he turns his head, lips brushing against your neck, then kissing, then trailing…

You focus. Carefully, you untwine a few ashen strands caught in the crown’s black spires, and begin to lift the crown free.

“Hurry up.” Xavier nips your pulse. “Please?”

“Your ma—mmf.” 

His tongue strokes down your throat. You shake your head to break the kiss; he allows it, thankfully, and pulls back. Bracing his hands on either side of your head, he mutters, “Your Xavier is listening.”

You waggle the crown demonstratively. “My Xavier should place this on my bedside.”

Those too-blue eyes fill with tenderness. What a darling sight; less so, the smirk below them.  

“You’re always so assiduous,” he says, taking the crown in hand.

It meets the wall with a clatter, and you’re set upon once more.

Silver spills through the window, drenching the room. Sat at the end of the bed, you find each small hair upon your arm turned to stardust by the moon’s light. 

Such inspections are to avoid taking a proper look at the sight before you.

Framed by the weathered fireplace and its neglected hearth, more cinders than flame, Xavier kneels. What little firelight remains dances along his jaw. Beneath his smoky fringe, his lashes lie so low that you’re only sure of where he intends to look thanks to him telling you. Inside your ‘cunt’, an odd tension begins to coil. 

Your skirt brushes your ankles as Xavier tucks his hands under the hem. He splays a hand on either shin. 

You try to keep your voice steady. “And I am to, what? It cannot kiss back.”

Xavier’s eyelashes flutter, then he clears his throat and replies, “Indeed. I suppose you’ll have to satisfy yourself with doing nothing for me in return.”

His hands move up and up, as determined as the man himself. And as calloused, you think faintly, yet there is softness beneath; his fingertips trail delicately up your shins until they rest on the sides of your knees. Xavier presses his forehead to your knees, and exhales.

This is not the ravishing you’d expected when he first yanked you onto the bed. Nor the sort detailed in… 

While working through the castle library, you would often and accidentally encounter a novella within which consummation was depicted midway, most often as a matter of course after a wedding, but sometimes for reasons utterly separate from any sort of development within the story, and the general impression given by the words as you skimmed them was never of such a… contemplative nature. 

Xavier lifts his head. His eyes roam your face again, and yours roam his. Though his hair is now more ash than blonde, he ‘hasn’t aged a day’ in the hundred thousand or so you’ve spent apart. (That he spent without you. How many did you spend without him? Did you count? Surely you did.)

Your eyes slip to his collarbone, pale skin and paler cloth. After whatever this is, will he fetch that stupid star? Did he wear it every day, is briefly removing it meant to flatter you?

“You’ll enjoy it,” he whispers. “If you don’t, the fault is mine.”

“Mhm.”

“Just tell me if it bores you.” To leave your periphery, Xavier ducks his head and offers you a smile; you meet his eyes, you are not so rude as to deny that. “My lady?” 

“I understand.”

His smile falters. “Would you rather do something else—?”

You cup his face. Xavier’s eyes strain trying to watch your thumb’s path over his cheek. A boyishly full curve, unweathered by the years, yet the stress of such starvation… Unspoken, but immense, beneath everything he said earlier, there growled a weakened longing. Was it for you?

You swallow your own need. “Even if I enjoy it, I would see you satisfied.” By me.

Xavier tilts into your touch, rests his chin on your knee, and gazes up at you… coquettishly. “Your enjoyment will satisfy me. I promise.”

“How?”

One of his hands moves an inch or so further up, passing back and forth over your thigh, seemingly absentminded. Desire fills his eyes as he speaks; shadows over forget-me-nots. “For a long time, I’ve wanted to make you feel a certain way.” 

“I don’t know how you’ve even heard of such a method,” you mutter. 

His smile widens. “That’s alright.”

You fold yourself forward and squint at him faux-accusatorily. “How often did you think of me in such a position?”

“Often.” Xavier nudges your nose with his. “But I thought of you always; most of my thoughts were appropriate.” 

“When thinking upon this, you… decided it’d be best if I laid back and did nothing. Truly?” 

“There is one thing I hope you’ll do.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm.”

It is with comical swiftness that Xavier butts his head to your chest. The world tilts, momentum has its way, you fall back. Thump.

“I dislike you again,” you declare. 

Xavier’s hands slide down to your hem. He starts rucking your skirts up. “Then I’ll make amends through action. We’ve talked enough, for now.”

Nerves bounce upon your chest, then find their way inside your chest. Little foolish words and impulses. With great determination, you swallow them. You pull down a pillow from further up the bed and set it beneath your head, arranging your hair neatly, then fold your hands atop your stomach. Tucking the nerves in for the night.

They wake immediately when you hear leather rasp on stone; all the air leaves your lungs as your legs tilt up and, carefully, are pulled forward. They hook over Xavier’s shoulders—he’ll see beneath your skirt, easily, well, obviously, such is his intent—

Hands, flat on your inner thighs, kneading the flesh there, massaging. A kiss to your left knee. Another, to the right. Another, further up your left thigh. The peculiar sweetness between your legs stirs, as if moving?!

The nerves burst free. “It cannot have been always.” 

Another kiss, right thigh. Buzzed upon your skin: “hm?”

“You said you thought of me always,” you clarify, staring at the oaken bedpost as if it could serve as a decent distraction. 

“I did.” Xavier’s words dampen your inner thigh, and the other bedpost, in fact, is not a match; the wood is less evenly polished.

“But even revenants must sleep. Everyone sleeps.”

“Yes. Some dream of the person they most care for.” There’s a slight weight on your folded hands—your dress, folded up yet further. “I did.”

You must be bare from the hips down, but the due embarrassment has yet to reach you. Too focused are you on the hoarse yearning voice below, the slight tremble between each word; the bedposts are no comfort, nor the canopy. You shut your eyes and bite your lower lip and listen. 

Xavier’s hands splay over the top of your thighs, high enough that his fingertips brush your hips. “I’d wake longing for her warmth. Then endure each day, ‘til came the night, and with it came more longing.”

You laugh breathily. “Forgive my disrespect, then.”

“Disrespect me. I don’t mind.”

A wet pressure parts you.

“Your h—ah!” 

On your inner thigh, just barely, you feel the curve of Xavier’s smile. “Try again.” 

“Xa—” You choke as moisture is laved up your crease. By Xavier’s tongue, while two of his fingers hold you open; then comes a deeper pressure, ardent as a kiss. Your hands fly out to fist the sheets; those stupid nerves are loose while your lower half is pinned beneath his forearm. Your ankles drive into the back of his shoulders. Xavier’s muscles tense beneath the cotton shirt as he moans into you.

“Xavier!”

“Yes,” he pants, “what?” 

“I can’t lie still!” you insist.  Mortified, you close your eyes. “It’s… sensitive.”

Xavier rubs his cheek on your inner thigh. “I know. That should pass. Move if you must, it’s fine. Do anything you like.” 

His nose nudges at your crease. You’d never considered how that part of you tasted, but now you can think of nothing else. Xavier doesn’t inquire after your silence, instead spreading you further and pressing his face up to your cunt. So, it must taste… good. 

Your face heats as Xavier licks at you. He does so with… animalistic focus, as if grooming or devouring—no, as if it is instinct, what he does to you, not a vulgar thing, and… and the sounds…

You feel used.

… It is not wholly unwelcome. 

Heat prickles down your body. How hollow a vessel it is, as from your head to your cunt, Xavier drains you. Eventually you cannot hear a thing but the desperate gasps, leaving your mouth parched; it misses his, you want a kiss, but you do not want him to stop ‘kissing’ you.

You smother yourself with a hand so that you’re at least breathing warmer air, and… can pretend it is his hand…

At some point, your eyes open? Foolish, as they just loll about uselessly. The stone ceiling falls in and out of focus as you imagine it being blocked by his body, over you. There’s more done in the bedroom between a man and woman. He could do worse to you.

That sweet sensitivity yanks at you from the inside.

You bite the side of your hand to keep from moaning aloud, but your legs spasm; instantly, Xavier pins them, and despite your perfect silence, he pulls his mouth away. You let out a muffled growl. How attractive. 

“So.” Xavier exhales. “You dislike me?” 

Bastard. You try to find your voice somewhere in the canopy above you. Considering your reaction thus far, if you look at him, you’ll faint. “Mm-mm.”  

“Yes or no?” he asks softly. Before you can reply, a true pressure coaxes your hole. His finger, probing, curious.

“No.” Your reply is more a whine than anything else. 

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

Oh, damn you, you bite back the words. “Xavier.”

“Yes? Does my lady desire something?”

With sore fingers, you grip the sheets, blood stirred from arousal to agitation. “Ugh! I won’t say it.”

It is more than a matter of modesty, it is uncharacteristic; the girl he knew at the Academy would be horrified by such vulgarity. (Although she shared the want for it. After you fixed his brooch he could’ve fucked you and you would’ve allowed it; door unlocked, appointment looming, you would’ve done whatever Prince Xavier wanted, whenever, if he’d just told you he wanted it.) 

Half feeling as if you are that naive, desirous girl again, you mutter, “Do you just want me lowly? Squirming about for you?”

“A little,” comes the reply, heart-achingly tender. “I want you however you are.” As he speaks so sweetly, his finger coaxes at your entrance. He’s vile, you’re vile, it feels wonderful, it’s vile.  

“You are a terror of a king,” you laugh. “Defiling a lady’s dignity.”

“Your dignity?” Xavier widens his eyes, and penetrates your pulsing hole.  

You gag on nothing, tipping your head back, clenching your fists; velvet sheets shift, a hundred miles away. The weight along your hips vanishes, freeing you to arch, though it barely alleviates the pressure. A splayed hand meets your sweat-slick backside.

Suddenly close, hushed by your ear, his voice: “Speak if it hurts.”

It does hurt; it doesn’t? Your fingers hurt. Your eyes, squeezed shut, are fine… Your cunt, invaded and insisted upon, aches. Fumbling, you press your hand back to your mouth, and moan into it. The pressure in your lower half continues until Xavier’s palm is pressed flush to you. Then, his fingertip starts to drag against your insides. Second-by-second, an even pace of press-and-drag-and-turn-and-press-and-probe—

“I like your dignity as it is,” he says, miles away.

“M’sorry.” 

“It’s alright. You were joking.”  

Lightning arcs up your shins, searing your lower stomach. “Ah!” 

Again, Xavier strikes upon something inside you, like flint to a fire, water to a drunkard; you’re overheated and dripping, you’re blinded—

“I want to defile this.” Right underneath where Xavier’s finger is driving inside you, you receive a long, messy kiss. 

“Xa—y’h—” You slap your hand over your mouth as the wet slip of his tongue ventures lower, toward an entrance far filthier; from the skin between, Xavier laps at your cunt’s dribbling. You go limp, and let him.

Goosebumps ripple all over your skin—yet if there is a chill in the air, you cannot feel it. Relaxation spills over your body, as delicious and tempting as a hot bath in winter. Your hand slips from your mouth to grasp something, somewhere, and your hips buck reflexively. Xavier’s unwavering mouth follows. Even if you wanted to stop the sounds escaping you, you can no longer anticipate them.

The dark behind your eyes. Xavier on you. Those are the only things you’re sure of. Gradually, you cannot tell where exactly his mouth is, or what your body is doing; your body is his concern, not yours. 

Squelching and hums, sucking-licking-penetrating, rhythmic, deep…

Pleasure is a wave, swelling below you, bidding you to float. Each pass of Xavier’s tongue fills you, now, until warmth drenches your insides, softening your bones, your muscles, and his hand slides up your neck. It is no grip at all, just a caress, yet breath flees. After one long exhale, anchored to only Xavier’s palm, you drown. Washed over all at once, a fierce current and Xavier, Xavier, Xavier—

“I’m here.” A susurrus of wind over water. A breeze on your cheek. “You’re so perfect.” The loveliest voice in the galaxy is right over you. “I… I’ve…” 

Then a kiss coaxes you open, as the world clenches inward.

Xavier's here.

Xavier is kissing you. Your knight, your prince, he came back and called you perfect and kissed you, just like you wanted him to, that afternoon on the rooftop, and always…

Giddy, weak, you fumble at air before Xavier takes your hand and presses it to his cheek. You can feel his jaw working as he kisses you. Death and stale sorrow and clumsiness are inconsequential; Xavier's kissing you like he loves you.

He does, you decide, delirious. He came home to me. Across the starry sea and back again.

The sound of your name floats down to you like a feather, tickling your face. Blearily, you open your eyes. The moon lights Xavier’s hair to pure silver—how did you ever think it ashen?—and his shirt is pristine white. Your star, shining over you again.

… Concern lines his brow, for whatever silly reason. You squint, disapproving. 

Instantly, his face smooths to contentment. Xavier braces himself on one elbow, rests his head on his hand, and smiles down at you. “Good evening.”

“Shush. Hush-shush-shush.” 

Mock-somber, he nods, then smiles again. Gazing at you as you… lie back. Doing nothing.

“This feels right,” you say, still in a daze. 

He cups your face. “So it does.” Calloused fingertips brush your cheekbone, then turn. With the softer part of his hand, Xavier traces the curve of your cheek with delicacy befitting a relic. “l missed this,” he whispers.

A confession amid catharsis; admission made after blessings bestowed; ‘I prayed for this,’ said in gratitude; it is gratitude, and after so long, melancholy’s weight would feel minute, and Xavier couldn’t have anticipated—

Hasty kisses land below your eyes, back and forth, as if to shoo back tears. Oh! There are tears—

“Pain?” he asks, panicked. “Or I—”

“It’s fi—snf—fine.”

Xavier presses his forehead to yours. “You’re crying.” 

“Because I’m sad! Saddened. You made me sad!”

“Oh,” he sighs the word, “I’d meant to make my queen happy.”

“You do!”

This time, he laughs: “Oh. But… if she’d have me not speak of the past, I won’t, it doesn’t matter.”

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, beneath the blanket of his hair. You wind your fingers through some of the strands and slowly, carefully, clench your fist. “It does matter.”

“Th—”

“I missed you.” 

Xavier tucks his face to the curve of your neck.

Of course. Any honest response would be chivalrous demurring. Or inadequate reciprocity. You’d begrudge him for it. You’ve no right to, you’ve every right to, he left for a good reason, he abandoned you; your knight wanted to save his lady love, or the planet, or both, he had to follow his guiding starlight, wherever she is or was or may be.

You loosen your grip on Xavier’s hair, in case the bitterness in you reaches that far. It certainly seems capable of it. Washed clean as you are by newfound bliss, this ancient resentment remains. 

After you’re distracted from the discontent by kisses and pretty words and his pretty face, lit by infatuation, Xavier rolls off the bed. To go clean his face, and fetch water; five minutes, he promises, no more.

He returns on time, presumably; there’s no clock for you to brood at. You take the glass from your bedside and hold it out. Even how carefully he tilts the flagon bothers you. It is kind, he is kind, you want… all of his kindness. Are you greedy, now? Covetous? You suppose you are, and were. 

“You don’t need to do this,” you mutter.

Xavier sets the flagon onto the floor. You let yourself forget its location immediately; let him clong his foot against it later.

“What do you mean?” he asks, sitting beside you.

The urge to kiss him rattles your ribs like prison bars. You drown it and place the glass back on the bedside. As if from a long distance, you watch him take your hand, and splay your hand open. His fingers start to lace through yours, and you cannot bear to watch, for some unfathomable reason. You stare at the bedsheets.

“You can go,” you say, “since… it's done.”

Your joined hands meet his lips. Upon each of your knuckles, a kiss. One, two, three, four, five. “But you don't want me to go.”

“No.”  

A smile against the back of your hand. Then, Xavier rolls to lean over you, ever-so-gently pressing your hands down. He dips his head to whisper by your ear. “Let's stay here forever, then.”

Too much. It’s too much, it’s not real. Staring at the canopy keeps his hair in the periphery—you strain your eyes away, and they land in the worst possible part of the room.

“Xavier.” 

“Mhm?”

“Where is the star I gave you?” One, two, three seconds pass. “Where is it?” you ask, sick.

“Welded to my breastplate. Where the flowers sit. I can—” 

“Nevermind.” Stupid idea. Shown any speck of silver metal upon it, you’d believe him. Another two seconds pass. Three more. Another three! That makes five; more and more, ah, this is humiliating!

“When you gifted it to me,” Xavier murmurs, “I came perilously close to a confession.” 

Your head spins. 

Xavier's is anchored upon the nape of your neck. Breaths shudder free, and words, too, oh, no. “I love you,” he lies, “I won’t leave you again.”

“W—”

“Do you believe me?” he asks, pulling his head up. His hands grip the sides of your face with none of his earlier reverence, and force you to look at him. Such is the intensity in his eyes that it can only be described as a glare.  

“Upon your face is not a loving look.”

Xavier pokes the sides of your frown with his thumbs. “Love doesn’t grant one a pleasant countenance. And you don’t believe me.”

“What does it matter?” you croak. (Whatever moisture the water left on your innards seems to have evaporated. Marvellous.) “Any of it.”

His eyes widen. “What?” 

You grasp the front of his shirt. Had you the strength, you’d tear the cotton crumpled in your fist, to palm at the skin beneath and know him truly bared, even in a small way. Some small recompense. (He only bared you to pleasure you. Which he then did. And now, he’s giving you what you always wanted. Or… what is left of it, considering the ruin you’ve both found yourselves in…) 

He placed another woman’s favour amongst your belongings and violated you because he wanted to, and now demands faith from you; next, you’re quite sure, he’ll seek forgiveness. “If you want to finish having me,” you say, tugging until that baffled face fills your vision, “you can just… you can. I’ll enjoy it. You don't need to do this.”

For a moment, that pretty, bewildered face is horrified. The hands on your face gentle, and for a moment, you hate Xavier.

It passes. It always passes. You hate that too. Once more, his forehead touches yours. Somehow you find the courage to shove your head to the side.

You stare at that ghastly dresser. 

What sits in the very middle of its top drawer is so small! Smaller than a stone in your shoe or sleepsand in your eyes of a morning or the very lump in your throat as you think upon it. 

Xavier’s hand folds over the one you’ve fisted in his shirt. “Please let go.”

You tighten your grip.

You ought to obey. King or prince or man stronger than you; it is unwise, being petulant to him. Certainly not a trait of a lady well-loved. Though it may be best, for him to see up close the shrew you are. (“Yes, ‘tis your Queen; you’ll prefer her upon the pedestal where complaints cannot be heard.”)

He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t know you. Nor you him; Xavier seems to be the same, divested of raiment, but what seems to be a star is no more than a lumpy circle of linen. It is only a star if viewed with sentimentality. This was no true reunion. He doesn’t love you. (Meaning he didn’t make love to you, although you knew that, for it was just his mouth—meaning he is more likely to have used you.)

Xavier speaks so softly. “Tell me what you want.” You want to strangle his temper free.

“For you to have your way with me then go.”

“Don’t…” Fingertips calloused at the edges trace overtop your aching knuckles. Roughened skin, gentle touch. “Please look at me?”

As you turn your head, your throat thickens. Swallowing hurts. The bitterness is less like bile, more... sand within an hourglass. You are not a woman, you are an object Xavier tipped carelessly. Now the object itself must adjust. Right itself. Endure the scrapes.

The look upon Xavier’s face is a loving look. (You hope there are portraits of him, somewhere, painted with caring hand.) You hate him.

“I want,” you rasp, “to be of a mind with my closest friend, but he is gone; I want to trust my…” … Xavier was your knight in title alone. A knight, yes. Yours? No.

“Your Xavier?”

“Mm.” You loosen your grip to avoid his touch, but Xavier takes your hand. Entwines his fingers with yours again. Again, again, again. Such persistence. Such constancy—“You said you’d come back when I missed you. You did not."

"I shouldn't have promised that. I failed you. I’m sorry." Xavier gathers you into his arms; you close your eyes to hide from shame, and sink into the abyss. A kiss is pressed to the top of your head. "If I could've returned sooner, I would’ve.”

“I don’t forgive you.”

His chuckle rumbles against your cheek. (You nuzzle into the sound. Shame hasn’t found you yet.) “Good. It is not pardon I seek.” One broad hand strokes up your neck, and cups the back of your head. “I daresay... I missed you as much as you missed me. The difference lies in my being at fault for it, but... Once I'd learned the fate I abandoned you to, it weighed on my every hour. I was in anguish, and... I truly hope that brings you some relief, because... I think it might.”

It does. Horrible as it is, it... Because... you missed him. Because you missed him and you did precisely as he asked and—

You sob. Fossilised hopes made a cairn over missing him, having him in any way feels... wrong, odd, strange... it does not alleviate the weight... you want desperately to believe him, and you cannot bear to have him lie to you again. You sob, and sob, and try your very best to imagine it is not his shirt you cling to, but... that you've found some part of him that is just for you, that you can keep close, that... won't leave again...

Your prince doesn't hush you or comment upon your state; when you squeeze him, he squeezes back; when you blather miserable nonsense, he shifts so you may breathe and babble easier. Though coherency remains out of reach—you always cut yourself off after a syllable or two—your mind begins to clear.

… You feel compelled to apologise.

Prince Xavier must’ve seen a seed of perseverance in you, else he wouldn’t have named you queen. Perhaps you wilted easily, perhaps you didn’t. So many memories remain unexcavated… you dislike sifting through them already. Flecked upon your whole life is an inexplicable, stagnant rage.

As beloved queen you had a servant (Maisie? Mary?) who always lay in your empty bed of an evening, while you undressed and chattered about literature. She was lovely to you. Yet were she Maisie or Mary or a heated brick magically capable of conversation, it’d make no difference; what you recall most, flecked throughout the memory, is how angry you were. Like ash, your anger soils without seeming to, and cannot be removed without soiling something else. You knew, upon bidding your bedwarmer goodnight, the bed wouldn’t feel warm at all.

Luxuriant and overlarge, the sheets were burdensome, you wanted Xavier beneath them with you. You couldn’t quash the hope of waking in Xavier’s arms, briefly frightened, scandalised; warmed by his whisper, melting into his arms. 'I needed to see you right away. Forgive your indecorous knight.'

Every fantasy had Xavier desperate to hold you. (He was not always doing so; imagining him sorrowful and alone brought pleasure. You were alone!) To fall asleep, you’d oft imagine kissing him—as you kissed tonight!—or comfort alike what's seemingly offered now, or merely hearing his voice from another room. These wishes seem granted. The space between your bodies is warm, and you've dribbled and melted upon him like leftover candle wax. Hurrah.

Xavier kisses your temple. “I’m here.”

As I am aware, yes, you think dimly. Your heart and lungs are less obdurate: at each soft breath upon your skin, foolish affection prances around your innards and unsteadies your breath. Even when he kissed your gloved hand, the night you met, your heart was ‘aflutter.’ He could’ve kissed you properly, explained himself to you, and explained you to you, and Sindersfell’s past; all of this could’ve happened earlier, you could’ve had more time. Instead, your spirit is broken and bloodied from clawing free of the grave.

You no longer feel compelled to apologise.

Whines thin to sniffles, sorrow dries up. Finally, you pull away from the pretense of Xavier’s embrace. "Thank you," you say, then scold yourself for such meekness. You smooth your hand over his drenched sleeve, rearrange your face, and grant him a glance. “Apologies. I believe I’m all right, now.”

Xavier’s staring at you as if you’re speaking in a foreign tongue. "May I hold you again?"

"I don’t require comfort, thank you."

"I know. I'd still like to hold you."

"My trousers will ruin the bedsheets," Xavier tells the wall. “The inner-most. They’re silk; gentler than the coverlet.”

You know what your own bed feels lik—what are his trousers made of, then?! You peer at the fabric through the hands he’s clasped behind himself. Then you quickly look away, drawing your shoulders back. It’s of no concern to you.

Perhaps he speaks of stains, not texture... It’s of no concern. Having emptied yourself of lust and melancholy, you work on emptying yourself of wondering. As a queen you will soon reunite with your imperious dignity. You resolved so before Xavier could catch your mouth mid-embrace.

(Not that he had the chance to try. But he would’ve, if allowed to 'hold you.')

Whatever Xavier would like to happen could wait, you decided, as you’d like to go to bed. He can hold you in bed if he likes. Thus you shooed him into turning ‘round so you could undress, and refused when he asked to take his leave for a moment.

(Not that you desire for him to stay, necessarily; you were ensuring you were capable of refusing him something.)

Stood by the chest of drawers, your eyes linger on the window. There’s hairline cracks on the panes; the thick-wrought latticing looks silly, pointless. "If by ruin the sheets, you mean stain them," you say, pulling open the second drawer, “or otherwise leave them inadequate for sleep, then you can sit atop the coverlet. Or simply remove your trousers.”

“... Remove them.”

“Yes.” Eyes fixed on the window, you pull open the second drawer, and feel your way to silk-muslin-linen-cotton—your shifts. You pluck one up. “I’ve seen men bared before.”

“Oh?” threads the air, light and sharp as a needle.

Peculiar trend between sparring sword-brothers. Started… in the second century of your absence? Or the third? You wonder if the history books recorded it. “Haven’t you seen a naked woman before?”

“Are statues included in our measures?”

“We aren’t doing anything beyond conversing. I asked you a question. You need not answer.” You close the drawer. As you strip, you force your eyes down, and watch your day-dress pool at your feet. You step free and kick it behind you. Soon the underside of your bed will host the stock of a haberdashery, tailor, and armory.

A glance over your shoulder proves Xavier standing just as you left him, eyes fixed on the wall; too-snug trousers and all. You slide the cotton nightdress on and are grateful for your luck. It’s one of your favourites. Lavender, but for two small blue flowers you’d embroidered over moth-bitten holes. The fabric is breathable, without being so thin to show your figure beneath; if you’d blindly plucked up a see-through white shift…

It’d be of no concern. Queens wear whatever they like. "You may turn," you announce.

As soon as Xavier’s eyes are upon you, they begin to roam. "That's a lovely dress,” he says, “lavender flat—"

“It’s lilac. Now…” You rap one knuckle upon the topmost drawer. "The furniture in my room is for my belongings, not another's. I'd like you to remove what you put in here, and… put it with your crown, or pauldrons, wherever any of that went."

Xavier's brow furrows in confusion. Confusion! The cheek of the man!

"It belongs to the girl you 'liked.'" You pause in case of correction. (In the event of which you shall scream.)

Silent, Xavier walks around the four-poster and to your side. He slides the top drawer open. Just as delicately as he'd traced your face earlier, he scoops up the small, stuffed lump. Washed milk-pale in the moonlight. Most vibrant is the threading down one side: richer brown than the rest and exceptionally tight. Most noticeable is the dark strap the old thing is hung on, a poisonous vine around Xavier’s open palm.

"I should’ve asked permission?" he asks quietly. "The woman I love stores her ribbons and kerchiefs here. Is that not the best place for... ? Other than with me?"

As you stare at the star, his words buzz to insignificance. Rich brown is the colour of its smile, too. Mismatched to its gleeful eyes. Your hazy memories of the Academy swirl, with the star at their center. Its face was always light brown. Thus Xavier repaired it, at some point, while away from you.

Had it been damaged in combat, and he panicked at its ruin? You thought he'd replaced it with your star because he preferred you! Juvenile, foolish, cruel silly idea that should’ve brought no comfort in the first place! The fabric star was too precious to wear upon his pommel, that's all!

The idea of him stooped over this tiny star, delicately pricking a needle through—

The idea of him caring for something you had no hand in. That's what it is. That sickens you. No queen feels so unless she is a tyrant, no tyrant trembles when faced with a childish trinket, thus you are naught by a silly, smitten girl. You are so selfish.

Xavier’s hand closes around the star. "I'm realising a mistake of mine."

"You shall have to be more specific," you say flatly.

"I will be,” he lies, voice as sorrowful as when he spoke of Uluru; when did you stop hating him? It passed, you suppose, foolishly, for you feel its return. You drag your head up. Past that frowning face is a future of this. Watching a great secret wear Xavier’s skin, retreat inward, and take the rest of him with it. Xavier steps closer to you, and dips his head. He takes your hand. "Can you resonate with me?”

“I can, yes. Of course.”

He smiles ruefully. “My queen, may I resonate with you, please?”

Your heart is made of dough. You imagine yourself punching it like a hardy baker, free of girlish fantasies. “Go on.”

Searing pain meets your palm—you flinch so far back into yourself, you do not feel the heat. Xavier’s voice passes over you. “The ‘person I liked’ is the person I care for now, and love. You.” Your mind judders at the words and falls, and falls, and falls, shuddering; a clock hand struggling to meet each hour.

“Only one person has given me … she can die and be reborn … how many times, no matter where … can you help me—”

Clocks and time are equally unreliable. Paint upon a clock's face, sand in an hour glass, so on, so forth, specks on specks in the grand cosmic landscape...

Stars scatter behind your eyes and burst, one at a time, until the final star is revealed to be a pat of butter, melted. Velvet snuck from textiles class. The little curved eyes of the star were asymmetrical, so you had to unpick one and try again; then, the smile kept puckering too much on the left… on the day, you regretted adding the little face at all; it looked childish, as well as ugly…

“It looks good. Can you help me put it on?”

Xavier's arms close around you while the world ends. No, you merely… are off-balance, or... you were. Or the world tilts. Doesn’t matter, Xavier has you. One of his broad hands is splayed on your back—quickly joined by another, though curled in a fist.

Through the abyss you scrabble, trying to catch hold of what already steadies you. Your hands land around his face. He gasps as you drag him close. One of his sleeves brushes over your shoulder, followed by a wooden thud, then with both arms, Xavier pulls your trembling body flush to his.

Hands splayed at your waist, he lets you kiss at him like a madwoman. You understand, now, how he felt earlier: the alleged need to kiss. How much it overwhelms. Once you can bring yourself to part from him for anything more than a quick breath, you’ll apologise. For now, you can only pant and whine whenever he pulls away to breathe.

Xavier’s tongue slides deeper into your mouth upon each return, hot and slick and demanding; you match his fervour, nudging and shoving him back. Eventually he falls back upon the bed, laughing, pulling you along with him. You straddle him and sink down so you’re sat eye-to-eye. There will be no more worship of you, pedestaled or prone.

... Xavier’s disobedient gaze is already ardent and worshipful. You'll allow it, as he is so handsome. The fire is long-dead, so it is by moonlight alone you admire him; features both shadowed and over-bright...

He admires you admiring him awhile, then says, "I had hoped... further memories needed to be baited out."

"Like fish? Tch."

"Did it not work? You kiss me vigorously as a punishment?"

"No, it... I... I remember. I understand. The star being mine, at least."

"As the one before you now is, too. No one had ever given me anything handmade," he says wistfully, "unless it was an heirloom—"

"Might we reflect upon my childhood infatuation of you another time?"

Xavier cocks his head to the side. "Mhm. I'll make sure of it."

You fist his shirt and tug it toward his neck. Xavier yanks it over his head. (Tosses it over the bed's edge. Breaks the brick wall with the force of flinging the thing for all you care.)

The musculature of his chest is as pale as marble; hands splayed, you find it near as cool and firm. There's a thin scar just below his collarbone, on the left side. From his clavicle down to his navel… Too thin and light to have meant true risk. You trace its path, down, down. The muscles of his stomach, impossibly, harden.

When the tips of your fingers reach the top of his trousers (which are not leather!), Xavier shifts away, propping himself on his elbows. "Such intimacies are usually shared by those in love,” he breathes. He widens his eyes facetiously. "Though I am not averse to breaking with custom. As I am a virgin…"

You scoff. "Who are you to claim such a thing?"

"I made several claims.” Xavier smiles. “You shall have to be more specif—ah."

Your palm doesn't cover the entirety of the swell in his trousers, but brings the desired effect. Xavier tips his head back, wincing, and the swell throbs under your hand. "You thoroughly ravished me earlier,” you remark. “Hardly virginal."

"’Ravished’?” Xavier laughs. “I did not r—nngh.”

You continue pressing your palm down, and rub at the bulge as you would a muscle, in need of gentle massage. “Plenty of girls liked you at the academy,” you muse, watching your hand work over him. "I'd understand dalliance, curiosity..."

“None but you ever crossed my mind, not a single other person please please please please stop.”

Immediately you lift your hand. If he denied you completely, right now, you'd not resent him, or insist. Absurd as it is, you take a moment to be grateful; your emotions are steadying. “Would you like me to continue at all?” you ask, and trail your eyes up to meet his.

The muscles of his stomach are pinkening, working furiously, and true flush is smeared from his throat to his ears. Those pretty blue eyes are wide, sincere, pupils making stars out of moonlight. "Did you love me?"

"W-when?"

Xavier’s brows curve close. "During Philos, before I left. Either of the times I left you, for which I am so sorry. Did you love me then?"

Again comes the absurd, selfish gratitude, trimming your compassion. The ancient wound of missing him or loving him 'more' doesn't bother you at all; he is the most soothing balm, and you want to treat him gently. You cup his cheeks, and smile. “I forgive you. We’re together now. I love you, Xa—”

“Did you love me. Then.”

You can’t find it in yourself to be offended. Xavier’s eyes shine as if they are glass, or sapphires. A dim, distant memory comes of a lake just like his eyes, and how breakable you both seemed at its shore. “I don’t think I knew exactly what it was I was feeling,” you say, and watch his face collapse. “I wanted to embrace you every day, and be your betrothed, and, when I was feeling especially imaginative, I wanted to live with you on Uluru.”

A horrible frown pulls at Xavier’s mouth. When he speaks, it is so quiet you must watch his mouth to be sure of the words. “I wanted you.”

“And you were loved by me. I felt then as I feel now, but I did not know what it was for… a long time.”

He clears his throat, blinking rapidly. “I loved you, and never ceased." He pushes off his elbows to sit upright and gaze up at you. "Do you believe me now?”

“Of course I do." (Though with even more incredulity, submerged from a shy schoolgirl's mid-class daydreaming.) "I merely... This strange planet of ours did strange things to my mind.”

Xavier slowly reaches forward to pinch the front of your cotton shift, and tug. “Mm-mm. This isn’t our planet.”

A pang of longing fills you. You smile weakly. “No, yet here is where we are.”

“In love.”

“Oh! So we are.” You tap his nose, and squeak when his hands encircle you to pull you into his lap.

“I’ve loved you for so long; I can scarcely remember when I didn’t.” The sweet words come in great contrast to the insistent throbbing pressed to your thigh. Xavier’s hard as a stone. “Let me show you how much. Please.”

Removing his trousers while sat on his lap is a more difficult task than the pauldrons; you end up standing once more so Xavier can bare himself. Immediately, he pulls you back. Your shift catches on his erection, pressing it to his stomach. By your navel, the cloth grows damp, rubbed by a pink nub, half a palm’s width, and glistening.

You shift back to see the full length of him. The shaft of his cock is paler than the head, though flushed towards the base, nestled in a thatch of thin, silver hair. You resist the temptation to measure it with your hands.

“It’s lovely,” you remark.

Xavier looks set to burst into laughter. “Thank… you… my lady.”

You huff, and cradle the head of his cock with one hand. Xavier’s hands turn to fists at your waist. “Books make a man’s manhood sound rather intimidating, that’s all.”

“You’ve, read—?”

In a queenly manner you insist he pull back the coverlet, so embracing may be done comfortably.

It is indeed thanks to books you supposed lovemaking would be less overwhelming, if done under the covers. You wouldn’t be faced with the full sight. Nor would he. Before slipping under the coverlet (and his body) you took off the nightgown you’d just put on, so you could both be naked. Equals!

Terrible idea.

When Xavier brackets your face with his arms, the small space you share becomes an entire world. Within which you are overheated and helpless. “While I always knew you favoured literature,” he breathes, nose brushing yours. “I did not consid—”

“Consider nothing now, either, um.” Memories flit over your loosened mind like shooting stars, one after the other; you choose not to linger on them, or seek them out. Let them be dust, lint. You’re in Xavier’s arms. “Lovemaking comes up. In all sorts of stories.”

Xavier lowers his hips. His ‘manhood’ drags up your thigh, dampening the skin. “You don’t need to be demure with me, anymore.”

“Then stop talking,” you order, heart thudding, “and… show me, as you said.”

Obediently silent, Xavier nuzzles the nape of your neck, then drags his head down until breath meets nipple—

“O-oh—!”

Your breast is enveloped in warm, wet suction. Moans spill freely from you as Xavier suckles. One arm curled underneath you to keep you close, the other slides between you, cupping your mound. Your head spins. His mouth is too strong. The coverlet is too heavy. You kick a leg free. Blessedly cool air meets your calf, your hip, before a heavy thigh cages your leg.

“Nnnh.” You thread your fingers through his hair and tug his head back up—before you can glimpse his face, you bury your face into the curve of his neck. There, in the heat and the darkness and the scent of his sweat, you feel safe. This is a hug, nothing more. Jostled in the darkness as he removes his arm from between you, no doubt to embrace you even tighter.

Xavier spits.

You furrow your brow right against his skin so he may feel it. “Xavier. What was that.”

He laughs, then wordlessly drags his bare arm down your stomach once more, touch returning to your mound. Two fingers slide lower, and part you.

“Again?!" you ask, aghast. He's obsessive. "The same as—?!”

After a few breaths, Xavier laughs. “Mm-mm.”

“... Oh for goodness' sake. You didn't need to stop talking altogether.”

Xavier kisses your shoulder. “You always forget how easily you command me. To answer: no, it is not going to be the same. Trust me.”

Slow, tender circles to the apex of your cunt until the sensations within swirl and pinch like a whirlpool, though the muscles themselves relax under such gentle attention... You let yourself be carried through the abyss behind your eyes. This time, you barely notice the entrance of his finger, until he curls it as if beckoning. Intoxicating pleasure ripples over you again.

“S’good,” you murmur, and kiss his neck.

He shivers. “I’m glad.” Virginal indeed; Xavier works you lovingly, dextrously. So well did you take one, he whispers, and shortly adds a second, curling them, stretching, coaxing… A fuzz-like warmth begins in your hands and feet…

Then you are empty, and he is upright, leaving the coverlet to rest against his waist—and your naked body exposed. You cover your breasts with your arms.

Xavier quirks a brow. “What my mouth has known, my eyes cannot?”

“Your mouth knew only one,” you mutter, and let your left arm fall to the side.

With an exaggerated sigh, Xavier takes hold of your hip in his free hand. "We have time aplenty for introductions." His thumb rubs a circle on your skin. "Spread your legs for me."

One determined inhale doesn't grant you much courage, so you do not bother with another. You slide your legs open. Slightly the same as before, he raises your legs, though only to his hips; you keep them there when asked to. Xavier wraps one hand around the base of his length as the other spreads you. Against the muscle of your entrance, you feel the head of his cock. Your body's awareness of itself is reduced to that small space. Surely it will not fit.

"Xavier..."

He leans down over you, and kisses you so feather-soft that it is almost aggravating; how tender a man he is, and can only be so now... Xavier whispers your name in return and the settling woe is brushed away. Dust. It is all dust, now.

Blunt pressure nudges your entrance. You flinch; Xavier soothes you with a kiss. As his lips part yours, the pressure breaches you. The girth is startling, stretching you open, hard as the hilt of a sword. You whine, he hums a comfort, hips rocking shallowly until the discomfort ebbs. Then he nudges forward, and sweetness coats the ache.

Your body forgets itself, the arm covering your breast falls to the side as all of you goes slack, wanton moans spilling from your mouth. Your cunt loses its strength steadily, forced open again, and again, and again, it relaxes and lets Xavier offer more, and more, until he is fully seated.

Vaguely, you're aware of him leaning over you. His voice is a hot rasp over you. “A dream. This must be a dream. You are… mmh."

"S'real," you murmur, and find yourself smiling, giddy. You came back. There is some strange, mad accomplishment felt in finally being with him this way. You press a hand between you both, flat on over his heart. Just barely, you can feel it beating.

"It's yours," he croaks. "If you'll have it."

"It's your heart, Xavier, I'd quite like it to stay right where it is," you jest. His hips knock a gasp free from you; punishment for such cheek, perhaps.

"Then stay it shall. Whatever your desire. F… ah... I am yours." Your mouth parts in surprise as he begins to move in earnest. The friction is... you’d thought the initial breach would be the true shock of intercourse. The fullness is startling, yes, but coupled with this dragging, pulsing heat, it's almost too much. Xavier seems equally overwhelmed. His breath hitches with every inward thrust, and sweat quickly slicks his broad chest. "Everything I've… it's for you, everything I am, everything I did. I begged the stars like a… I couldn’t…”

Xavier’s head droops as he fucks into you harder, breath shallowing. “I waited for you. I waited. For you. For this. I stayed. Couldn't leave you. I'll never leave you.”

You seize him by the jaw and pull him close; his kisses fall upon you open-mouthed, sloppy. His cock drives in and out, in and out; a storm over your sea, waves of sensation cresting with each drag of his length. Lightning sparking up your limbs. You loop your ankles around Xavier’s muscled hips, and cling.

The fullness of him within you is constant; even when he withdraws, it is for a second before he returns, and you're too overwhelmed by the smell and feel of him to notice the lack. Eventually he breaks away, panting, and buries his face in your neck. You nuzzle his ear, delighted by the flush, and stroke the side of his neck. Xavier bites you—though lightly—and a whine breaks over the skin in his teeth.

His hips begin to stutter.

Aha! (When skimming… books… that came up. Quite often.)

You kiss the curve of Xavier’s ear and whisper, "I love you. I love you so much.”

Xavier’s arms loop around you and crush you close as he rolls onto his side. Your thigh's squashed between his body and the bed, jostled as his hips snap into you fervently; it takes great effort to keep your ankles from falling. He sounds almost in pain: "Please, my name, please please."

"I love you, Xavier; you’ve always been my only love. My star.”

“F… Y-y-yes. Yours. Yours.”

Thrust by thrust, the air is knocked out of you. “My, love, my, Xavier."

The shudder that wracks him is so great, the bedframe shudders alongside; Xavier drives himself within you once more and remains, shivering. Heat blooms low in you, where your bodies are joined; you can feel him spending, twitching, filling you with all he has. You're stunned to silence by how warm it is... how must it taste? Excitement dances along your ribs and out your every breath. He'd let you... find out. There is much more you can do together. (You're becoming quite the deviant.)

As you fantasise, Xavier's shivers ebb, and his arms relax, though they still tremble.

Your trapped thigh screeches at you. “Xavier... Roll me onto my back again?”

He obeys immediately, a hoist and a roll, then turns boneless too. Xavier weighs heavily upon you, but the weight is an unexpected comfort. The coverlet is a twisted mess somewhere low on the mattress, and there is an expanse of mattress on either side, yet you cannot imagine ever being bothered by the cold or loneliness again.

You wrap your arms around him. Over the salt and musk of your shared slick wafts an ever-so-slight floral fragrance, from his hair. You breathe it in, nuzzling close. This shall be all there is, please; this shall be eternity.

However much time passes with the two of you laid so is not time enough. There is a shlick from Xavier's chest rising from yours, as he props himself up on a hand. A drop of moisture falls from his jaw and lands on your breast. He wipes it away with a quick yet clumsy thumb. "I’ve coated you in sweat more than I would my sword in oil. Forgive me.”

“You favour me more than you do your sword, I’d think.”

“Much more than anything else.”

“You also…” Rather than continuing, you squeeze his hips and tilt your own. He remains inside you—adjusting the angle to match you. “Elsewhere is... coated thoroughly. Do I forgive that too?”

“Sin I intend to commit again, and so cannot honestly repent.” Xavier braces himself on one arm; with the other, he reaches between you. His fingers trace where you’re parted around him, and he eases out but a few inches, before pressing back in. You savour how complete you feel; you'd be empty, lacking, without him. “I found myself at a peak too soon. I wanted to feel you reach yours, but…”

He finds that peak of sensitivity again, now made slick by his release. Already filled with him, your cunt twitches for more. Under his skilled hand you’re unspooled yet again, twitching and shivering, and he caresses you until you’ve gathered yourself. Skill acquired by reading a great deal, he confesses, while you were gone. The confession is amongst many sweet words pulled from his heart and whispered cheek-to-cheek; through the long night Xavier shares all he did for you while you were gone. You tell him what you can, of what shameful little you recall. (Even then, Xavier believes it to be more than he deserves.)

Just as individual memories coalesce into one’s memory, entire, these acts of commitment to one another converge into a silent promise. The dust left by so many lonely hours gathers into something beautiful. Grandiose. Yet just for you and Xavier. The most precious, safest place to land amongst a chaotic cosmos: you’ll always be together.