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i-need-dr-reid · 3 years ago

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The Birds & The Bees (S.R. | Pt. 25)

Summary: Lila and Bunny meet, and Bunny confronts Spencer. A/N: We're back, baby! My updates still won't be weekly, but I promise I'm still working away over here! Thank you everyone for your patience. I hope you enjoy! Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Jealousy, arguing, some yelling, fear of sexual inadequacy, unprotected sex Word Count: 11.8k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

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“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

William Congreve had no idea how bastardized his words would become when he wrote The Mourning Bride. The cautionary Buddhist tale about stepping back from one’s rage had been turned into a justification for women to seek revenge — the same as the jilted woman turned fire serpent whose favorite pastime was boiling men alive in a bell.

Bunny’s silence felt something like that.

That wasn’t to say that I wasn’t deserving of her fury. I wasn’t quite clueless enough that I couldn’t recognize the dreadful situation I’d forced her into. She had been forced to face what society had deemed the elite, all while knowing that her idiot boyfriend had withheld vital information from her until it was too late for her to bolt.

No one could be expected to keep it together in that situation. But, like the impossible thing that she was, she seemed perfectly content among the crowd of starlets. Of course, they were equally enthralled by her. I wondered if it was one of those strange social sixth senses that I always lacked, or if they just recognized her brilliance the same as I had.

Either way, I knew it couldn’t last. The beautiful little birdling fluttering about would tire from the invisible heavy winds, and I suspected that it’d be harder than normal to convince her to perch herself on my hands to rest.

I didn’t blame her. The pain she felt rang true in my chest, despite how loudly she laughed or how sweetly she smiled.

Perhaps it was a mistake to interrupt her convincing act. Maybe I should’ve left her to pretend that nothing odd had happened, and that we were as happily together as we’d ever been before I ruined everything.

It was probably a mistake. But I’d been making a lot of those lately, so what was one more?

As I approached her, I watched her body language shift from poised to precarious. I watched as her smile began to falter and her hands clenched tighter to glass. Despite those signs, though, she was quick to follow me when my hand pressed against the small of her back.

She hadn’t hesitated for even a second. I didn’t deserve that kind of trust.

Even when I’d backed her into a proverbial corner of an otherwise empty room, she maintained the forced, crooked smile. Her cheeks were trembling from the weight of it, and even if it had been against my best judgment, I reached out to hold her.

To my surprise, she didn’t move away. She stayed perfectly still except for lowering her eyelids and releasing a shaky breath. I ghosted my thumbs over cheeks painted with pearlescent powder and I tried to find some small part of me that deserved to even look at her.

“Are you okay?” I asked once I finally worked up the courage.

“I’m fine.”

That was all she said. It was a lie, but I wasn’t going to provoke her any further. Not when she had put so much effort into keeping her composure for me.

“I promise you that we can leave right now if you want,” I offered while pulling her closer. I sought out any sign of acceptance or rejection and I swore to her, “I will completely understand.”

“I said I’m fine, okay?” she stated more firmly. Still a lie, but a more convincing one.

I knew that I was making it harder, but I was selfish and stupid. I needed her to hear the truth. If only for my own validation, I needed to see and exploit that trust so I could make it through the rest of the night without hating myself as much as I did in that moment.

“I’m so sorry, Bunny,” I whispered, watching how each syllable made her lips quiver harder. “This was unfair for you on so many levels and you deserve better.”

That time when she let out a breath, she had to pause to bite down on her tongue. Her eyes opened again, now rimmed with red and looking anywhere but at me.

“I know, Spencer. It’s fine.”

It wasn’t a lie that time.

“We can talk later, okay? I’ll explain everything,” I offered, but she shook her head no.

“It was a long time ago, right?” she asked.

I nodded in response, but there was something about the way her lip twitched that told me she hadn’t believed my reply. She shrugged, nonetheless. Still, her shoulders stuck by her ears for a second longer before she let them fall. She wrapped her arms around herself and soothed herself in a way I wished I could.

“I want you to have fun with your friends,” she concluded. Her distant, averted stare told me that another offer of kindness would only make it worse.

But I was selfish and stupid. I couldn’t bear the sight of her trembling in her own arms, so I wrapped my arms around her, too. I pulled her close and I waited until her body started to relax. As she remembered that my touch had never meant to hurt her, she eventually settled back into a relative calm.

It was at that moment I placed a gentle kiss atop her head. My lips lingered, my head swimming with the memories associated with her perfume. I held her closer and prayed that she would feel them the same.

“You are all I will ever need. But thank you, Bunny,” I offered in place of an objection. “I should’ve told you. I just… I wanted them to meet you. I was being selfish.”

And stupid, but I didn’t want to make it about me any more than I already had.

At first, I took her firm hands pressing against my chest to be a rejection of the worst kind. But when she looked up at me again, there were no more signs of tears. There was just her smile, less forced but still saturnine, as she finally let her arms fall.

“Well, they won’t meet me if I stay over here, right?” she laughed. The sound felt like fire licking at my skin. I wanted to hear it longer, to bask in its radiance, but the sound was short lived.

Instead, she sighed one last time and admitted, “We can talk later. I’d… rather not think about it here.”

She turned to leave, with her back to me and her hands still shaking. I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet, so, I grabbed hold of her hand.

She stopped in her tracks, but she didn’t turn around.

Not until I begged, “Look at me, Bunny.”

And that beautiful little birdling had no qualms about it. She held her head high and her hand remained limp in my hold, but she looked at me.

“You are the only one for me. Do you believe me?” I asked.

That time, it was her who nodded.

She had gone back to lying. I tried to let myself be okay with that for now. But I failed and tried to convince her again.

“The past doesn’t matter. I don’t care about my first. Only my last. And that’s you.”

Perhaps it was instinct, pressure, or coincidence that made her small hand squeeze mine. Maybe it was all in my head — wishful thinking that she would forgive me so easily. But whatever it was, it brought a smile to my face that she’d quickly reflected.

Once again adorned with the false face, the eyes on the backs of Caligo moths, my Bunny opened the door and flashed me a familiar gesture.

With two bouncing fingers, she laughed, “Okay, let’s hop along.”

Just like that, with all the tenderness and love that I knew her to be capable of, she assured me that she would be fine with or without me, always. And she demanded that I be alright with either.

And I tried. I tried as hard as I could, but my god, did I prefer the former.

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Spencer Reid was not the first man to liken me to an animal. Ever since I was a child, I’d heard it all. Bunnies, birds, and bugs alike. It was rare for someone to say I’d reminded them of anything that was not covered with fluffy fur or feathers.

While I enjoyed the metaphors and the admittedly adorable aesthetic, I had grown tired of the trembling. The people-pleasing fawn that Spencer found so charming wasn’t due to a moral failure by any means. I actually really liked the softer, patient parts of myself. I didn’t want to become a different person entirely. I just needed… to calibrate.

As I stood on the sidelines of a decadent celebration, I promised myself that I would start working on separating myself from woodland creatures.

I was exhausted, and the night had just begun. Of course, it hadn’t helped that Spencer had taken me into another room and made all sorts of pretty promises. The kind that sounded beautiful but tied my stomach into knots. The kind that made the anger turn to a lump in my throat because my heart hadn’t wanted him to hurt like I did.

Realistically, I knew he was already hurt. I saw the genuineness in his eyes, and I felt his remorse the same as I always did. But while my heart had forgiven him for only being human, my head was still reeling from the inopportune confession on Lila’s doorstep.

I never thought of myself as the jealous type. Or at least, I hadn’t wanted to. I wanted to have left it behind on the car ride to the conference, where Spencer assured me that no matter what happened in his past, his feelings for me were the same.

But in that moment, I realized something that I hadn’t wanted to notice back then.

‘Do you think the human heart is incapable of loving more than one thing?’ he’d asked. And when I had told him no, of course it wasn’t, Spencer had weaved a beautiful, confusing set of implications.

‘If you really believe that, then why do you think that the potential of me having loved anyone before I met you, somehow cheapens what I feel for you?’

But what did he feel for me? He had made a point of being evasive, and being the lovesick, hopeless fool that I was, I didn’t want to question it. I tried not to think too hard about it. Spencer had always assumed that I knew what he felt. It didn’t mean anything.

Everything was going to be fine. I just had to get through this party, and then I could curl up with him in bed and allow him to ramble until the words stopped making sense. I would turn back into the fawn that he’d fallen in love with, and I would be happy again.

Everything was going to be just fine. I was going to make it.

And then Lila appeared.

“So… Spencer, huh?”

For a solid ten seconds, I just stared at her, hoping that the rhetorical question hadn’t been directed at me. A less admirable part of me had even hoped she would just feel so uncomfortable she would leave.

But when she turned and met my eyes, I saw nothing hostile or worthy of my rage. She was a woman just like me, although much more impeccably dressed.

“Yeah, he’s…” I started, but my throat went dry the second we both glanced at him across the room.

She looked away first. I followed her lead the best I could.

“He’s… something, yeah?” Lila laughed.

I was so caught off-guard by the brilliance that was her smile that I had forgotten I was supposed to dislike her. So I laughed, too. I laughed and I took the chance to remind myself that I had done this once before already. I thought of another blonde woman with a rare but beautiful smile. I could see Max then, rolling her eyes to hide the fondness she felt for a man she used to love. I had done this before already with her, and everything had worked out just fine.

But this time it’d felt so different. I hated myself for feeling that way because I knew it was due in part to my own internalized shame for not having been his first. The jealousy I held for her was so much heavier and all-encompassing than Max, and I hated that Lila clearly saw it in the way I answered her with a curt, grumbled reply.

“Yeah, that’s one word for it.”

She hummed in the silence that followed. She brought a chilled champagne glass to her lively pink cheeks and sighed at the contrast. If she’d seen me staring from my peripherals, she said nothing. Lila just scanned the room until she fell naturally on him again. Like before, it took her almost no time to look away.

Back to me, the odd, much younger nobody standing at her side.

“I have to admit, I never imagined him being with someone younger,” she said like it was some kind of scandal. But when she saw how it made me bristle with fear, she placed a gentle hand on my forearm.

I looked down at the contact that felt like silk on sandpaper.

“But it makes sense,” she assured me. She called my attention back to her and she beamed, “He seems so… happy.”

Her voice took on a dreamy quality that made me feel almost invisible. There was an acknowledgement, a closure in the softness of that moment. As she looked at my boyfriend — who had managed to find someone willing to listen to a rant about god knows what — I saw her smile in so many different ways.

There was nothing combative or intimidating in the way she acted, but it scared me, nonetheless. Like if Spencer had looked over and seen the way she watched him, he might realize how much I paled in comparison to her.

So, I stole her attention away from him and tried not to let myself stutter.

“Yeah… I hope he’s happy, anyway!” I nearly shouted with an equally unsettling, self-defeated chuckle.

But she took the awkwardness in stride, and returned and equally enthused, “He is! I can tell he’s absolutely head over heels for you.”

If it had ended there, it might’ve been okay. She couldn’t be blamed for finding something poetic about a beautiful man from an obviously fond memory. I didn’t blame her, and in fact I was grateful that someone had felt something for Spencer Reid and walked away without scars.

But that fondness was so strong, so intoxicating that I found it hard to believe it had been a lifetime ago. I found it hard to believe someone could feel so deeply and then... Let it go.

I could never imagine letting him go.

“He’s changed a lot,” she sighed, “but those big ol’ puppy dog eyes sure didn’t.”

Then, the unbelievable happened. My walls came crashing down, overcome by the insecurity and anxiety that I’d tried to repress. I took that one fond look, that breathtaking nostalgia, and I let my curiosity get the best of me.

“Did… Did you…?”

The words stumbled off my tongue before I could even think about what I was asking. I had no end to the question, no words left to ask. There were too many, all inappropriate and none that I’d actually wanted the answer to.

Did you love him? Did you even want to leave him? Did you hate yourself for letting him go? Did you know if he loved you? Had he told you, the way he had never told me?

Thankfully, none of that came out. Instead, it was just a drawn-out squeak until that kind, unfairly stunning woman saved me once more.

“Hm? Oh, we didn’t date or anything,” she dismissed with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “No, we only saw each other a couple times. He was… very shy. Couldn’t make a move to save his life.”

Wait… what?

My mind summoned every image of him I could. Every time that he’d held me and assured me that it would be okay. I scoured through memories looking for anything that I could convince myself resembled what she spoke of.

Shy? I repeated as I pictured the man who slammed me against a door the first time that he’d kissed me. I could feel the world rocking the same as his car in the parking lot of a gun range. I heard his voice in my ear, low and gruff as he went into explicit detail about the ways he wanted to defile me until there was nothing left.

Even when I thought of him at his softest, I only saw a leader with a gentle fist. The kind that would guide my trembling hand.

Patient, loving, and tender, perhaps. But shy? That was not the Spencer Reid I knew.

Lila was clueless to the existential crisis she’d just caused. She didn’t realize that anything she’d said was shocking because, to her, he was the same Spencer she had known. One that I’d never met.

“I think we both realized we just weren’t right for one another. He deserved someone wonderful, who looks at him like...”

She contemplated the thought for a minute, trying to come up with the answer I desperately needed to hear. The one she’d settled on, however, was very underwhelming.

“Well, like you do!”

Whatever the hell that meant.

“Gosh. You’re a lot to live up to,” I laughed to cover the sound of oncoming tears. I tried to bury the sudden, newfound insecurity that I had somehow suffocated some part of him. “I hope I’m… good enough.”

There was a brief, albeit stunned silence. Lila turned to me with a quirked brow that quickly furrowed. Her eyes scanned my body with a scrutiny that made my skin crawl, but only made her laugh.

“Girl… have you looked in a mirror lately? Or possibly ever?” she sputtered with incredulity. She was so sure in her conclusion that even when I wished for sarcasm, there was none to be found when she insisted, “You don’t have a single thing to worry about. Especially not with him.”

That time, she didn’t even look at the man. She just nodded her head in his general direction. Her eyes stayed on me, growing familiar and fond the same way she had looked at him.

And I realized in that moment that I had been a fool for thinking that anything about her was molded by her experiences with him. Lila was not overly fond of Spencer because she was in love with him. She was just a woman who saw the best in people and wanted to help them see it, too.

But there was still something gnawing on my heart, something dark and unsure when I whispered, “Yeah. I guess you’re probably right. Thanks.”

She’d seen it the same as I had, although she couldn’t understand what was holding me back. So, she did the only thing she could think to do and said exactly what she’d seen since I appeared on her doorstep.

“Seriously,” she assured me, “He’s totally in love with you. Promise.”

Butterflies swarmed in my chest, filling my lungs that threatened to choke me on the overwhelming nature of it all.

Love is what she’d seen when she looked at us. But as much as I’d wanted to believe it, I couldn’t help but get the sinking feeling that her saying it might be the only chance I had to hear it anytime soon.

Don’t think too hard.

The age-old adage always sounded deceptively easy. As if it was possible to just flip the switch in my brain that told me that everything I loved was falling to pieces in my hands. But there was no forgetting, no running away from gut-wrenching fear of inadequacy through sheer force of will.

If I was going to stop thinking too hard, I had to do something to distract myself from the tension that had formed in every muscle.

Spencer hadn’t said much on the way back to the hotel. I think he’d known that speaking too soon would unleash the hellish contents of Pandora’s box, and the car was much too small to hold them all in. A hotel room would be better.

But the closer we got to the destination, the more I realized that I didn’t really want to talk to him about it at all. I didn’t want to hear his explanations because they would make me think again. Too hard.

He helped me out of the car and refused to let my hand go. He would’ve if I’d wanted him to, but I hadn’t. The truth was that his touch had always been the only thing that could soothe the anxiety. The warmth and comfort spread from interlocked fingers like wildfire.

That was all it took. Something so simple as frozen hands clinging so tightly that our bones rattled together.

In a brave and potentially stupid move, I released his hand so I could lock my arms around his instead. The sentiment caught his attention like a blaring siren of emergency responders - a sign of hope in bleak, iron scented darkness.

Spencer looked down at me the same second the automatic doors welcomed us into the lobby. The light draped over us and hung above him like a halo to tired, dry eyes.

He smiled, but I was still too busy wondering what he saw when he looked at me.

“Are you alright, Bunny?” he asked.

A subtle reminder for me to smile. I did.

“I’m cold,” I answered to justify the closeness in a way I’d never felt the need to do before.

The man beside me was also struggling to navigate unusually tumultuous waters. Things were somehow easier when he had been the one falling apart. It felt wrong to be jealous, though, considering his skill came from practice.

But Spencer Reid was nothing if not a quick learner. Sensing my discomfort, he pulled me closer and assured me, “We’re almost there. I’ll warm you up in no time at all.”

Then, realizing how provocative that had sounded when it clearly hadn’t been his intention, Spencer continued, “With blankets… and pillows. And every other fluffy thing in the immediate vicinity.”

I laughed. Not an empty sound, but still tired. We both pretended like he wasn’t disappointed. He cleared his throat at the same time the elevator announced its arrival. The mechanical whirring drowned out my thoughts for just a few seconds. Long enough for me to look up at my boyfriend without him noticing.

The sight shook me to my core. Regret was painted in every aspect of his expression. His eyes, half lidded, seemed somewhere else entirely. It reminded me so much of that rainy day in front of the prison that I could almost hear the ruckus on an old roof. His lips were flattened in a line that trembled from the pressure he was under. I lingered on them and willed them to speak happy, beautiful words again. But he remained as he was.

We were both thinking too hard, I thought.

I wanted it to stop.

My hands sought him out without instruction. Unwinding from his side, they were quick to find their place on the edges of a tense jaw. I didn’t give him any time to think about what was happening before I pulled him forward and closed the remaining gap between tired, trembling lips.

I kissed him — hard. Hard enough that our teeth pinched skin with nowhere left to go. I poured my soul into him without worry about whether I could ever get it back. I kissed him because I wanted to remind him the way it felt when we came together. I wanted him to remember all the times he’d promised me forever, lest he find some reason to doubt it.

Spencer didn’t move. He stayed exactly where he was, still shaking from the excitement and shock of it all. But then the spell over him broke and finally allowed him to do what we did best. His arms wrapped around me, and his mouth breathed life into me despite our mutual breathlessness. His hands were clumsy but always perfectly placed, forever touching some rare, hidden part of my soul, and leaving goosebumps like sprouts in his wake.

For one pure, simple moment, we returned to what we once were. Spencer would call it the innocent and the damned, but he would never be a wicked thing to me.

The knot in my stomach returned the second the thought had occurred to me. Because Spencer was not damned. He deserved the softness, the freedom and the patience that he provided me. That catharsis, that relief found in a lover’s arms.

I could no longer convince myself that our dynamic was as it was because he’d wanted it to be that way. Albeit unwittingly, Lila had forever robbed me of the feeling that Spencer and I had been made for each other.

Because I couldn’t be made for someone like him. He was someone who deserved to not be in charge for once, and no matter how hard my fingers wrapped around mousy brown curls, I couldn’t turn them to fists. I couldn’t bring myself to command him to do anything other than rest.

Was it selfish of me to not want to wield the power? Was I nothing but another pebble atop Atlas’s back? Another mask he was forced to wear? Another burden to bear?

Even then, with sadness bleeding through our mouths, he was the one to press my back gently against vibrating walls. He took charge because someone had to, and I was too scared. I wondered how his fists never hurt. I had seen the darkness consume him once before only for him to emerge unscathed.

Spencer’s hands kept me grounded — to him and the earth. In a contradictory fashion, his lips took me elsewhere. To that somewhere else where it was just the two of us. Where I could raise trembling hands and not overthink the way his pink skin of his cheeks blanched under my fingertips.

The call of the elevator was ignored for a second, but we eventually had to respond. I saw the reluctance to part in every aspect of his expression, but he left, nonetheless. We left the tiny box and ventured back into reality, just for a moment. Long enough for us to start to catch our breaths and realize that something had changed.

But his hand was still in mine, and it was still warm despite the cold.

Don’t overthink it, I reminded myself.

He opened the door for me like he always did. His hand in mine hesitated as he tried to decide whether it was worth it to remove his coat if it meant that we might not come back together again for the night.

I let go, instead. But our eyes remained locked with a tension that turned once coherent thoughts into a chaotic mess that demanded to be felt. The kind that caused tightly wound fingers to flex with anticipation. Spencer recognized my desire before I did. Perhaps that’s why he knew to move faster, too. Because the second his jacket crumpled to the floor, I found him in the dim golden light.

I threw myself at him in an entirely different way. I lunged forward without anticipation that he would catch me. I grabbed hold of hands that reached out to me and forced them back against the wall, just as he’d done to me so many times before. I pressed my body against him with more force than I thought I possessed.

I looked into his eyes from that position, and I saw my name forming on his tongue.

“Bun—"

But I didn’t want to hear it, so I kissed him, instead. Our lips met with enough force that his hands tried to resist despite the sting of manicured nails.

We both knew that I wasn’t strong enough to keep him back, but he didn’t fight it any harder. He simply chased my lips the few inches he could when I’d pulled away.

“I don’t want to talk,” I whispered. It was less convincing than I’d planned for it to be. I could hardly meet his eyes, but I saw the doubt, nonetheless.

Of course, it also didn’t help that he’d vocalized it.

“What’s all this for? I was sure you would unleash all your rage the second you had me alone, but this… isn’t what I pictured.”

It wasn’t just what he’d said, but also how he’d said it that chipped away at the little confidence I’d developed. Everything about him demanded softness. I tried to force myself to see him otherwise, but the longer I stared into sweet honey eyes, the harder it was to escape that feeling that I was nothing but a flower to be consumed and thrown aside.

I was desperate to be recognized for something more than the innocent forest creature. Because no matter how tantalizing the lamb might be, its innocence was limited. Its first, pure softness would one day be cut and turned to wool. I had to be something more before I lost enough of myself that I was no longer enough.

I wanted to be something more. I wanted to be everything he would ever need, no matter how unhealthy I knew that thought to be.

So, with a trembling lip, I gave an order that begged not to be followed.

“Take off your clothes.”

Spencer’s confusion turned to concern. He saw how close I was to breaking down in his arms and refused to stand down.

“Bunny…” he pressed with enough compassion to turn sparks to unwieldy forest fires in my chest, “are you sure you don’t want to talk?”

For the first time, he fought my grip on his hands. With just as much tenderness as ever, he tried to reassert himself to the position I’d failed to fill in record time.

Do something, I screamed at myself as I saw a million painful possibilities flash through my mind.

Just do something!

“No!”

The sound shot through the both of us the same as the vibrations when I’d slammed his wrists back against the wall. With tensed arms and a tightness in my throat, I raised my voice for the first time since that bitter snowy night. I filled the sound not with pain, but with a demand to be seen as something, anything else.

“I don’t want to talk! Y-You’re gonna do what Isay!”

And for the first time, I felt it. The weight of his hands fell into my grip the same as his eyelids lowered and his jaw released any remaining tension. That mask of feigned masculinity, the jester’s mask of confidence and apathy burned and turned to ash so quickly that I nearly dropped him.

I witnessed Spencer’s submission with wide eyes and a broken heart.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like that. It wasn’t meant to be scary when his skin flushed and his voice went soft. But that weight had dropped so hard and heavy that I felt crushed under the pressure. That pesky fear that I wouldn’t be enough to fill the darkness and it would swallow us both whole.

But Spencer had always thought more of me than I thought possible. I saw the unwavering trust cut through the shadows with ease.

“Anything,” he whispered with a new kind of urgency, “I’m yours.”

Even in his haze, he saw the signs of impending dread. He tried to reassure me best that he could with pupils blown wide and an obvious desire pressed against my leg.

“I’d do anything for you,” he said so simply it hurt. “Just tell me what to do.”

It wasn’t enough to curb the panic. I tried to stave off the thoughts telling me that it was me that was flawed. That it was a lack of trying that made my chest collapse as the fire inside starved me of oxygen. That the resulting smoke billowing from my mouth wouldn’t burn my eyes if I’d just been better somehow.

“Bunny,” he called clearer now.

It wasn’t enough.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered, somehow hoping that he wouldn’t hear. As if my silence could hide the failure.

I tore my hands away from him, but he didn’t fall. He hadn’t even faltered, almost like he was waiting for the inevitable where I couldn’t follow through. My hands clutched my chest as I tried to fill my lungs with enough air to dilute the polluted storm still brewing.

“Bunny, breathe.”

Although my eyes were stuck on a spinning floor, I saw his light in the peripheral.

“It’s okay,” he tried to reassure me.

But when his hands reached out to me, I smacked them away on instinct. I stepped back on clumsy legs and forced warbling words through the drought in my throat.

“No, it’s not!” I cried, “It’s not okay, Spencer! Why can’t I just do it?!”

He tried to hold me, but I couldn’t let him. I knew that as soon as he touched me, I would forgive him just like I always did. I had been there so many times before, and I was dedicated to not repeating the same tired history. I didn’t want to be the flower weeping in his arms. I wanted to be fire, iron, and teeth like he had to be.

Still, I caved the moment he begged, “Please talk to me.”

“I just wish I could be… more,” I mumbled between rage filled sobs.

“What do you mean more?”

“Just… more!” I cried, hoping that he might understand but knowing that he couldn’t. Even when I continued, I was only met with an equally frustrated stare. “I want to be more. More deserving, more experienced, more mature, more… exciting!”

But for all his genius, Spencer couldn’t read my mind. Through the panic, he had missed the underlying fear.

That I didn’t just want to be more. I wanted to be more like her.

When he spoke, he didn’t know not to do so through a smile.

“I’m perfectly happy with our current dynamic,” he chuckled, like this bout of insecurity was not months in the making. Like he could just will it away with a wave of his hand and a shrug. He had no reason to think I wouldn’t believe it when he reassured me, because I had always done so before.

“You have always been enough for me.”

But things had changed, and I didn’t know how to handle it. The thrill of the earth opening beneath my feet had quickly faded. Now I was terrified and stranded in the Asphodel Meadows. It was exactly that terror that made me answer without thinking.

“Yeah but with Lila, you—!”

With both hands in the air and a scowl sprouting over his face in a manner of seconds, Spencer issued an order that was also unlike the others.

A firm, painful, “Stop.”

My body, already well accustomed to that word on his tongue, followed the direction no matter how much I wished it hadn’t. One simple word had robbed me of my voice and further demonstrated the difference between us. He took a deep breath and I found the resentment building. Because it was so easy to brush off the panic that had consumed my thoughts for hours.

Because it sounded so nice when he swore, “I’m not with Lila. I’m with you. Happily.”

This time when I reminded myself not to overthink it, it wasn’t to swallow my fears. It was to rid myself of their weight, even if it meant that he might have to carry them. It was my choice to be selfish despite my attempts to do the opposite.

“Yeah, but when you were with her, she said you were totally different! And apparently, you still are! You have this whole side of you that you’ve kept from me because we both know that I…”

I watched the events all begin to align. I saw the regret and grief wash over him as he witnessed his own secrets come back to haunt him. The same ones that he had undoubtedly kept to protect me.

There was no more hiding from it, however. There was only a broken woman standing in front of him with arms wrapped around herself as she told him the truth he’d never wanted to hear.

“I’m not like her, Spencer. And I’m really scared that one day you’re going to want that again, and I’m not going to be the one to give it to you.”

Spencer ran heavy hands over his face. He hid behind clenched fists like he could find something helpful in the abyss. When they fell away, though, he was still just a man without all the answers.

“First of all, I’m not thrilled with you two discussing my sexual history, but I understand I can’t control you and you deserve to hear from a less biased source, but…”

He paused. He tried to formulate the perfect words, to infuse them with enough emotion that I would believe him like I always did. But there were so many memories of his that I’d gathered without him knowing. That tedious, analytical mind of mine that he’d so appreciated was now a weapon in the worst way.

“Bunny, I am not interested in recreating my sexual experiences with her, alright? I was… awkward, and uncomfortable. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

He begged me to hear him, but all I heard were the things he’d failed to tell me. There would be no way for him to understand the extent of my fear until the playing field was leveled. Until I dug the bones from his closet with bloodied fingernails and demanded answers for their ghosts.

“Is she the girl you cheated on Max with?”

Silence filled the room. A suffocating, ear-ringing nothingness as Spencer’s face lost all color before becoming filled with an abject rage.

“What?”

I didn’t know how to respond to the anger, so I went with a factual clarification, instead.

“Max told me she was executed, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better.”

Spencer clung to that unrelenting anger.

“When was this?!” he shouted, unable to recognize how contagious that feeling was.

He failed to realize that setting his sights on me wouldn’t make me cower. I had been too close to Tartarus to allow myself to feel threatened any longer. If he wanted to be angry, then so would I.

“When you were on a date with— with fucking Professor Cavity!” I spat, pushing past the uncomfortable reality that was our past and forcing him back to the present day. Demanding the acknowledgement of what I already knew to be true. “Was Max lying or not?!”

The regret was immediate. I watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed his pride and tried to calm down. His flawless memory, I’m sure, was not a comfort in times like this. We had only fought twice before, and neither of us wanted a miscommunication like the first time, nor a disaster like the second.

But there was something so… flippant in the way he sighed.

“Bunny,” he started. I didn’t let him finish.

“Did you cheat on her or was she lying?!” I demanded again.

“She wasn’t!” he shouted back with a shocking lack of defensiveness. Any suggestion of remorse quickly vanished, however, when he clarified, “But it wasn’t Lila, I didn’t even sleep with that woman—!”

“That’s your defense?!” I balked.

Spencer raised his hands in a desperate plea for me to listen— to let him finish explaining why he was digging his own grave.

“—and it was a very complicated situation, and in any event, it’s irrelevant to our relationship. They’re completely different!”

But each word made my heart ache harder. My lungs were pumping too fast to talk, but I made them anyway. With all the breath I had left in me I begged him to give me something to hold on to before I drowned in the dreaded river Styx. I needed him to tell me before the hatred and fear consumed all else.

“How are they different?!” I asked.

He answered. With red-rimmed eyes to match angry cheeks and bulging veins, his reply echoed through the strange room with a startling clarity for the power it held.

“Because I wasn’t in love with any of them!”

The silence returned. In its careful way, it cut through the noise of broken hearts pounding in our ears. It forced heaving lungs to still and hair to stand at attention.

Spencer looked at me with something potent and real for what felt like the first in a long time. There was no facade, no attempt to cushion or sugar-coat the bittersweet. No hiding. There was only him, only me- only us and the stillness.

And although it felt wrong to break it, I knew I had to. I did so gently, cautiously inching forward with my hand extended and palm visible like I was approaching a caged animal who’d finally been granted freedom. He winced all the same.

“… What did you just say?” I asked when I couldn’t bear the quiet any longer.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you just… say, or imply, or… whatever —Did you just say that you’re in love with me?”

But for all the preceding hubbub, his answer was remarkably simple.

“Yeah,” he said, “Of course.”

And just like that, the world returned to a new normal. Broken hearts didn’t mend, but they grew quiet, comforted by the knowing that they weren’t quite as alone as they feared they had been.

My tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar phrase as I repeated, “You… love me?”

A gentle curve appeared in the corner of his quivering lips. Spencer even laughed despite the vulnerability. His face was just as red as before, but this time there was nothing painful behind the color. It was a simple shyness blooming through already full capillaries. It broke through time and space until we were transported back to the two idiots spilling morning coffee and stacks of books. The fools that only barely escaped being locked in the library only to call each other and stay on the line later to promise each other hugs.

Living through the same memories, Spencer whispered through an exhausted chuckle, “I’m sorry, I thought it was obvious.”

I laughed, too. That time not from shock, but from the obliviousness that was the two of us. It was the same ridiculousness that had flustered me on the way to the conference when he’d informed me that he had meant a lot more than I’d thought when he called himself mine.

My mind raced through each memory of each time that he touched me. I felt his hands from months and miles away. The phantom friction grew and spread like wildfire over drought-ridden skin until every inch of me burned the same as he did.

It was only then that our eyes met well enough to soften. In the golden hue of passionate flames reborn, his hazel eyes remained vulnerable but honest when he answered, “Of course I love you, Bunny. More than anything.”

While Spencer stepped forward with arms open and palms up, I remained still and stunned, only barely able to squeak out yet another clarifying question.

“… me? You love me?”

Just to hear him laugh again. Just for him to say it one more time.

“Yes, Bunny,” he said when familiar hands cradled my burning cheeks, “I love you.”

“Oh,” I laughed back. Wiping tears from my ears before they dared to touch his thumbs, I glanced up to see that he was still waiting for some semblance of a response. But with all the shock and excitement, my mouth couldn’t form the words I’d wanted to say.

So, instead, I told a different kind of truth.

“Sorry, I’m suddenly realizing that I don’t really care about any of that stuff I just said.”

It all meant the same, anyway. Because the love we shared was so much more than three little words. It was the way that I felt life return the longer he held me. The way my body swayed closer to fill a nonexistent space between us, trying to break through bones so that our hearts could be closer together somehow.

It was the breathlessness when he came almost close enough to kiss me. But he stopped, sensing the words when they were still nothing but the beginnings of vibrations deep in my chest.

“And you’re sure? That you love m—?”

But he couldn’t wait. Spencer robbed me of the little breath I had left by filling the spaces between our lips with one another’s. Our mouths open just enough that we could hear the tension break with a forceful exhale. One last breath before the dam broke, until there was no holding back the tumultuous waves of repressed passion.

His hands that had been so tender turned ruthless when they tangled in my hair. He pulled me closer, while the rest of him pushed me back. We sought out an anchor among the blissful reckoning borne from our doubt. Punishment in the form of laughter spilling between kisses. The sounds quickly morphed into moans. We abandoned desperate clutching for clumsy disrobing the second that I’d felt the bed behind me.

Spencer was as gentle as he always was when he guided silky fabric until gravity could do the rest. He watched with rapt fascination as it fell away. With a blasphemous, unadulterated pleasure, he took in the sight he’d once promised to abstain from.

I climbed onto the bed without letting him go. My hands rested on his shoulders while he used his to help hoist me up onto the plush surface. But he didn’t follow me, and his hands were different then. They were slow, almost cautious when they smoothed over the imperfections embedded in my skin. I could feel him studying what he had already perfected, trying to instill yet another memory without disturbing all those that came before it.

Not because I had changed — there was nothing noteworthy about stuffy noses and red-rimmed eyes — but because he had wanted to remember exactly how I’d looked in that quiet, nearly still moment.

He wanted to remember when it happened. That uniquely human, absurdly wonderful, mathematical impossibility that was loving someone and having them love you back.

The moment where I admitted what I’d always known.

“I love you, too.”

—————————————————

I’d never been a lucky man. Even my most useful and miraculous trait was more often a sword than a shield. My memory, flawless in so many ways, captured the truly horrible, vile moments with far greater clarity than the beautiful ones.

I’d never been a lucky man, but I got a chance that night. A rare, fleeting moment where everything that was, was good. Where the woman I loved was staring up at me with tears in her eyes that contained nothing even resembling fear.

Her cheeks were warm under my palm, and her eyes were bright and soft at the same time. She was beautiful, effortlessly radiant. Invigorating new growth while soothing scorched roots that began finding home wound around her.

In that moment, where I professed my intention to place my final claim — her heart — she did not cower. She merely smiled as she said the unimaginable. The words that brought an end to forty years untouched by fortune of any magnitude.

I love you, too.

And the world had stopped. Every ever-present particle took pause to honor the blasphemy that was her loving me. The sinful, indulgent impossibility spilling from puckered, quivering lips with ease despite the weight of the words.

“I love you, Spencer.”

The words struck even harder, then. My heart was not prepared for such decadence, as it was not used to kindness of that kind. It’s response, then, was not a returned tenderness. It was a need.

I tried to be gentle in taking her, but it would be a fruitless effort. My Bunny had no intention of finding softness in the wreckage. She sought out sharp diamonds formed under the pressure; she dug her nails into my skin and forced me to kiss her through the panting. Still, a few words bled through to find her.

“God, do I love you.”

The simple admission had calmed her just enough for her to giggle for the first time in what felt like forever. The sound allowed enough air to enter my lungs that I was able to sigh, releasing the tension that had been weighing on me all day.

Then all that was left was her squirming with anticipation below me. Her, with bitten lip and soft curves that called to me. For a moment, I just stared at everything that had come together to make such a magnificent creature, albeit flawed enough to find me worthwhile.

“Are you gonna tell me what to do?” she grumbled begrudgingly, but playfully.

My reply, however, was very serious.

“Is that what you want?”

She lit up in seconds, reaching forward and grabbing fistfuls of my hair in a strange display of gratitude.

“Oh my god, yes, please,” she begged, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

But in strong contrast to her words, she pulled me down to kiss her. She kept my lips against hers longer than I would have done without her guidance. And I silently wondered while I waited. I wondered if she had realized how often she had been the one to lead.

I knew any attempt to point it out to her would backfire, so I decided on a different approach. The same way I’d done many times before, I took her smaller wrists in my hands and guided them back down to soft linens.

My weight kept her steady despite the way her body writhed and rocked against me. Not that she’d needed to be able to touch me to beg me to touch her; her eyes alone were capable of that.

But I forced myself to withstand their call for a few minutes longer. It was for her sake, although I knew she wouldn’t see it as such.

“I have a few easy instructions. Does that sound okay?”

How quickly she’d withered at the thought. She was cleverer than many gave her credit for, and she knew what I was going to ask. Still, she was brave in her shyness, and she managed to make herself nod.

“All you need to do is lie here and enjoy yourself. That’s all that I expect of you,” I reassured her first. Despite squirming just a little, she seemed to accept the truth. It was the next part that was more difficult for her to come to terms with. “But if you start to feel something… an urge to do something more… I want you to do it.”

As expected, she cried, “But—!”

“Bunny,” I warned.

She pouted, but acquiesced, nonetheless. Her temptation was so practiced and perfected that I failed to avoid it entirely. Our lips met in short bursts until she couldn’t hold her jaw up anymore.

In that comfortable contentedness, I continued, “You don’t have to do anything. I can’t even begin to explain to you how even the chance to touch you is a privilege. If I could only look at you for the rest of my life, it would be enough for me.”

Recalling what I’d literally just witnessed, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“But I’ve seen that fire in your eyes before… and all I ask is that you give it a chance to breathe. Can you do that for me, Bunny?”

That sweet, unassuming girl considered the request. Her confidence still wavered, as evidenced by her back rolling like petals on the wind and her eyes averting mine. She sought out the shade, finding home in the space between my arms and pulling me closer still.

When I was close enough to bump her nose and feel how her breath shook, she whispered back a timid offer, “I can do it.”

“Good girl. I’m so proud of you,” I said because it was true. I’d wanted to reassure her of so many things, to reinforce that my words had not now nor ever been empty. I displayed my desire for her in what little ways I could without letting it hurt. I pressed my hips against hers and tried to breathe in the smell of her champagne tainted breath.

“Now relax for me,” I humbly requested, “I want to show you how much I meant every word.”

Sooner than I’d expected, though, before our lips even touched, I heard her call my name.

“Spencer?”

“Yes, Bunny?” I mumbled against her neck.

She didn’t let the sensation distract her from her goal. Craning her fingers down to tickle the backs of my hands around her wrists, she whispered a simple request.

“I want… to be on top.” Then, in case that was too strong, she added, “Please.”

But of course, it had been anything but too much. I welcomed her desire with the utmost enthusiasm. The two of us did that thing only lovers could do, shifting our combined weight to effortlessly roll across the expanse of a king-sized bed. The extra space was wasted, with our bodies never straying far enough to justify the size. Continuing the trend of closeness, my Bunny began collecting pillows and shoving them under my head until I was close enough for her comfort.

It would never be close enough for me, though. Open palms traversed the familiar skin of her back as if it were the first time. I dragged rough fingertips over soft skin and groaned when I felt her shiver from the pressure. Still so young, still so innocent to sinful touch.

I wondered if she would ever grow tired of my touch. I prayed she would not grow impatient with my worship, because I knew I would never cease wanting her with every bit of stardust that I was made of.

So when she cried, “Touch me,” I was quick to follow her instruction.

I knew what she wanted. I could feel the vibration of excited quantum particles, the friction induced heat of our bodies grinding hard against one another. Still, despite her urgency, she was happy to lift her hips to make room for my hand between her legs.

A sated sigh fell from her lips the second that my finger slid between tight muscles. The heady wetness caused a visceral reaction in me, too. My mouth fell open, not unlike moments before when my Bunny had backed me against the wall. I thought back to that feeling, that power she possessed without even knowing.

I held onto it, held onto her with my free hand and whole heart. I pulled her forward a bit more forcefully than I’d anticipated, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, she gasped, followed with a coquettish little moan when my lips closed over her collarbone. But that sound was the least of her lust.

My Bunny’s fingers raked through my hair, unbothered by how the curls tangled in the space in between. She’d wanted to get stuck. She’d wanted to trap me in her hold because she had no intention of letting me go as easily as she had before. Tugging with her tight fists, she was more than happy to lead already bruised lips where she’d wanted them most.

Her lungs were working so hard, pumping hot air and lifting her chest to meet my lips with a complete lack of grace. There was no precision, no fear for what I might think of her clumsiness. She merely dragged her body against my stubbly cheek like she was trying to leave marks in my wake.

When that sting wasn’t enough anymore, she turned my head to better allow me to kiss it better. And although I still harbored the fear that my lips would never be able to heal, I tried for her. I tasted the sweetened saline of her skin and savored every second of it.

I tried to focus only on the jagged rhythm of my fingers between her legs. Using both my fingers and my tongue, I beckoned her closer without ever leaving her. I sunk my teeth into soft flesh at the same time I buried my fingers to the knuckle.

“Professor,” she groaned, her voice lower and harder than I’d ever heard before. The vibration in her chest shot through me like lightning, and before I knew it, I was returning her cries with whimpers.

I fought against her grip on my hair not to disobey her, but because I was greedy and wanted more. I wanted to smother myself against her chest, to suckle at her breast like the animal that I was.

So, I did. With her assistance, I took as much of her into my mouth as I could while never ceasing that constant petting between tense, quivering walls. Our bodies communicated in a way that our mouths couldn’t, and like I’d always done, I toyed with her. I tested every theory I could with each twirl of a hot tongue and slick fingers. I memorized her responses and sought to repeat them until she couldn’t take it any longer.

Until she was begging, “Kiss me harder.”

I tried, switching my attention from one breast to the other at her urgent request. She was no longer satisfied with just holding onto hair and chose to press manicured fingers into my scalp to show her relative displeasure at my attempts to obey her command.

Because no matter how hard I loved her, she was not satisfied.

“Harder,” she growled while grinding against my fingers.

I’d wanted so badly to please her, but it was all so overwhelming. There was no coherent thought that remained, nothing that was not fully composed of her — of the sweet sting of my Bunny’s claws and her desperate, frustrated groans.

I returned them without thinking, calling her name against her breast. Knowing that it was incomprehensible, but that she would recognize it, nonetheless.

She did. She heard the man who loved her more than himself panting her name pathetically against her skin, and she smiled. I could hear it in the way she taunted me.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she drawled.

I had never seen anything so beautiful as my Bunny in that moment. Selfishly taking; claiming me the same way I had done to her so many times. She began rocking against my hand, and the slickness that had gathered on my fingers was practically dripping down my palm. That heat, that wetness was so close to my cock that it had begun to ache.

It would be so easy, so effortless to slip inside her, I thought. But I couldn’t — not yet. The heady scent of her was more intoxicating than any drug, but still not enough for me to give up on her. So, I carried on, encouraged by every soft sound that would slip between the darker moans and orders.

I knew in my heart that she was capable of so much, but that never stopped her from surprising me. She’d made a habit of exceeding every expectation I had formed. Like a sprout turned into a redwood, she took root in my soul in a permanent fashion.

Conversely, her fists loosened. Running gentle hands over my head, I heard her breath begin to peak. I could feel her walls closing around my fingers with an increasing intensity as all her energy began to shift until it flowed from her coquettish tongue in the form of two simple words.

“Good boy.”

The words were so simple, so pure in their utterance that I couldn’t stand to be apart from her any longer. I couldn’t wait, I couldn’t contain that inner animal, that ungodly lust from forcing its way through. Without even thinking, I’d withdrawn my soaked fingers and sank dull nails hard enough into her hips that she yelped from the pain.

I didn’t stop. I didn’t even hesitate. I channeled all the frustration and longing into lifting her hips. Somehow, by the hands of fate and the instinctual recognition of one soul torn in two parts, she knew how to move. She tilted her hips forward just in time for me to pull her down onto my aching cock.

Her body eagerly welcomed me home. There was no doubt, no trace of the fear of inadequacy left. There was no breath left to call my name, either, so she captured my mouth with hers, instead. We recalibrated, then, with her hands on my heated cheeks instead of wrapped in curls.

My Bunny looked at me with tears sprouting in her eyes again, but I kissed her cheeks until the saltwater was smeared between my lips. When that was not enough to satisfy parched lips, her tongue offered itself, instead. Her walls pulsed around me the harder that I kissed her, so I couldn’t help but to give her everything. But the moment I thrust up into her, she gasped and sobbed from the mutual ache for more.

“Tell me what you want,” I begged, too.

She was quick and sure in her reply.

“Take care of me,” she whispered with the confidence of an order but the tenderness of the most vulnerable type of request, “Please. Take care of me.”

Our bodies moved without waiting for our permission. We held onto each other as our skin rippled from the force of our bodies colliding with each movement. We rode out the storm, safe within each other’s arms.

“You are the most precious thing I have, Bunny,” I said. The warbling sound of my own voice was the first indication of the tears falling down my cheeks, but I didn’t shy away from it. I pressed a flushed cheek against her to remind myself that she was there when I promised, “I will love you forever. Until the day I die, I will protect you.”

She couldn’t answer me with words, but we’d never needed them, anyway. She spelled out I love you with her arms around my neck and her trembling legs each time that she fell into my lap.

I could feel her approaching the end at the same rate as I was. We raced there together, exhausted but still wanting with everything we had. I forced my eyes to stay open to witness her. I gazed up at her and ignored the bruises in my peripheral. Still, I polluted my thoughts with each instance that she had let me carve my name into her capillaries.

I held off; I ground my teeth together and stubbornly insisted that she finished first. I wanted to watch how she collapsed in on me the moment I said it.

Forcing my way to the hilt inside of her, I held her down against me and I growled, “You’re mine, Bunny. Mine.”

Then, to prove my point and to ease that ache inside of her, I let go. We both let go, holding onto each other harder all the while. I felt each wave of tension flow between our bodies while I filled her with the most precious thing I had to offer. I gave her the power to make life from nothing, even though I knew that it wouldn’t happen.

That didn’t stop me from hoping that I might know that feeling one day. The fantasies overcame logic and reality, and I couldn’t have cared less about the irrationality.

“Good girl,” I whispered while imagining her ultimate submission. I held her softly both because I’d wanted to and because all energy had been drained into a fruitless, but still euphoric effort. Even in that depleted state, my hips thrust into her again. I kept fucking her because she kept smiling, and I’d wanted nothing more than to please her.

But eventually, we both were too tired to continue. I welcomed her without hesitation. I wrapped my arms around her and did exactly what I’d promised I would do.

I took care of her. I offered her a place to rest her hummingbird heart. I protected her from the threat of the cold winds that whistled past the window. And when she was ready, I let her go, too. I watched her walk with unsteady, trembling legs and smiled because I trusted her to return in a way that had never been guaranteed for me before.

For once, there was no need for dramatic self-pity. In fact, the dopey, lovesick smile on my face felt permanent. Even when she poked her head out from around the corner of the bathroom, I didn’t doubt either of our feelings.

But I feared that my arrogance would come off as a bit rude in the very least, so I still made sure to ask, “How are you feeling, Bunny?”

“This wasn’t a trick, right?”

Thoroughly baffled by the question, I sought clarification in the simplest way, rather than trying to assume the answer.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, you didn’t just say you love me to win the argument and have sex, right?”

I hadn’t wanted to mock the poor girl, but I couldn’t contain the laughter. The question seemed so downright ridiculous that my incredulity couldn’t be explained with words alone.

“Why would you think that?” I asked, anyway.

Luckily for me, her response to the question was much more interesting than anything my mind could have come up with. Stumbling forward towards the bed, she struggled to form the words quick and clearly enough to be understood.

But I understood them. I heard them loud and clear.

“I don’t know! My knowledge of sex and love comes from modern media and poorly written erotica!”

“… does it?” I returned with a wicked smirk.

I watched as the regret overwhelmed her features and left her trembling for an entirely different reason. I savored the sight of her tugging at her pajamas and avoiding my eyes while she tried to find a way out of the hole she’d just dug herself.

The lack of an answer was confirmation enough, though.

“Fascinating. I will be bringing that up again later,” I promised before deciding to put the poor thing out of her misery. I reached forward until I could grab her hands and I thanked her young, spry body for being able to crawl to me with little assistance from myself.

“But no, Bunny. It wasn’t a trick. I meant it,” I reassured her when she was close enough to memorize. I brushed stray strands of hair from her face and I felt my own lip tremble under the weight of the admission. Then, through a nervous chuckle, I whispered, “… and… I still do.”

Her eyes wrinkled as she bit her tongue to stop herself from crying the same way I had. She took her spot beside me but kept her eyes on mine while she waited to hear it again, even though I was confident we’d both known for some time.

“I love you so much, Bunny. I’ll take care of you as long as you’ll let me.”

“I love you, too,” she admitted softly. The words were still not practiced, still new and green in a way I hoped they would always be. That alone would have been enough, more than anything I could have ever dreamed of receiving from something as pure as her. But then she continued with an ever-increasing tenderness, “And when you need it, I’ll take care of you, too.”

And to stop myself from breaking down in tears in her arms, I offered a playful jeer instead of the gratitude burning at my eyes.

“Deal.”

Her acceptance came with a kiss to seal the set of promises I never could have imagined her returning. Of course, I would have done them no matter what — I could not have avoided my desire to protect her even if I’d tried. I knew because I had.

But there we were. Tangled together in the center of a king-sized bed. We paid no mind to the feet of empty space. We stuck together like a twining vine that had finally found shelter and shade. Fully blossomed, we shared our happiness through petal soft lips that seemed to never stop wanting more.

Eventually, though, we succumbed to the sleepiness. I pulled the small flower tight against my chest and I waited to feel her breath begin to even out again.

Then — and only then — did I remind her of the far more entertaining confession of the night.

“… How poorly written was this erotica?”

“We’re not talking about this,” she answered immediately.

I did not relent.

“Did you write it? Or just want to?”

“Goodnight, Professor!” she shouted.

I hummed in surrender first, but the sound quickly broke out into laughter as I decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass it up. She should have known better than to give me that ammunition. Her eagerness to end the topic only confirmed my suspicions and solidified my next future project.

“Better hope you’ve hidden it well,” I warned.

“I hate you,” she deadpanned in the cutest possible manner.

Again, I did not relent. I nuzzled closer to her until I was settled in the crook of her neck. I stayed there until she smoothed over messy curls with a tenderness that I was certain I would never grow tired of. A softness that I had never experienced before, only to become intimately familiar with now.

“And I adore you,” I sighed against the soft skin of her shoulder. Then, upon remembering that I was, and always would be, safe and sound in the only home I’d ever known, I corrected myself.

“I love you, in fact.”

I wasn’t expecting to hear it back, but I did. Shy, innocent, and unassuming as ever, my Bunny offered me the impossible that I was finally starting to accept.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

And I decided that I was happy to be wrong if it meant that I would get to hear it forever.

—————————————————

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