World of Color

You’re invisible at school… at home… at life in general.

But it’s not in the cool, mysterious way. Not in the “she’s so quiet and interesting” way that girls in movies get to be.

The way people look right through you. 

The way where you sit in the same seat every single day and no one, not once, has ever asked if they could borrow a pencil or copy your notes or sit next to you at lunch.

You eat lunch alone… You always have.

But that's fine, that's okay. Because being invisible means you get to watch.

And fuck, do you love to watch.

7:42 AM

You're at your locker, grabbing stuff for your first period, when he walks in.

Scaramouche.

Even his name feels dangerous in your mouth, like saying something you shouldn't. You've never said it out loud to anyone. 

Who would you say it to? 

But you whisper it sometimes, alone in your room. Pretending he’s in there with you, pretending he’s your boyfriend, pretending he’s saying your name back, moaning your name bac-

Well… let's stop there.

He’s wearing black today, which isn’t really news because he always wears black. Black band tee, grey long-sleeve undershirt, baggy jeans. His dark indigo hair falls into his eyes, and he shoves it back with an irritated hand as he walks through the hallway like he owns the building.

Childe is next to him, as always. Ajax, technically, but everyone calls him Childe. That’s just some joke you never understood the origin of. He's tall and ginger, but surprisingly, despite him being a ginger, he’s just as popular as Scara is. He's nice to girls, flirty with them, it’s practically his personality. 

You've heard him call underclassmen "sweetheart" and "pretty thing" in the hallways, and they giggle and blush and don't realize he's the same person who shoved a freshman into a locker last week for looking at him wrong.

Scaramouche doesn't bother being nice... Not to anyone.

You watch them walk past your locker, close enough that you could reach out and touch Scaramouche's sleeve if you wanted to. You never dare to, though. You press yourself against your locker instead, making yourself smaller, and they don't even glance your way.

Your heart is pounding so hard you feel sick.

First Period: AP Literature

You sit three rows behind him in this class, and you love it. Why? Because it’s the perfect viewing angle. It’s better than him sitting behind you, because you wouldn’t be able to see him, and you'd rather shoot yourself than deal with that, all period. You'd also absolutely hate it if he were sitting across the room because then he’d see you staring at him, catch you in the act.

But in this seating arrangement, he’d never see you or feel your stare.

You take pictures from time to time, to send to no one, just to keep for yourself… to print out later.

You watch the way he slouches in his chair, the way he spins his pen in his fingers when he’s bored, the way he tips his head back and stares at the ceiling, letting out a groan because being in class is physically painful to endure.

Against all odds, pointing at Scara being a complete dumbass, he’s actually really smart. You know this, or notice it, because you see him ace every single test he takes despite his never studying or taking notes. He doesn’t cheat on them either, even though he’s a bully who looks like he’d harass students to do his homework for him.

Academically lazy to sum it up.

It’s infuriating… how he can be so smart with little to no effort… and also so fucking attractive.

Everything about him is attractive to you, even (especially) the things that shouldn't be.

A girl is sitting next to him, a popular girl with long brown hair. You watch her lean over to whisper something. 

You can't hear what she says, obviously, but you watch Scaramouche's face, the way his expression doesn't change, the way he doesn't even look at her when he responds.

"I don't care."

Three words.

Clearly, to dismiss her, not caring how rude the dismissal sounds, because why would he? The girl’s face crumbles even though she did expect it, and she turns back to her notebook, visibly embarrassed. 

You want him to talk to you like that.

You want him to look at you with those cold… beautiful indigo eyes and tell you he doesn't care about you. 

You want him to be mean to you. Cruel to you. You want to matter enough to him that he'd bother being cruel.

Is that fucked up? Probably. But who the fuck cares in this day and age?

You’re wearing one of your favorites today. A babydoll pink and white polkadot dress that's a little too short… but you paired it with a skirt for extra layering. You're also in white knee-high socks and Mary Janes, and you have a cute little bow clip in your hair.

You look like a doll, and you always try to maintain that style, that vibe.

As someone passes by your desk, they whisper, "Cute outfit", on their way to sharpen their pencil.

You don’t even know the classmate's name, but you smile automatically, ready to say thank you, but they’re gone before you can even respond.

And that's the extent of your daily social interaction. Compliments from strangers: surface-level acknowledgments that you exist and put effort into your appearance. But it just makes you feel like you’re just a person who takes up space in the world.

It's not enough… It's never enough.

You go back to watching Scaramouche.

Second Period: Calculus

He sits in front of you in this class. You can see the back of his neck… the way his hair curls slightly at the nape… the way you want to tug on that hair.

Childe isn’t in this class, which means Scaramouche sits alone in this one. You notice, when he’s not around Childe, he’s in a worse mood than usual. You wonder if you meant something to him, if he knew you, that maybe your presence would be the same as Childe’s… that he’s less moody when you’re around.

Maybe one day.

Staying optimistic about the unrealistic always helps.

A kid walks toward Scara’s desk, and the teacher orders him to sit in the empty seat, but the kid accidentally bumps Scara’s chair on the way with his backpack.

"Watch it," Scara says, barely any words, but there’s a clear threat in his tone.

The kid, some nervous-looking boy with glasses, apologizes profusely. 

Scaramouche doesn't acknowledge the apology. Just turns back to his notebook and keeps writing, and the kid spends the rest of class pressed as far against the wall as physically possible.

You wonder what it would feel like to have Scaramouche's attention focused on you like that. Even if it was negative… Even if it was cruel. At least you'd exist to him.

At least he'd know your name.

Your mind goes blank after this period, after you walk out of the 2nd and sit in the 3rd. You don't have a 3rd period with Scara, so you don't care to log about it.

And after the third period comes…

Lunch

You eat in the corner of the cafeteria, at the table no one else wants because it's right next to the trash cans. The smell doesn't bother you anymore. You've been sitting here since freshman year.

From this angle, you can see Scaramouche's table perfectly.

He's surrounded by people. Not because he invites them, but because he tolerates them, and in high school, tolerance from someone like him is as good as a gold-plated invitation. Childe is there, of course, holding court, telling some story that has half the table laughing. Scaramouche isn't laughing. He's eating in silence, scrolling through his phone, occasionally looking up to say something mean that makes whoever he's talking to flinch.

A girl approaches their table, she's holding a bento box wrapped in a cute cloth, and you know immediately what's about to happen.

"Um, Scaramouche?" Her voice carries across the cafeteria, clearly nervous. "I made this for you. I thought maybe-"

"No."

He doesn't even look up from his phone.

"But I spent all morning-"

"Did I stutter?" Now he looks at her. That cold, flat stare that makes your stomach flip. "I said no. Take your sad little lunch box and go cry somewhere else."

The girl's eyes are already welling up. Childe, to his credit, reaches out and takes the bento from her with a charming smile. "I'll take it, sweetheart. Looks delicious… Don't let this asshole ruin your day."

She gives him a watery smile and scurries off, and Childe opens the bento and starts eating while Scaramouche rolls his eyes.

"You're too soft," Scaramouche says.

"And you're too mean." Childe shrugs, popping a piece of tamagoyaki into his mouth. "We balance each other out perfectly."

You watch the whole thing with your heart in your throat.

You want to be brave enough to approach him, to offer him something, to have him reject you to your face. At least then he'd see you. At least then you'd have something real, even if it was rejection.

But you're not brave. 

Just as you’re about to get up and leave the lunch room, hide in the bathroom or walk around the school until the next period starts… something happens.

You hear a splatter coming from the exact same direction Scara is in. And when you look up, hand pausing on your tray, the one you were just about to pick up, you see who's the victim of a splatter.

Scaramouche.

“What the fuck.”

Some kid, visually poor and dorky, some… soon-to-be-dead kid is standing in front of Scaramouche, frozen, with an empty lunch tray.

The contents in that lunch tray?

On Scara, grape soda, to be exact, just soaking his band tee and dripping down his jeans, with remnants of the purple liquid on the floor beneath him.

Like his piss turned purple.

The cafeteria feels like it's gone silent. Heavy on the feels part because it isn't entirely silent, it's still loud like any high school lunch room, it's just silent in Scara’s orbit.

All of Scaramouche’s friends are looking at him, and the same thing is happening with some of the tables around him. You included because obviously.

Scaramouche stands up slowly, not jumping up, not scrambling, not yelling at the kid, immediately pushing him, no. Just slow. He rises and looks down more closely at his lap, and when he looks back up at the kid, his expression, which is normally never warm or inviting, looks worse than ever. 

Like, in one second, he's going to snap at that kid.

“You have three seconds,” Scaramouche starts, voice low and eerily calm as he doesn't break eye contact once while that kid breaks it exactly 5 times, “to give me one good reason why I shouldn't break your fucking jaw in front of everyone.”

The kid breaks out of his frozen state and starts stammering, placing his empty tray on the table, which makes Scaramouche, who's still ‘calm’, throw the tray off the table with a force that, if anyone happened to be walking by, they would've been smashed across the table across from his. 

The kid tries to back up, but Scaramouche steps forward with his arms crossed. And, as if they're bound together on a fucking unbreakable string, Childe also stands up, moving beside Scaramouche, his once-easy, flirtatious grin… gone.

“Dude,” Childe says, not to Scaramouche as his eyes are on the kid, and his tone is friendly, but not in a nice way, given the context. “You should probably run.” It doesn't come off as a suggestion but as a clear threat.

You can’t help but giggle a little at how cheesy those two are, especially Scaramouche, acting like some Disney Channel villain whose favorite line is, “If my eyes turn red… run.” Except, in this moment, he’s more like, “If my pants turn purple… run.”

The kid processes Childe’s words faster than you'd think and bolts. Scaramouche watches him go with clear murder intent in his eyes before turning to Childe. “Handle it.”

Two simple words that make Childe activate, immediately, like he's some robot servant that does all of Scara’s dirty work. Childe nods and moves away, not at all rushing or bolting like the kid, just walking, casual, because he knows he doesn't need to.

Scaramouche turns away from the table, away from his friends, you know, he despises, and storms past yours.

He doesn't look at you; you didn't really expect him to, even though you know when or when not to be delusional. He walks past, but you do get to see something the others didn't… he makes a sound, and an agitated grunt while moving past your table, your table.

For some odd reason… well, no, for some obvious reason because you’re obsessed with him and everything he does is hot to you, that sound…

It makes you feel something between your legs.

You smile, a stupid grin, out of adoration of the way he gets when he's angry like this, when he moves like he's barely containing something violent… he's the most stunning thing you've ever seen.

And when he’s out of the cafeteria?

That’s your cue.

Cue for what? To follow him.

To the boys' locker room.

You've seen him go in there before, you know he’ll go in there, and you’ve seen his locker before, opened it yourself, you saw it during one of your… reconnaissance missions.

And you know a shortcut he doesn't.

Fuck the lunch tray. You leave it there, already moving toward the side door of the cafeteria, through the hallway specifically where all the science classrooms are, though the empty gym that nobody uses during lunch period, because the basketball court is better outside.

Lots of ‘throughs’ as this is a shortcut.

And, just as planned, you’re there before he even crosses the main Hall, you assume. You just know he isn't here yet. (as the room sounds deceptively quiet and someone with a temper like his wouldn't burst into that room without making sounds.)

As this is a boys' locker room, a room where boys get naked, shower, etc, it stays locked at all times from the outside. But… you have a key.

Not the original key that belongs solely to the janitor, but one you made from a silicone mold. Three months ago, you waited until the janitor left his set of keys on the supply closet shelf during his break, then pressed them into the mold. After school, on your walk home, you had a duplicate cut at the hardware store. 

So yeah, a creep like you has free access to the boys' locker room. Just one of the many things that'll land you in the counselor's office if you ever get busted.

You slide the key in, turn, and twist the knob, slipping inside before any passerby sees. The lights are slightly off in some rows of lockers, some flickering, in clear need of a lightbulb change, but the janitors are clearly too lazy to fix something as ‘minor’ as that because it’s above their pay grade. 

You look for a good hiding spot that seals you enough that you’re able to have a clear view of his locker… and him, when he comes in. You press yourself against the wall in the second row, closer to the end gap, just so you’re ready to hide between the wall and the last locker in case he walks past this row.

You don’t have to wait long, thankfully. Because in exactly 50 seconds, the door bursts open, and the familiar scent of him fills the room.

He bursts in, dramatically, and you can’t see it, or him just yet, but you hear the door slamming against the wall with a bang that echoes through the empty room.

“Fucking grape soda. GRAPE. Are you kidding me…” he’s talking to himself, pacing, muttering things under his breath, “I’m going to kill that kid, I swear to god, I’m going to…”

You hear a locker, metal, kicked hard enough that you swear he just made a dent in a random student's locker. “It smells disgusting, like a candy store… sticky piece of shit…”

You’d lick the grape juice off of him, do all the work if he let you, you’d be the best girlfriend for him and only for him.

You get wet, stupidly quick, but it isn’t surprising, as you are fully devoted to this man. Just his voice, the fury in it at this exact moment, the way he sounds like he’s one inconvenience away from putting his fist through a wall-

You’d calm that anger for him, in more ways than one, get on your knees until his rant turns into endless pulled back moans that he’d hide with his hand, because you know him, you know he’s the type to never admit to how good something feels, only the bad.

You press your thighs together and bite the inside of your cheek, peering through and staring at his locker, waiting until he stops at it.

He’s finally at his locker, and you see him, the back of his hair… that beautiful dark indigo hair, and his hand moving against the combination of his locker, opening…

And then what you’ve been waiting for this entire time finally, finally happens.

He starts with his shirt, of course, sliding it up, and you bite your lip, seeing his skinny frame without a shirt, slightly toned abs that you could’ve never guessed existed on his stomach.

You’d give anything just to see him naked, just once, what his dick looks like, have the perfect vision for your fantasies in class, and at night.

But would he slide off his jeans that are slightly damp at his crotch? Would he slide down his boxers, too? You hope for both, but just the first would be enough for you.

He throws his shirt somewhere on the bench without looking and reaches for his belt, his fucking belt. He shoves his baggy jeans down his leg in rough, jerky movements, clearly because of the state he's in.

omg, omg, OMG.

You don't overreact yet, as he's still in his boxers… but it's actually the only thing he's wearing. The sight is lewd without it being inherently sexual, lewd from the dark stain from the soda spreading across the crotch area of his boxers. It clings to his skin in a way that makes your underwear wet and ruined, and he's annoyed at how sticky it is against his bare skin underneath.

He looks down at himself, letting out a groan and muttering, "You've got to be fucking kidding me." He hates that his boxers are soaked, that they still took damage even though his jeans took most of it. And he's too mad to think properly or logically because he's realizing he needs to rinse out his jeans AND his boxers, and the frustration in his posture is very apparent.

He yanks his boxers off. He just… stands there for a second, holding the wet boxers in one hand, looking at them, then looking at the jeans he dropped on the bench, then looking at the sinks across the room.

He needs to go to the sink, but he just took his boxers off, and now he's just standing in the middle of the boys' locker room completely naked from the waist down, and he seems to realize how stupid he is for fully stripping himself, and he mutters, "the fuck am I doing?" under his breath.

But you aren't processing his confusion… you're processing him.

He's… fuck. He's everything you've imagined. His thighs are lean, toned in a way that makes your mouth water, and when he turns just slightly to toss his boxers onto the bench next to his jeans, you get the full picture.

His fucking cock… your crush's cock… your wannabe future boyfriend, husbands cock.

It's soft, hanging between his legs, and even soft it's… so beautiful. It's long enough that you imagine what it looks like hard, thick enough that the fantasy you've built in your head suddenly feels so minor compared to the real thing. He's circumcised, as you would've guessed, and he's fully shaved, smooth skin, not a hair in sight.

You would do anything just to get out of your hiding spot, get on your knees, and lick off the grape soda just to see what it looks like hard.

You're shaking, like actually fucking shaking. Not in an anxious way, fuck no, in a anticipating way, like you're so excited you'd jump out of your own skin and play out your fantasies right here and now if it wasn't so scary.

Your phone is out, because it's better to save a memory of moments like these than to just witness them and never remember the full picture again. You get the camera app open, point it at him through the gap between lockers, your thumb hits the capture button once, twice, until you just use the volume button so you can get better angles of everything. You glance down at your camera, making sure the photos are high quality and fully focused on him.

You get the best angles on your phone, a clear shot of him from the side, another from behind when he bends down to grab his jeans, one more when he straightens up, and you can see him in profile. His cock swings slightly with the movement, and you realize your camera roll is becoming evidence that would end up in a court of law.

Your other hand is under your dress… It's not something you did consciously; your fingers just migrated there. You reach under, the babydoll dress hiking up when you find the front of your underwear, and you press directly on your clit through the cotton. You're soaked, or actually have been for a while, and the pressure of your own fingers through the damp fabric sends a jolt through you that you have to physically bite your lip to contain.

You rub in slow circles, your thighs instinctively closing around your hand as you're still taking pictures, watching him through your phone screen, multitasking on something a normal person would call unhinged.

You're biting your lip to suppress the sounds that you're so close to letting out, because if you even let one noise slip…

He'll find you.

And not in the sexy way.

After school, you're 100% printing these photos you're taking out, on glossy photo paper, and you'll pin them up inside of your closet door… so your parents don't see, so only you can see, and you'll kiss them every night like it's a ritual, everyday you do your makeup, mouth prints of whatever shade of pink you're wearing that day.

A shrine of kisses over images of him that he never consented to.

You'd set one as your phone wallpaper if you weren't so paranoid about someone seeing.

Actually, no, fuck it. You will. But you'll be careful with it, you'll use one of your favorite images from the many you just took, and put an emoji, sticker, something to cover up his… private, and it'll be ambiguous anyway because you have a privacy screen protector. Yeah, it's cringe to have a privacy screen protector because no one cares, but you care.

You don't want some rando in class to spot you zooming in on pictures you took in class, or just one's from his Instagram, that would be embarrassing.

You won't stop at printed photos and your phone's wallpaper; you'd draw him, too. Draw his… cock. You imagine it now, sitting at your desk with your cute pink notebook, sketching the shape of his cock from memory… fuck… even doing it in class, with the slight anxiety of getting caught, now that would feel good in comparison to someone seeing you stalking Scara's pictures on your phone.

You'd lick the paper, kiss it, kiss and lick your phone, too, tasting nothing but glass and your own depravity, imagining the warmth of his skin you'll probably never feel.

If you could get your hands on him, really get your hands on him, you'd tie him down and make a mold.

A full cast, silicone, the kind they sell online for making custom toys, and you'd use it on yourself every single night. Fuck yourself on a perfect replica of him while whispering his name into your empty room.

And you're not kidding, this is all very serious to you.

You watch him gather his jeans and head straight for the sinks. He walks right past your hiding spot, and he's close enough that you can reach out and touch his bare hip. He doesn't even notice you; he doesn't notice someone moving quickly into the shadows to hide with their phone in one hand and the other in their underwear.

Unnoticed, as always.

And this time you're happy about that.

He just quickly moves right past, naked, annoyed, and completely unaware of the predator he's sharing a room with.

You take that as your opening to leave. But just as you're about to pass his locker when you start moving, you spot it because you notice he forgot something on his trip to the sink.

His boxers.

You grab the boxers, ball them up in your fist, and you're at the door in seconds, gently opening it without worrying about the noise, since the sound of the faucet he's using in the background is enough to mask the door.

You sit against the wall next to the locker room door, chest heaving, heart going insane, with Scaramouche's boxers in your hand like you just won a rare prize from an arcade's most notorious scam machine.

You bring the slightly damp, from the grape soda, boxers to your face. The sickeningly artificial smell of the grape soda hits first, but underneath it, in the spots where his jeans took most of the spill, where the fabric stayed mostly dry…

You can smell him.

Musk… and warmth… and something like laundry detergent layered over skin… his skin. The fact that this fabric was pressed against him all day, cradling the part of him you just took pictures of… that this specific fabric was absorbing his body heat for hours…

… existing in a place you'd kill to occupy…

You press the boxers harder against your face and inhale until your lungs burn.

So, your plans after school are changing, but for the better. You were planning to just masturbate to the images you took of him, but after claiming something like this? You're going to touch yourself in bed tonight, wearing them, and you're going to cum so hard you forget your own name.

You wish he'd make you cum so hard you'd forget your own name… but technically he is, isn't he?

From inside the locker room, you hear the hand dryer start up; you assume it's him washing his jeans. You have maybe 2 minutes before he realizes his boxers are gone.

You don't wait 2; you just push off the wall and walk, fast-paced, not running, because that's stupid, even though your nerves are screaming at you to. You head to the nearest girls' bathroom, which isn't too far away, and duck inside, find a stall, and lock it.

And you do the very thing that proves you need professional help.

You slip off your underwear, which is normal in a bathroom, but what you're doing is nowhere near close to normal. You slide them down your legs and off, stepping into the boxers… his boxers, that you're clutching onto and pulling them up your thighs. They're big on you, loose at the waist (especially at the area meant for a man's bulge and not a woman's crotch), but they sit against your skin in a way that's comfortable to you, and the fabric of it still carries warmth.

His warmth… it's residual, fading, but there and that…

That makes it impossible to fight back on what you've been craving to do this entire time.

You have one hand holding up the skirt of your dress, and you close your eyes as you press the other palm flat against your lower belly, over the boxers… feeling them. You're so desperate, so pathetic, that you let out a moan, pressing your teeth into your lip to suppress any more that comes out. You feel the fabric over your skin, fingers brushing past your clit, and your thighs close around your palm, not at all caring how batishit isane this is.

That you're standing in a school bathroom during lunch wearing a boy's stolen underwear, on the verge of cumming if you make a full effort to masturbate in here.

You don't make a full effort, because it wouldn't be fun in a gross school bathroom.

What's more fun is the anticipation, watching him in class the rest of the day, knowing he doesn't have anything under his pants. And then finally rewarding yourself at the end of the day, in bed, where you can actually take your time with it. In a place where you can spread out, look at your phone in your soft, comfortable sheets, pressing your face into your pillow, falling apart properly.

You lift your palm from between your legs and your dress, fold your underwear, tuck them into your bra, set a reminder in your brain to put them in your backpack during passing, and walk out of the bathroom as if nothing happened.

Fourth Period: Biology

You know something that every other person in this classroom doesn't.

Care to guess what that is?

The seating arrangement in this period is you, tucked against the wall in the back row, and Scaramouche sitting in a row across from yours, one seat down, giving you a clear diagonal view of his profile.

What's in the profile is the secret you and Scara share… without him knowing you know it too.

That under those jeans, he's wearing nothing.

He looks different in this period, different in a way that only you notice. And what you notice is that he looks… uncomfortable. He looks uncomfortable all the time in class, because he'd rather be anywhere but class, and that's normal for most, but he looks like he's physically uncomfortable.

His posture keeps shifting, once every minute or so, sometimes longer, his jaw tightens, and there's a flush at the back of his neck that never goes away. The flush is so obvious against his pale skin, and it travels up to the tips of his ears.

It's driving him absolutely insane that he's not wearing underwear.

Childe's next to him, which is always expected, and you watch as Childe leans over with that stupid shit-eating grin of his to say something, and you assume it's about the grape soda incident. Scaramouche doesn't even give Childe a look; he just responds with a sharp, rushed, "Shut the fuck up," and that has enough irritation to make Childe raise his hands in surrender, as if he thinks Scara's overreacting.

Childe bumps Scara's shoulder, ignoring the glare he gets back in response as he casually adds, "I'm just saying, bro, you should've seen your face-"

"Don't fucking touch me," Scara starts, leaning in even though he's still mad about Childe's invasion of his personal space. "I said shut the fuck up, Ajax. I don't care what you did or how you handled him, but after this class is over, we're finding that kid, and I'm making him wish he never even stands within a mile radius of me without pissing his pants."

Childe just agrees, leaning back in his seat, staring straight ahead while mumbling something else to Scara you can't pick up on. You see it in the way his lips move and his hand gestures, but then you can't see it clearly at all as the teacher dims the lights in the classroom.

She puts on some boring documentary that you're all forced to watch and take notes, but she knows, and everyone knows nobody's writing shit on their paper.

You like it when the lights get dim in a classroom, yes, it makes you feel sleepy, but it also makes staring so much easier… and you're also too excited to even feel sleepy.

You're still watching him, the way his hand keeps drifting down, between his legs. He shifts, adjusts, tries so hard to find a position that doesn't remind him of the fact that his cock is pressed directly against the rough denim with nothing between them. You watch as his fingers squeeze hard against his upper thigh, so close to his crotch, but he's too embarrassed to even touch that area in class.

You aren't.

Not at all.

His hand moves back to his desk after squeezing, and just 20 seconds later, it's back down again… then back up. It's all a cycle of discomfort he can't break… and you're the only person in this room who understands why.

Because what he needs is on you right now.

Your hand, like a magnet, is already pulling up the hem of your skirt, zero shame because you don't care where you are when he's in the room. You pull it up just an inch, and you glance down.

Even in the dim lighting, you can see his boxers… on you. Black against your skin, peeking out from under your pink underskirt, it's an odd combo with your sense of style, but you don't even think of it that way.

You look back at him, watch the way he's slumped in his chair now, his jaw clenched, neck still flushed, one hand of his gripping the edge of the desk while the other is resting on his lap.

He's miserable and embarrassed, trying so hard not to let it show, and you've never been more attracted to anything in your entire life.

The lights are dim enough, and nobody is sitting next to you… But you aren't going to just touch yourself in class. That's something you agreed to finish off at home. But it is so tempting…

So you just press your thighs together, feeling the fabric of his boxers shift against your skin, the seam pressing just right when you angle your hips. You squeeze and release, squeeze… squeeze, and release to create friction that isn't even nearly enough to get you anywhere, but it still feels good in your lower belly.

You watch as he shifts in his seat again, how his hand drops between his legs… stays there for way too long, then jerks like he caught himself doing something inappropriate. His ears are red, even in the dim light, you can tell… and you don't think you've ever seen them get red before.

Squeeze… release… grip on the desk before your hand 'accidentally' drifts down between your legs.

You imagine, in a dream, a made-up reality of being his girlfriend. Sitting next to him, in the same spot Childe is in, dropping to your knees in front of his desk in the dark and unzipping his jeans, and finding him with nothing underneath. You imagine worshiping his dick without a thought, imagine his hand fisting in your hair, forcing you down when it gets fully hard, using your mouth while the documentary plays, and nobody takes notice of the girl between his legs.

Squeeze… release… keep. your. hand. on. the. chair.

The fabric of his boxers is warm now, from your body heat. It's not his anymore, but that's almost better in your mind because that means you're mingling.

His warmth soaked into the fabric…

… Your warmth replacing it…

You're both overlapping in a way he doesn't know about and would probably… maybe find horrifying.

You press your thighs together again, hard, and hold it. A tiny pulse of please rolls through you, but not enough for any release, but enough that it makes your toes curl in your Mary Janes.

Scaramouche shifts again in his seat, his hand going right in between his legs in his chair, squeezing his legs shut, then opening them up, tilting his head from side to side just slightly to make sure Childe and whoever's next to him didn't notice before retracting his hand.

And you just smile in the dark, repeating his exact movement.

Fifth Period: Art class

Childe and Scara carried out the whispered plan they discussed in class.

You know this because, as you're coming back from the bathroom, you hear Scara's voice. You stagger back, behind a corner, and when you peek out, you see Scaramouche and Childe just cornering someone in the hallway.

It's the boy from lunch, and he looked small in the cafeteria, but here… he looks even smaller than both of them (especially scara).

He's holding up his hands in surrender, and you can't make out what they're saying; it's fully incoherent. But, you can pick up on the tone, how they're shamelessly berating this boy, and well, Scaramouche's expression. He looks bored, annoyed, like this is some chore.

Like, hurting this kid is just something they do to pass the time.

Childe is next to Scara, but he's slightly behind him, at a distance, arms crossed, just watching this all play out with an easy grin. He's not really participating, currently at least, he's just observing…

Letting Scaramouche take the lead.

Scaramouche says something that makes the boy shake his head frantically, and Scaramouche's hand shoots out in response, grabbing the front of the boy's shirt, yanking him forward roughly.

Your thighs press together, and you let out a silent, involuntary whimper.

You watch as Scaramouche shoves the boy back against the lockers. The boy scrambles away the second he's released, running down the hallway, and Scaramouche watches him go with a satisfied smirk.

Those hands.

Those hands that just hurt someone… Those fingers that gripped and shoved and bruised.

You want them on you.

You want Scara to grab you like that… shove you against a wall, shove you against anything. Get in your face and tell you that you’re nothing, that you’re pathetic, worthless. You want him to hit you, punch you, wrap his fingers around your throat, and squeeze until you can’t breathe.

You want him to hurt you and then fuck you with the same hands.

You're wet. You’re fucking wet watching a boy get builled in the hallway, wishing that were you. 

There's something seriously wrong with you. 

After School

You follow him outside the school. Not in an obvious way… You're careful. You've been doing this for months. You've mapped and memorized his routine by heart.

He stays after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for some club he's in, something music-related. Today is Wednesday, which means he goes straight to the parking lot.

His car is impossible to miss. A sleek black sports car, parked in the best spot because no one would dare take it from him. You watch from behind a pillar as he approaches it, Childe at his side, both of them laughing about something.

They look like they belong in some kind of movie. The popular boys, the… untouchable ones. The kind of people you'll never be.

Childe claps Scaramouche on the shoulder and heads to his own car, a red thing that's almost as flashy. Scaramouche gets into his, and you watch him pull out of the parking lot. You stand there for a long time after he's gone.

Then you start walking home.

It’s not a long walk, fifteen minutes? maybe… You pass his house on the way; it’s huge, modern, full of big windows, perfect for stalking. 

You live in a gated neighborhood, most of the houses here are modern with big windows, because no one is afraid of stalking, because it’s gated.

You stalk him, of course.

Your house is three doors down.

Scara is your neighbor, has been since you were both kids, and he has no idea you exist.

10:47 PM

You're in your pink room. Soft and sweet and nothing at all like the thoughts in your head.

It looks innocent, like you… but…

You’re not innocent at all.

You reach under your bed and pull out the box.

It’s small, just a plain wooden box you got at a craft store. Inside is a razor blade, some bandages, and a bottle of antiseptic.

Anyone with a brain could guess where this is going.

You've had this nightly routine down for a while now. This isn’t about wanting to die, being suicidal, or whatever the fuck that crap is. 

You don’t want to die… why would you want to die when Scaramouche exists? When there's still a chance, however small, that he might look at you someday?

This is about love. This is the only way you know how to express it.

You push down your pajama shorts, carefully keeping his boxers, which you put on after your shower, on your hips, as you drag the shorts down.

But that's for later!

You look at your thighs. They're a mess of pale scars and fresh lines; some are healed, some are still healing. But the ones that actually matter are the ones in the center.

SCARAMOUCHE.

His full name, carved into your left thigh in careful letters. You did it over multiple nights, letting each letter heal before starting the next. It's raised now, scar tissue spelling out your devotion, and every time you look at it, you feel something like peace.

On your right thigh, smaller: SCARA. His… nickname. The one his friends use. The one you'll never be close enough to use out loud.

Tonight, you add to your right thigh.

You press the blade to your skin, just below the nickname, and you think about him. 

You imagine it's him holding the razor, him marking you, him claiming you as his.

You carve a heart into your skin.

It's small and a little wobbly; it’s hard to carve a heart perfectly… but it's there. Blood wells up, and you watch it drip for a moment before pressing a tissue to it.

"I love you," you whisper to your empty room. "I love you so much, Scara."

You give it aftercare, clean it, bandage it, and finally put away your box.

You slide off your pajama shorts completely and get back into bed, spreading your thighs, and when you do, the cut you made stings, aches like a bruise. It's a good type of pain, for you at least.

His boxers sit loose on your hips, the hem reaching your mid-thigh. You reach for your phone under the pillow next to you, unlock it, and open your camera roll app. It doesn't take much to find the pictures you took of him today, and you click on one of the first few.

It's him, still in his boxers, the ones you're wearing, but not really, as they're pushing halfway down his thighs. You zoom in on his cock hanging soft between his legs.

You stare at his cock until your vision blurs.

Your hand slides down, over your stomach, over the waistband of his boxers, and you press your fingers against yourself through the fabric. The cotton is already warm from your body, already starting to dampen, and when you rub a slow circle over your clit, the friction of borrowed clothing against swollen skin pulls a sound out of you that you don’t bother suppressing.

Thank every god, archon, whatever that your parents are prefectures away on some romantic getaway.

You swipe to the next photo, and it's him from behind, bending over, reaching for his jeans. His back… the way his legs are slightly spread, and you can see everything between them from this angle…

"Hah…" Your hips roll up desperately in your own hand, grinding against your fingers through the boxers. The fabric is getting wetter, a dark spot is spreading, and some sick part of your brain loves that. Loves ruining his clothes, just like how much he ruins you.

You swipe to the next, and in this one, he's straightened up, turned just slightly, his cock is visible in his full profile. The length of it is so big, even soft… "F-fuck…" You rub faster, working yourself in tight, frantic circles, and the pleasure builds quickly, too quickly, the wave you've been craving for all day-

You stop. Your hand jerks away from between your thighs, and you slap down against your thigh, onto the bare bandage where you just cut into it not too long ago. The pain is instant, and you gasp, arching off the bed, but you don't let go. You hold the pressure, let yourself feel the pain and the pleasure that was so building, crashes back down, retreats. Leaving you nowhere near the edge anymore.

That's the punishment, because you know that's what Scaramouche would do if he were here. If he were… but he isn't.

You imagine his voice in your ear, low and mean, telling you the pathetic little stalkers don't get to finish that fast.

"Did I say you could cum? Huh?? Desperate little freak… You stole my boxers, and now you think you get to use them? Earn it."

You squeeze your thigh harder and whimper into the dark of your room. And when the pain levels out, you let go, your fingers coming back up to your crotch, rubbing gentle circles this time, though the boxers. The fabric is soaked, clinging to you, and every pass of your fingers drags wet cotton across your clit in a way that makes your toes curl into the sheets.

You do this over and over, look at a photo, memorize it, rub yourself to the edge, then you slam your hand down on the cut and rip yourself back.

Edge… punish… breathe.

You imagine him watching you with those cold, beautiful eyes, amused at how pathetic you are, how completely gone for him, how you’d torture yourself just to feel like he’s in the room.

"Again. Do it again. I want to watch you cry."

Tears are streaking down your face, overstimulated tears, not sad ones, and the photos blur through your tears.

You blink hard to clear your vision as you keep swiping, and you land on a good one. He is standing with his head tilted slightly, cock visible, and he looks oddly peaceful in this one. Like you took a quick shot before he went crazy. He looks just like a job, standing in a locker room, having no idea that the girl living 3 houses down from him is going to use these images to ruin herself every night for the foreseeable future.

You rub yourself through his boxers one final time, pressing hard against your clit, grinding your hips up, and this time when the wave hits, you don’t stop. You let your hand stay where it is, letting the pleasure climb, let it crest. When you cum, you let go of your phone and press your other hand into the cut on your thigh, holding it there.

You experience pleasure and pain at the same time. The orgasm rips through you, clenching and pulsing, your back arches off the pink sheets, and his name falls out of your mouth in broken syllables, “Sca… hah… ngh… f-fuck… Scara…”

The pain in your thigh screams right alongside it. You hold both sensations as long as you can. Fingers pressed to your clit, fingers pressed to the wound, riding it out until your body gives out and you collapse back into the mattress, shaking, gasping, and completely boneless.

You pull your hand away from your thigh and check the bandage. It shifted, and the adhesive loosened from sweat and pressure. You didn't reopen it, but you were close to doing so… but you're not changing the bandage. That's a morning problem.

You lie back down and curl into your side, pressing your thighs together so the fabric stays tight against you. Your phone is on the pillow next to you, and you pick it up, kiss the screen, and set it face-first on your nightstand.

Goodnight, Scara,” you whisper.

Morning

Today, you wake up with purpose.

You can feel it… how today is going to be different, that there's something in the universe, shaking you, telling you, promising you that today is the day.

You shower carefully, avoiding the fresh cut on your thigh. It's painful to walk around at first, because thigh cuts always have that odd bruised feeling, because thighs are mostly muscle. Your body gets used to it at some point, though, enough that you forget about it. You stand in front of your closet choosing what to wear today.

A black polkadot babydoll top that's slightly sheer under the bust, a pink miniskirt that hides the cuts on your thighs enough. You grab a pink cardigan and slide it on to make the top look less inappropriate, and you wear white lace ankle socks and pink shoes. 

Before you leave, you sit at your desk and open your journal, grabbing the pink pen that actually writes in a pretty, pastel pink ink.

He'll notice me today. He'll notice me today. He'll notice me today.

You write it over and over, filling half a page, your handwriting getting more frantic with each repetition. 

Manifestation. That's what the internet calls it. You're manifesting.

You close the journal, grab your backpack, and head to school, feeling way too happy.

First Period

It’s normal… he doesn’t look at you.

You watch him anyway.

Second Period

Ugh!

Normal, again.

But… his shoulder does brush yours when you’re both reaching for the door at the same time. He doesn’t acknowledge it or even look at you, but you replay the moment in your head for the entire class.

Third period

…

Fourth Period: Biology

This is when your life changes.

Your teacher is standing at the front of the room, talking about a group project. You're only half-listening, your attention fixed on the fact that Scara’s just two seats behind you. You wonder if he’s looked at you at all, period. He had to have you right there if he just looked straight ahead, right?

You can’t see him, and you don’t dare to look behind, but you imagine him, probably annoyed, slumped in his chair.

"I'll be assigning groups of three," The teacher says. "You'll have two weeks to complete the project. No switching groups, no exceptions."

She starts reading off names. You tune it out, doodling hearts in the margin of your notebook, until-

"Group seven: Scaramouche, Y/N, and Jacob."

Your pen stops moving.

Did she just-

Did she-

What the fuck, What the fuck, What the fuck, What the fuck!!!!!

"Jacob is absent today," she continues, "so Scaramouche and Y/N, you'll need to catch him up when he returns."

You can’t breathe… was there a time when you were breathing because you definitely don’t remember it…

Your lungs stopped working. Your heart stopped beating. You’re dead, you literally died. 

This is the afterlife, and the afterlife is a fourth-period biology class.

Behind you, you hear Scaramouche's voice.

"Who the fuck is that?"

The words hit you like a bucket of ice water. Right, of course, the boy you’ve been obsessed with for years doesn’t know your name or that you even exist.

Why would he?

"Dude." That's Childe's voice. "The pretty girl who always wears pink. She’s 3 rows up."

"Uh…" You hear Scara snicker at the pink part. "Which one?"

"The one with the bow in her hair. Sitting by herself."

You can feel eyes on the back of your head, and you know, well, you can actually feel how hot your face is right now.

"Her?" Scaramouche sounds unimpressed. "Never seen her before."

"She's in like, all your classes, dude. I'm pretty sure she lives on your street too."

Your heart feels like it just stopped right then and there. 

How the fuck does Childe know about that? No, scratch that… how does he even know about you to begin with??

"Bullshit, Ajax. How would you even know that?"

"I'm serious. I’ve seen her walking past your house before, unless she’s just some stalker and not really your neighbor." Childe doesn't sound like he's accusing you of anything; he just sounds like he's teasing.

"… Creepy."

You want to sink through the floor and disappear into the earth's core and never be perceived again. 

Childe just told Scaramouche that you walk past his house. Which you do… Regularly. 

Because you're a stalker.

And he just fucking called you one.

The bell rings, and you shove your notebook into your bag with shaky hands, ready to bolt, but before you can stand up, there's a presence at your desk.

You look up, slow, and he's right there. Scaramouche is standing there.

He's taller than you thought... Or maybe that's just because you're sitting down. 

His indigo eyes are fixed on you, assessing, like he's cataloging everything about you and finding it all… lacking.

"So," he says, looking you up and down. "You're my neighbor?"

Your mouth opens, and of course, nothing comes out. You're frozen, pinned in place by his gaze, every fantasy you've ever had crashing into the reality that he's here, he's talking to you, he knows you exist.

"I-" You swallow hard, nodding. "Yes. I'm, um. Three houses down from yours."

"And you've never thought to mention that?" He crosses his arms, tilting his head.

"We've never talked before…” You say, voice small, but despite sounding nervous, the tone is almost snarky because of the words.

His eyebrow raises, just slightly. "We've never talked, but you walk past my house."

"I walk past a lot of houses... I go for walks sometimes." Your voice sounds weird… too high, and also too nervous. "I'm not- I'm not stalking you or anything."

Lies. Lies. You're such a liar.

Childe appears at Scaramouche's shoulder, grinning down at you like this is the most entertaining thing he's seen all week. "Hey there, sweetheart. Didn't mean to put you on blast like that."

"It's fine," you manage, glancing at Childe because it's easier to stare at a boy you don't find that attractive.

"I'm Childe. But you probably knew that."

You nod. You can't seem to form words anymore. You glance back at Scaramouche, and he's still staring at you, his expression unreadable, and you feel like a bug under a microscope.

"Look," Scaramouche says, and his voice is flat, irritated, everything you've ever fantasized about. "I don't do group projects. But since Jacob’s apparently too good to show up to class, I guess we're stuck together."

"…Okay."

"I'm not doing all the work."

"Okay…"

"Do you say anything other than 'okay'?" He says, his face still the same, still unreadable.

"I-" You fumble. "Well, what else do you even want me to say?"

Childe laughs, amused at all of this. "She's cute," he says to Scaramouche. "Be nice."

"I'm never nice," Scara says as he finally looks away from you to give Childe a glare.

"Yeah, I know. That's why I said it."

Scaramouche rolls his eyes and turns away from your desk, clearly done with the conversation. But before he leaves, he glances back at you over his shoulder.

"Don't make it weird," he says. "I know you've been staring at me all year."

Your blood runs cold.

He knew?

He's gone before you can respond, walking out of the classroom with Childe at his side, and you're left sitting at your desk with your heart in your throat and your mind racing.

He knew… He knew you were watching him. He knew this whole time, and he never said anything, never acknowledged it, just let you think you were invisible-

You don't know if that makes it better or worse.

The Rest of the School Day

He watches you.

You feel it in the fifth period, his eyes on the back of your head. You feel it in the hallway between 6th period, catching a glimpse of him staring from across the crowded corridor.

He looks away when you catch him. Goes back to his phone, his friends, his life. But he keeps doing it. Over… and over.

You don't know what it means.

After school

The walk home is fifteen minutes, and you spend every single one of them replaying the conversation.

"I know you've been staring at me all year."

He said that, actually said that… and that also means he knew. He knew you were watching him this whole time, and he just… let you? Let you think you were invisible while he was completely aware of your stare this entire time?

You don't know if you want to scream or cry or throw yourself into oncoming traffic.

When you get to your room, you close the door, drop your backpack, and stand in the middle of your pink bedroom staring at nothing.

Then you jump into bed, screaming into your pillow for approximately 20 seconds, until you reach over to your nightstand and pick up your journal. You rest it flat on your bed in front of you, opening it to its most recent page, where you wrote in pink ink, "He'll notice me today," over and over.

You write underneath the unfinished page, one sentence:

He noticed me.

It looks boring, so you underline it, drawing a heart, then 3… then 4 around it, staring at it, daydreaming about what'll happen tomorrow in biology with him…

You set 7 alarms that night, just in case.

Fourth Period: Biology

You're early today, like, embarrassingly early. Because just one minute after the bell that goes off when lunch is over, you were already in your seat.

You pick the best seat today, the window one, next to an empty chair, because it feels better than being close to where people walk by.

You overthink your outfit like crazy this morning, because you wanted to look cute, but not too much for him, because what if he thinks you're trying too hard? You're in a white babydoll short dress that ends at your upper thighs, thigh-high sheer white socks, and a pink underskirt. You hope it's not too much.

Students start coming in while you're just leaning back in your seat, scrolling on your phone, with your notebook open on the desk, 'ready to learn'. Childe comes in first; he acknowledges you as he walks past, cocking his head toward you with a slight smirk.

You don't react, not caring what he thinks about you, because all you care about is Scaramouche. You pause with your phone in hand, turning your head with his movements. You watch as he sits in his usual seat, alone, and just as you're about to turn your head back to the door to spy when Scara's coming in, you hear the chair next to you scrape on the floor.

You turn your head at the foreign sound, because no one ever sits next to you, and you see him. Scaramouche. Dropping into the chair like he's been sitting there all semester.

He doesn't say hi or acknowledge your existence at all. He just pulls out his phone, slouching in the chair. His slouch makes you sit up straight, feeling awkward that you're both leaning back in a chair.

He's just scrolling on his phone, not caring about the world around him, and you're freaking out completely on the inside.

You can smell his cologne… You can smell his… everything! He's right next to you; your crush is sitting right next to you. He chose to sit next to you and not that ginger leech that he's attached to in every class.

He's still scrolling on his phone as he asks, "Is Jacob here today?"

Jacob?

Oh, right, your third group partner, the absent one. You glance around the room with what you hope is a casual, "I totally know who that is" sweep, and see the seat you presume to be Jacob's empty.

"No." You say, shaking your head. "He's absent today."

"Of course he is." Scaramouche locks his phone and drops it face down on the desk. "Fucking useless. We're doing a three-person project with two people, one of who-" he glances at you sideways, judgingly, "can barely form sentences around me."

You stare at him, offended, still nervous, "… I can form sentences, actually. I'm talking right now."

He finally does a full turn at you, and he crosses his arms, the sides of his mouth going up in a smirk while his eyes stay flat in disbelief. "Oh, really? You said 'okay' six times yesterday."

You're already flustered, eyes darting to your phone like any nervous high schooler, then back to his face as you play with your phone case, as you say, "Okay, still counts as a response, especially a sentence, grammatically."

He looks amused at your response, well, not completely, just slightly. He rolls his eyes as he sits up, "Alright, Grammar, let's see if you're useful." He pulls your notebook toward him without asking, flipping it open, and you break out of your nervous stance and lunge for it, because you know if he opens it, he's going to see something about him.

But, you don't make it in time because he already flipped open a page, one, thank god, that doesn't have his name...

… It has something way worse.

It's 6 doodled hearts formed into a heart shape, 6 is his favorite number, and it's colored in blue ink, which is his favorite color. What's inside the heart is the scary part you don't want him to see. It's your initial, and his, with a plus sign in the middle. Your name in pink ink, his in purple because that's his favorite color… and he's looking at it.

"…Cute." He says, unreadable, and he flips to a blank page like he didn't just see his initial, clearly written in your own notebook.

Why didn't he question it? Does he assume it's about another person who has an S in the first part of your name? Does he know it's about him, and is he just avoiding it because he's uncomfortable? No, that wouldn't make sense, he's the type to address anything if it ends in a new victim for his bullying… so what does this mean…

You watch as he pulls up the assignment on his phone and starts writing in your notebook. You've never seen his handwriting before, apart from the times when you walk past his desk to go to the bathroom, and you squint, and it's messy. It's coherent, just… the lazy type of handwriting. "We need to split the cellular respiration sections. I'll date the electron transport chain because I know you'll end up getting us an F."

You let him use your notebook when he could just take out his, and you scoot your chair closer to the desk, sitting up to watch him write. "Why do you think I'd be the one to get us an F? I can do that part…"

"No, you can't because it's the hardest section and it seems like you've been writing love notes more than studying… if you study at all that is." He doesn't look up from writing, multitasking. "You can do glycolysis and the Krebs cycle."

You scoff when you process just what getting that topic compared to the others entails. "Those are… you're giving me the easy ones, and just giving yourself the more difficult ones?"

"Yeah, and?" He shrugs, still not looking up. "I'd finish it by the end of the day when I go to your house after school, you'd take a week to finish it if it were you. He scrolls through the assignment on his phone, then goes back to writing. "Don't mistake it for generosity."

He's going… to your house after school?

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

The teacher starts talking, informing the class of the project's contents, even though Scaramouche is 50 steps ahead of her, and you aren't even listening to her; you sound it out… only focusing on him.

"You're staring, and it's super fucking annoying, can you stare at something else… or just, I dunno, work?" He says, pen still moving, not glancing at you.

You look away from him and at the board, pretending that's what you've been doing this whole time. "I'm not, and I can't really work if you're using my notebook."

He just says whatever, and he pulls out his notebook, practically throwing it at your side of the desk, telling you to write in that. It's stupid; he could just stop writing in your notebook and use his, but you don't argue because you'd love to use anything that's his. You write in his, as he writes in yours, and all you can think about are the stupid topics you're forced to write about and the quiet sound of him breathing next to you.

"What's the deal with the outfits?" He says, completely out of nowhere, taking a break and leaning back in his chair, finally acknowledging you.

You look once, sideways at him, before dropping your pen to turn and say, "Huh?"

"The…" He gestures vaguely at you… all of you. "Whatever this is, you dress like this every day, to what? Look like a doll?"

You glance down at your own outfit, honestly more offended than you'd feel if someone average said the same thing to you. His opinion matters a lot to you. "I… I like how it looks… Is it bad?"

"Didn't say it was bad… I didn't say it was good either." He tilts his head, looking at you with an analytical gaze, "Do people ever tell you that you look like a doll?"

You nod, kind of annoyed at this point, hearing the same word being tied to you, but also liking it when people do refer to you as such. "Sometimes… I guess."

"Do you like it when they do?"

You're quiet for a second before nodding again. "…Yeah. I do."

He hums, sitting up and grabbing his pen again to continue writing in your notebook. "Figured."

You study his outfit, now that the topic of outfit choices is out there. It's the same as ever: the black band-tee, the long-sleeve grey undershirt, baggy jeans, and the dark platforms he wears to compensate for his short height.

"You'd look good in what I wear." You say before you can even think about not saying it.

His pen completely stops, and he turns his head toward you, slowly. The look on his face is that of someone who just heard something profoundly disturbing and needs a moment to process it. "…Excuse me?"

"Uh- Like-" You start fumbling, trying to back up the words you already said, trying to think of anything that'll make sense. "Like… the pink, the bows, um- the girly stuff? It would suit you… Your face has that kind of… pretty structure? Like you have doll-like features- kind of? So, I just thought-"

He stares at you, and you stare back, your throat working nervously as you cut yourself off before you say any more dumb, useless things.

"I shouldn't even justify whatever bullshit you just uttered with a response, but I am, because it was that terrible." Scaramouche leans his body closer to yours, slightly, arms crossed, "You're insane, certifiably insane. What the fuck makes you think I'd be caught dead wearing one of those stupid bows? Over my dead body. Actually, if I do die, and your crazy-ass manages to put one of your accessories on my corpse, I will haunt you."

You shake your head, still trying to defend yourself, "I'm just saying-"

He cuts his gaze away from you, holds his hand out for you to stop speaking as he turns back to his notebook. "You're done saying. Work on your side of the project, and I'll work on mine."

You write about… whatever the hell you were writing about before, taking quick glances at him when you think he isn't paying attention and turning back to your work when he moves his head even in the slightest. The period passes way too quickly, and you hear the familiar sound of students packing their things 2 minutes before the bell. Scaramouche closes your notebook, and he hands it to you, taking his own and shoving it in his bag. He leans back in his seat on his phone, waiting for the bell, and once it rings, he gets up, standing first, looking down at you.

"You live three houses down from me," he starts, shoving his phone in his pocket. "So, I'll come to your place after school. We'll finish the project early, and then we never have to interact again."

He walks away before you can even open your mouth, or even nod, and Childe appears at his side almost immediately, those two still, always being glued to each other.

You look down at the notebook he wrote in, the very notebook you still haven't put away, and you smile because his handwriting, his fingers, his skin touched this notebook. You close it and very carefully put it in your notebook as if it were something delicate.

You're never throwing this notebook away, ever.

 3:15 PM

The final bell rings.

You're walking toward the exit, clutching your backpack straps, trying to figure out how you're going to survive being alone with Scaramouche in your house. Your room is covered in pink. Your journal is full of his name. Your thighs are-

Oh god. Your thighs.

You're wearing a short skirt. If he sees- if he somehow-

"Hey."

You nearly jump out of your skin.

Scaramouche is leaning against the wall by the front entrance, arms crossed, looking bored. His car keys are dangling from his fingers. He pushes off the wall and starts walking toward the parking lot without waiting for you.

"I'm driving," he says over his shoulder. "Keep up."

You scramble to follow him, your shoes clacking on the pavement. "You don't have to- I can walk-"

"You live three houses from me. It would be stupid for you to walk while I drive." He doesn't look back. "Get in the car."

His car is even more intimidating up close. All black leather and tinted windows. You slide into the passenger seat and clutch your backpack to your chest because you feel awkward putting it anywhere in his car.

Scaramouche gets in beside you, and he starts the engine.

"Seatbelt," he says.

You fumble with the buckle because your hands are shaking, but thankfully, you get it on before he notices.

He pulls out of the parking lot without another word, and you sit there in silence, staring straight ahead, trying to remember how to breathe. The music is playing low, something with heavy bass that you don't recognize. His hands are on the steering wheel. Those hands... Those same hands that shove and grab and hurt.

Those hands that you want on you so badly that it makes you dizzy.

The drive takes less than five minutes, but it feels like hours. You're hyperaware of everything. The way he smells, like expensive cologne. The way his jaw is set, like he's annoyed to be doing this. The way his eyes flick to you, once, twice, before returning to the road.

He pulls into his driveway, not yours, and he parks, turning off the engine.

"Well?" He's looking at you now, one eyebrow raised. "You said you're three houses down. Which one?"

"The beige one," you repeat, pointing vaguely. "With the white shutters."

He follows your gesture. Looks at your house, then looks back at you.

“Never noticed it before," he says, staring at you for too long and too deeply before unbuckling his seatbelt. "Come on. Let's get this project over with."

He opens his door and gets out of the car.

You sit there for a second, processing. Trying to figure out if this is real or if you're going to wake up any second now.

Scaramouche is going to be in your house. YOUR HOUSE!

You grab your backpack and follow him to your house.

He walks ahead of you, like he’s above walking next to you, or just waiting for you, but… he stops to wait when he’s at your front door.

You walk up your steps, trying not to shake even more under his stare, trying to stay steady as you unlock the front door.

You fumble with your keys twice before finally getting the door open, and you step inside with your heart hammering.

"Nice place," he says, and it sounds like an insult.

"Thanks. My parents are on a trip for a week, so it's just us…" Your voice comes out too small, and you clear your throat. "Um... My room is upstairs."

He follows you up the staircase without comment. You're hyperaware of every step, of the way your pink miniskirt swishes against your thighs, of the slight sheerness of your black polkadot babydoll top. You picked this outfit so carefully this morning. You wanted to look pretty, you wanted him to notice.

Be careful what you wish for.

You push open your bedroom door and step aside to let him in.

His reaction is immediate. "What the fuck."

He sees your pink walls, pink bedding, and pink curtains with little bows on the edges. Your bed is huge, piled high with plushies, my Melody, Hello Kitty, etc. You have a massive Hello Kitty squishmallow that takes up half the headboard. LED lights are on in your closet and on your walls, casting everything in a soft, warm glow.

Scaramouche stands in the doorway, taking it all in with an expression of disgust and probably disbelief.

"You actually live like this?"

You turn away so he won't see your smile. His cruelty always makes you happy, always makes you grin uncontrollably. 

"I like pink..."

"Yeah, no shit." He walks farther into the room, looking around as if he's just landed on an alien planet. His black clothes are uncanny compared to all the softness, wrong in a way that feels right. "This is the most unhinged thing I've ever seen. It looks like a five-year-old's fever dream in here."

 "You can leave if you hate it so much." You say, arms crossed, starting to get slightly more comfortable enough to throw that comment.

"Didn't say I hated it." He plops down on your bed without permission, right in the middle of it, leaning back against your Hello Kitty squishmallow like it never bothered him in the first place. "I said it was unhinged. There's a difference."

He's on your bed. Scaramouche is on your bed.

You've fantasized about this exact moment probably a thousand times, and now it's happening, and you don't know what to do with your hands or your face or any part of yourself.

"You gonna stand there all day?" He pats the space next to him. "Come on. We have a project to do."

You have to force yourself out of it and start moving to the bed before he thinks you’re weirder than what he knows you already are. You climb onto the bed, sitting against the headboard to give Scara as much space as possible. You reach down to your backpack on the floor and pull out your laptop, covered in Sanrio stickers, and flop it onto your bed.

"Cute," he says, and you can't tell if he's mocking you or not. You take it as a compliment.

You open your laptop and pull up the assignment, trying to focus on the words on the screen instead of the fact that he’s right there, close enough to touch, lounging on your bed as he belongs there.

He should belong there.

He pulls out his own laptop. Sleek and black and sticker-free. For a few minutes, there's just the sound of typing and the sound of you trying desperately to remember how to breathe and not glance at him any moment you can.

Then, he pulls out a vape. "Is that okay?" he asks, and it's not really a question because he's already bringing it to his lips; he knows you and most people wouldn’t say no to him.

"Um, sure..." You say, sounding very unsure, but letting it happen.

He takes a drag, exhales a cloud of something toward your ceiling. You watch the smoke float and dissipate. You think about how that vapor was in his lungs, how it touched the inside of him, how you're breathing in particles of Scaramouche right now.

You're so fucked up.

"So," he says, not looking at his laptop anymore, looking at you. "You've lived three houses down from me for how long?"

He's looking at you. He's looking at you. He's looking at you!!

"Two years."

"Two years." He takes another drag. "And you never thought to introduce yourself?"

"We don't exactly run in the same circles..."

"What circles do you run in?" His eyes are curious in a way that makes you squirm, feel too noticed. "I've never seen you with anyone. You eat lunch alone, and you sit by yourself in every class. You don't talk to anyone."

"I just- I don't really like talking to people... I like being alone." Lie, well, not entirely. You like being alone, but if he's there to fill the space, that's something you'd enjoy. And he's the only person you also care about talking to.

"…You're weird."

"That too." You say with a half smile, a nervous one.

He laughs… Scara actually laughed at something you said. You tuck the sound away in your mental collection, right next to every other scrap of him you've managed to steal.

"What do you do for fun?" he asks. "When you're not stalking me, I mean."

Your face burns, eyes widening as you sit back, fingers curling at your skirt. "I don't stalk you."

"Really? But you literally admitted to walking past my house every day." He says, taking another drag, like he’s totally unbothered while accusing someone of stalking.

"I live at the end of the street... I have to walk past your house." You say, squinting at him almost, playing out the perfect expression of someone who’s ‘innocent’, and getting annoyed at a stupid accusation.

"Hm… Convenient excuse." He says simply.

You don't respond because you don't have anything to say to that. He's so fucking right, and you both know it.

"Can we just work on the project?" you whisper.

"Boringgg." But he turns back to his laptop, and for a while, you actually manage to focus.

An hour passes, and you've gotten a decent amount of work done… all things considered. The project is on cellular respiration, which isn't hard, just tedious. You've divided up the sections, agreed on a format, and outlined the presentation.

Normal group project stuff.

But the whole time, he keeps looking at you.

You feel it like he's physically touching you; the stare is that heavy. His gaze on your profile, on your hands, on your legs tucked underneath you. And every time you glance over, he's staring at his screen. 

But you know. You know he's watching when you're not looking.

It's making you insane.

Without warning, he shuts his laptop loudly.

You look up, startled at the sound, and when you see him moving, scooting across the bed toward you, you stammer out a startled, "What are you-" He closes the distance you so carefully maintained, and before you can react, he's reaching over and shutting your laptop too. Setting it aside… getting closer.

Close.

Really close.

"Tell me something." His voice is low, a lot different than before. "And be honest, because I'll know if you're lying."

You can't breathe… he's right there, right fucking there… just inches away. 

"…Are you stalking me?"

You shake your head immediately, too fast, "N-no… I told you this before." The moment of your head, and your own words, contradict what you're trying to deny.

He doesn't look convinced at all. "Really?" He leans in slightly, and you press yourself back against the headboard. "Because I've been watching you, you know. All day today… And every day before that."

Your heart stops.

What?

So he has noticed you… does know who you are??

"You follow me between classes," he continues, "You watch me at lunch… You stare at me in every class we share, and we share all of them, don't we? Every single one. Childe told me, but I already knew."

"I don't-" Your mouth feels dry, so dry, and he cuts you off.

"You walk past my house every day, even though there's a shorter route to yours from school. My house is in the other direction, north, when the way to school is south… Don't try to deny that either."

"I…" He cuts you off again.

"And just now, when I was looking at you?" He smiles at you, not nice, not anything but mean. "You knew, didn't you? You could feel me watching. And you liked it, didn't you? Because you've gotten used to being the one doing the watching. It threw you off, having it reversed."

You want to cry and die all at once… and also run to escape all of this despite this being a fucked up version of exactly what you wanted. 

"Shh." He reaches out, and his hand lands on your thigh… on your thigh. Right above your knee. "It's okay… You don't have to answer that."

His hand is on you… Scaramouche is touching you. After years of watching him from a distance, memorizing every detail, carving his name into your skin, he's touching you.

His thumb strokes across your thigh, slow and deliberate… higher. Closer to where your skirt ends.

"I have to say," he murmurs, "I've never had anyone this dedicated before. It's kind of flattering, in a fucked up way." 

His hand keeps moving, up your thigh, fingers trailing over your skin, and you're so focused on the sensation that it takes you a moment to realize how close he's getting to-

His hand pauses, hovers. So close to where the scars are, where his name is, where every piece of evidence of your devotion is carved into your flesh.

He doesn't touch them, doesn't slide his hand any higher. Instead, he laughs, amused at your reaction to his touch and lack of response, and he moves his hand to your abdomen. Palm flat against your stomach through your top.

You exhale shakily, thank god. Thank god he didn't feel them, didn't see, didn't-

"But tell me this."

He leans in closer, lips brushing your ear, and you shiver, especially when his hand slides down, over your stomach, under the waistband of your skirt.

"Do you want me to fuck you?"

… What the fuck.

Everything stops: time, the world, your heart, the rotation of the earth on its axis. Everything just... freezes.

Did he just…

Did he really-

Maybe you misheard… Or maybe this is a dream. Maybe you finally snapped, and you're hallucinating in a padded room somewhere, and none of this is real-

But… his hand is still there. His fingers are still resting just below your waistband, waiting for a response. And his eyes are fixed on your face, watching your reaction.

He's serious. Completely serious.

You nod, tiny, nervous to give him a full one, nervous to admit that you want him that bad. But he sees it, he sees it so clearly because of the way he’s staring so deeply at you.

And he smiles at your tiny response, and he doesn’t give you a second, he doesn’t hesitate for even a moment to lean in and kiss you.

It’s not gentle, or soft, or anything like the first kisses you used to imagine back when you still believed in fairytales. He kisses you like he’s trying to consume you, devour you; his mouth is hot and demanding against yours, his hand is fisting in your hair to hold you in place.

Your first kiss... Your first fucking kiss, and it's with him. 

How many girls get to even have their first kiss with their crush?

His other hand slides further under the waistband of your skirt. You can feel his fingers at the edge of your panties, and when he presses his hand fully against you through the cotton, you gasp.

He takes that gasp as an opportunity to slide his tongue past your lips, not hesitating for a moment as he licks into you like he owns every part of you.

His fingers roll over your clit, just right, and you whimper into his mouth.

You try to pull back, not because you want to stop kissing him, god fucking no, because you need air. But… he follows you, chasing your mouth, biting at your lower lip because how dare you even try and pull away.

"No breaks," he mutters against you. "I didn't say you could stop."

The kiss that follows is deeper this time, he tilts his head to get a better angle, and there’s something almost passionate about it… oddly passionate. It’s like he can’t get enough, like he’s been thinking about this as much as you have.

His fingers don’t stop their rhythm on your panties; he’s rubbing slow circles, and you’re embarrassingly wet already, soaking the fabric. 

When he finally, finally pulls back, there’s a string of saliva connecting your lips; it’s risqué in a way that makes your cunt clench around nothing.

You’re panting, unable to even try to be quiet like you normally are, unable to compose yourself properly because that kiss lasted too long for 2 people that need oxygen like it’s a lifeline.

And yet… he’s barely even out of breath.

He gives you one last kiss while you’re still in a daze, trying to breathe; it’s softer than the others, tender. He moves, sliding down the bed, settling between your thighs, you don’t even process it until-

He lifts your skirt.

That fog in your brain clears instantly, like a reset.

"Wait-" You reach for him, try to grab his hands, try to push your skirt back down. "Wait, don't-"

It's too late. Way too fucking late.

He's looking at your thighs.

At the scars.

At his name, his own birthname, carved into your left thigh. Fully healed letters in raised star tissue.

Permanent.

Then, he looks at his nickname carved on your right thigh. SCARA. It’s smaller than the other, but just as deliberate, similar in depth to the other one, because you’re consistent with how you cut.

And beneath it… something not healed, fresh, still red, the heart you craved last night.

You watch his face. He doesn't look disgusted or scared. His expression is...

Amused.

"Well," he says slowly. "That's new."

"I can explain-" You stammer out, but he cuts you off.

"Can you?" He looks up at you, eyes narrowing. "Because I'm really curious what explanation you have for carving my name into your fucking thighs."

You, as predictable as ever, immediately started crying, tears spilling down your cheeks, talking so fast that your words sound jumbled. “I’m sorry, I’m so so so sorry. I know it’s fucked up, I know I’m crazy… I’m just- I-I’m sorry… P-please don’t… please don’t tell anyone-”

"Shut up."

You put your hand to your mouth, muffling your sobs.

He looks back down, ignoring your crying, and he stares at your thighs for a long moment. Then he pulls out his phone.

You move your hand from your mouth with wide eyes, "What are you-"

"Hold still." He grabs both your wrists with one hand, pushing them up above your head, pinning them to the headboard. "Don't move, and don’t even try covering it."

"Scara, please don’t-"

He takes a couple of pictures. He has flash and his ringer is on, so the sound and the light flashing right on your thighs make you flinch. You’re crying impossibly harder now, panicking at the thought of him sending this to his friends, to everyone at school to see, and Scara just looks at you, and he laughs.

He laughs like this is the funniest thing he’s ever seen, like exposing you to his camera lens is more amusing to him than anything.

"You're so fucked up," he says, his grip tightening on your wrists above your head because you desperately tried to thrash out of his grip. "Like, actually insane… I knew you were weird, fuck, the whole school knows how much of a weirdo you are, but this? You carved my name into your skin. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I love you," you whisper, true devotion in your words.

Scara believes it, he believes it in the way you’re trembling, tears streaming that you can’t wipe because he’s holding you down, and even so, you’re looking at him like he’s the only thing in the world that matters.

"Yeah, I can see that," he says slowly, then he snaps out of it, his fingers tightening their hold on your wrist like he forgot what he was just doing.

You hear him take another picture, you don’t watch, you force your eyes to stay closed, just waiting until the camera flashes are over. 

It doesn’t end for a while; he’s taking a bunch, documenting your thighs from different angles, capturing every single piece of evidence of your obsession.

"Please," you sob, eyes peeking out just a little, “please, I'll do anything, just don't show anyone-"

"Relax." He tosses his phone somewhere on the bed behind him. "I'm not going to show anyone."

Your eyes shoot fully open, sobs turning quiet. "You're… not?"

“No.” He says, rolling his eyes. He releases your wrists, and your body moves automatically, bringing your hands around you like a self-soothing hug, and you try to close your legs to hide yourself. He doesn’t let you, though; he just forces your legs back open, wide open. “I took those for me, not for anyone else. My own personal collection of proof that you’re completely fucking unhinged.”

You don’t know how to respond to that; you don’t even know what to do other than just continue to cry, silent tears this time, as he looks at your thighs. You so desperately want to still hide from him.

Even though it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

But you don’t know that…

"Where's the blade?" He asks, suddenly, zero context.

Your breath catches, you swallow, throat dry as you let out a tiny, confused, "What?"

"The blade." He says, and he says it like he’s annoyed he has to rephrase himself. "The thing you used to do this to yourself. Where is it?"

You shake your head, slowly, wiping your tears, not understanding why he wants to know, but your brain automatically tells you to lie, to maybe save yourself. "I don't-"

"Don't lie to me." He doesn’t even let you try. "I told you, I always know, always. And the heart's recent, you obviously have it in your room somewhere, unless you threw it out, promising to yourself that it’ll be the last time you cut yourself… but we both know that’s a lie. So, tell me where it is."

"...Under the bed." Your voice is barely audible, but he hears it perfectly. "T-there's a box."

He climbs off your bed the moment you say where and what it’s in, and you try to curl up, hide now that he isn’t practically on top of you, but you barely even get 3 seconds of freedom, because he’s back quick. 

He’s not nice about it; he grabs at your ankles and yanks them, pulling you flat onto your back, forcing your legs apart. He settles between your thighs again, and this time he has the box.

With the razor blade inside.

"Scara..." Panic claws at your throat, finally understanding. "What are you going to do?"

He doesn’t respond at first; he just sets the box on your trembling thigh, opens it up, and takes out the blade. The box falls off your thigh from how much you’re trembling.

"I'm going to add to it," he says simply, examining the blade, the way it has a tiny amount of dry blood you were too lazy to clean off. "Give you something else to worship."

Your heart is pounding so hard you can hear it. "You're going to-"

"Shut up and hold still. This is what you want, isn’t it? Well… I don’t care either way." He slides off your skirt while he talks, tossing it aside somewhere in your room, then his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties, and those go too.

You’re bare now, well, from the waist down at least, spread open on your own bed, completely exposed.

This is everything you've ever wanted.

He lies down more comfortably between your thighs, at a full view now, and he presses a kiss on your left thigh, right over the S in his name. It’s a soft and seemingly gentle kiss, completely at odds with the blade in his hand.

"You really did this for me," he murmurs against your skin. "Every letter... Even every heart?"

"Yes..."

He kisses the C, then the A, then the R, works his way across his name, lips brushing over scar tissues, pressing the softest kisses onto his name on your thigh.

You’re trembling, exposed cunt clenching around nothing, and your waterworks have stopped. You don’t even remember when you stopped crying.

When the heart, the fresh one, is next, he pauses to look up at you. He looks up at you while he drags his tongue across it, slow, so fucking slow, almost lewd with how slow he does it, all while maintaining eye contact perfectly.

You let out a moan without thinking, a pathetic little sound.

And it doesn’t just stop there. You jerk your hips up toward his mouth, trying to grind against him the same way if he were eating you out. 

But he’s not eating you out.

He’s licking your cuts, and somehow, that feels better than any head (even though you’ve never gotten any).

"Hah... Scara..."

"Your sounds are fucking adorable," he says, still not looking away. "Do that again."

He makes you make that sound again, he bites at the skin next to the heart, the whole area around it is slightly red and bruised, so you feel that painful sensation you love. You let out a whine, needy for more, aching for anything he’ll give you.

"You’re good at letting me do what I want." He positions the blade against a clean patch on your thigh, somewhere unmarked, right below where his name sits. "But I wonder how you’ll handle this, real pain. You want to impress me, don't you? Hold still and don’t fight it even when it stings."

You nod, eager, not a care in the world about fear or anything trivial like that. You want it to hurt, need it to hurt, not just tiny cat scratches that won’t be permanent after a month, you want him to mark you in such a way that’ll never compare to what you’ve already done to yourself.

He’s quick to make the first cut, and the pain is sharp; it feels sharper than how it feels when you do it yourself. He carves an S, careful to make it perfect even though it’s hard to curve cuts, he takes his time with this one, and it feels even better that way, the pain being dragged out. You let out soft whines as he does it, letting your body relax in such a way that he doesn’t even need to hold you down anymore. 

“That’s it, take it for me, my pretty little canvas…”

Something comes up next that you don’t recognize, and this one, this part, he cuts deeper, slower, making sure it hurts, making sure it’ll scar thick and permanent. You can feel the blood dripping down your thigh; it doesn’t register to you how much you’re bleeding, how deep he’s going, but you don’t care.

Your mind goes absolutely blank when he licks up the blood before it can drip onto your sheets, he drags his tongue up, all the way to the cut, and the sting of it makes you grind up, desperate for friction. 

"Ngh... fuck... hah..." You moan out.

“Just one more,” he says, thumb rubbing over the S he did, just to hear you whine again, and he grins as he continues, “Just your initial, and then it’ll match. We’ll match.”

You don't know what that means. He does what he says, though; he cuts the last letter into your skin, your initial, taking the same sweet time he took with his own initial. You glance down to peek at what he’s doing, and you see the + sign.

He fucking put S + your initial on your thigh. Like lovers carving something into a tree stump, but this isn’t a tree. He does it because you belong to each other… or at least, that's what you imagine.

You try your hardest not to grin when you tip your head back against the pillow. 

When he’s… sadly… done, he sits back to admire his work. There’s still blood flowing, mainly from the + sign he cut so deeply, and he looks at it all, even the scars you did on yourself, like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

"You're mine now," he says. "Officially mine. No one else's… just mine."

You don’t understand, well, you do, and you don’t. You’ve always been his in your own eyes; the scars you did prove it. You didn’t need him to notice you to be his, because you were his already in the way he lived rent-free in your mind on a daily basis. But the way he’s saying it now doesn’t at all sound like that; it sounds different, like a permanent seal.

And the way he’s looking at you, too, like you matter, like you aren’t just some girl he’s going to ignore at school tomorrow, makes the claim feel more… equal, truly equal.

But you’re lost if that’s just your delusion talking, or if you’re actually right.

"What does that mean?" you whisper, craving more context.

"It means what it means." He tosses the blade aside, lying back down between your thighs, spreading them further apart. "Now I'm going to reward you for taking that so well."

Before you can ask what he means, his mouth is on you.

Not on your thighs this time, higher. His lips press against your clit, soft at first, almost teasing, and you cry out at the contact. You’re already sensitive, so worked up from the pain and the blood and the overwhelming reality of him, the boy you’ve been obsessed with for ages, touching you, marking you-

"Fuck... oh god… S-scara…" 

He doesn’t let the teasing drag on for too long. His tongue comes out, and he licks up your slit like he’s savoring you, then his mouth seals over your clit and he sucks, your back arches off the bed as you let out a whine.

"No moving away." His hands grip your thighs, forcing them open, forcing you to stay spread for him. "I said I was going to reward you. Don't make me change my mind."

"M’sorry... hah... I'm sorry, I just-"

Two fingers slide inside you without warning.

You scream while he watches it all, maintaining eye contact, grinning at the way you’re already falling apart.

You don’t scream from pain, you scream because of the sudden fullness, the stretch, the way he immediately curls them up to find that spot inside you that makes everything go white. He's not gentle about it at fucking all. He just shoves them in and starts fucking you with them way too fast, hitting that spot again and again, while his tongue works your clit.

"Shit, you're tight." He sounds almost annoyed, still fucking his fingers into you while he talks. "You really are a virgin, aren't you?"

"Y-yeah... I've never... ngh... never done anything..."

"Pathetic." But his fingers don't slow down now that he knows you’re inexperienced. If anything, they speed up, fucking into you harder, and you can hear how wet you are, the obscene sounds filling your pink bedroom. "Have you ever touched yourself thinking about me? Doing exactly what I’m doing, just pretending in your little delusion that it’s me finger-fucking you?"

"I have- ah- I have, I just-"

"Just what?" Curling his fingers more, fucking more and more into that spot specifically every time you start talking, just so he can hear your words fall apart.

"It's not the same... hah... it's not the same as the real thing..."

He laughs against your cunt, and the vibration of that makes you clench around his fingers, and he knows how close you already are.

"Look at you… Squeezing my fingers like a desperate little obsessive whore. You want to cum that badly?"

"Yes... please... please..." You moan out, grinding almost desperately against his fingers without any shame at this point, too lost to even care how stupid you look.

"Then cum."

It’s embarrassing how fast you cum, how you clamp down on his fingers, crying out his name, and he works you through it with his mouth still sealed on your clit, drawing out the orgasm until you’re shaking and sobbing.

When he finally pulls back, his chin is wet. Your slick glistening on his skin, something of you on him, and you smile tiny at that. He wipes it off with the back of his hand, looking down at you like he wants to do more than just devour your cunt.

Your top, the only thing left on your body, is askew. Both straps fall off your shoulder, and one of your breasts is almost spilling out. He reaches up and moves the fabric aside, just slightly, with minimal effort because it’s already almost off, and it exposes your breasts completely. His hand immediately reaches for one of your breasts.

"These are nice." He squeezes, rough and careless. "Proportional and soft."

"Hah..." You can barely even form words, just whimpers and moans, still in a daze.

He can’t resist kissing you again, and you can taste yourself on his tongue, musky and just… weird, and anyone normal would cringe at this… but you don't. It’s hot, everything about this is hot to you.

His hand keeps playing with your breast, rolling your nipple between his fingers until you're whimpering into his mouth. Then he pulls back, sitting up on his knees, and reaches for the hem of his shirt.

You watch him pull off his shirt in one smooth motion, and he looks the same as he did in the locker room. He looks like something out of a painting… Something you're not supposed to touch.

"Your turn." He nods at your top. "Take it off."

Your hands are shaking as you obey. You sit up just slightly and pull the babydoll top over your head, making you completely naked in front of him. Bare and vulnerable and terrified.

He looks at you… all of you. The curves and the softness and the marks on your thighs and the blood still drying on your skin. Then, he's reaching for his pants, unbuttoning them, shoving them down along with his boxers. His cock springs free, and you look at it, shocked. It looks the same as it did in the locker room, just bigger because it's hard, and it looks so intimidating up close, too.

He laughs at the scared look on your face. "Don't worry." He strokes himself, lazily. "You'll take it."

He positions himself between your legs, the head of his cock nudging against your entrance. "Look at me." You look back up at him instead of his cock, and his eyes are fixed on your face… watching you with an intensity that makes you want to cry again.

"Don't close your eyes," he says. "I want to see your face when I take your virginity."

He pushes in, all the way, zero warning, and zero preparation beyond his fingers. He bottoms out inside you, and you scream. The pain is sharp against your walls, the burn of the stretch, and it feels almost impossible to even be accustomed to the feeling.

"Fuck… i-it hurts…" You whimper out, a painful whimper.

"I know." He doesn't sound sorry, but he doesn't move yet. He just holds himself there, buried to the hilt, watching the tears stream down your face. "You're so fucking tight. It's almost annoying."

"Please…" You try to reach down to hold your stomach, anything, because the ache is almost unbearable. But he grabs your wrists and pulls them above your head, holding them there. Your whimpers don't stop, even though he isn't even moving. "Please… just… give me a second…"

"No."

He's mean. He pulls out and thrusts back in. Deep, and hard, bottoming out again, and you sob at the intrusion. He sets a rhythm that's neither fast nor slow, just steady, relentless, fucking into you like your pain is irrelevant.

And maybe that's the truth, maybe that's the point. Maybe you don't matter to him at all, and this is just him using your body because he can.

That thought alone makes you clench around him.

"Hah... there you go." His voice is strained, pulling out, going back in, over and over. "You like that? You like being used?"

"Yes... ngh... yes..."

"Fucked up little doll." He thrusts harder. "Getting off on being hurt. On being treated like nothing. You're so goddamn pathetic."

"I know... I know, I'm sorry..."

"Don't apologize." His hands let go of your wrists to grip your hips, pulling you into his thrusts. "Just take it."

Somewhere along the way, the pain starts to fade. Starts to blur into something else, something that builds in your lower belly like a coil winding tighter. You feel yourself adjusting to him, your body stretching to accommodate his size, and when he hits a certain angle, you moan instead of cry.

"There we go." He sounds satisfied, hitting you in the same angle that made you moan. "Feels good now?"

"Yes… god, yes…"

"Then beg me to go faster," He says, as he starts thrusting slowly on purpose.

"Please…" You don't even hesitate to beg, even in this state. "Please, Scara, faster, please-"

His pace picks back up, his hips snapping into you with brutal efficiency, and your eyes roll back in your head. It's too much, the way he's filling you up, hitting that spot inside you with every thrust… is too much… but also everything you wanted.

"Fuuuck..." His composure is cracking. You can hear it in his voice, the way it goes ragged at the edges. "You feel so fucking good. Tight little virgin cunt, squeezing me like you never want to let go."

"I don't... hah... I don't want to..."

He bites at your neck, and it's hard, so hard that you'll carry the mark even in the morning. His mouth works against your throat, biting, then sucking, not only leaving bite marks, but also leaving hickeys that'll be impossible to hide. Like you'd ever actually hide those, though.

You can feel yourself getting close, stupidly close, and you can feel him throb inside you, his thrusts starting to get messy. He cums into you without warning, slamming into you, burying himself as deep as he can go. You can feel the heat of his cum, the pulse of his cock, filling you up completely.

"Shittt..." His forehead drops to your shoulder, his breath ragged against your skin. "Fuck. Fuck."

The feeling of him inside you, the heat of his release, it's too much. You cum around him and fall apart, crying his name, nails digging into his back hard enough to leave marks.

You lose count of how many times after that.

He fucks you until you're boneless. Until you can barely move. Until your thighs are shaking and your voice is hoarse and you're so full of his cum you can feel it leaking out around him.

Three times? Four? Five?

Does it matter?

His lips are against yours, rutting into you slowly, when suddenly, your phone buzzes, the screen lighting up with a notification. Something mundane, and that was enough for him to break the kiss to glance at your phone, not too far away from you both on the sheets.

"… What the fuck is that?"

You're too dazed to think about what he's asking, but with the way he picks up your phone and his hips move to a stop while he's still buried inside you, it leads you confused… then shocked… then absolutely mortified because you know exactly what he just saw.

He's on your lock screen, your fucking lockscreen. Not just a photo you stole from his Instagram, no, it's one of the pictures you took in the locker room. And you put some dumb heart sticker where his crotch was.

He flips your phone toward your face, "Unlock it." He demands, but his tone is dangerously quiet. Your face unlocks the phone for him.

You watch, in horror, as the lock screen swipes up, and your home screen appears. The sound that comes out of you is not a moan or a whimper, but a full-body gasp of pure terror.

Your homescreen wallpaper is worse than the lockscreen one. Why? Because the homescreen is the uncensored version. Because not only is his cock out on full display on your homescreen, but you arranged your apps around it into a heart shape. One that feels dumb now.

He turns the screen toward him, and the silence is loud. He's still inside you… still hard… but he's not moving. He's not even breathing, just looking at his own cock on your phone screen, framed by a heart made by app icons.

"… What the fuck." His voice is quiet, not the sexy kind, a flat kind. This is the voice of someone processing something that their brain is actively trying to reject.

"Scara, give me my phone, please-" You reach for it, desperately, your fingers practically clawing at air because it pulls it out of reach immediately. His arm extends above his head while his other hand pins your wrist into the mattress.

"What the fuck is this?"

"It's nothing, it's just-"

"It's my dick." He brings the phone back down, holding it inches from your face. "That's my fucking cock on your home screen. And you made a heart out of your… what is that, your weather app? Your calculator?"

"Please, please just give it back, I can explain-"

He cuts you off, again. "What the fuck is there to explain? You arranged your apps into a heart around my dick." He says it slowly, like he's trying to make the sentence make sense in his own mouth, and it won't, because it doesn't, because what you've done is genuinely beyond the scope of normal human behavior. "When did you even take this? This is the locker room from yesterday? Are you fucking kidding me? You were in the locker room while I was-"

He stops himself, his jaw working, his eyes not locked on you, but your screen. He doesn't look amused or turned on… he looks genuinely disturbed.

"Give it back," You whisper, voice cracking, and you feel your waterworks starting again. He's going to leave… He's going to pull out of you and put his clothes back on and walk out of your bedroom and never look at you again.

He doesn't answer. You whisper out again, voice just as weak, pleading, "Scaramouche, please-"

"Why." He's not asking, he's demanding, and his grip on your wrist tightens until you feel like your bone just might snap in half. "Why is my cock on your wallpaper? Why did you take pictures of me naked? Oh, you know what, let's go take a look at your camera roll and see just how much your derganged ass took."

You squeeze your eyes shut because you know this is where it ends. Whatever fragile, impossible thing that was forming between you and him was just destroyed by your own insanity.

He ruts into you. One thrust, deep, so deep you can feel him in your stomach, and so all of a sudden. Hard enough that your eyes fly back open and a choked sound punches out of your chest. He's still holding your phone with one hand, but his eyes are still on your screen.

You don't understand. He was just looking at you like you're the most disturbing person he's ever met, like he's about to call the police, like he's genuinely reconsidering every choice that led him to your bed, and now he's fucking into you?

"Answer me." His voice is different this time, less full of disgust… just something you can't name anymore. His hips pull back and he slams foward again, you cry out in response. "I- hah- I did it beca- b-because I wanted you close to me-"

"Close to you." Another thrust. "How the fuck does that even correlate. My dick, on your phone, that's… 'close to you'."

You realize how dumb you sound, and as you try to answer to back up your claim, it's hard to make out the words because he keeps thrusting into you while you're trying to talk. "Every- hah- Everytime I u-unlocked my phone… I could see you, and it made me feel like- mmm- like you were mine even when you weren't-"

He's still thrusting into you, he's not doing it fast, just deep, really deep, slow thrusts. He's not even paying attention to what you're saying; he's just scrolling through your camera roll.

All forty-seven photos.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, and you feel him twitch inside you. You feel him get harder, thicker, his cock swelling against your walls in a way that's impossible to miss. "Scroll." He shoves the phone into your hand, forcing your fingers around it. "Scroll through them."

"Scara-"

"Now." He punctuates with a thrust that makes your back arch off the bed. You start scrolling, flipping through the photos with shaky hands as he fucks into you hard enough that the images feel like they're jumping on the screen.

"Which one's your favorite?" He rolls his hips and grinds into you, slow and deep, and the pressure on your cervix makes you whimper.

You don't lie. "The- the third one, the one where you're turning-"

Why." He doesn't even let you finish.

"Your face looks relaxed, and you don't know I'm- ngh, fuck- you don't know I'm watching-"

"What did you do with them?" He thrusts harder into you. "After you took them. What did you do?

"I looked at them," you gasp, scrolling past image after image of him, your own camera roll a testament to how far gone you are. "I set one as my wallpaper, I- I was going to print them, put them in my closet, I was going to-"

He leans down to you, close, his chest pressing against yours, and his mouth finds your ear. His voice drops to something barely above a whisper. "Did you take my boxers?"

Your thumb freezes on the screen, everything in your body freezing except for your rapid heartbeat, hammering so fast you'd think he could feel it.

He leans back, slightly, and you meet his eyes, mouth slightly agape as you nod, tiny, in response.

He laughs, low, "I was so fucking pissed off about that." His hips start moving again, lazy, almost like he wants a conversation mid-sex. "I came back from the sink, and they were just… gone. I had to put my gross, wet jeans back on with nothing underneath, and I sat through 3 more dreading periods with denim on my bare dick because some psycho stole my underwear when I wasn't looking."

"I'm sorry-"

"Was it worth it?" His stare is more intense this time, his eyes searching through yours. "Seriously, was it worth it? What'd you even do with them, sniff them like a freak?"

You stop looking at him, glancing to the side, and you feel his hand come to your jaw, gripping, forcing eye contact. "Was that the point? Steal my boxers so you can smell them while I sit in class, uncomfortable for the rest of the day? You're the reason I couldn't sit still in fourth period. You know that, right? You did that to me."

You try to apologize, again, in a small voice. "I'm sorry, I just-"

"You'll pay for that."

His hands grab your hips, and he spins you onto your stomach so fast that your phone goes flying. It feels like the room just went upside down and then back to normal. Your face presses into your Hello Kitty Squishmallow, your ass up.

He slams into you from behind, and the angle is so much different, deeper, that you scream into the plushie, your fingers fisting into the soft fabric as he bottoms out. He sets a pace that's punishing, brutal, so loud that you can only process the sound of his hips slamming into your ass with every thrust.

You don't suspect it coming when his hand comes down. He spanks your ass, the sound ringing through your bedroom, loud like a gunshot. Pain blooms across your ass, sharp and hot, and before you can even process it, his hand comes down again, harder.

"What did you do with my boxers?" His hand contacts your skin again when you don't answer immediately, turning your flesh red. "Tell me, I know you're not mute."

"Nothing!" You manage out, muffled by the squishmallow, "I didn't-"

Another slap, and it feels as if your ass is burning. Your tears are soaking into the squishmallow.

"Fucking liar." Slap. "Tell me." Another slap. "What?" Another slap harder than the last. "You." Slap, and you let out a moan that's between pain and pleasure as his cock hits that one spot inside of you. "Did."

"I wore them!" you sob, finally, your resistance crumbling because you can't take it anymore, the spanking and the fucking and the interrogation all at once. "I put them on in the girls' bathroom at school, and I wore them for the rest of the day under my skirt!"

You don't feel his hand slapping you again, so you assume his hand paused at your confession. "And then- hah- and then when I got home I kept them on and I-" You let out a whine, embarrassed, your voice muffled against the plushie. "I came in them. I touched myself in your boxers, and I came, looking at the pictures I took of you."

He stops entirely and flips you back over. Withdrawing from your cunt, and you clench around nothing, trying to keep him inside even though you know that's not how it works.

He stands up from your bed, completely naked, completely unashamed, and the sight of him like this… surrounded by Sanrio plushies and everything pink will never stop being surreal. Well, it might be because this time, you really, truly think he's going to leave.

"Get up." He stands in front of where you're still lying on the bed, looking down at you, and he doesn't look like he's suggesting anything. "Show me where you put them."

"Put… what?" You whisper, voice tiny.

"My boxers. The ones you stole and got off in." He cocks his head, impatient. "Where are they."

Your legs feel like jelly, you're leaking his cum from the past rounds with every shift, but you force yourself up from the bed anyway, wobbling on unsteady feet. He watches you struggle to stand with a satisfied look on his face.

"Closet." You manage, walking towards it on shaky legs, feeling his eyes on your back, and his cum trailing down your inner thighs.

You open the closet door and reach for his boxers, which you folded carefully on the top shelf. You pull them out and hold them, not offering them to him, just holding them against your chest like a child caught with a stolen toy.

He takes them from you, holds them up, examining them, his expression hard to read.

You look up at him, arms holding yourself in a soothing way as you whisper, nervously, "Am I still yours?" Your voice breaks on the question because you're terrified of what his response would be.

His eyes cut to you, still holding up the jeans, and he looks at you like you're the dumbest person alive. "You're more mine now than you were five minutes ago." He says, like it's obvious, like the question was an insult. "Fucking idiot."

You smile, soft and tiny, and he just rolls his eyes back in response, holding his stolen boxers out to you. "Put them on."

Your brows knit, but you obey, taking them back from him, and stepping into them, pulling them up your legs, over the cuts on your thighs, careful not to make it sting. They settle on your hips the same way they did last afternoon.

His eyes move over you slowly, looking at you standing in his boxers and nothing else. Marked with hickeys, from him, his cum still dripping between your legs and soaking into the fabric that used to be his, and the cut he made on your skin.

He grabs you by the hips, pulling you in close, tipping your chin up, and kissing you. It's slow, deliberate. He bites at your lower lip until you whimper, then he soothes it with his tongue. His hands tighten on your hips, his fingers digging into the waistband of his own boxers on your body.

"Comfortable?" he murmurs against your mouth.

You nod, and he yanks you back onto the bed, practically throwing you back onto it. You scramble back into a sitting position, confused, and watch as he steps over to pick up your phone from the floor and brings it up to your face to unlock it.

He swipes through something, then turns the phone screen toward you and opens the camera roll app.

"These," he says, scrolling through them slowly, letting each one linger on the screen, "are a crime. Like, an actual crime. A 'the school counselor calls the police, and they show up at your classroom door' crime."

Your stomach drops, because… he wouldn't, right?

"Voyeurism." He keeps scrolling, the screen still pointed towards you. "Invasion of privacy, distribution of intimate images, if I wanted to push it, which I could, because they're on your phone and technically accessible." Still scrolling, and you took so many that he could scroll forever. "Breaking and entering the boys' locker room. Theft, because you stole my property."

You open your mouth, ready to say something in defense, but he shoots you back down with a glare. "I did take pictures of your thighs, and you can't use that against me, because it's not illegal… It's just… disturbing. But this?" He flips the phone back toward him, swiping through some, and zooming in on his frame, flipping it back toward you. "This could get you expelled. Arrested… Registered."

It doesn't make sense how he could be threatening you with this, not after everything, not after he kissed your scars and carved his initial into your thigh and fucked you as you mattered.

But… his face is unreadable as ever.

"Scara, please don't. I'll do anything, I swear, please-"

"I know you will." He sets your phone down on the nightstand. "So, show me."

You knit your brows, still frozen in the place he threw you onto the bed.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know what I mean. Isn't it obvious?" He gestures toward the pillows with a flick of his chin. "Same position as last night. Head on the pillows, legs spread. Recreate it for me, or I walk into the counselor's office first thing tomorrow morning with forty-seven reasons to ruin your life."

You know he might actually do it, as much as you want to argue and remind him that he carved his initial into your thigh with your own blade and that his record isn't clean either… You actually want to do this.

You've wanted to be seen by him, perceived by him, consumed by him. And now he's asking you to show him the most private, pathetic, desperate version of yourself.

You move to the pillows, your head settling against them, and you sink into the softness.

"Legs apart."

You let your knees fall open, slowly, your thighs separating. He climbs onto the bed, kneels between your feet, and you notice his phone is in his hand again. He grabs your knee when you instinctively try to close up.

"Keep them open."

His hand pushes your thigh back down, spreading you wider, and you watch as he takes pictures, his thumb moving against the screen.

You let it happen, just lying there, spread open while he documents you.

"Boring." He says suddenly, looking up from his phone and at you, rolling his eyes. "It's boring with the boxers in the way, you can't even see anything." He sets his phone down, reaching for the waistband, and he slides them off you.

"Use them. Rub them on yourself," he picks his phone back up, thumb finding the camera. "Against your pussy, like you did last night."

Your hand finds the fabric on your stomach. You gather it in your fist, bringing it between your legs. The second the fabric presses against your clit, you moan.

You can't help it, you're so worked up, still so sensitive from everything he's done to you that even light pressure from cotton against swollen skin sent a jolt through you. Your eyes flutter shut, and your hips roll up into your own hand, chasing the friction, and the sound that comes out of you is embarrassingly needy.

"Hah... oh god..."

"Already?" He sounds amused. He adjusts his angle, slanting his phone to the side, and open your eyes to realize that he's not just taking photos anymore, he's filming. "Keep going. And look at the camera."

You stare into it while your hand works between your legs, the fabric of his boxers sliding against your clit in slow, wet circles. It feels wrong to look at the camera instead of him, clinical, like you're performing for an audience that isn't in the room, and your eyes keep wanting to drift to his face just behind the phone.

"Camera," he corrects. "Not me."

You force your gaze back to the lens. 

"Now tell me what you think about." His voice is calm behind the phone he's using to record you masturbating. "When you do this alone. Tell me your fantasies, and I want details."

"I think about... hah... about you."

"Obviously… I want specifics."

"I think about... making a cast of your cock." The words sound insane out loud, but your hand presses harder, rubbing in tight circles, shamelessly at this point as you talk. "Like a silicone mold. I'd tie you down and make one and then I'd... hah... I'd use it. Every night. I'd attach it to my mirror and practice on it."

"Oh? You think you'd even be able to do that?" He laughs, tilting his head and adjusting the camera to a better angle. "Tell me how you'd use it if I let you tie me up."

"I'd practice sucking on it… Taking it in my throat." Your hips are rolling now, grinding into the fabric, and your voice keeps breaking around moans. "I'd want it to be p-perfect for when I... ah... when I got the real thing."

"How cute... But, you already have the real thing." He sits back infront of you, spreading his legs just slightly, you stare at his cock between his legs and start rubbing faster, eyes locked on it, "But, I won't let you touch. You've already gotten more than you should, especially in the locker room… So tell me, what else?"

"I draw your…" Your free hand fists in the sheets next to your hip, and you have to force yourself to stop looking at his dick. "I've been learning to draw your… your cock from memory. And sometimes when the sketch is done I…" You stop, face burning, because even this is too much for you to admit.

"No, you don't get to stop. Finish what you were going to say."

You stare at him, deeply at him, fingers still rubbing at your clit with the boxers as you say, "I lick the page… of your dick."

It's quiet for exactly 3 seconds, until a slow smirk appears on his face. "You sit at your desk… and you lick a pencil drawing of my cock on notebook paper." He laughs, phone shaking in his grip. "That's genuinely the most insane thing you've said tonight, and the bar was already in hell."

You don't even care if he's mocking you, making fun of you, whatever, because the next thing you say, whisper out is, "I love you." Your eyes are on him, still, not the camera. "Scara… I love you, I love you so much-"

"Camera." He says, locking in, no longer laughing.

"But I don't want to look at the camera, I want to look at you-"

"And I want you to look at the camera while you tell it what a deranged little freak you are. We don't always get what we want."

You glance down instead of up at the camera, and you did notice it before, but now, he's hard. Before was just half-soft-half-hard; now… he's painfully hard. Cock flushed and straining, like he's been trying to ignore it this entire time. Like he's been trying to maintain the detached, controlling performance of someone who isn't affected by the naked girl moaning his name into his boxers. But it's so obvious, and his body is betraying him.

You glance back up before he could tell you to look at the camera again, still rubbing the soaked fabric against yourself, whispering "I love you" between every other breath, your eyes bouncing between the camera and his face, because you can't help but look at him.

And the sight of him, hard and struggling to maintain composure while filming you, is doing things to you that his cock already did.

"I'd memorize the shape of it," you gasp, your hips stuttering against your hand. "I already have… I know every vein, every ridge, I could draw it with my eyes closed now, I could-"

"Okay, shut up about my dick for two seconds-"

"I can't… I think about it all the time, in class, at lunch, especially when I was cutting your name into my-"

"Fuck."

He drops his phone onto the mattress, still recording, but he doesn't care about that anymore. His hand wraps around his cock and strokes it once before he seems to catch himself, pulling his hand away like he touched a stove top.

"This is your fault," he says, accusingly. "You and your fucking... everything."

He's been staring at your flushed face, and your parted lips, and the way you're looking at him like he's the only thing in the universe, and it's been driving him absolutely insane.

"Fine." He grabs your free hand, the one fitting the sheets, and he pulls it toward him, wrapping your fingers around his cock, and the heat of him against your palm makes him let out a sigh, and you, a whimper. "Since you're so obsessed with it, make yourself useful. Jerk me off while you masturbate."

You multitask, rubbing in desperate sloppy circles with the boxers pressed against your clit, and your other hand on his shaft, stroking him, focusing more on making him feel good than your own arousal because even now you want to impress him.

It's hard at first, but you find a rhythm that sticks, your left hand circling, your right hand stroking, and Scaramouche's head tips back, and his eyes close for just a second before he forces them back open because he wants to watch.

"F-fuck… your hand is too soft." He mutters, and it sounds the same as someone complaining that their lobster is too buttery. His hips push into your grip, contradicting his complaint entirely. "Tighter… and twist at the- yeah… like that."

"I want to-" You moan, your thumb pressing harder against your clit through the fabric, and your hand stutters on him. "I want to worship it every day, I want to wake you up with my mouth on it, I want to-"

"You're going to make me cum if you keep talking like that, and I'm trying to-" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching, and you feel him throb in your hand, heavy and pulsing. He grabs the phone from the mattress with his free hand, points it back at you, camera angled to capture your face and his cock in your fist and the soaked boxers between your legs, and his voice comes out strained. "Look at the camera. Say what you are."

"I'm… I'm yours."

"More specific."

"I'm your obsessive, fucked up, devoted little-" Your orgasm hits you mid-sentence. Your back arches, your hand clenches on his cock, your thighs snap together around the bunched fabric, and you cry out his name, your whole body locking up.

"Shit- don't stop your hand, don't you dare- keep stroking-"

Your brain is white noise, and your muscles are spasming, but you keep your hand moving, jerking him off through your own orgasm, sloppy and arrhythmic, and he groans, a sound ripped from somewhere deep, and you feel him pulse in your grip.

He cums on the boxers. Hot and thick, ropes of it striping across the black fabric bunched between your legs, across your fingers, dripping down your knuckles. He shudders through it, his hips stuttering into your fist, and the phone nearly drops from his hand again, but he holds on, recording the aftermath, the mess of his cum on his own boxers pressed against your cunt.

Your hand is coated in his cum, and you bring your fingers to your mouth without being told.

You lick them clean, one by one, slow, tasting him, your tongue curling around each finger while you look directly at the camera because you know he's still recording and you want him to have this. You want him to watch this at 3 AM when he can't sleep and think about you.

Then the boxers are next to 'clean'. They're just a complete biohazard of devotion. You bring the fabric to your mouth and drag your tongue across it. Licking his cum off the cotton.

You glance up from the fabric, and he's staring at you. The phone is still recording, but his hand has gone slack at his side, the camera pointed at the ceiling. His lips are parted. His eyes are wide, wider than you've seen them all night, and there's something on his face that looks almost like awe.

It lasts half a second. Then his jaw tightens, and his expression slides back into bored control like a mask being tugged into place, but you saw it. You saw it before he could hide it, and you store it away in the same place you keep every stolen scrap of him: the mental vault that no amount of therapy will ever empty.

He stops recording, locks his phone, and tosses it aside without breaking eye contact with you.

"You're disgusting," he says.

You smile weakly, almost tired, even though you don't want to be with his cum still on your tongue. "Thank you."

He scoots closer to you, leaning in to press his lips against yours. It's soft, especially when his hand comes up to cup your face. You relax into it, lying back against the pillows. He kisses you like he's saying thank you, open-mouthed, but not messy, just gentle. "You tired?" He murmurs as he breaks away from the kiss, his lips still close to yours.

"Mmm… a little." You murmur back, with a tiny nod, and he takes that as a full answer as he presses on, his last kiss onto your lips before pulling back, climbing off the bed. You don't look up to watch him move around, you know he won't leave, that he isn't going to yet, and you're just too exhausted to lean up anyway.

When he comes back to the head of your bed, he's wearing boxers, not the ones you stole, obviously, the ones he came in. He's holding a warm washcloth, antiseptic, gauze, and bandage tape.

Your eyes go wide, realizing, connecting what all those things imply to the very person you never thought would be capable of aftercare.

"Don't look at me like that." He sits on the edge of the bed, setting everything on the nightstand, and his voice is flat, but his hands are careful as he positions himself next to your thigh. "You can't just leave open cuts unattended. That's how shit gets infected."

The cuts he made. S + your initial, carved into your thigh, the blood long since dried into dark lines against your skin. The area around it is red, irritated, angry looking. He hurt you, and now he's...

He's cleaning it.

He presses a few kisses to the skin around the cuts first. Soft, barely-there presses of his lips, his mouth tracing the edge of the S he carved, the + sign, your initial. Like he's admiring his own handwriting before tending to it.

"This is going to sting," he says, and he doesn't wait for you to prepare yourself before pressing the antiseptic-soaked gauze to the wound.

You hiss, your thigh jerking, but his free hand holds your leg still with a firm grip on your knee. The sting is sharp, and he works methodically, cleaning each letter, each line, dabbing away dried blood.

He didn't need to do this.

He could have pulled out, gotten dressed, walked out, come back tomorrow when he wanted to fuck again, and never once thought about whether the cuts on your thigh were healing clean.

"There." He sits back, examines his work, and seems satisfied. "Change it in the morning. And stop putting random shit on open wounds, your aftercare setup is embarrassing."

"I have antiseptic-"

"You have cheap, shitty antiseptics and cotton balls. That's not aftercare, that's a cry for help." He gathers the supplies and sets them on your nightstand in a neat row. "I'll buy you real shit tomorrow."

Tomorrow. He said tomorrow, which means he's planning on a tomorrow, which means-

He grabs his shirt from the floor. The black band tee, the one he peeled off hours ago when your world was still making sense. He balls it up and throws it at your face.

"Put that on."

It hits you in the nose. You pull it down, look at it, look at him. "You want me to wear your shirt?"

"You wore my boxers all day without asking. At least this time I'm giving you permission."

You pull it over your head so fast you nearly rip the collar. It's huge on you, falling past your thighs, the hem brushing the fresh bandage on your left leg. It smells like him. Everything smells like him now: your sheets, your pillows, your skin, and you press your nose into the fabric at the shoulder and inhale until your lungs ache.

He watches you do it without comment.

"Are you staying?" you ask, and your voice is small, but not the scared kind of small from earlier. The kind of small that comes from wanting something so badly you're afraid to want it at full volume.

He looks at you like you're an idiot, just like last time. "Do you want me to?"

You nod so fast your neck hurts, smiling stupidly, and he doesn't smile back at you, but something in his jaw… relaxes. He climbs into your bed, settles against the pillows, one arm behind his head, and waits.

You go to him without prompting, tucking yourself against his chest like you were made to fit there, your cheek pressed into his collarbone. His arm comes down from behind his head and drapes across your back, and you can feel his heartbeat under your ear. It's faster than it should be for someone lying still.

"I can't believe this is real," you murmur against his skin.

"It's real."

"I can't believe you're in my bed."

"I'm in your bed."

"I can't believe you-"

"Go to sleep." He says like a quiet directive as his fingers trace an absent pattern on your spine through the fabric of his shirt.

You lie there in the silence, wrapped in his clothes and his cologne and the reality that you are lying in your pink bedroom with Scaramouche's heartbeat under your ear and his cum still sticky between your thighs and his initials carved into your skin next to the ones you carved yourself.

This is real.

The first file arrived on a Tuesday.

Nobody noticed.

That, in hindsight, was perhaps the most unsettling part.

Not the impossible contents. Not the prediction that would later come true. Not the panic that would eventually spread through Fontaine's justice system.

No.

The frightening thing was how ordinary it looked.

It sat among dozens of other case reports on an archivist's desk. Stamped. Signed. Properly formatted. Filed exactly where it belonged.

Case Number 47291.

Petty theft.

Defendant convicted.

Sentence carried out.

The matter should have ended there.

Except the crime had not happened yet.

The defendant would not commit the theft until three days later.

By the time someone noticed the discrepancy, the case had already been archived.

Most assumed it was a clerical mistake.

Fontaine processed thousands of legal documents every week. Errors happened.

The second file arrived shortly after.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

The mistakes became harder to ignore.

Each document detailed crimes that had not yet occurred.

Every suspect existed.

Every witness was real.

Every location matched.

And every prediction came true.

Exactly.

Word spread quietly among court officials.

Then quiet became urgent.

Urgency became panic.

The Court of Fontaine prided itself on certainty.

Evidence.

Logic.

Reason.

The truth could always be found if one followed the facts.

At least, that was what people liked to believe.

Unfortunately, facts were becoming increasingly difficult to explain.

Which was how the investigation landed on your desk.

You still remember the day the assignment arrived.

The stack of files had been dropped onto your workspace with enough force to shake your inkwell.

Thirty-seven cases.

Thirty-seven impossible documents.

And a single note attached to the top.

“Investigate sources immediately.”

You'd spent years working as an investigator for Fontaine's legal system.

Missing persons.

Fraud.

Conspiracies.

Murders.

Kidnappings.

Sometimes even worse.

You'd built a reputation for solving cases other people considered impossible.

You trusted evidence.

You trusted witnesses.

You trusted the simple belief that every mystery had an answer.

The files challenged all three.

No ink could be traced.

No author could be identified.

No witness remembered creating them.

The paper itself appeared entirely ordinary.

You examined every page personally.

Nothing.

No hidden messages.

No coded markings.

No clues.

Only accurate predictions.

One after another.

You hated that.

Not because it frightened you.

Because it didn't make sense.

And anything that didn't make sense demanded investigation.

So you began where any detective would.

You interviewed suspects.

You questioned clerks.

You reviewed security reports.

You searched archives.

Weeks passed.

Then months.

More and more files kept appearing.

The answers did not.

The deeper you dug, the stranger the pattern became.

The documents never predicted insignificant events.

They focused on heavily violent crimes.

Murders.

Disappearances.

Domestic abuse.

Moments where lives changed forever.

Almost as if something—or even someone—was documenting history before it happened.

You were still trying to prove that theory wrong when the seventh file arrived.

The moment it appeared, every official involved in the investigation was summoned.

The folder was sealed.

Unmarked.

No origin.

No record of delivery.

Exactly like the others.

You were present when it was opened.

The room felt unnaturally quiet.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody moved.

A senior archivist broke the seal.

Inside was a single page.

No crime.

No suspect.

No witness statements.

Just a name.

Your name.

For several seconds, you simply stared.

You were convinced you were reading it incorrectly.

You weren't.

Beneath your name sat a date.

Six months from today.

And beneath the date, written in flawless official script:

DECEASED.

CAUSE: BLUNT FORCE HEAD TRAUMA.

MECHANISM: CEREBRAL CONTUSION.

MANNER: UNDETERMINED, STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION.

The room remained silent.

Someone dropped a pen.

Another official quietly excused themselves and never returned.

You couldn't blame them. You don't know how you haven't left the room yet. You've just heard about your own death, months before it has even happened.

For the first time since the investigation began, you found yourself struggling to breathe.

Not because you believed it.

Because you didn't.

You refused to.

A document could not decide whether you lived or died.

A piece of paper could not determine your fate.

There had to be an explanation.

A culprit.

A source.

A reason.

And even if there wasn't—

You intended to find one anyway.

The file was removed from public record before sunrise.

By noon, copies had reached the highest levels of Fontaine's justice system.

By evening, one final copy had been delivered far beneath the nation's waters.

To the Fortress of Meropide.

Its administrator read the report in silence.

Read it a second time.

Then a third.

When he finally set the page down, his expression had become unusually serious.

A relatively rare thing for Wriothesley.

The report contained hundreds of names.

Thousands, perhaps.

Yet only one seemed to concern him.

Yours.

Anyone would be able to recognize the name of a helpful investigator. Especially one who works on so many cases. That's besides the point, to Wriothesley, though.

What sticks out is your name in such an extreme case.

Because if the court truly knew the future—

Then someone needed to stop it before yours arrived.

final note: huge huge huge thanks to @opalescentangels once again for the INSANE amount of work she has helped with on this work! this went from an outline to a draft in about 48 hours thanks to her. anyways, i really hope this is an enjoyable read for those who are reading this! lots of work has been put into it! AND ANOTHER HUGE THANKS TO @lonelykrow FOR BETA-READING!

being a high-ranking cog in the fatui's machine had its pros and cons. the pros being that you get a lot of money and authority; the con was that, once in a while, you get bullshit missions like this.

seriously, who thought it was a good idea to send a fatui captain to mondstadt where she personally helped il dottore of the harbingers conduct his experiments on the townspeople, resulting in casualties, and became the target of ire from the whole nation?

the tsaritsa, apparently.

it's even worse now that mondstadt's grandmaster is back and still kicking.

you honestly never thought you'd see the man again after parting ways all those years ago.

you had prayed to every deity there is that you'd be out of here by the time he came back, but it seems the gods hated you enough to decide that – yes, let's bring back your ex-lover who you were madly in love with but ran away from because of persistent guilt and insecurity. great.

you had genuinely considered leaving mondstadt.

like reaaally thought about it the moment you heard the news.

but that would just put a target on your back, and given that you had three months left before the mission finished and you'd be transferred back to snezhnaya, you didn't think it was worth the hassle.

so you decided to swallow your worries and do your best to fake a facade of nonchalance.

and hell, you were doing a pretty amazing job.

until varka himself walked up to you, with a lopsided grin and your favorite beverage in hand. your gut was telling you to run and hole yourself up in your office at that moment.

"hey! lookin' gorgeous as ever,"

the grandmaster of mondstadt, being buddy-buddy with a high-ranking fatui executive?

preposterous.

but at the same time. . . not really. some already knew of your history with him. they were there when you two laughed with your arms linked together, strolling through the streets with obvious hearts in both of your eyes.

luckily, most have already forgotten about you.

you shiver just remembering those old memories of your shameful youth.

"how've you been?"

he acts as if everything is perfectly normal, as though your parting words hadn’t broken something in him when you walked away.

varka doesn't even glance at the drink he places in front of you, behaving as if this is just another ordinary day from back when you were together – when he'd buy you a drink after knightly duties and ramble on about his day while the two of you shared a warm meal.

you look at the drink in front of you, "fine. mostly."

'he remembered, of course he would.'

you ignore the heat creeping up your chest.

varka lingers beside you, smile twitching, like he wants to say something else, but he decides against it and sits across from you instead.

the wood creaks when he plops down, adjusting himself until he finds some semblance of comfort. varka has always been too big for things; too broad, too tall, limbs hanging awkwardly past the edges like the chair was never meant to hold someone like him.

no matter how uncomfortable, he doesn't give it much thought. varka lifts his mug to his lips, taking a few small gulps, clearly trying to savor his time with you.

usually, he'd just guzzle it down in one go.

you stare at the people and stalls beside you, trying your best not to look at him. initiating eye-contact with him would mean an automatic loss, you knew this from experience.

"not gonna drink?" varka asks, taking another long sip of his own beverage. likely beer or dandelion wine again.

you hum, not even bothering to look at him properly when you answer.

"no, i'm alright."

he laughs, though it comes out stiff and forced. it doesn’t sound like him, and that bothers you more than you’d admit.

is he forcing himself to talk to you out of politeness? maybe. he’s always been that sort of man — the kind who can’t just walk away from people. that’s how rosaria ended up in his orbit. it’s how you did too, whether you wanted to or not.

"you sure? it's your favorite. you really gonna waste a good drink on a nice evening like this?

your reply is icier than dragonspine's mountain peak, "my tastes have changed over the years. it's not something i'd enjoy drinking now."

it's a jab at him. an obvious 'go away, you don't know me anymore. we aren't close like that'— just said in a more roundabout way.

varka is a gentleman, a knight through and through. he wouldn't bother a lady who clearly doesn't want his company.

but this isn't just any lady.

it's his lady.

— or at least, you used to be.

he knows you better than the back of his hand. knows that if he leaves just like that then it's truly over. you'd find some way to leave mondstadt as soon as possible, throw yourself into danger outside the city gates just to never look at his face again.

for as long as he'd known you, you've always had this bad habit of running away from problems. deep emotions never came easy to you, so you never knew how to handle it like how people nornally do.

varka would be a fool to not notice. and, really, he'd always been a fool for you, willing to stay ignorant so long as you'd be there to wrap him around your finger.

but you left him in that cold winter all alone without a jacket, didn't even bother to look back while you continued on with live your life.

as if varka was nothing but a passing memory in your life, something you can easily walk away from.

his unfair, traitorous, and peppery beloved.

there he was in nod-krai, tracing your eyes among the stars, sighing like a mournful widow while he downed another cheap imitation of his homeland's liquor — and you never even bothered to write back.

he'd send you letters, anytime he could, talking about the mundane and not-so-mundane. there was probably a few very private information in there that he shouldn't have told to a fatui, lucky (or unlucky) for him, you didn't read any of them.

three long years.

not a single letter back.

three long years, of letters consistently sent to your home address in mondstadt.

three long years, where he hasn't seen or even heard from you.

three long years, without closure or explanation as to why you abruptly ended the relationship.

now that he can finally see you in the flesh, he feels relieved, it's as if the crushing weight on his shoulders had finally dissipated.

you're alive. safe and sound.

he was so worried back then, thinking you got yourself into trouble because you wouldn't write back. logically, he should have known you wouldn't answer because of, well, the break-up but those sort of things were irrelevant.

you two were close friends after all, even before the romance and late-night escapades. if you found him bothersome, you would have sent even a small piece of paper saying: "fuck off, varka." because you have done that before, and he kept that note on him ever since.

through the lonely hours of his expedition, he’d find himself staring at that scrap of paper again and again. it told him to fuck off. nothing more. nothing kinder. but it was written in your hand and somehow, that was enough for him to keep it.

maybe varka really did have a few loose screws. or maybe it's just when you're involved.

rather than write reports about the expedition, varka found himself asking jean if she'd seen you recently, asking how you were doing, and if you said anything about him. he found out late that you've completely left mondstadt, sold your old home, and went somewhere without anyone knowing.

typical you, running away again.

he can tell from the way your lips purse a bit before you smooth out your expression, the way you fake indifference by biting on the inside of your cheek. and he sees how your fingers twitch whenever he even slightly moves in his seat.

you're alert. very alert, and very much ready to run.

varka can't have that, not after so long. you'd dumped him right before his expedition, made him nearly lose his mind right after.

but for the sake of his people, he steeled his resolve and pushed through the heartbreak. he threw himself into the battlefield with a heavy heart and crawled out with it.

under the moonlight, varka dreamed of many things:

his home,

his family,

his fallen comrades,

and most of all – you.

he's dreamed of you so many times that varka never forgot how you looked despite the years. he calls it photographic memory, but it's really just delusions and grief.

coming home to mondstadt felt like a dream back then too. he'd spent hours mulling over his life and decisions, staring at the campfire with a look of melancholy which he'd promptly replace with a carefree grin once his soldiers came to check up on him.

but he'd done it. he came back safely, into the arms of his family and his people.

when he first spotted you in the crowd — that same eternal frown carved into your face, that same couldn’t-care-less attitude wrapped around you like armor — his body started moving before he even realized it.

like something inside him had already decided where he belonged.

he wanted to reach for you. to run his fingers through your hair, to pull you close and kiss you until you were breathless and angry and real again.

his chest had ached sharply, ribs pressing tight around a heart that suddenly beat too fast, too hard.

but you weren’t looking at him.

you were busy talking to someone else, scowling like everyone had personally offended you.

he could already imagine the sound of your voice — sharp, impatient — and the quiet click of your tongue that always followed.

you were just as beautiful as the day he lost you.

time seemed to treat you better than him. in fact, he'd say you aged finer than the best dandelion wine dawn winery could ever produce.

which, coming from him, was a big compliment.

suddenly varka felt a little insecure about his growing stubble and unkempt hair. he'd turned around to hide his face, a little shameful of his rugged appearance but kept his posture straight for the others who surrounded him, congratulating his return.

back then, you used to take care of that for him. tidying him up before he went to work. your gentle hands would brush against his cheek while you carefully slid the razor downward.

swipe.

and the stubble would come off, leaving a foamy residue on the razor.

you'd wipe the foam off his face with a softness reserved for him only, fingers lingering for a few more seconds necessary.

it had become his favorite time of the month – whenever you decided his beard had become too much of an obstacle to your kisses and promptly respond in kind with a pout and a threat to shave it off by noon.

but his veins turned ice-cold when he saw you in that uniform, the familiar fatui symbol on your jacket and the other fatui soldiers beside you.

varka thought you'd left it for good. you promised him that, for as long as you loved him, you'd never go back to the fatui. dottore had taken so much from mondstadt that it made you feel disgusted whenever you talked about your old occupation.

he had to confirm it for himself – that you didn't love him anymore, that what you two had was truly gone forever. maybe then he'd sleep a little easier instead of tossing and turning, thinking about what he did wrong and the things he could've done to salvage it.

"never thought you'd go back to your old job though. kinda weird seein' you in that coat after so long,"

he chuckles, gaze scanning you from head to toe.

"'doesn't suit someone as sweet as you."

your head automatically translates his words: so is it really over? no take backs?

it goes without saying that varka missed you —dearly, if he may add. if you didn't seem so annoyed, he would've already jumped across the table to embrace you in his arms.

"it's. . . " you trail off, unsure of how to answer. you wanted to say 'yeah, so what', but the words died in your throat once you finally took a proper look at the man in front of you.

since when had varka looked so. . . worn down?

it's pretty obvious he tried to clean himself up to the best of his abilities. he's (kind of) cleanly shaven, and his hair no longer resembled the bird's nest it did during his arrival. his coat is freshly cleaned too, leather polished to perfection, and the wolf fur sewn into it was brushed and unmatted.

the icy blue irises that resembled snezhnaya's famed ice lakes — an enchanting gradient that darkened whenever he's focused.

now they've turned into a dull and murky ocean; you could hardly see his pupils.

varka looked as handsome as ever, even when consumed by exhaustion. muscles more toned, new scars lining up beside old ones, wrinkles now a tad more noticeable than all those years ago.

this is why you didn't want to look at him.

you're already losing, feeling your resolve crumble to pieces. although you managed to salvage your expression, it felt like your heart was going to leap from your chest.

you decided that staying was too dangerous.

"sorry, i have to go." you stand up abruptly, almost tipping your chair over in the process.

varka panics, fumbling towards you, he manages to catch your hands by lunging on top of the table like an idiot, "stop running, please."

you flinch at his accusation, "i'm not, i simply have work to do. something a slacker like you would never understand."

varka chuckles, but the way his grip tightens says a lot, "i know, i know. . . 'm sorry for being allergic to paperwork,"

he finally stands properly, dusting his front while still holding onto your wrist, "but jean's given me a week or two to 'acclimate' back into mondstadt. so how 'bout we make use of it to finally have an actual conversation?"

varka knows if you wanted to rip his hand off yours, you definitely could. and he'd let you, of course, he'll try again tomorrow if that's what it takes.

but you dont. you stand rooted on the spot, glancing at varka with a look of shame. people are starting to stare, wondering what's going on with their troublesome grandmaster again but quickly avert their eyes when they realize the scary fatui captain was also there.

"varka, i. . ." your head lowers in embarassment, face burning hot.

the knight of boreas, patient as ever, leans closer while he waits for you to continue. he wants to personally hear it, every small whisper you could muster.

he doesn't need apologies, varka knows he's not entitled to such things. he can already feel himself bristle at the mention of 'varka' on your lips, missing the way you'd call out his name.

"can we do this another time?"

it shatters whatever expectation he had a few seconds ago.

varka sighs, low and trembling. his shoulders sag a little when he lets go.

for a moment you think that’s it.

that he'll step aside like the gentleman he is and let you disappear into the crowd like you always do. he knows how much you hate conforntations, he practically had to wrangle every small 'i love you's' from you back then, and he'd done them easily.

you’re already halfway turned when he speaks again.

"another time," he repeats slowly.

you pause.

". . . yeah."

he scratches the back of his neck, eyes drifting somewhere over your shoulder like he's carefully choosing his words – a rare thing for him to do.

"alright, yeah, got it. . ."

that simple agreement makes your stomach twist.

varka has never been the type to push you into corners. even back then, when you two fought, he would give you space to breathe. space to think. space to come back on your own terms.

because for him, loving things means setting them free. truly a man of his home, to bring mondstadt's teachings even in his love life.

you hated him for it sometimes.

because it meant he trusted you to return and this time. . . you weren't sure you would.

"i'll wait," he says, lightly as if it might harm you if he spoke even an octave higher.

your brow furrows. "for what?"

he flashes you a grin that feels far too familiar, warm and radiant as the morning sun.

"for that 'another time.'"

you stare at him, incredulous. the audacity of this man never fails to leave you shocked, no matter how many times you've seen it for yourself.

". . . are you serious?"

"totally serious, swore it on barbatos just now," he admits easily.

a small gust of wind passes the two of you, as if the wind itself was answering to his oath. it carries along the smell of wine, pastry, and home – mondstadt, whether you liked it or not, has always been home.

varka had been here, in this windy city, after all.

the smile softens, turning into something more intimate, "i'm always willing to wait for you, i think you know that already."

of course he is.

varka has always been annoyingly patient when it comes to you.

you click your tongue and pull your hand away fully, forcing a disgusted expression on your face, hoping it would hurt him enough to back off.

"well, don't wait too long. you might die of old age, grandmaster."

"worth the risk." he laughs, the sound rumbling from his chest and echoing into yours. it makes your stomach twist, heart aching from nostalgia.

you shoot him a glare before turning away again, this time actually leaving.

you don't look back, you didn't have to.

you can feel his eyes on your back the entire way down the street.

the rumors start the same day.

mondstadt is terrible at keeping quiet about anything, especially when it involves their beloved grandmaster.

you've known these people for years, back when you were still naively in-love and looked at the world through rose-tinted glasses. you made an effort before; you wanted to be more sociable like varka but people found it obvious how much you hated being bothered. so in the end, you gave up.

they say you two were an opposites attract sort of couple, and you had to agree. many told you it felt like an overexcited large dog was walking with a stoic black cat whenever the two of you strolled the streets together.

on your way to the market, you notice the stares first, then the whispers.

a pair of knights stop talking when you walk past, trying to sneakily glance at you.

one of the merchants near the plaza practically leans over his stall trying to listen whenever you pass by.

by the third day, someone had finally gained the audacity to ask you directly.

"so is it true?"

you pause mid-step, slowly turning towards a brown-haired bard leaning against the fountain. he had a face that screamed troublesome and nosy, lips that curled like it's ready to spread the next big scandal at some tavern.

a typical gossipmonger.

". . . what is?"

the bard grins even wider.

"that the grandmaster's been sniffin' around you again."

your eye twitches, "he's not a dog."

"debatable," the bard shrugs.

with the way varka acts, it definitely is.

you consider stabbing him, instead you settle for a deadpan stare, "mind your business, can't you see i'm a fatui diplomat?"

"hey, i'm just curious!" he raises his hands defensively. "whole city's talking about it."

of course they are.

mondstadt thrives on gossip like plants thrive on sunlight. also the people here genuinely have nothing better to do.

unlike in liyue where they talk about market values and recent price changes first before gossip or sumerians who'd rather debate and discuss academic papers – mondstadt had been too quiet and peaceful.

which means, even something as trivial like the grandmaster of mondstadt chasing after someone is suddenly important news.

"people say you broke his heart," the bard continues, strumming his lyre.

you freeze, lips twitching down to an even deeper frown. great, your day was ruined by some nobody and now you've become the talk of town.

". . . people assume a lot of things."

"yeah," he hums thoughtfully.

"but they also say the poor grandmaster's been lookin' like a kicked puppy every time you walk away."

you scoff and turn on your heel, "then he should stop following me."

the bard laughs behind you, lazily waving at you.

"oh, he definitely won't."

unfortunately, the bard is was correct. maybe he was also secretly prophet of some sort.

as expected, varka does not stop.

he doesn't corner you again, he doesn't grab your arm, nor does he demand answers. instead, he simply. . . appears.

sometimes he's leaning against a wall when you're fresh out of a meeting, that same scowl prominent on your face.

sometimes he's chatting with the tavern owner when you step inside, and he'd immediately brighten the moment he sees you.

once you nearly ran straight into him outside the city gates and he just blinks down at you like it's the most natural thing in the world.

just like everyone else in mondstadt, of course he'd have nothing better to do too. what were you expecting? for him to leave you alone? yeah right.

it's wishful thinking at best.

people here would latch onto anything interesting, trying to alleviate the boredom of the nation's quiet evenings.

and mondstadt had always been a city that thrives on three things: wind, wine, and gossip.

lately, however, the wine industry has been facing stiff competition.

because nothing – absolutely nothing – has been more entertaining than watching their beloved grandmaster try to court this terrifying fatui captain who was clearly ready to punch him in the face.

the rumors had started small as they always do, from the quiet corners of mondstadt's walls where knights had nothing better to do but talk.

and talk they did.

someone from the tavern swears they saw varka buying two drinks at the bar.

which would be normal, no one would be surprised by his large appetite when it came to alcohol. he is considered mondstadt's biggest alcoholic, next to a certain green bard.

except he doesn't usually sit across from a fatui captain who looks like she'd rather jump off stormterror's lair than share a table with him.

the bartender watches the whole thing unfold, completely absorbed to the point he forgot he had customers he should be serving.

varka's smiling.

you looking like you’re planning his funeral.

he leans over to charles and whispers, "five thousand mora says they used to date."

charles snorts.

"five thousand says they're still dating."

by the next day, the story has evolved.

a fruit vendor insists she saw the grandmaster chase you halfway across the plaza after you tried to leave, it made for quite a dramatic scene. straight out of fontaine's famous plays.

a knight swears varka vaulted over a merchant stall to catch up. he was laughing during it too, all while you tried to stop him from becoming the knight's embarassment.

"that man is pushing forty and still jumping over tables for romance," someone more sensible comments with a shake of their head.

"how inspiring."

"you mean concerning?"

inside the tavern, the knights are very invested. it is their grandmaster after all, why wouldn't they be a little nosy about it? in fact, it was the only thing they've been chatting about as of lately.

a small crowd has gathered around one of the tables.

rosaria sits nearby, pretending not to listen while absolutely listening. she remembers you well, and reckons that others might soon.

jean pinches the bridge of her nose, already looking more exhausted than usual. although she never planned on going out, diluc and the others had insisted.

meanwhile kaeya looks like he's having the time of his life.

"i'm telling you," one knight says, slamming his mug down, "the grandmaster is down catastrophic."

"define catastrophic." one asks, clearly drunk off their knockers.

the man gulps down his ale before sporting a serious expression, "he smiled at her while she insulted him."

another knight gasps, eyes blown wide.

"not the smile."

"the soft one."

"oh my barbatos. . ."

someone whistles.

kaeya leans back in his chair, nursing a cup of wine in his hands, "ah, young love."

jean looks baffled. "they're both over thirty."

"exactly, vice-grandmaster."

it gets worse when people realize something else.

the fatui captain?

she's the same woman who used to walk around mondstadt with varka years ago. back when he was still a young hot-headed knight who chased after battle and glory.

arms linked like you two would never part ways, laughing as if there's no tomorrow, the one who suddenly disappeared without a word.

suddenly, the entire city remembers.

"wait."

a florist nearly drops her bouquet.

"they're exes?!"

instantaneously, scenes of varka's annoying giggling everytime you two were together, and the way you'd smile shyly whenever he kissed you on the cheek or held you close by the waist had all came back in the citizen's memories.

now the gossip becomes unstoppable.

people began to quietly placing bets: how long until they reconcile?

three days.

a week.

someone claims they'll be married by windblume.

someone else says the fatui captain will stab him first.

mondstadt had become a mess, watching over the developing romance with a hawk's eye. some even tried to secretly help by mentioning your location to varka every now and then.

meanwhile, you are completely unaware of this massive development in mondstadt's social network.

your soldiers are too scared to say anything to you in fear of your anger and other people sure as hell won't say it to your face.

rosaria, on the other hand, finds the whole thing too interesting so she keeps quiet about it too, even if you two talk regularly.

so you've been completely left in the dark.

mostly because you're too busy trying to avoid the giant knight who keeps appearing everywhere.

the market.

the plaza.

the tavern, all of them.

once even outside your lodging.

completely coincidental, or so he says.

"'didn't think i'd find you here," varka says cheerfully when you walk out the door and nearly run into him.

you stare at him, "are you stalking me."

"nope."

he gestures vaguely, "i live here."

you narrow your eyes, ". . . this is the fatui's personal lodging."

"yeah well,"

he shrugs, grinning, "i got lost on the way."

'you have lived in mondstadt all your life, you got to be kidding me.' is what you shout in your head, but all that comes out of your mouth is: "oh, okay."

and unfortunately, everyone sees this interaction.

everyone.

a group of merchants nearby lean toward each other immediately, while the knights snicker in amusement.

"that's them."

"oh archons. . .

"look at how awkward they are."

none of these bother varka. if anything, he fuels their gossips with stories of his own. nothing too personal, just short anecdotes of his time with you.

like that time you two fought a dozen ruin guards together,

or that one evening where he caught you asleep on the couch with razor safely tucked in your arms,

ah, there was also a time when you would take rosaria out for shopping, spending his mora like it's dirt.

he's written so many letters about it, reminiscing the past like the lovesick fool that he is.

you hate to admit but you've always kept those pesky things – varka's letters, that is. though you never had the heart to open a single one.

it's mainly due cowardice.

on nights where you felt especially vulnerable, you'd take one out just to feel it on your palm, like it could solve all your problems. like it could alleviate your guilt. like it could bring crepus back.

you hated yourself ever since that incident with il dottore.

guilt had eaten you from inside out, turned you into someone unrecognizable. you avoided diluc religiously during your time in mondstadt, slipping away whenever he saw you. if you didn't, you might’ve just broken down in front of him.

kaeya was much harder to avoid, the cavalry captain was practically everywhere. so you just ignored him everytime he tried talking to you, or answered with quipped sentences.

indirectly, you contributed to crepus' death. killed the father of two wonderful sons. killed a man who was loved by many.

you helped raise those boys. crepus trusted you with them, even after he knew your occupation. acted likr you wouldn't hurt a fly.

a young fatui stationed in mondstadt, awaiting orders from a harbinger. that's who you were.

you joined for the money, the authority, glory, power. to be larger than what you really were.

the ragnivindrs welcomed you into their home, served you food, and gave you a room.

and yet you. . .

in the end, your conscience caught up to you. the blood on your hands were too red, reminiscint of his hair.

the others never blamed you for it, especially varka.

so you did it for them. you had loathed yourself to the point of near-death. not that you ever told varka about that specific incident, it would break him.

the cliff was especially windy that night.

you only backed out because of that weird bard who was taking a stroll at that time. venti, he was just varka's drinking companion to you back then, before you learned of his true identity as the anemo archon.

to think barbatos themselves would stop you, at least he didn't say anything to anyone. the bard respectfully kept his mouth shut, and you can appreciate that.

during his three year expedition, varka had sent a total of seventy-two letters, some with several pages based on how thick the envelope was, others that probably barely had three sentences.

you knew that because you counted every single one, like a fool.

they were kept neatly inside a small wooden box tucked beneath the false bottom of your luggage – a stupid hiding place, really, considering you checked it far too often for it to mean anything.

the envelopes had long since lost their crispness. the edges softened from being handled too much, the ink on some of the older ones slightly faded.

snezhnayan winters were unforgiving to paper.

sometimes you wondered if he wrote them while drunk.

sometimes you wondered if he stopped writing when he realized you weren’t answering but the dates on the envelopes told you otherwise.

two weeks. they always arrived every two weeks, sometimes more when he's in a particularly tough spot.

even when you moved away from mondstadt, even when you changed addresses, even when you made it very clear that whatever you had with him was dead and buried.

varka still wrote, persistenntly like the lack of response didn't bother him.

you never opened a single one.

not the first. not the seventy-second.

stared at it, sure but never more than that.

because opening even one meant acknowledging that he still existed in your life somehow, and that was too risky and dangerous.

dangerous for him.

dangerous for you.

dangerous for the fragile excuse you called moving on.

so the letters would stay sealed.

like nasty wounds you refused to clean because you were convinced you deserved to hurt for it.

the cathedral bell rings somewhere behind you.

you blink and mondstadt rushes back into focus around you — merchants shouting prices, the scent of apples and bread drifting through the air, the steady murmur of civilians who have no idea their city once nearly destroyed you.

your hand is still resting against a crate of fruit.

you don’t remember walking here.

“— hearin' me?"

varka’s voice again, closer this time.

you glance sideways.

he’s standing beside you, arms loosely crossed, watching you with an expression that’s softer than usual. not teasing. not amused.

just observing, taking you in with a reverent look on his face. it's as if he's making up for the times he couldn't see you, and this time he's burning your image in his memory.

you hate that look a lot, makes you remember the past too clearly.

“you zoned out,” he says casually, in that usual raspy tone of his. “been doing that a lot lately.”

you scoff lightly, turning away from the stall, “i always did that.”

“yeah,” he agrees easily.

then, after a moment, “not this bad though.”

you don’t respond.

instead, you pick up an granny smith apple, inspecting it like it’s the most fascinating object in the world.

anything to avoid looking at him.

anything to avoid the weight of that quiet attention.

varka doesn’t push, he never really did.

instead he glances at the apple in your hand, then back at you, "you used to hate green apples."

your eyebrow twitches. ". . . tastes change.”

“hm,” he doesn’t argue, just hums thoughtfully like he’s filing that information somewhere in his head.

the silence stretches between you two again – comfortable for him, agonizing for you.

then —

“you really never read them?”

the question lands gently this time. no accusations or bitterness.

just quiet curiosity, as if he’s asking about something trivial — the weather, perhaps — and not about the years he spent writing to someone who never answered, let alone read those writings.

you feel something tighten in your chest.

". . . no.”

you don’t look at him when you say it and for a moment, varka doesn’t respond.

he just takes it in.

the way a man might take a punch – steady, breathing through it, deciding what to do with the feeling afterward. doesn't mean the sting isn't there though.

“ah,” he says after a second.

no disappointment dripping from his voice, just quiet understanding.

you finally glance at him.

he's leaning against the empty stall with that sheepish smile you remember too well, arms crossed and shoulders light.

“well,” he continues, shrugging lightly, “that explains why none of my jokes landed.” he's laughing lightly, eyes crinkled like crescents.

you stare at him.

". . . you wrote jokes in those letters?”

“course i did,” he replies offhandedly. “can’t send seventy-two letters without at least trying to be entertaining,"

seventy-two.

"wouldn't want you to get bored and drop them halfway through. . . though i suppose that didn't really matter since you never read them."

he says it so casually.

like he didn’t just confirm that he kept count too.

you look away again, focusing back on the apple in your hand.

“. . . i really can't with you."

“yeah,” he agrees without hesitation.

then he grins, a little crooked.

“i was pretty desperate.” he admits, looking directly at you.

you almost drop the apple, a small but traitorous churning in your stomach – something dangerously close to elation.

varka laughs quietly when he notices.

not loud enough to draw attention, but warm enough that it sends a strange ache through your chest.

"don’t look so shocked,” he adds. “i’ve never been subtle.”

that part, unfortunately, is true.

subtlety was never varka’s strength.

back then he was the type to sling an arm over your shoulders in public, laugh too loud at your dry remarks, and proudly tell anyone who would listen that the scariest woman in mondstadt was his.

and somehow. . .

that hasn’t changed.

he leans slightly against the stall now, giving you space instead of crowding you, as if he's scared you'll retreat off somewhere again.

“but hey,” he says after a moment, voice lighter, “good to know they didn’t end up in a fireplace somewhere.”

you hesitate, "i kept them.”

the words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

varka pauses, eyes widening for just a fraction.

he smiles. a soft damning smile – relieved in a way that’s almost embarrassing to witness.

“yeah?” he says, chuckling like he can't believe it.

you nod once, stiffly, ". . . don’t read too much into it.”

“wouldn’t dream of it,” he replies immediately.

and you know he means that.

varka was always like this, he never forced meaning into your actions, never demanded explanations you weren’t ready to give.

he just. . . accepted what you offered.

even when it was very little.

the wind passes through the market again, rustling the banners overhead

you place the apple back into the crate.

"you’re not curious?” you ask

“about what?”

“why i didn’t read them.”

varka hums, thinking about it.

then he shrugs, “i figured you had your reasons.”

simple as ever.

he pushes himself upright from the stall, stretching his shoulders like a man who just finished a long shift instead of someone reopening old wounds.

“besides,” he adds casually, glancing down at you with a grin that’s just a little too familiar, “you’re here now.”

you blink.

he gestures vaguely between the two of you.

“means we can talk instead."

your stomach twists, because that’s the problem, isn’t it?

talking.

talking meant explaining, explaining means admitting and admitting means facing the thing you’ve spent years running from.

varka watches your expression shift, and whatever he noticed, he doesn’t comment on it.

instead he picks up one of the apples, tossing it lightly in his hand. bright green, similar to the glazed pottery in his office. the one noelle got for him.

“y’know,” he says thoughtfully, “i always wondered which letter would’ve convinced you to punch me first.”

you shoot him a flat look.

"punch you. . . ?”

“yeah,” he says easily, “figured if you were mad enough to hit me, at least i’d know you read one.”

you stare at him, long and silent.

stoic as ever.

then you mutter, " you're an idiot.”

and for some reason, varka looks ridiculously pleased about that.

"you should really read them, i think it'd help in sorting out your thoughts."

you didn’t mean to open it.

that’s what you told yourself, anyway.

the box sat on the small desk of your rented lodge room, exactly where you had thrown it earlier that evening. the wood creaked softly under the weight of the letters — three years’ worth of them.

three years.

thirty-six months.

seventy-two envelopes.

every single one addressed in the same familiar handwriting – messy, large, and impossibly hard to ignore.

they say a person's handwriting shows who they are as a person. you think it's pretty accurate.

you stared at the parchment like they might bite.

the confrontation from earlier replayed in your head for the hundredth time.

"you should really read them."

you clicked your tongue irritably, an expression of storm crossing your face at the memory. you nearly clenched the paper in your hands.

"easy for you to say,” you muttered under your breath.

the room was quiet, comfortable. mondstadt’s night air drifted in through the open window, carrying distant laughter and music from the taverns below.

your fingers drummed against the table.

then stopped.

your gaze drifted back to the box, already feeling like you were gonna do something you'd regret.

one letter wouldn’t hurt.

just one.

totally not because you care, just to prove to yourself that whatever he wrote back then didn’t matter anymore.

that was all. . . nothing more, nothing less.

your hand moved before you could reconsider.

you grabbed the oldest envelope, letting out a low exhale.

the paper was slightly yellowed now, edges softened from time and travel. the wax seal had the knights’ insignia pressed into it, it travelled through the official system, addressed specifically for you.

roasaria had kept them while you were gone then gave them to you when you came back. you had been confused then, wondering why the box was so heavy.

"i think you should read these," she had told you, with that monotone voice of hers.

like father, like daughter. she had grown to resemble him ever more as the years passed.

your stomach twisted.

for three years, that seal had remained untouched.

you stared at it for a long moment. then broke it, the sound of cracking wax felt far louder than it should have.

you slid the folded paper out slowly, biting your lip while tried to calm your beating heart.

the ink hadn’t faded, despite the yellowed margins.

varka’s handwriting was rough and messy — letters slanted and uneven, like he had written it quickly.

you unfolded the page our eyes scanned the first line.

to the love of my life,

hey!

i’m writing this while the horses are dozing and the campfires are still warm. we left mondstadt a few days back. the wind here doesn’t just bite, it feels like it's whipping me through my coat.

the men are in good spirits, all of them big talk and brash laughter. seems like they can’t wait to prove themselves out there in the battlefield. the world’s harsh out here though, you’d tell them that.

you always did enjoy pointing out when i was being dramatic.

HAHAHAHAHAHA! i can imagine it already!

also i know you're gonna complain about how informal this letter is but i'm more used to this with you. remember when you once sent me that "report" with just two sentences? heh, i'm chuckling a bit just remembering it.

i'm not gonna act like strangers with you and do the whole poetic letters thing, i think we're well past that.

anyway, i miss the sound of mondstadt at night. that odd little lull between the last laugh in the tavern and the faint music from the cathedral door. it felt safe. homey. you made it feel lighter.

i’m fine. truly. i miss you, but i’m fine. don’t let that worry you. i just wanted you to know this much, i’m always thinking of you and i love you.

forever yours, varka.

without realizing it, you have slowly started to smile.

you pick up another without realizing, tearing into it with a certain hunger – as if you've held back for far to long.

to [name],

today was hard loud. too loud. a confusing sort of problem you can’t talk your way out of with jokes. or alcohol.

i don’t mention it to worry you, you’re more capable than you give yourself credit for. you’d handle whatever this world threw at you with that indifferent expression and sharp wit of yours.

when it was quiet again, i found myself thinking about the time we hid from a storm under that half‑collapsed stone wall in windvale. you were so annoyed about the mud on your boots, but you laughed anyway. i think that was the first time i heard you laugh back then, i knew from then on that you've doomed me and my heart to be forever yours. did you cringe just now? hahaha...

i’m okay. the other soldiers are okay, some are lightly injured. i tried my best, i really did

i miss you a lot, i think i've started to hallucinate your voice when i was out cold earlier. the injuries aren't that bad i think.

write back when you can, okay? only if you aren't busy.

with love, varka

it must have been something serious for him to be this shaken up. maybe it was the reason he changed course.

not like you can ask the past.

you pick out a more enlarged envelope, it must've contained so many pages.

to the one i hold dear,

not sure why i’m writing this. probably because i can’t stop thinking about you. maybe because i miss mondstadt, maybe because the weather here is actually driving me insane and makes me feel like shouting your name into the wind (don’t worry, i didn’t, the men would call me crazy HAHA).

so, crepus. i know you blame yourself. don’t. don’t even start rolling your eyes at me, i can see it. you didn’t intend any of it. none of it. i know you feel responsible, i can feel it from here, and i’m not even psychic....or maybe i am? for you.

i know you carry more guilt than anyone should, and i’m not here to tell you to shrug it off. i know you didn’t intend what happened, and i know you tried to make it right however you could. but i want you to hear it anyway — you didn’t kill him. you weren’t supposed to be the one to save him, and if anyone deserved blame, it wasn’t you.

but really. you tried. you always try. hell, you’ve probably tried more than anyone else. and yeah i know, it still hurts. it's messy as hell. life’s messy. we all know that.

okay, let's start somewhere lighter.

today, some locals tried to teach me to cook this really amazing chicken stew. let me tell you, it was really bad. i mean, truly BAD. fire everywhere, soup that looked like mud, and me, i had stood there like a fumbling idiot and for a minute,i thought about you. about how you’d probably sigh, mutter something sarcastic, and then hit me lightly with your book for somehow fucking up soup of all things and i laughed. yeah, instead of helping wirh dealing with the fire, i couldn't help but laugh.

don’t tell fred, he was the most pissed about the broken pot.

i miss the stupid, trivial things with you. the way you ignore me half the time but i still feel like i matter. the way you chew your lip when you’re annoyed. the way you… well, you.

i can’t promise you that the expedition will end soon. can’t promise you anything really. except this though: you will always live rent free in my thoughts. i’m worried about you. i’m rooting for you. and if you ever want to... not talk, not answer, not forgive, not anything...i’ll still be here. maybe writing more ridiculous letters. maybe climbing more ridiculous mountains. maybe trying to cook more ridiculous meals and failing.

. . .

you stare at the page, the words repeating in your head. slowly, the tension in your chest eases. your shoulders slump, almost imperceptibly, as if you’d been holding a mountain there for years and it’s finally letting go.

the ache of guilt, that gnawing voice you’d carried through every mission, every night alone in your quarters, every time you saw kaeya or diluc and felt the shadow of what happened – softens and melts. and for the first time in years, you allow yourself to breathe without pain.

“…i miss you,” the letter rambles on, and yes, he’s laughing somewhere between the lines, trying to lighten the weight of his own words. “…i miss you like an idiot who forgot how to breathe properly. and yeah, probably like a fool who thinks you’ll read these letters and understand me better than anyone else ever could. probably correct. you always have been better at understanding than i am. smart girl, aren't 'ya?"

among the pages were badly drawn doodles of landscapes and other knights. a few notes here and there of the fauna and some pressed flowers.

passionate as he was with them, they've always looked more like something children would scrawl on the walls.

the expedition’s been long. longer than i thought it would be. there’s a lot of snow out here and not much else to look at, which leaves a man with too much time to think. unfortunately for me, most of those thoughts end up being about you. before you get mad. . . i’m not saying that to make you feel bad. i just figured i should be honest. you always said i talked too much anyway. i keep that scrap of paper you gave me tucked in my coat pocket. it's the letter you didnt even bother to put in an envelope, just shoved it at me during the small expedition to the port.

the one where you told me to fuck off. real classy message, by the way. the knights laughed pretty hard when they saw it. i told them it was the nicest thing you’d ever written to me. …that part might actually be true. still, it’s in your handwriting. so i kept it.

a ridiculous man, varka was. and yet you couldn't help but fall for him ever further.

i’ve written to you. . . i don’t know. . . fourthy? thirty-six? maybe more. i’ve tried jokes, i’ve tried being serious, i’ve tried being clever, and all i end up with is a mess of ink and tears. not that i cry. not in front of anyone. but,you make me feel like i could.

and he'll continue until the seventieth, would probably reach over a hundred if the expedition went on for longer.

i keep thinking of the old days. walking through mondstadt, you complaining about the the loud noises, me pretending to know what i’m doing whenever i'm with you, and you. . . just you. laughing, making sure i don’t make a complete fool of myself.

i miss that. i miss you. sometimes i dream about grabbing you, threading my fingers through your hair, shaking you gently, and saying, “don’t ever leave me like that again.” sometimes i imagine you laughing, sometimes screaming, sometimes just glaring at me like you always did and i can’t stop thinking about it.

how much have you tortured this man during his expedition? to think he'd be this lovesick.

he seemed completely fine whenever the two of you bickered earlier in the market. and he'd been almost carefree with the way he treated you in the past week.

you never thought he'd be yearning this much for you throughout the years.

by the way, i heard from jean that you've left mondstadt.

without even telling rosaria or razor? do you know how worried they were for you?

listen, if you’re mad at me, fine. if you hate me, also fine. if you never want to see me or our kids again, i’ll survive. maybe. barely. but they won't.

at least let us know. at least don’t leave them in this limbo of imagining you somewhere out there, alive, safe, and completely unreachable. come back home

come back to mondstadt.

you're cruel and yes, i’m whining.

sue me, i guess. so. yeah. if you ever decide to show up again, or write me back, or even yell at me through letters for being an dumbass (this one's likely), i’ll be here.

rosaria thinks you're being an idiot and complicating things in your head again, don't tell her i told you though. razor thought you had died or something, he looked for you in the forest everyday. don’t make me climb dragonspine's peak for you. seriously. the climb is ridiculous. and the wind? don’t even ask. …miss you. don’t open this if it makes you mad. do open it if it makes you smile. do whatever you want, just know that you’re not alone.

sorry for rambling so much. not really though.

still infatuated with you, varka.

"our kids," you huffed, "did just fine without me."

you're not that cruel, you sent birthday presents and letters during special holidays to the two of them. never late. never forgetting.

also what's this about rosaria complaining to varka instead of talking with you? the favoritism is appalling.

she never even mentioned it when you came back!

razor too! why didn't he tell you about this?

they'd sided with varka all along in your kind-of divorce.

you laugh quietly at that. it comes out more as a choked sound than anything else, and you feel some of the years of silence, of self-loathing, slip away.

not fully, it's never that easy. but it doesn't feel as suffocating anymore.

your hand trembles over the letter. your eyes sting with unshed tears. and for the first time in a long, long time, the guilt doesn’t grip you. the blame isn’t yours. it was never yours.

and somewhere in the back of your mind, a thought slips in: varka. . . he never stopped caring. he never stopped watching over you. even across continents, across frost and snow and war, he never stopped.

you curl the letter to your chest, closing your eyes, letting the wind from the open window carry away the heaviness you’ve been carrying for years.

and maybe, just maybe, you allow yourself to hope.

hope that you’re not alone. hope that varka was right. hope that it’s not too late.

the city is quiet tonight, as it should be.

it's nearly midnight, barely anyone walked the streets by then. those who did were either drunks on their wobbly way home or people who had a lot on their mind.

like you.

you’re sitting on the cathedral steps when he finds you. it seems even the grandmaster took midnight strolls every now and then.

it's something you already knew and accounted for. after all, the two of you used to do it all the time. you'd drag him out for some fresh air when things got to stuffy, and he'd feel better right after.

varka doesn’t say anything at first. he just sits beside you, shoulder brushing yours, like he used to.

"did you? y'know – read them?" he says eventually.

you stare at the moon, "i read your letters."

he exhales slowly, "yeah. figured."

then you say the thing you've avoided for three years – ". . . i didn't leave because i stopped loving you or anything stupid like that."

varka’s head turns, eyes focused. he's leaning a bit lower now, wanting to hear everything. the things you've withheld for years.

you keep looking straight ahead, afraid to look at the man beside you.

"i left because i didn't deserve to stay."

another long pause, you feel your shoulders tense at the way he stays quiet.

then varka laughs, softly. like it's being whispered to the wind and not to you.

it's not mocking you, just. . . tired.

"you idiot."

you finally look at him.

he’s smiling, sad and warm all at once.

"you decided that on your own?"

"yeah," you murmured, feeling your face heat up. for all the times you called him immature, you had ended up doing something more stupid.

he leans back against the steps, thinking.

"well."

". . . well?"

he glances at you, blue eyes steady.

"next time you ruin my life, at least talk to me about it first."

you blink, ". . . that's it?"

"what were you expecting?"

"definitely not something like this. i had, at least, expected something more emotional for our official reunion."

you're scowling now, clearly displeased at his lukewarm response.

he nudges your shoulder lightly,

"i already did the dramatic suffering thing for three years, in foreign lands too."

he really did.

aside from usual dreams of past memories, he'd also get small flashes of what-if's and could-be's, one where you had completely moved on with another man. where you built a home without him in it.

he hated those the most, varka would wake up in an irritated mood, take it out on training, and pretend the woman he loved wasn't several hundred miles away and actively ignoring him.

the injuries he sustained didn't feel quite as real compared to the hollowness of his heart when you'd left him. even as the distance between you two got larger, he only grew more impatient to be reunited with you.

and out of every absurd ambitions he had over the years, from slaying a dragon to becoming mondstadt's hero, there was one that he could never hope to throw away – a wedding, with you as his bride.

it's childish. you called it stupid back then, saying that a marriage wasn't necessary as long as the two of you had each other.

but varka had truly desired it from the moment he'd seen your eyes twinkle at the mention of a wedding. nothing grand. just something for you, him, and family.

you've always thought loving someone as capricious and bland as you would be a chore. that varka would find you tiring to deal with, and leave you alone one day. because of that, distance had become your shield and ruin, building walls so high it could rival starsnatch cliff.

but the knight of boreas wouldn't have gotten this far without being persistent.

a devoted man through and through. for him, loving you was easy. too easy. he was almost concerned how effortless it was. no distance, lack of communication, or dramatic break-up could ever stop him from adoring you.

varka had never loved you because it was just that – easy, effortless, and undemanding. in between the cracks of your heart, he found something worth fighting for, worth taking care of, someone worth all the pesky troubles and headaches.

he'd found you.

his love was simple but enduring. more than casual attraction, akin to pure adoration and endless devotion, just as he'd do anything for his beloved nation. people can call you heartless all they want, but even the sting of your glare could warm up his clumsy, beating heart.

you could carve it out and he'd thank you.

you already did, actually.

mondstadt’s wind was warm now, sunlight peeking through the walls. it carried the smell of dandelions, wine, the faint sweetness of cider drifting out of the tavern when the doors opened. sometimes music too.

"you staying?"

your chest tightens, ". . . maybe."

'yes.'

varka smiles. not big or triumphant.

just relieved.

"good enough for me."

the cathedral bells chime behind you once again, this time signalling a future you've dreamed about for far too long.

#conductor's-afterthoughts ☆ dont @ me, ive been hacking away at this for a week now and ive nearly given up halfway through. . . this actually hurt my head so bad. . . can you tell i completely threw away my original plot at the end and just started to ball it out.

theres something awfully romantic about being so infatuated by a person who cant help but run away from everything when it gets too much, you'd chase after them and think, 'why am i not getting tired of this?' and realize it's something you won't mind doing for the rest of your life.

i think i like those romances the most. i am a flawed person after all, so for someone to accept and cherish these flaws without it affecting them mentally would be a dream.

ANYWAYS. was this good? i was genuinely losing my shit guys. i took 30 minutes to proofread it this time, thats right! i actually read through the whole thing! proud of me? u oughta be. i had like several hundred searches just being "synonym for [word]"