zephyr

Either way, you did not pull away.

Sleep had worn away the edge of your resentment, leaving only a dull tiredness. You simply lay there, breathing slowly, listening to the distant clink of chains somewhere across the circus grounds. The tent walls breathed with the wind, but inside the cocoon of blankets and his body heat, you were warm.

"You're awake, my lady."

His voice was barely a whisper, a low rumble that vibrated through his chest and into your ear. There was no surprise in it, only gentle observation. He had likely been aware of your every shift in breathing, every flutter of your lashes against his sleeve.

"Mm." You did not trust your voice yet. Your throat was dry, your tongue thick with sleep.

One of his hands began to move. The one at your waist. Black-clawed fingers spread over the small of your back, tracing idle circles through the wool of the blanket, then through the thinner fabric of your clothes beneath.

"What time is it?" you mumbled.

"I don't know. The lamp burned out some hours ago. It's very late. Or very early." He paused, and you felt his chin tilt down, the edge of his porcelain mask brushing your forehead. "But my lady need not worry. I will watch over her until morning ♪"

You blinked into the darkness. His eyes were glowing faintly. They always did, just enough to be visible when all other light had fled. The golden irises shifting shape, contracting into slits, expanding into rings, soft and luminous and utterly focused on you.

"Are you cold? I can fetch another blanket."

"No." The word came out more softly than you intended. "This is enough."

A gentle hum of acknowledgement. His hand continued its slow, hypnotic circles on your back. "My lady slept deeply. I'm glad. You were so very… tired, earlier."

Earlier.

The word called back the memory. You remembered the weight of his grief behind you, the soft whimper he had tried to swallow, the way he had lain down without touching you and simply waited. He was good at waiting. He had waited weeks outside your library, your coffee shop, your apartment, learning your habits, cataloging your smiles. One evening of silence was nothing to him.

You should have held onto your indignation.

Instead, you felt only a muted acceptance, a tired willingness to let the hurt settle into the past.

"I'm not cross anymore," you said, before you could think better of it.

His hand stilled. The bells on his cap, which had been perfectly motionless, gave a tiny, involuntary jingle as he turned his head slightly.

"My lady is not cross?" He sounded almost breathless with relief. "Ah, I'm very happy to hear that! I couldn't bear your displeasure… It was like— like a blade in my chest, my lady, to see you turn away from me…"

You swallowed. "You surprised me, that's all."

"I know. I know I did." His voice grew softer, laced with a careful, self-recriminating sadness. "I was too eager. I saw you sad, and… and I wished only to comfort you, to show my affection in the way I know best! But I was… clumsy. I caused you displeasure, and for that, I'm deeply sorry."

He was sorry for your displeasure. Not for the kiss itself.

The distinction was clear.

"I didn't mean to make you recoil from me," he continued, his claws resuming their gentle tracing. "Your touch is all I crave, my lady. Your presence is the sun to my endless night… If I could find a way to express my love without ever causing you to pull away, I would do so in a heartbeat. But I'm still learning. You're the first to make me feel such things." A pause. The tent breathed. "I want so badly to be gentle. To be what you need."

You could have argued.

You could have pointed out that what you needed was your freedom, your exams, your tiny drafty apartment. But the words felt heavy in your mouth, too heavy to lift. So you said nothing.

"If only," he murmured, as if speaking to himself, "my lady could grow accustomed to them. To my affections. Then she would never have to suffer my foolish mistakes again..."

His overwhelming, suffocating, all-consuming love. He wished you could grow accustomed, as if acclimation were the natural solution, as if your body could learn to accept him the way skin learned to accept a new climate. You did not want to. Deep down, in the part of you that still belonged to yourself, you did not want to.

But you did not say that either.

He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow. The blanket slipped, and a sliver of cold air kissed your shoulder before he caught it and tucked it back into place with solicitous care. Through the dark, you could almost make out the silhouette of his jester’s cap. He loomed over you, large and formless in the blackness, and you felt very small beneath him.

"My lady," he said, his voice taking on a new note, something hesitant and hopeful all at once. "May I ask you something? A… small request. A favour."

Your heart gave a slow, heavy thud. "What?"

He took your hand. His long fingers wrapped around yours, gentle as ever, and lifted your palm to his masked face. You felt the cool porcelain of his smile, the smooth ridge of the black tear beneath one eyehole. He pressed your hand there, holding it against the mask as if in supplication.

"If I'm to learn how to love you properly... if I'm to shape myself to fit the image you hold of me, as I once promised... then I must understand what pleases you." His thumb stroked the back of your hand. "Would you allow me to practice, my lady? Let me learn the way you like to be kissed. Let me discover what makes you sigh with contentment rather than stiffen with displeasure. So that I may never cause you to turn away from me again."

Every rational synapse in your brain, that mini medical student who still existed somewhere beneath the furs and the captivity and the creeping Stockholm fog, screamed that this was manipulation, that he was weaving a net of soft words and sad eyes and gentle hands. But his voice was so earnest. So humble. So full of a desperate, aching love that it made your chest tighten with something that felt dangerously like pity.

"I will stop the moment my lady says," he added, as if sensing your hesitation. "I swear! I swear it on my love for you. I would rather cut out my own tongue than cause you true distress."

You had never heard him swear on anything before. The weight of the oath pressed against you, heavy and sweet and laced with a sincerity you could not doubt. He would stop.

He always did, eventually, when you truly insisted.

"All right," you heard yourself say.

The words felt like someone else's.

A soft, musical hum vibrated in his throat. "Thank you, my lady. Thank you. You're so very kind to this foolish clown. I shall endeavor to be a diligent student ♪"

He shifted closer, and you felt him reach up to adjust his mask. There was a faint click, the sound of porcelain being carefully displaced, and then the lower half of his face was exposed to the dark. You still could not see him; the blackness was absolute, a curtain drawn over every detail. But you felt the warmth of his breath, sweet with lingering sugar and something else, something faintly metallic, like old coins or fresh rain on iron, and the brush of his lips against your cheek. They were soft. Too soft. Unnaturally smooth, lacking the faint texture of human skin.

"My lady," he breathed, and then his mouth found yours.

The first kiss was gentle. Almost chaste. A simple press of lips, warm and dry. He held it for a long moment, motionless, as if giving you time to adjust, to remember that this was something you had permitted. Then he pulled back a fraction, his breath still mingling with yours.

"Was that agreeable, my lady?"

You could not find your voice.

"Good. Then we shall continue ♪"

The second kiss was deeper. His lips parted, and the tip of his tongue, warmer and slicker than his lips had been, traced the seam of your mouth. An inquiry. A request. Your jaw loosened without conscious thought, too drowsy, too conditioned by his tenderness to deny him entry. His tongue slipped inside, gentle and curious, tasting faintly of that metallic undertone you could not identify.

Your medical training stirred in the back of your mind, a distant, clinical voice that refused to be entirely silenced. Unhygienic. The thought drifted up, murky and unwelcome. So unhygienic. Oral microbiomes were unique to each individual. Even human-to-human contact transmitted colonies of bacteria.

And Pierrot was not human.

But the thought grew hazy, smeared at the edges, as his tongue curled against your own. He tasted sweet, too. Dangerously sweet. And his hand was so warm on the back of your head, claws threading through your hair, tilting your face to a better angle. A soft, involuntary sound escaped your throat.

"There," he murmured against your lips, and you felt his smile, the curve of his actual mouth beneath the absent mask. "That's a lovely sound. Hah, I shall try to earn it again… and…"

He kissed you a third time. A fourth. A fifth. Each kiss was slightly different, a variation in pressure, in angle, in duration. Gentle, then firmer. Quick, then lingering. His tongue stroked yours, then swept the roof of your mouth, then traced the inner line of your teeth with an obsessive, methodical precision. He was practicing. Truly practicing. Cataloguing your every reaction, the hitch of your breath, the flutter of your pulse against his palm, the way your fingers curled against his chest.

You felt the saliva begin to pool. It was inevitable. A trickle slid down your chin, warm and viscous. You were dimly aware of it soaking into the furs beneath you, wetting the bedding, but the awareness was distant, almost muted.

His thumb brushed your chin, wiping away the excess with a tender, almost reverent stroke. "Don't worry, my lady. I will clean you up. You need not lift a finger."

Then his mouth returned to yours, and this time he sucked gently on your tongue, drawing it further into the warm, alien cavern of his mouth. The sensation was strange, invasive, intimate beyond anything you had ever experienced. Your eyes, which had been half-closed, fluttered fully shut. A film of moisture gathered across your corneas, blurring the already invisible world. You were not crying. But your body was responding in ways you could not control, tears of sensation rather than sorrow, welling up and spilling over.

Unhygienic. The word echoed again, fainter now. You did not know what bacteria inhabited the mouth of this being. You did not know if it was safe for them to be inside you, to coat your teeth and gums, to slide down your esophagus in the thin stream of mixed saliva that you could not help but swallow. You did not know anything anymore, except that his mouth was warm and his claws were gentle and his other arm had wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest, and you could not escape, could not move, could not think beyond the wet, rhythmic slide of his tongue against yours.

"Shall I try something new?" he asked, breaking the kiss for just long enough to speak. His voice was thick with affection, with a possessive, adoring joy that wrapped around you like another blanket. "I think my lady might enjoy this one."

He did not wait for an answer. His mouth covered yours again, and this time he angled his head differently, deepening the kiss until you felt him everywhere, his tongue filling your mouth, his lips sealed around yours, his breath mingling with your own. The liquid continued to seep from the corners of your lips, down your chin, onto the bed. He lapped at it once, a soft, reverent sound, before resuming the kiss with undiminished devotion.

You realized, somewhere in the thickening fog, that he had not asked if you wanted to continue. He had not stopped. His oath echoed in your memory, I will stop the moment my lady says, but you could not speak. Your mouth was occupied. Your thoughts were scattered, too smeared to form words. He was giving you no opportunity to refuse, and you were not fighting, and you did not know if that was his fault or yours.

His hand roamed your back, your side, your hip, never grasping, never hurting, just touching. Always touching. He could not seem to get enough of the feel of you beneath his claws, the shape of your shoulder blade, the curve of your waist, the flutter of your diaphragm as you struggled to breathe through your nose. He traced the ridge of your spine one vertebra at a time, counting them, memorizing them. His touch was obsessive in its gentleness, a constant, unwavering pressure that reminded you with every passing second that you were his, completely his, held in the arms of a creature who had crushed a steering wheel and could crush you just as easily if he ever forgot to be careful.

"Dear one," he whispered into the corner of your mouth. "My precious heart. How I have longed for this. For you… to permit me so close… I shall practice until it is perfect. Until my lady never wishes to pull away again ♪ Until the very thought of… recoiling from me… feels… impossible…"

His mouth returned. His tongue curled under your tongue, then traced the sensitive inner lining of your cheeks with an intimacy that made your stomach clench again. He was learning. Mapping every ridge and hollow, noting every place. The warm, slick river continued to flow. He did not seem to mind. If anything, he seemed to welcome it, as if the mingling of your fluids were some kind of communion, some tangible proof of your union.

Through the slits of the mask, his golden eyes still glowed faintly, and you saw, with a distant, dreamlike clarity, that the pupils had shifted into the shape of hearts. Two perfect, luminous hearts, glowing in the dark.

He was so happy.

You could feel it radiating from him, a joy so intense it bordered on pain. And you were the cause of it. Your passive acceptance, your open mouth, your silent surrender, these were the gifts you were giving him, and he received them with a fervent, almost reverent gratitude.

Time lost meaning. Minutes, hours, it was all the same. There was only the wet sound of his mouth on yours, the quiet hum of his satisfaction, the occasional whisper of praise that he breathed into the spaces between kisses.

"You're doing so well, my lady. So beautifully well."

"Just a little longer. You taste so sweet ♪"

"I shall learn every way to kiss you. Every way that makes you sigh."

His arms never loosened. His mouth never truly left yours for more than a few heartbeats. He would pull back to nuzzle your cheek, to lap at the saliva that had dripped onto your jaw, to murmur endearments against your temple, and then he would return, his lips sealing over yours with the same gentle, inexorable pressure. You were not being held down. But his grip was absolute, an encircling warmth that left no room for retreat, and you knew, with a certainty that settled deep into your bones, that Pierrot was not going to let you go.

First year.

Just first year. You had barely started.

And then you had woken up here.

The tent flap rustled. A gust of wind? No. You had learned to tell the difference. The wind made the canvas shudder all at once, a collective shiver. This was different. A single point of movement, deliberate, almost silent.

Then, a weight settled across your shoulders.

A thick blanket, heavy wool, smelling faintly of smoke and something sweet like caramel, was draped around you so suddenly that your heart slammed against your ribs. Your pen clattered to the ground. Your notebook slipped from your lap, pages fluttering open against the dirt floor.

You spun around, already knowing who you would find.

"My lady."

Pierrot stood behind you, still close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from him. The mask’s smile was radiant tonight. Broad, blocky teeth gleaming faintly in the dim light of the single oil lamp that he kept burning. The black slits over his upturned eyes seemed softer than usual, the right one ending in that familiar black tear.

He was beautiful, in the way a cobra was beautiful. In the way a flame was beautiful right before it burned you.

You briefly considered sewing more bells onto him. Bells that actually made noise when he moved. But you knew, deep down, that even bells wouldn't help. He was too graceful for sound to stick to him.

He bent down with that slow, fluid motion of his, the three liripipes of his cap swaying gently. He picked up your pen first, then your notebook, dusting off the cover with a black-clawed glove before straightening to his full height.

You pulled the blanket tighter around yourself, huddling into its warmth. You were on his bed. No, your bed, he had corrected you once, because everything he owned belonged to you now, he had said. But you still thought of it as his. The furs beneath you, the pillows stacked against the canvas wall, the faint scent of him clinging to every thread.

It was still cold in his tent. But the blanket made it better.

He sat down beside you. Not across from you, not at a polite distance. Beside you, close enough that his coat sleeve brushed your arm. His golden eyes, visible through the slits of his mask, shifted. They had been pinpricks a moment ago, sharp and focused. Now they softened into rings, like tiny eclipses.

“You should not sit in the dark ♪” he said. His voice was soft, warm, slightly melodic. The kind of voice that might have been comforting if you didn't know what lurked beneath the surface. “You will strain your eyes. And then who will tend to you?”

You almost laughed at that. Who indeed? You were the one who was supposed to tend to others. Before.

You didn't say this.

Pierrot had never once raised his voice at you. He had never struck you, never threatened you with anything worse than his absence. Every morning, he brought you breakfast in bed: fresh bread, fruit cut into little stars, a cup of tea at the exact temperature you liked. Every night, he sat beside you while you pretended to sleep, and you felt his gloved fingers brush your hair back from your forehead, so gentle that it made your chest ache.

He treated you too well. That was the problem. That was why you were still talking instead of screaming.

“My exams start in two weeks,” you murmured, extending your hand toward him. A silent request for your notebook. He tilted his head, the mask's smile unchanging, but he made no move to return it. Instead, he held it just slightly out of reach. Innocently. Deliberately.

You wrinkled your nose.

“When will you let me go back?”

You had asked this before. Many times.

Pierrot reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. The black claws, sharp enough to draw blood, barely grazed your skin.

“You ask such difficult questions, my lady,” he said. The mask’s eye slits seemed to narrow, just slightly, as if he were smiling more genuinely underneath. “You know I don't like to think of you leaving.”

“I have to take my exams.”

“You will!” He said it with absolute certainty, as if he could will it into truth by tone alone. “When the time is right. When the roads are safe. When the world outside is worthy of my lady’s footsteps.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. There was no arguing with him when he spoke like this. When his words wrapped around you like the blanket, soft and suffocating all at once. You had learned, over the weeks, that patience was your only weapon. Patience, and the quiet disappointment that seemed to cut him deeper than any scream.

So you said nothing. You simply pulled your knees higher, tucked the blanket under your chin, and stared at the flickering oil lamp.

He shifted closer.

“Is my lady angry with me?” he asked. The bells on his cap remained still. No nervous jingling. He was calm. He was always calm, except when Harlequin was mentioned, except when someone threatened to take you away.

“I’m not angry,” you said. And it was true. There was only a dull ache, a homesickness that had settled into your bones like the cold. “I’m just… tired.”

Pierrot reached out and took your hand. The one that was clutching the edge of the blanket. He turned it over gently, palm up, and traced the lines there with the soft pad of his thumb. He had learned that after the first time he had drawn a thin line of blood from your wrist. He had apologized for an hour, holding your hand over a basin of warm water, dabbing at the cut with a cloth. You had never seen someone so apologetic for something so small.

“My lady’s hands are cold,” he observed.

“It’s freezing in here.”

“I will bring more blankets ♪”

He said it like a promise. Like an oath.

You let him hold your hand for a moment longer, then pulled it back. Not harshly. Just a gentle retreat, the way you might pull a flower out of reach of a child who didn't know his own strength.

“You have... gentle hands,” he said softly, watching your hand disappear beneath the blanket.

You looked down at your own hands. At the nails you kept short and clean, at the faint calluses from holding pens too tightly during all-night study sessions. These were hands that were supposed to heal. Hands that had earned their place in medical school through sleepless nights.

"My lady?"

Hands that were capable, but were being wasted here.

“I can’t heal anyone if I’m trapped here,” you said.

The mask’s smile didn’t change. It almost never did. Not really. But you had learned to read him in other ways. The way his shoulders went rigid. The way his claws flexed against his own thighs. The way the bells on his cap remained deathly still, as if even they were holding their breath.

“Trapped,” he repeated. The word came out slower than the others, as if he were tasting it. “My lady feels trapped?”

You knew better than to nod.

Instead, you pulled the blanket higher and tilted your head in that way he liked, the way that made you look smaller, softer, more in need of protection.

“I feel… cold,” you said carefully. “And far from home. But the blanket helps.”

The stiffness in his shoulders eased. He reached out again, and this time he didn't stop at your hand. His arm slid around your waist, pulling you against his side.

“My lady does not need to return to that place,” he murmured against your hair. The mask brushed your temple. “I will keep you warm. I will keep you safe. You will never be cold again.”

You closed your eyes.

You were patient with him because he had never given you a reason to be impatient.

And that, you knew, was exactly how he wanted it.

“Tell me about your studies ♪” he said, breaking the silence. His hand was rubbing slow circles on your back, just below your shoulder blades. “You were looking at your notebook for a long time before I came in..."

You almost smiled. Before I came in. As if he hadn't been standing outside the tent for the last twenty minutes, watching you through a gap in the canvas. As if you hadn't seen the shadow of his cap moving in the lamplight.

“I was reviewing the brachial plexus,” you said. “It's a network of nerves in the shoulder. It controls movement and sensation in the arm.”

“Ah ♪” He sounded genuinely interested, or at least genuinely interested in anything that came out of your mouth. “And do you find it difficult, my lady?"

“It's... complicated. Five roots, three trunks, six divisions, three cords, five branches. It's easy to mix them up.”

“But you will not mix them up,” he said confidently. “My lady, you are very intelligent. You passed the... entrance exam, did you not?”

You stiffened slightly. He knew that. He knew everything about you. Your schedule, your habits, the names of your professors. He had been watching you for weeks before he took you. You had seen him in the shadows outside the library, outside the coffee shop where you worked, outside your apartment building. You had thought you were imagining it.

You hadn't been.

“Yeah,” you said quietly. “Whatever. I passed.”

“Then you will pass your exams as well, my lady. I am certain of it!”

He didn't ask when the exams were. He didn't ask if you needed to study more. He had stopped asking those questions around the second week, when your answers had started sounding like accusations. Now he simply accepted that you studied, just as he accepted that you ate and slept and breathed. It was simply something you did.

You leaned against him, just slightly. His arm tightened around you in response.

“I miss the library,” you whispered.

“I will build my lady a library,” he said immediately. “Here! In the circus. You can have all the books you want.”

“That's not…”

"Shh. I just... I just need to talk to Jester about it first... But I'm sure I can convince him!"

"Just let me go back," you tried one last time. "Just for the exams. I'll come back after. I promise.”

The lie tasted bitter on your tongue, and from the way his head tilted, he tasted it too.

“What a very kind liar you are, my lady." There was no accusation in his voice. Only a sad kind of certainty.

“Pierrot—"

You stopped.

What was the point?

His other hand came up to cup your chin, tilting your face toward his. The mask's eyeholes stared down at you, those golden eyes behind them shifting shape, the pupils contracting into slits, then expanding into wide rings again. He was studying you, cataloging every micro-expression, every flicker of emotion.

“My lady is sad,” he observed. “I do not like it when my lady is sad.”

“I'm not sad. I'm just—”

He kissed you.

It started gently, a soft press of masked lips against yours, the porcelain smooth and cool. But then his hand slid to the back of your head, tangling in your hair, and you felt the edge of the mask lift just enough for his actual mouth to meet yours.

And then his tongue was in your mouth.

It was sudden. It was too much. His tongue was warm and insistent, pushing past your lips before you had time to react, tasting faintly of the brigadeiros he had made that afternoon. You made a small sound, surprise, maybe, or discomfort, but he didn't pull back. His claws tightened in your hair, not enough to hurt, just enough to hold you in place.

When he finally broke the kiss, you were breathless.

You sat there for a moment, staring at him, your mind struggling to catch up with what had just happened. The mask had settled back into place, the smile as radiant as ever. The black tear on the right eyehole seemed to glisten in the lamplight.

“Unhygienic,” you whispered.

Slowly, deliberately, you raised your hand to your mouth. Your fingers came away wet. You wiped the excess saliva from your chin first, then from your lips, your movements mechanical, automatic. Your face was blank.

Pierrot simply watched you.

“My lady,” he began.

You didn't answer.

You turned away from him, pulling the blanket tighter around your shoulders, and lay down on the bed with your back facing him. You curled into a small ball, knees to chest, and stared at the canvas wall.

“My lady?” His voice was softer now. Uncertain. “Are you… are you displeased?”

Nothing.

“I only wanted to show my affection. My lady knows I would never hurt her. I w—would never—”

Silence.

You didn't speak. You didn't move. You simply lay there, breathing slowly, your heart eventually returning to its normal rhythm.

Behind you, you heard him shift. The bed dipped as he moved closer. His hand hovered over your shoulder, hesitated, then withdrew. A soft sound escaped him, something between a sigh and a whimper.

“My lady is punishing me,” he said.

And he was right.

You were punishing him. Not with anger, anger he could handle, anger he could redirect, anger he could soothe with gentle words and warmer blankets. No, you were punishing him with silence. With absence. With the one thing he feared most. Your retreat into a place he could not follow.

The lamp flickered. Outside, the wind picked up, making the canvas walls shiver.

“I... I will wait,” he said finally. His voice was quiet, almost childlike. “My lady, you may take all the time you need. I will be here when you are ready to speak again.”

The bed shifted again as he lay down beside you, not touching, just close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating from his body. The bells on his cap jingled once, softly, as he settled into place.

You closed your eyes.