#Lds

[loveanddeepspice]

𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕖

✞ synopsis:  you've come back to the small town you grew up in for a visit. though your relationship with the catholic church and faith in general have been strained since you were younger, you find yourself drawn back to the church... or more specifically... the new priest... you aren't ready to share your secret sin with him... but you may not be able to help yourself.

✞ pairing: sylus x curvy fem!reader

✞ rating:  18+ (minors do not engage)

✞ cw:  religion (catholicism), priest, lapsed faith, adultery, priest kink, suicidal mention, dead parent, sex, masturbation, drugs (marijuana), mentions of other drug use, drinking (more will be added when/if they arise)

✞ disclaimer: this fiction explores a romantic relationship between a lapsed Catholic and an unconventional priest. it is not designed to be inflammatory or critical. catholic authors were asked to participate in the process. we hope you enjoy it, but we know that these topics can be sensitive, so please skip this fiction if it will in any way offend you.

✞ chapter:  5 / ?

✞ co-authors:  redbriony, confuseddoughnut (they do not have tumblr)

✞ ao3 link:  here

✞ chapter synopsis: a series of risky decisions gets you into more than one kind of trouble.

✞ index: chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5

Please comment on this post if you want to be added to the tag list for updates!

The next few days were spent in the confines of your childhood home, your bed almost becoming your permanent address as you thought about that kiss. The kindness and how the words expressed resonated with you in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.  But more than anything, how the kissing Father Sylus had made you feel - the tenderness of it all. But surely you were getting ahead of yourself and even found yourself a little disgusted with yourself over the whole encounter. 

But he had just been so close, too sweet, and his face was so beautiful, and all you wanted to do was press kisses all over him. 

But it’s wrong, isn’t it? 

Something inside you rebelled against the idea for obvious reasons. Any resolve you had would disintegrate when you decided to act or speak on it. 

But then, one evening, Rafayel called. You barely answered in time because part of you was hoping it would be someone else.

“Hey babe, just wanted to check up and see how you’re doing. Haven’t heard from you.” 

You blinked, frozen for a moment as you twisted into a sitting position on your bed. “Fine. What’s up?” 

He chuckled, and you weren’t sure if he was annoyed. You felt slightly upset at yourself for not reaching out when you could have. A normal rekindled friendship typically involves a friend being there for the other, especially after what he revealed to you. But before you could follow up with an apology, he spoke again.

“Nothing in particular. I wondered if you wanted to get some of the old gang together and go up into the woods like we used to.” 

You knew the place he was walking about, the old lumber yard out in the middle of the woods where the kids from town used to gather. It had been a favorite spot to hang out, build bonfires, other illegal shit teenagers liked to do when they wanted to get away from their parents. 

“What do you mean ‘the gang?’” You asked. 

“Well, uh, it’s just gonna be you and me. When I tried to call anyone else from school, they either laughed at me for being back here or didn’t answer.” You could hear his nervous laugh when his words cut off. “Still a small town, and everyone is the same.” 

You couldn’t resist, though. Even if you were a bit too old for that behavior. Reliving your past was one of the reasons you returned home in the first place. “I have nothing better to do, so yeah. Sounds great.” You paused, wondering if you had said the right thing, hoping that Rafayel understood what you meant. “Sorry, I’ve been…not myself lately. Lot’s on my mind.” You rubbed the back of your knee with your fingers before standing, keeping the phone to your ear as you crossed the room to where your suitcase lay open on a chair. 

“I get it.” He responded with a laugh, light and airy in a way that made you smile. “Life is pretty shitty, especially for people like us who - well, you know.” There was a hint of apology in his tone as you heard him open and close a door. “This is the perfect opportunity for me to listen to you now.” 

“I kissed the priest.” 

“Fucking, what? The hot one?” 

You sat on the edge of the bed, leaning forward a bit, a bit shaken now with your admission. Even though you had spoken it out loud, you still felt as if you couldn’t totally come to grips with the situation. 

“Well, yeah. He’s the only one.”  You said, curling your hand around the hem of the comforter. “And I’m also in love with a married man. I’m losing it. This is what happens to people who don’t peak in high school or something!” 

Rafayel said nothing, obviously processing. Then he began to chuckle, which turned into a laugh. Then, he let out the most ridiculous roar of laughter. 

“Wow,” he managed to gasp out after a bit, only to laugh again. You could imagine how his shoulders probably shuddered as they shook and the grin plastered on his face. “Okay, once Talia goes to bed, I’ll grab her car and pick you up. And then you’re explaining this whole damn story to me. Got it?” 

“Got it.” 

“I can’t even comprehend this,” Rafayel breathed after you recounted your tale of how you ended up back home, finishing off with the way Father Sylus had kissed you and the way your panic overtook you. He shook his head, hands clenching and unclenching, brow knitted as he looked at you. 

The two of you sat in Talia's car, parked outside the old lumber yard in the woods. The empty dirt parking lot was bathed in the moon's light peeking through the clouds. The bowl on the dash between you both served as a reminder that some things hadn’t changed and that this was the first place you had smoked weed. 

Rafayel picked it up, fingers curling around the glass as he brought it to his lips. The flick of the lighter illuminated his face in the dark car, shadows dancing across his cheekbones as he inhaled deeply. You couldn’t blame him for his reaction. 

When he passed it to you, you mirrored his actions, feeling the smoke fill your lungs and the earthy taste coating your tongue. You held it in briefly before exhaling slowly, leaning back into the passenger seat. 

“And Xavier asked me out.” You said. 

Your friend’s face contorted in disbelief before he let out a short burst of laughter. “You’re joking, right?” 

“Nope.” You giggled and looked out towards the old building before you, wondering how he could think you were making any of this up. 

“Damn, you have three guys chasing after you, begging for scraps. I bet the doctor has loads of money.” Rafayel clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “This is every girl’s dream! I don’t understand what the problem is.” 

And as if it suddenly hit him all at once, he started to laugh, and the laugh turned out to be contagious. You both soon ended up in a fit of giggles inside the growing colder car. 

“I mean, what am I supposed to do? Ask him to leave his wife?” You huffed. 

“Relax! Think about it. People get divorced all the time.” The high was definitely setting in as Rafayel rested his head on the back of the seat. “And if he’s as hopelessly infatuated with you as you said, he might do it anyway.” 

“Rafayel! That’s horrible.” 

He leaned in and playfully nudged your shoulder, saying, “I can’t help but be honest with you. Who would I be if I wasn’t?” He caught the look on your face and rolled his eyes, flicking the lighter absentmindedly. “Or, you know, you could just call him up and give him a piece of your mind. Maybe that will push him right in the direction of Silver Springs.”

You rolled your eyes and muttered, feeling the familiar laziness creeping into your body. You barely resisted the urge to snort at his suggestion. “The Fleetwood Mac song?” 

“Yeah, Stevie cursed him, you know. Lindsey. In ‘97. Hexed him right on stage in front of everyone. So if I were you, I would call him up and tell him what direction he can shove his thumb up his own ass.” 

You laughed again, shaking your head at Rafayel’s ridiculous suggestion. The pot was doing its job, making everything seem way funnier than it should be. 

“I don’t know, man,” you sighed, sinking further into the seat. “Even if Zayne does leave his wife for me, which would be so wrong, what about Father Sylus? I mean, I kissed a priest, for Christ’s sake!” 

Rafayel took another long drag from the bowl before setting it between you in the cupholder, smoke once again billowing in the car as he responded. “Hey, forbidden love is the hottest kind. And I figure if I’m going to get any entertainment out of this town, it’s gonna be from you at this point. So just call the fucking doctor while I’m still high.” With that, he shoved your shoulder, and you turned and shoved him right back. 

You grumbled as you reached for your phone, unlocking it as the smoke settled around you. You scrolled through your contacts until your thumb was right over the number. It was so tempting, especially with the encouragement of the young man beside you - but you stayed still. 

You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you. 

“Fuck it.” You breathed deeply, heart hammering, and hit the phone symbol. As soon as you heard the first ring, you nearly jumped. 

Why do I do this? A mantra in your mind, like a worm in your skull, beating against the insides repeatedly with a tiny hammer. 

You waited, putting the phone on speaker so the idiot beside you could hear. After a few long rings, you were about to hang up when there was a click. An unfamiliar voice picked up instead of the one you were used to, and the wave of anxiety almost made you dizzy.

“Hello?” Her voice was soft, not as straightforward or bubbly as you had imagined she would sound.

Silent, you swallowed thickly, and along with the fear, you felt the ache settle in once again. The sharp guilt began coiling around you. You looked toward Rafayel, who suddenly looked just as panicked as you. He quickly grabbed your phone, raising an index finger to his lips and giving you a stern look. 

“Hi! Uh, I’m calling about your car's extended warranty!” Rafayel quickly stated, cutting off whatever the woman was about to say next. Then, he turned and threw your phone out of the open window. 

The two of you stared at each other blankly. Then, all the adrenaline hit you at once, and the numb haze obliterated. 

“Oh my God, fuck!” You managed to say, trying and failing to fight the delirious laughter that began wrapping through your body. You barely noticed your vision clouded with tears, and your next laugh came out mixed with a sob. “That was his - and you just - HA! You threw my phone out the window!” 

“Listen, Y/N, I don’t think that was a good -” 

“FUCK.” You kicked the dashboard with your foot, the glove compartment popping open and spilling its contents onto the car's floor. “How could you throw my phone out the window like that?” you cried, turning to glare at Rafayel through your tears. 

He held up his hands defensively. “I panicked, okay? I didn’t want you to do something you’d regret later. That was his wife on the phone, not him! What were you going to say to her anyway?” 

“I don’t know!” you wailed, burying your face in your hands. The high rapidly dissipated, ruined, and replaced by a growing despair. “I’m a horrible person. What am I doing with my life?” 

Rafayel sighed and scooted closer, draping an arm lazily around your shaking shoulders. “Hey, you’re not a horrible person. Do you want a Xanax?”

“No, I don’t want Xanax! Go get my phone!”

“Okay, okay! Just chill out.” Rafayel moved to open the car door but paused, a muttered curse leaving his mouth before he hurriedly attempted to clean up the drug paraphernalia scattered on the console. Then he turned just in time to have a flashlight shone in his face. In all of your agitation, it appeared that neither of you had noticed the other vehicle that had pulled up. 

“Hi, Tara.” Rafeyel greeted the deputy at the window with a thinly veiled hint of irritation as he shielded his eyes with the back of one hand. “Good to see you.” 

Tara looked at him, and then her eyes landed on you and widened slightly, her mouth parting as she put the two of you together. “Really? You’re back home?” 

Tara was only a couple years younger than you, and there was no surprise that this was her chosen profession. You remembered how she used to hang around all the time in high school, staying behind and hoping you’d ask her to hang out to go to a party. Even back then, it was as if you couldn’t shake her, the girl pursuing anything and getting into anything she could think of. 

“So, uh.” Tara leaned over and peeked into the car, leaning her free hand on the window. Perfectly manicured nails and the same cherry red lipstick; her features and skin soft. “What are you guys doing?” 

You started to laugh again, unable to resist the odd delight rippling through you. Rafayel tensed, and his lips pressed together as he looked at you in warning. 

“Nothing, officer.” You answered with a grin. “Don’t you have more important things to do? What’s all we ever did when we came up here?” 

Rafayel slapped a hand to his forehead. Tara scoffed and looked around nervously, as if confused as to how you reached the admission you realized shouldn’t have slipped out of your mouth so easily. Her sudden lack of boldness reminded you of the faux courage she often displayed when she was younger, which was why you were never that close with her. 

As long as you’ve known Talia, she was the type to call the priest whenever something happened. Even though you partially expected it, you were still on edge seeing Father Sylus walking into the tiny police station with her. 

You were sitting on a bench with Rafayel, feeling angry and frustrated, and your high completely came down when the two of them walked in. Your head snapped up at the sight of the tall man next to Talia, looking composed and put together while she looked like she had just taken a sleeping pill. It truly was no surprise to see Talia rushing in to rescue Rafayel from whatever trouble he had gotten himself into. 

“Rafayel.” Talia’s small, five-foot frame was in front of her nephew. “You…” She rubbed her temples and let out a groan. 

“Sorry, Talia.” He held up his hands, which were cuffed together, a bit of a chuckle leaving his mouth as if he thought this was the most amusing thing that could possibly happen to him. 

You averted your gaze again, the memory of the kiss burning in your mind, and you couldn’t bear to look up. A fresh wave of shame washed over you. Talia’s exasperated voice faded into the background as your heart pounded. 

“Come on, let’s get you two out of here,” Talia finally said with a sigh. She turned to Tara, who was seated at the desk nearby. “I’m assuming there won’t be any charges? They were just being stupid, right Tara?” 

Tara glanced between you and Rafayel, conflict flickering across her face. You could see the gears turning in her mind, weighing the social capital to be gained by letting this slide versus following protocol. After a tense beat, she sighed and waved a dismissive hand. 

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go fill out the paperwork.”

Talia nodded curtly and followed Tara out of the room, and an awkward silence descended, thick and lingering, although you couldn’t pinpoint the cause of it. You kept your gaze fixed on the scuffed linoleum, tracing patterns with your eyes. 

“Hey, Father,” Rafayel said, “What’d Talia say when she called you?” 

“She asked for a ride, said she would kill you, and needed someone to perform the last rites.” 

Rafayel let out a short laugh at Father Sylus’ dry response, but you remained silent, still unable to bring yourself to look at the priest. Your mind kept replaying that moment - the gentle press of his lips against yours. How could you face him now, after what transpired between you? What would you even say? 

“Right.” Rafayel hummed, “Suppose I should thank you then. Potentially saving my soul and all that.” He nudged you with his elbow, “Ain’t that right, bestie?” 

“Yeah, thanks.” You mumbled, only lifting your head when Tara appeared in front of you to remove the handcuffs from your wrists. Talia moved before her nephew, jingling her car keys before dropping them into his hands. 

“Let’s get out of here before I change my mind, Rafayel,” She grumbled. He flashed her a cheeky grin but wisely kept his mouth shut this time. 

“I can take Y/N home.” Father Sylus nodded toward you once you stood and shook out your wrists. Nervously, your eyes flickered to Rafayel, who looked terrified for you for a brief second before mouthing the words, 'Touch his butt.'

A moment later, you found yourself outside the police station next to the priest who had consumed your thoughts since that ill-advised kiss. You shivered in the harsh autumn breeze that cut straight through the light jacket you wore. You risked a brief glance at Father Sylus. He stood without a jacket, radiating heat, and for a moment, you wanted to press against him to feel that warmth. 

You found your words. “I - I can get home on my own,” you said, a bit harsher than was necessary. “I’m an adult the last time I checked.” 

Father Sylus paused at the bottom of the steps and turned around. There wasn’t any tension or hesitation in his tone, just like the other night. He was just genuinely inquiring. “How are you feeling, Y/N?” 

Shivering slightly and wrapping your arms around yourself, you looked toward the man and offered a smile. Your voice had the faintest tremor as you tried to joke, “I’ve been better.” 

Father Sylus glanced at you from the corner of his eye as you fell into step beside him, releasing a little snort at your sarcasm, a gesture that, for some reason, sent a hot rush of awe through you. 

“That’s all right, Y/N.” He said with a sad smile. “We can talk about it later if you want. For now, the important thing is getting you home.” Reflexively, his hand came to rest on the small of your back as he steered you toward the parking lot.

Just the brief caress of his warm hand on your back made your thighs clench. It didn’t mean anything, you told yourself, but your stomach churned as the sweet electricity of his touch rushed through you. 

Stop it, you told yourself. He was just showing you where he had parked. Yet his lingering warmth was flooding your senses. Swallowing thickly, you pinched your brows together and hoped you didn’t actually upset him in any way. 

“Should I be worried?” he asked. 

“About what?” 

“The things you’re into.” 

Stopping, a hard lump formed in your throat, and the entire world fell into a hush. The nearly pitch black parking lot of the police station, the night chill, the beautiful priest that just - was he teasing you, now? 

“Again. I’m in my twenties. Weed,” you snapped, emphasizing the last word, “Isn’t a big deal.” 

His palm felt scorching through your jacket as he closed a hand around the top of your shoulder, squeezing gently. 

“Hey now,” He said, making your breath hitch as you stiffened slightly. “It was just a question.” 

You said nothing, simply sliding into the passenger seat of Father Sylus’s car.

A quiet settled between you two in the car, then. All you could do was look out the window at the dark neighborhood and overanalyze every word, every touch, trying to pinpoint exactly how you felt. But how could you even explain that the man beside you gave you the thrill of wanting to do something terrible? Because there had been a moment with him, something that broke the reality of the relationship the two of you had. It didn’t necessarily feel awful, more like an unspoken truth waiting to be expressed. 

You tried to control your emotions and thought process, registering that you were in front of your house now. Just as you were going to say goodnight and grab the door handle, you heard Father Sylus speak. 

“I owe you an apology for the other night.” The quiet murmur was easy to miss, but you did everything possible to hang onto the sound. A mix of breath. You looked back at him, trying to catch his eyes in the darkness only illuminated by the porch light from the distance. 

“I don’t want to make things difficult for you.” He continued, “I’d still like for us to talk.” 

As tempting as it was to open the car door and leave, the ache in your belly nearly overwhelmed you. A terrible, crushing sense of longing settled in. Knowing where the lines were drew a blank in your mind. Where the hell were you supposed to draw the line? Fuck, was this situation genuine, or just one of opportunity? 

“Can I ask an inappropriate question, Father?” You choked out, swallowing the lump of anxiety that wound its way around the base of your neck. You watched as he shut the car off.

“What is it?” He wasn't looking at you, but the hand still on the wheel tightened slightly. 

Inhaling deeply, your heart thumped at an aching speed as you murmured your question, your voice beginning to betray how much he affected you. “Do you kiss a lot of girls?” 

“I beg your pardon?” 

Why the hell did you mean to bring that up? What good would knowing do, even? Right, of course, you would just go ahead and ruin the image of purity - what was the worst that could happen? 

“Well,” You continued, unable to stop yourself but choosing your words carefully, “You kissed me. So, do you kiss a lot of girls?” 

Father Sylus was quiet for a long, brutal moment. You felt sweat bead on your skin despite the car being cool. Clenching your fists and digging your nails into your palm, you try to brace yourself. You hadn’t intended to ask your question so outwardly , but what other way was there to put it? 

“Y/N, you’re trying to minimize our connection,” he said. He took a deep, steadying breath and then rubbed a hand over his brow. “And I can ignore it. I can try to pray for the strength to bear it.”

Then, he met your gaze directly. In the light from the porch, you could see how his crimson eyes tore into you, emotion suddenly exposed and bared. For the second time, he had allowed you to glimpse what was hiding under the careful mask he put on. 

You almost flinched as he touched your knee, his tone dropping. “But I won’t diminish it.” 

You found yourself falling, then, into those wounded eyes. You slid your hand forward and set it over his, the heat from the simple touch making you feel like you had touched an ember. 

Before you knew what you were doing, you leaned across the center console to kiss him, slow and sweet. 

Please don’t push me away.

For a moment, you feel his surprise. However, just before you pull away, he pulls you forward, one warm hand sliding up your back and the other threading through your hair gently, reverently.

You moan softly into his mouth, and his grip tightens slightly. He deepens the kiss, pressing his tongue into your mouth. You lose yourself in the feel of his lips on yours, his hands on your body.

The gentleness he handles you with stokes the fire within you, warming you from the inside and slowly turning into a fever. You long for him to hold you tightly, to show you he wanted you too - you need that affirmation. 

Then his lips grazed the shell of your ear, voice husky and warm. “You’re far too close for your own good.” 

What sort of torment was this? All these words hung in the air that you wanted to say, but none came to your mind except for - 

“Fuck me,” you rasped. Your face felt hot as the words spilled from your lips, driven by the intensity of your want. “Please, I -” 

He silenced you with his mouth, capturing your lips again. His kiss is no less intense and consuming but maintains a level of restraint that a part of you hoped was rapidly crumbling. Your hands move on their own accord, reaching for his belt. 

A hand on your wrist stops you before you can go any further, his skin like silk against the pounding pulse point of your wrist. It was a heavyweight, slowly making its way up to where your heart was beating wildly. 

He’s looking directly into your eyes when he brings your hand to his mouth, kissing your knuckles gently. 

“No here, sweetheart.” His voice is feather-light as he speaks. “Not like this.” 

While he let go of your wrist, something unseen held you in place. But it was only momentarily before the horror of what you had tried to do crashed over you. 

“Oh, fuck, I’m so sorry, I - what the fuck am I doing?” 

With the state you were in, it wouldn’t take much for the well of tears to come. Unable to look at him, you unlocked the car door and pushed it open, nearly tripping on your feet as you stumbled onto the pavement. 

You didn’t look back, fearing falling apart, and slammed the door shut. 

Rather than going through the front door, you circled the house and went up the back porch through the kitchen. Once inside, you walked past your dad in the living room, who was sleeping on the couch with the television blaring and a near-empty bottle of beer within arm’s reach. 

You went into the bathroom in the hallway, shut and locked the door, then slid down onto the cold tile. 

The rejection shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. No, this was different. Something deep inside, something raw and fiery, made the ache grow exponentially. It was the memory of the touch, the intoxicating mixture of scents. 

Anger clawed its way to the surface because you couldn’t even wrap your head around what you felt. How pathetic, how foolish, how humiliating. 

Clutching the sides of your head, you let out a scream, frustration causing your body to shake. 

You wanted so badly to disappear. 

Did God have a sense of humor or something? 

tag list: @celestialforce @readerxyourbabe

[gay-mormon-wizard]

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

Mini Miracle #01:

[in which Sparrow records the little things that strengthen his testimony]

So I'm going on a blind date on Friday. That isn't the miracle. The important context is that we met in a BYU free food groupchat, and that he said that he would be willing to go on a date with 90% of the girls on campus. I know, I know, not the best guy for me to be seeing. But he offered free ice cream and I'm not gonna turn down free ice cream so I DMed him and said I would go out with him.

Anyways. The problem lies in the fact that I do not look like 90% of the girls on campus. BYU, if you didn't know, is full of like, the most gorgeous suburban blonde white girls you've ever seen, and I am a weird little gremlin with dyed and shaved hair, a face only a mother could love, a complete inability to wear makeup, and a wardrobe that screams "raging lesbian".

So this morning, I was sitting in my biology lecture, worried that I am going to be an utter disappointment to this guy. And to make it worse, last week, I saw the guy who I typically sit next to in lecture [who I thought I hit it off really well with] on a date with another girl. So when I leave my class, I put on my headphones and prepare to get the heck out of there, blasting some Midwest emo tunes.

But right before I head down the stairs, I see a girl running after me. I stop and take off my headphones, and she says, "Hi, I don't want to bother you, I'm so sorry, but I just wanted to tell you that you're so pretty."

Jaw drop.

I literally covered my mouth with my hand and told her, "are you serious??" She said, "Yeah! And also I really like your Harris pin." [I have a Vote Harris pin on my backpack] I said "oh my gosh thank you so much", and we both skedaddled to our respective locations.

I don't know what possessed that girl to stop me and tell me she thought I was pretty. I don't know if she actually did think I was pretty, or if she just knew I needed to hear it. I don't know if she knows that she made my day. I don't know if she knows that in that moment, she was a conduit of the Lord and of the pure love of Christ. But I hope wherever she is, she reaps the blessings of the kindness she showed me.

[amazinglyashy]

Too heavy for me? Never

LADS men reaction to you only somewhat joking about being too heavy for them

Sylus -

He'll raise an eyebrow at you, staring down at you as you realize the joke fell flat. You try to back peddle, not wanting to cause any confrontation that never helps you feel better about your body anyway, but he simply holds up a hand to stop you with a shake of his head.

"I don't want to hear it, sweetie. I already know the nonsense you're going to say. How about you just come with me right now to the gym instead?"

You don't know how to tell him that saying that truly shattered your heart into a million pieces, so you just follow him in silence instead. You didn't think he would insult you so casually, and you were now trying to brace yourself for the inadequate feelings and self-loathing you were about to experience by having to train at the gym with him.

But... he didn't ask you to do a workout. He didn't tell you to get on a piece of equipment or to lie down on a mat for a physical exercise.

He told you to sit on a small bench against the wall while he went to the free weights close by.

Wordlessly, he loads weights- two- no, three times your weight onto the bar, before moving to lift it. Once. Twice. Again, and again and again-

His eyes flicker over to you at some point, and instead of making any remark or reference to the emotions clear across your face, he flashes you a slight smirk, just like he always does.

"Have I made myself clear, sweetie?"

Zayne -

Zayne will definitely think you're just pretending to be stupid at first.

He will look down at you with his brows furrowed and a small smile creeping on his lips, thinking it's all a joke.

"I lift myself during my workouts fairly easily, and I am capable of lifting a lot more. Quite funny, though I wouldn't make this form of humor a habit. It isn't particularly good for your mental health."

Then he realizes you're actually being serious in what you're saying.

He's upset, to put it lightly, but hes trying not to let it show. Favoring a small frown across his usually firm expression as he studies your face. Your heart will jolt just a little bit when you process just how sad his eyes look though... obviously he's hurt that you would even think something like that about yourself, much less come to believe it as true.

"Allowing a part of your brain to lie to you is not healthy if you don't push back with the truth. And the truth here, is that you are nowhere near too heavy for me to lift or carrying, even for prolonged periods of time. To demonstrate-"

And like it's nothing, he's picking you up and carrying you. His destination is not important, and the protests spewing from your lips fall on deaf ears as you try to gentle squirm out of his grasp. He'll continue to explain why your viewpoint is flawed, methodically and with logic, and in a way that you find yourself unable to argue back.

He doesn't want you to.

He knows you're wrong, and he will stop at nothing to prove it.

Xavier -

He's more surprised at the statement than anything. At first, he thinks you're making a jab at his strength, and wonders if he slipped up in front of one too many Wanderers and now needs to prove himself just to get you to stop teasing him for being 'weak'.

Once he (quickly) realizes that you're talking about yourself, jabbing at your own body and state, rather than at him, it's like a spark igniting in him.

"What? What would ever make you think that? No- that's not right. That's not right at all."

He's immediately going to try and grab you to lift you up, he doesn't care where you both are or what you're doing. Even if you've just woken up in bed and are still relaxing, he's trying to pick you up right then and there.

He stumbles trying to lift you, falling backward onto the pile of blankets and plushies that has taken over his bed. He feels awful, worried that you'll take his misstep as him falling over from your weight, immediately apologizing and trying to sit up and pick you up again before falling forward from the plush surface he's trying to rise on giving out too much beneath him.

You're both a giggling mess by then, and it's obvious to you that he's going to keep trying to prove it to you, just... a bit clumsily so. Several more attempts will be made as the evening goes on, and pretty soon he's showing you just how easily it is for him to lift you up- especially if he keeps doing it over and over and over again.

And he will continue to do it over and over and over again, even after today. As many times as it takes.

Rafayel -

You definitely made a mistake saying anything self-depreciating around him. Especially with how much he likes to prove you wrong in playful situations, this is something similar, but a lot more serious to him.

He'll make fun of you for anything, as long as you know he's just being lighthearted even if he's grumpy or upset when he fires a quip off at you.

But the second you agree with him, or say something bad about yourself- whether jokingly or dead serious- the gloves are off. He won't accept that from you, and he's already on it to figure out how to turn the opinion you've formed of yourself on it's head and into a more positive outlook.

Lifts you up bridal carry while spinning- quite literally sweeping you off your feet while he whisks you away. You would think you were a princess with how he spins around his studio with you in his arms, with no regard to the paintings or projects around him as he dances with you in his arms. And no matter how hard you protest, he doesn't stop until he feels for himself that he's done enough, giggling the entire time.

"Are you really going to doubt a sea god's strength? Geez, I didn't realize you were such a rude human."

He'll hold you up enough to press his forehead against yours, nuzzling against you with a smile, the slightest sadness playing across his expression.

"Man, I must be pretty lousy that you would ever think something like that about yourself. That must mean I don't think to pick you up enough like you deserve. Don't worry, I'll make it up to you by whisking you away every chance I see you from now on."

[rennebright]

ベルファスト(アズールレーン) by LDS [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[foodcu-be]

doodle of them if you will

[fueledbysano]

˚୨୧₊♱ study partners

Zayne is a brilliant and accomplished medical student, proficient in a number of fields such as cardio, neuro, trauma, pediatrics, ortho, and a lot more. However, an upcoming exam in his area of weakness, obstetrics, has him feeling anxious and unprepared. who's more qualified to help him study than you, his pretty childhood friend and roommate? ♡

♱ med student! zayne x afab!reader

♱ content/warnings: slowburn, friends to lovers, fingering, cunnilingus, piv sex (cowgirl), soft dom, switch, virgin zayne, virginity loss, you teach zayne the female anatomy, body worshipping, possessive zayne, soft sex ♡

♱ tags: @enchantedforest-network @crisae

♱ 5k

You woke up late in the evening in a panic, startled to find that it was already dark and cold outside. You had spent the entire afternoon sleeping after an intense training session, and had begun to worry that you had missed the day entirely and that it was time to get ready for another day. Your heart was pounding with trepidation as you left your room.

However, you discovered Zayne seated in the living room, still engrossed in his study materials that took up the entire coffee table. Realizing you had only been asleep for 8 hours, you felt both embarrassed and relieved— Embarrassed that you had woken up so late in the evening, and relieved that you had not missed an entire night after all.

“Look who's up... Good morning,” Zayne spoke when he heard your door open, still engrossed in the study material he was reading. His eyes remained firmly fixed on the highlighted texts and diagrams in front of him, not even looking up to glance at you.

“Hey, Zayne,” you chuckled softly, heading towards the kitchen to help yourself with a glass of water. He seemed thoroughly absorbed in his studying and appeared to have been extremely immersed in his studies. “Pulling an all-nighter?” you asked, tone light and pleasant despite the fact that you had gotten a late start to the day yourself.

“Staying up late to intake information impairs one's cognitive functioning,” Zayne explained rationally, looking through the pages of his book as he spoke. “It's not worth it,” His tone was calm and practical, as if he was stating a fact rather than expressing a personal thought. He didn't appear to be tired at all, seemingly not bothered by the fact that he had been studying for so many hours. “I’ll call it a day in a while.” He added to answer your question.

You nodded in response, quietly looking around the cupboards for something to eat. Your stomach growling reminded you that you hadn't eaten anything yet. Just then, Zayne spoke up again, “I made vegetable frittatas for dinner. I already put your portion aside in the microwave, so just heat it up yourself.”

“Thanks, Zayne.” you smiled as you looked inside the microwave and saw the beautifully plated vegetable frittatas that Zayne had prepared for you. You pressed the buttons and the dish began to spin slowly. The light inside gave you a good view of the dish that Zayne had so meticulously prepared. As you waited for your food to heat up, your stomach rumbled louder, reminding you that you were indeed very hungry and had not eaten anything yet.

Zayne yawned as he turned the page in his study material, noticing that you had been quiet for a while. His gaze drifted to you as you ate the dinner he had made, the smile on your face as you tasted the delicious flavors making his body feel warm. The hour he had spent preparing the dish paid off, as he could see how happy and appreciative you were of the effort he had put in.

"Did the ice bath work?" Zayne asked, recalling his previous advice and wanting to see if you had followed it. "Yes, it works like a charm," you smiled as you continued to eat, your tone light and cheerful. You were pleasantly surprised that the ice bath had worked so well, and was grateful to have a roommate who is a med student.

You couldn't help but notice how effortlessly attractive Zayne was. His appearance was captivating, and his demeanor was effortlessly attractive. You thought about how even if he was having a breakdown right now, the way he carried himself suggested otherwise. You couldn't help but gaze at him again for a moment, appreciating his undeniable charisma and attractiveness.

You looked away when you realized that you had been staring at him for too long, feeling embarrassed by your gaze. You were aware that you had been staring for a while, and felt your face start to warm up. You kept your head lowered, focusing on your dinner as you tried to avoid looking at him.

"Thanks for the dinner, Zayne." You eventually finished the meal.

"You're welcome," Zayne responds politely, glad that you have enjoyed the dinner he cooked for you. He watches as you get up and heads towards the bathroom, noticing your head lowered as you did. He couldn't help but smile to himself for the fact that you liked his little gesture.

After spending some time in the bathroom, you emerge to your surprise finding Zayne in his place, his nose still buried in books. You were surprised that he was still studying despite the late time. You had thought that he would've already finished up and gone to bed by now; but it seemed like he was still dedicatedly studying.

"What happened to 'sleeping early to stay alert'?" you tease playfully, approaching him with a cup of green tea in hand. You gently place the cup on the desk, the steaming hot tea filling the nearby air with an aromatic scent. His stoic and practical approach to studying seems to have been abandoned in favor of continuing to ingest information even after an all-nighter.

"I may have underestimated this exam," Zayne answers, pushing his glasses up and adjusting his sitting position slightly. His eyes seem bleared, but his voice still remains calm and focused. He seems to have realized his mistake in overestimating his ability to study after an all-nighter, and is now recognizing how hard this examination will be.

“Take a break. I promised grandma to keep you alive this semester.” You pushed the cup of green tea closer to Zayne. You were aware that his study sessions were often intense and grueling, and would sometimes even include all-nighters.

Zayne sighed softly and sipped the tea, as it provided a much-needed warmth that softened his tense demeanor. The tea's warmth eased his tense muscles and made him feel slightly more relaxed, which was something he very much needed in the middle of a study session that felt like it would never end.

"That's the one I got at the train station when we first moved in here. I also added just a teaspoon of honey to really balance the flavors. What do you think?" you ask, sitting next to Zayne as you continue the conversation. Zayne noticed how you seem to be making an effort to keep the conversation going, wanting to engage with him more and to get his opinion on what you have done.

"It's really good. I can taste the difference between the usual and yours. The honey adds a nice subtle sweetness that really complements the flavors of the green tea.” She smiles in response to his compliment before peeking at the books on the desk, curious to see what he's currently studying. "What's got you so stressed anyways? Is it a certain subject?"

Zayne pauses for a moment, the steam from his cup of tea fogged up his glasses. Then, he finally replies, slowly and with a bit of hesitation in his voice, "Uh...yeah." You shrug, not particularly concerned about the situation at hand. You has faith in Zayne's abilities and intelligence, as you believe that he will eventually come around and figure it out. You spoke with a carefree and relaxed tone, as if the issue was trivial and not something to worry about. "You'll figure it out. You're smart, Zayne," you assured him, the last part of your statement being an expression of positivity.

Zayne appreciated the positivity from you, but he couldn't deny that he was not the best at the subject in question.

"Actually… I may not," he admits, his tone sounding slightly more genuine and honest. He was clearly not confident in his abilities, which was in contrast to your carefree and optimistic attitude.

Zayne took one particular book from his desk and handed it to you, as if surrendering. The title of the book caught your attention and sparked your curiosity, which read, "D.C Dutta's Textbook of Gynecology".

"I suppose I never really dabbled so much in this particular specialty," Zayne explained, still looking somewhat defeated and frustrated with himself. He was acknowledging that he had never really put much time and effort into studying this specific area of medicine.

He wasn't necessarily saying that he was completely unfamiliar with it, but he was admitting that he wasn't experienced enough to feel comfortable and confident with it. You chuckled, responding to his self-doubt and frustration. "Trust me, even us girls still figure it out as we get older."

Zayne tilts his head, “Are you suggesting that even from a female perspective, it is normal to not have everything completely figured out when it comes to this particular… specialty?”

“Oh yeah.”

“That’s even scarier.” Zayne comments, sipping his cup of tea and seeming to be slightly troubled by the revelation.

You lean forward to place the book back down the stack beside the table, and Zayne gently places his hand on the edge of the wooden surface to prevent you from knocking into it. When you got back up, the proximity in between you and Zayne flustered you; and the fact that his free arm was just on the couch behind you.

You felt your breath quicken and your cheeks start to warm, as if your body was involuntarily reacting to his subtle closeness.

"You know... since... I'm not sleepy anymore, maybe I can... help you out with that?" You ask, voice trembling slightly with shyness as you toy with the hem of your dress, a subtle gesture that added a flirtatious context.

Zayne's cheeks heated up when you made the flirty offer, as he was not expecting it. His breath catches in his throat, and he speaks in a breathy and slightly nervous tone, avoiding direct eye contact with you.

"Don't speak like that, Y/N..."

"Why~?" You ask innocently, in reply to his flustered reaction to the offer.

"Because...I won't say no. I won't hold back," He responds, voice now growing even more flustered as he acknowledges that he is vulnerable.

Zayne's breath increased slightly, but he kept his movements subtle and respectful of your personal space. But despite this outward appearance of behavior and restraint, his eyes revealed a much different story. The way he was looking at you, with such intensity and desire, was a clear indication that he was feeling increasingly attracted to you and was struggling to resist your advances.

"Where do you need help~?" You ask candidly, your finger lightly tracing the frame of his glasses and causing him to shudder. Zayne finally caught your hand and locked eyes with you, the heat between them growing more intense as his hand overlapped yours. “Do you really want to help me?”

You noticed the way Zayne's eyes kept wandering down your body, as if you were his focal point of attention. You nodded and placed his hand on your hip, giving him permission to touch you. “I’m a girl, and I’m your friend, aren’t I?” Your playful and mischievous actions made the situation even more titillating.

“I’ve already gone through everything but…” He said, his voice slowly growing more confident and bold, as he grabbed your face. "We can go off-textbook..." He suggested brushing her hair in a sensuous way. His tone and manner were becoming more confident and bold, implying that he was willing to take things to a different level.

He was giving a subtle hint that he wanted to take things further, that he was ready and willing to explore your connection in a different way.

You lean down to whisper into his ear, "Yes...way better than photos and texts on paper," sending a shiver down his spine. You weren't just giving a playful response, but actually agreeing with his suggestion, making you even more provocative and irresistible and made him feel overwhelmed with desire.

Zayne sat you on his lap and held your chin, making contact and bringing you even closer. “I need to hear it from you, is this okay?” He asks, first, to make sure that he had your full consent before proceeding. Second, as a verification that it wasn't a dream, confirming that he had successfully taken you down this path.

"Yes, Zayne. I want this. Do you?" You confirmed, letting him know that you were willing to explore this connection further. You placed your hand on his chest, trying to feel the rhythm of his heart.

“Yes, please… teach me.” He was surprised by his own outburst of desire and infatuation, completely overwhelmed by your beauty and allure.

After stealing glances and gazes from each other's lips, Zayne finally took the first move to kiss you. The moment of your first kiss, your lips finally touching, felt even more intense and exhilarating because of this buildup.

Zayne sighed as you kissed, lifting you in his arms so that they could move to the couch together, continuing this intimate moment. The feeling of his arms wrapped around you and the way he moved with ease was like heaven.

He was taking initiative and taking you to a place where you could be more comfortable and where they could explore your desires to the fullest extent, which turned you on even more.

"You're even more beautiful to me right now, [ Y / N ]...may I see all of your beauty?" He asks softly, his hands now gently stroking your hair and taking in your physical presence and warmth. He was slowly building up the anticipation, slowly moving his hands down to parts of your body that would reveal your beauty even farther.

You are seeing a completely different side of Zayne, one that was passionate and expressive rather than just reserved and focused on productivity. And you were more than willing to allow him to dictate the pace at which things progressed. “Yes, we can go at your pace, okay? I know you have been studying so hard.” You place a kiss on his cheek, giving him the space and freedom to explore this more intimate side of himself.

Zayne lifted your dress and gasped softly when he saw what was underneath, astonished by your beautiful body. He proceeded to start from your tummy, using his large hands to gently stroke your skin with delicate touches and soft kisses. Every touch, every stroke, every kiss that he placed on you felt like sanctuary, as you felt him enjoying and fully appreciating every inch of your physique.

Zayne stops just on your lower abdomen, and he looks up at her as he says, "I'm gonna examine the figure now, my dear tutor." Instead of immediately moving to the more intimate parts of her body, he deliberately pauses before moving on to the next step to pull your panties off.

Zayne is still in the process of studying and learning about the beauty of the female figure, so seeing your body for the very first time is quite an experience for him. He had seen pictures and read many things in books, but there is nothing like the real deal. He wants to explore and examine your body but doesn't know where to start and unsure of how to proceed.

You found his flustered reaction so adorable and sweet. “Why don't you… tell me what you know~?” You sit up slightly to stroke his cheek,

Zayne’s breath was hot against your soaked pussy, he brushed his thumb against your entrance, inspecting the sheen layer of arousal. “I see that this is the physiological activation response of the dopaminergic and serotonergic system to my… stimulation.” He made eye contact with you by the end of his sentence. All the scientific terms and smart talking was adding to your arousal.

Zayne took your wrist with his other hand and pressed his fingers against the side, feeling your pulse. “Increased heart rate, too. I'm flattered.” He chuckled softly and let go of your hand, his thumb still sliding against your entrance.

“Yes, I'm very turned on right now.” You sigh softly, pussy clenching around itself as he keeps teasing your entrance. “Good, good…” He whispered, now taking his index and middle finger to run up your labia. “Your skin here is sensitive, I shall be careful.” He spoke, leaning forward to get a better look. He adored the way your folds reacted to his fingers with every stroke and spread. “Zayne…” You sighed softly, your back falling back onto the throw pillows as his fingers explored your pussy. You were already struggling keeping your legs open and he was just barely getting started.

“H—ahhh—hhh” You let out your first moan of the night when his fingers come in contact with your clit. “Oh, did I find it right away?” His question laced with smugness to it. “Yes, you did.” Your eyes fluttered close when he established a slow rhythm circling it.

“This is the most erogenous area of the female anatomy, is it for you?” He asks, genuinely curious about your preferences. “Yes, I like being touched there.” Your legs tangled together on his back to pull him closer. “My, my…” Zayne’s breath started to uneven, his face heating up and glasses falling down his nose.

Zayne wants to forget his med school responsibilities for this moment, and he wants to simply enjoy the moment with you, focusing solely on you and your pleasure.

He wants to show his dedication to you in a tangible way. The medical studies and the test can wait, as he knows that he is currently with the girl he likes and he doesn't want to waste any time.

“Mmm— try to relax, dear… I’ll try to be thorough with you.” Zayne’s words made you quiver before you felt a finger slipping inside your pussy, making you gasp loudly. His fingers were long.

“Ah, yes, doctor… please…” You begged. All it would take from him was a little more of this and you would reach your peak. Almost immediately. But Zayne wants the moment to last longer. He used his finger just inside you to slide it around your opening and spread your arousal across your entire labia. Adding another finger, he penetrated even deeper and without warning, his digits crooked up and started to stroke your g-spot.

“Such a good study aid for me.” He sighed. “This soft spot here… it’s fascinating… does it feel good to you when I do this?” He made eye contact with you, your heart rate increasing rapidly. “Yes, when you do it, it feels so good.” You pant in between whimpers, subconsciously grinding your pussy on his hand. You find it so sweet and sexy of him to be checking and asking you these. He is reaching spots that you couldn’t with your own fingers.

“Ah— Zayne—” You almost screamed out when he placed a delicate kiss on your clit. You try to stifle a loud moan but it was too much to take. “May I try a more oral approach?” You stroke his hair and nod. Zayne’s cheeks flushed and attached his lips to your sensitive bud once more, closing his eyes as he sucked softly.

You tilt your head back, eyelids fluttering and trying to stay sane. Feeling it for the first time drives you to a new place; the sight of his head in between your legs, and the sounds from his lips truly sends you over.

He grips your thigh for support as he pushes his fingers deeper. He lifts one of your legs higher to slide more of his digits inside you, his mouth still latched on your clit and his tongue swiping your folds every now and then. You gasp and struggle against his strong arms.

“Mm—mmmh, you’re so good.” Zayne pulled away from your cunt and curled his digits on a different angle. His final touch sent you hurtling off the edge and your pussy erupted in a massive orgasm, your juices drenching his hand, making him gasp in response.

“I made you—”

“Yes, you did.” You whispered as your body kept quivering. He stepped back and you noticed the massive bulge straining in his trousers. “I think we need to do a more thorough internal exam, [ Y / N ]. Is that okay with you?” Zayne shyly pushed his glasses back up, a trace of your orgasm dropping down the lens.

You got up from the couch and held Zayne's hands, your bodies close together once more as you spoke. “From this point on, we have to learn together, because...it’ll be my first time doing this.,” You speak softly, looking into his eyes.

Zayne lightly stroked your cheek with confidence and certainty, his facial expression reflective of that. "Me too. Let's trust our feelings, okay?" He says. The mutual trust and willingness to follow your instincts is stronger now.

Zayne grabs her thighs and lifts her up in his arms, giving her a soft kiss. "Your room or mine?" He asks playfully, offering two choices. The ball is in Y/N's court, and he's giving her the chance to make the ultimate choice.

It doesn't matter. I want you. She answers confidently, making it clear that she's ready and willing to take things further and that she also wants him. Zayne nods and opts to bring it to your bedroom, giving you deep and slow kisses.

Zayne gently lays her down on the bed, kissing her gently and tenderly. Zayne keeps the kiss careful, as if he's being thoughtful and mindful of how delicate she might be feeling with what you are about to do.

"Do you...have protection?" You ask tentatively when you pull away, unsure of whether you should even say that out loud.

"Shit" He rarely curses, and that catches you off guard. He looks frustrated, and you can tell that he's annoyed by the situation. He says, "Well, since we're on the topic, I don't have any on me.."

"Don’t worry about that…I... have some." You shyly admit, letting him know that she does have protection, which puts his concerns to rest… for now.

A moment of relief for him as he took the box from your hand and saw that you had planned for protection. He took out his size, although he also questioned why you had these on hand.

Were you going to bring anyone else with you? An unusual sense of possessiveness surged to his neck, as though it were choking him. He fought out since he never wanted to think of you doing this with someone else but also didn't want to spoil the moment.

As if you had read his mind, you quickly tossed the box aside. “It’s not what you think!” you exclaimed, as you knew how this looked to him. “It’s a gag gift from Jenna for my last birthday.” You shyly admit.

You were cut off by Zayne's quiet laughter. “[ Y / N ], it’s okay, I believe you.” All traces of the dark possessiveness had vanished.

Zayne rises to his feet, his fingers making a descent down the front of his black shirt, slowly releasing each button as his eyes rake over your body. Parting your legs, you make space for him.

He removes the tie in the same unhurried fashion, seemingly content with his view of you. He shrugs out of the shirt sleeves, exposing curved biceps and defined pecs and abs. Then he crouches to remove his socks, never looking away.

You have such a keen sense of his proximity, the rhythm of his breaths, and the minute movements of his hands. It is rooted in the libido you get from being in his presence and is reinforced by the certainty that he will never let you down.

He moves as efficiently as possible, opening his slacks, releasing the belt, and shoving the remaining items of clothing onto the ground. His rock-hard body parts have been glimpsed in bits and pieces, but never all of him at once, fully nude.

His manhood lifts, protruding beyond the toned muscles on his v-line. He leans down with his eyes fixed on yours and an intense expression.

His eyes have a predatory look that makes you gasp. With his legs on the outside of yours, he crawls over you, straddling your thighs and prowling on hands and knees.

You were expecting him to pry open your legs and thrust between them, but he has consistently shown that he is not like the others.

With his mouth fused to yours, he hovers over you, caressing and fondling your thighs, chest, and hips with his hand. you can't breathe for how much his heavenly touches, heavy breathing, and passionate tongue drive you wild.

You tug at his shoulder, attempting to bring him closer. "Take off my dress, Zayne?"

Squeezing your thighs together, he uses both hands to remove the dress before lowering himself on top of you. His chest covers yours with muscle and heat while his eyes search your face as his weight presses you both into the mattress.

Your mouth opens to a delicious gasp, and he seizes it, his lips strong and aggressive, all his, his tongue sliding and claiming. His power acts as a shield, his large stature envelopes you, and his hands, seemingly in prayer, hold your face.

With your hips grinding greedily and your foreheads pressed together, you kiss through an infinite symphony of moans and heartbeats. Your bodies convulse in unison, holding the steely expanse of him in between you.

You squeeze your fingers around his cock, enjoying the sound of his strangled breath. His hips shift beneath you, his voice tortured. “Do you want to… top?” You nod without thinking twice.

In the next breath, he flips you, rolling you on top and folding your legs to straddle his hips. God, he's strong.

“I'll hold you. I'm going to lie and hold still until you tell me to move.” He softly strokes your hip. Until you gaze down at the huge, long cock rising up in front of you. Nervous energy trickles through your veins. You grip his shaft with both hands, stroking up and down, reacquainting yourself with his size. "Will it fit, Zayne?” Your breath rushes out.

“Mmhmm, we'll make it fit.” He chuckles softly and slides his palms up your torso, then plants a needy kiss on your lips.

You bend down and place a kiss over his temple, then you rise on your knees and help him put the condom on before positioning him between your legs.

True to his word, he doesn't thrust or move his hands. His eyes glow like a galaxy as he waits for you to draw him inside.

You lower onto him, inch by inch, marveling at the stretching sensation, the easy slide, the perfect fit. It's never this wet, this careful. You felt so full. Hungry. Relieved.

The sound of his guttural groan spurs you faster. When he's all the way in, you squeeze your inner muscles around him.

Zayne’s eyes clamped shut, muscles flexing in his jaw, his body relaxed beneath you. His eyes are shut. "Zayne?"

A throaty grunt is the only response he gives, charging your already overloaded senses with giddiness. And you haven't even moved yet.

You lean forward and press my lips to the ridge of his tense chest, then take off his glasses so he could be more comfortable. "This is it. We're doing it."

His eyes fly open, and he releases a satisfied chuckle. “Are we?” His hands tighten around your hips, his glare hard and demanding. "Fuck me, [ Y / N ]."

You were surprised by his sudden desperate and lewd display of affection. You roll your hips, testing the feel of him sliding against your insides and filling you with jolts of static.

His entire body trembles beneath you. “[ Y / N ]...” He wanted to move.

With your palms on his chest, you rotate along his shaft, lifting and rocking. The dragging, tickling strokes are unreal. The little shocks of electricity, the panting sounds of our breaths, everything centers around where you're joined.

You let loose, lifting your arms behind your head, closing your eyes, and circling your hips. When you bounce, your breasts press against his chest and the bed frame creaks. When you rock, your clit convulses.

“[ Y / N ]...” The headboard groans on his back.

You open your eyes and collide with his, a smile pulling at your cheeks. "You’re…good." You kiss his nose.

"God, [ Y / N ]." His biceps flex around your body, his thighs hardening beneath you. "I've never felt so…good."

“Move, Zayne. You can move…” You say and slide up his chest and thrust your hips, delighting in the feeling of the new angle. When you reach his lips, his tongue seeks yours, twirling and tasting.

If he wasn't your roommate and hadn't known him since childhood, you wouldn't believe that this is the first time he's felt the touch of a woman.

His kisses strengthen the brewing tide inside you. You sweep your hands over his biceps and cup his face. He deepens the kiss, the strong stretch of his jaw as erotic as the sinful way he glides his tongue.

With your hands on his face, you kiss him fiercely, passionately, while working your pussy up and down his length, while he dabbles with gentle thrusts.

"It's tight…" He grunts softly when you squeezed him with your pelvic muscles just to reinforce that side of things for him. It felt so naughty to be fucking your hot friend right in your bed. You could hear his cock sliding in and out of your slick tunnel with every thrust.

"I can make you feel better." You panted. Sliding a hand between your legs, you began to play with yourclit, knowing that it would make you squeeze and cum. The combination made your back arch hard and made you have to bite down on Zayne’s lips to stifle a loud moan.

"Come for me again..." He groaned softly, eyes fluttering close. And you did, your entire cunt contracting and you felt yourself squirt all over his cock, puddling out of your pussy and onto your bedsheets. He closed his eyes and you could feel your muscles milking his impressive dick into an orgasm.

When he opened then he met yours and it was almost primal the way he was looking at you— like you were the hottest woman he'd ever seen. His hips sped up and you feel yourself being pushed to another orgasm.

With one last thrust, his throbbing cock and fills up the condom, cock still balls deep inside you. The thick white stream kept coming as he gripped your hips and gasped silently.

"[ Y / N ]..." he gripped his cock and pulled out, stroking it, then pushing out the last few drops of his load.

“So Zayne, did you learn anything?" Your breath was coming in short pants. You let a finger trail down his abs while you both recovered from your highs. "I think you were quite thorough." His eyes followed your finger and you watched his muscles twitch before taking off the protection and tossing it to the trash can.

"I've learned a lot. Definitely." He gently lay you on his side and put your hair aside. He surprised you by grabbing your face and pulling you in for a soft kiss.

"Are you feeling okay?" Zayne asks, wanting to make sure that you are comfortable and pleased.

“Yes, you?”

"Yes, I am." You respond as he smiles down at you, adoring the way you brush the raven curtain from his face.

"Want me to change the sheets?" Zayne offered, wanting to make sure you had a comfortable sleeping environment. "No, stay, please..." The way you insisted him to stay, the way you wanted to not end the moment, made his stomach flutter in a different way entirely.

"But, can we sleep in your bed?" You look up at him with puppy eyes and he cannot resist that sight.

He smiles back and accepts your request, "Of course.” Zayne scoops you up in his arms and covers you with a blanket to keep you sheltered and warm from feeling exposed.

You lay together in bed and he holds you close against him, your head resting against his chest as your body lies next to his. "Comfy?" he says as he gently grabs your hand and kisses it.

"Very," He can feel your soft and sweet kisses on his neck, and he enjoys the warmth of your body as curled up next to him.

"Tomorrow... let me take you out for breakfast." Zayne says, kissing your forehead softly as he asks.

"How about your exam?" You ask, mentioning his test.

"It won't be until noon…” Zayne strokes your back. “Maybe we can squeeze in a last minute review too?"

[lunar-alden]

Zayne — “Snowy Serenity” memory (Kindled moments only)

[emotionalsupportboy]

SIR I'M ON MY KNEES

Rafayel,,, baby I'm so sorry I still love you

[heathersdesk]

There are a lot of adults going to church today who are going to be Pikachu-face surprised when they get to judgment and are handed a millstone to place around their necks because of how unsafe they've made this world for children.

[shanks]

LDS

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

[through gritted teeth, with fists clenched]

When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, COUNT YOUR MANY BLESSINGS, NAME THEM ONE BY ONE, AND IT WILL SURPRISE YOU WHAT THE LORD HAS DONE-

[amazinglyashy]

Zayne is for the ones who want to be cared for

Zayne is for the broken- a hammer taken to the porcelain of your body and psychic by the people around you, whether intentionally or not, your pieces are laid out on the floor to be crushed further under the shoes of those who do not notice.

Zayne is for the ones drawn to him due to attachment. Did you really think he was so cold? His rigid exterior is what attracted you in the first place- pulling you in for the familiar, the withdrawn and distant personality being what you crave, what you remember- but then he's cleaning your apartment while you sleep. He's buying you treats unprompted. He's offering you rides out of his way. He's pressing tired hands into the knots of your muscles for hours if that's what you need.

Zayne is for the ones who will cry, not knowing why. Not knowing that it's because of him. Because of his gentleness, his kindness, his love. Broken on the floor alone somewhere, crying not because you feel alone without him with you right now, but because you felt alone before he came. Because you don't know why someone would treat you the way that he does. Because you don't know why you deserve it.

And Zayne is for the ones who so badly want every single thing that he does for them, while also still knowing, believing, that they're unworthy of what they so desperately want from him. What they receive from him. And why are you unworthy? Why do you decide what you deserve, and not the person who has decided you are worthy of the love he gives you?

Zayne is for the broken. The puzzles missing pieces under couches that won't move until it's time to leave a life behind. Suddenly. Permanantly.

Zayne is for the ones who want to be cared for.

[rennebright]

シリアス(アズールレーン) by LDS [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[amoscontorta]

Even the rocks on the roadside in the N109 Zone could tell | ao3 | part 11 the Sylus series

Summary:

"How could you tell I was nervous?" -mc, phone call with Sylus "Remote Support" Sylus makes one final miscalculation. You wake up from a nightmare in a place you weren't ready to revisit. Sylus has to reckon with the inevitable consequences of how he treated you when you first met him, but you're paying the higher price.

Notes:

Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Kieran and Luke POV Slow burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers This story contains: grief, angst, a panic attack, self-destructive behavior, threatened violence (both real [against other characters] and imagined [against mc]), reference to in-game violence on Sylus's part, mc with PTSD, mc with self-esteem issues and negative self-talk, hurt/comfort, a shampoo epiphany This is probably the lowest point in their relationship, and has the least amount of comedy of the series. But Sylus's bullshit from their beginning needs to be addressed before true love can really take off.

You’re here again. You think you’ve always been here, and any other memory is the dream. You have always been here, in this echoing house, the worn floorboards under your feet, still polished, still perfect for sliding along on socked feet, competing to see who can careen down the hall and hit the door at the end first. You have gotten so many bruises from slamming into the door at the wrong angle, but every one was worth it, to collapse with Caleb into a fit of laughter at the end. Even when he lost, and hit you instead of the door, slamming your body back into the door a second time—doubling your chances of concussion, as your grandmother would scold afterwards. But you’re not wearing socks now, and no matter how far you walk, the door at the end never comes closer. The closed doors lining the hall approach and pass with your steady booted stride, landmarks that offer no guidance at all.

You look back on the fever dreams of what you thought was your real life until you found yourself here, in this place again. The first time you reached out and clasped Xavier’s hand in yours, pulling him to his feet, trying to help him brush off the dirt from his beautiful white battle gear. Being held in his arms as the shimmering starlight of his evol lifted you both into the air to safety. Offering him a bite of your snack, watching his normally placid face light up with pleasure at the taste.

The first time you startled Rafayel off of his stupid, unsafe ladder. Walking barefoot with him along a deserted beach, the warm water sweeping over your ankles. Picking up seashells, and asking him if this one would fit in with his jumbled collection of knick knacks contained in his chaotic studio? Coming upon an eel trapped in the sand at low tide, the only sign of life an occasional gasp for oxygen—watching him carefully dig it out of the sand and release it back into the water. It swam away energetically. He said it was a dumb little eel, and would just get stuck again with the next low tide. You told him that you’d both just have to come back often to ensure that wouldn’t happen. 

The first time you saw Zayne again as an adult, crisp white lab coat over the broad shoulders of a man, so incongruous to your memory of the narrow shoulders of a little boy. His achingly gentle touch, when he listened to your heartbeat through the stethoscope, how he inexplicably held your wrist in his soft fingers to count your pulse instead of using the fingertip monitor. How he kept the flowers you gave him on the windowsill in his office and shook his head every time he had to stitch your wounds.

And … Sylus. 

The first time he held you bound before him, the glow in his eye blinding as he ransacked your soul with all the care of a corrupt cop. How his rough palm wrapped around your throat, and the paralyzing strength with which he tightened his hold. The suffocation, and the hate, and the fear, crushing your breath. The first time he called you a disappointment. All of those things, and everything after—the soft caress of his hand in your hair, his warm body wrapped around yours. Those achingly gentle faux memories, not even dreams, probably. Just daydreams, fantasies born from the pathetic need to be held gently again, in the way you hope someone held you as a child before you lost your memories.

Because you’re here again. And it feels so timeless, and so real, compared to these other faded memories. You must have always been here. You hear someone cutting an apple, the dull thunk of the knife hitting the butcher block, the juices misting with each snick. You press your ear against every door you pass. He’s so close. You’re sure of it. You lift your steel-toed boot and slam the flat of your foot into the next door in this endless hallway. It doesn’t even rattle. You kick it, again, and again. You’re sweating. Your head is pounding. You’re losing your breath and you can’t feel your legs anymore. You kick again. And again. And again. With what little breath you have left, you start to scream, the tears and the snot running down your face. He’s right there. If you’re strong enough. If you’re persistent enough. You can get to him. You can break yourself out of this nightmare, if you’re just enough. 

You scream, and you scream, and you kick, and you kick, until your throat gives out.

You wake up, and the scream from your dream is just a whimper in your throat. Your legs are asleep from how your body is folded in on itself, lying in what seems to be a bed.

You wake up in the dark.

You have no idea where you are.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, a jackhammer in the cracked cement of your body.

Your hair, your face, the pillow, the sheets on the bed you’re lying, what you’re wearing—wet. Sweat. Tears slipping from the corner of your eyes into the hair at your temples.

Where the fuck are you?

You sit up, wince at the tingling returning to your legs. Feel along the bed. Nothing. Your hand finally hits something smooth and hard. You pat around, find the base of what you hope is a lamp, let your hand drift up. You switch on the light.

Impossibly, your heart begins to beat even harder. No. No. You don’t want to be here. You aren’t ready to be here. As long as you see Sylus anywhere else—on the street, in a crowded club, in your apartment, even in your bed, you can keep the memories squashed deep, deep down with all the other things that frighten you, that cause you pain, and you can handle being near him. But you can’t reconcile your memories from this place with the memories of being swayed gently in his arms in a crowd, the tender touches on your couch, your bed, a glass of water held to soft lips, your head pillowed against a strong chest with a steadily beating heart as you fall asleep.

You can’t be here.

You crawl to the edge of the bed, land on bare feet on a plush rug over a cold marble floor. The room is empty. The bookshelves, the imposing desk in the corner, the chaise lounge at the foot of the bed, the black leather armchairs and marble topped coffee table. The dark walls, the record player. You recognize each and every object, although you have refused to return here in your mind since you were allowed to leave. You could walk through here blindfolded. You wish you were blindfolded.

The thin sweater you find yourself wearing is soaked through with sweat. You shiver in the air of Sylus’s silent bedroom. You swivel your head, searching for your own clothes. For your boots. Nothing. You don’t want to go deeper into his room, away from the door, an exit, toward the bathroom and his huge walk-in closet for your clothes, or even to borrow more of his. You want out. You can live without shoes. You can’t live if your heart explodes from the panic clawing its way up your throat.

You silently slip out of his bedroom into one of the echoing corridors of his base, with its deep maroon paneled walls and marble floors, the dense gloom of the N109 zone filtering through the huge windows lining this hallway. You remember every single detail. You hear nothing. Just the thundering of your heart. You stride through the labyrinthine halls, the high ceilings soaring above you along with the elaborate, savage designs of the chandeliers. You avoid going near the dining hall or the kitchen or the den or living room, sticking to the outer edges of the wing you know will lead you to the front door. To the way out of this place filling you with so much dread you could collapse under the weight if you falter for even a stuttered heartbeat.

Miraculously, you make it without seeing a single soul. You turn the gothic monstrosity of one of the double front door handles, fully expecting it to be locked from the inside, but it shifts easily in your hand. You open it only as far as necessary to squeeze your shivering body between the doors and let it close softly behind you.

The night is cold. It’s autumn now, after all. Since there are no natural trees in the N109 zone, the wind gusts unchecked against your already cold body. Sylus’s base sits on a cliff overlooking the valley of the N109 zone with its towering skyscrapers thrusting into the perpetual night like crystalline stalagmites in a vast cave. His house is accessible only by a long and winding road up the hillside. A proper villain’s lair. It’s going to be a long walk through the cold and dark if you don’t figure something else out.

You hate yourself, for your tendency to make assumptions. For not asking enough questions. For refusing to think about all the things that you should keep in the forefront of your mind every single second of every single day. Why had you assumed that Sylus was taking you to a hotel to wait for the evol linkage to dissipate? Why didn’t it occur to your stupid ass that he’d take you to his fortified base, where he is the safest, where it doesn’t cost him any money, where it is his home, since you were already in the N109 zone at Amnesia?

You just fell asleep in his big fucking tank like an idiot, without asking a damn thing.

You will deserve the walk ahead of you. Hopefully it will be what you need to never forget again that this man is using you for his own purposes, and probably every single thing he has done up to this point has been to further his goals involving his need for your resonance. After all, the shopkeeper made it plain from the very beginning: you can’t resonate with someone who frightens you. Someone you dislike. Someone who disgusts you. Sylus has never disgusted you. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. But fear and hate, individually, are probably sufficient to block whatever it is in you that allows you to connect to another in such an intimate way.

And what’s the best way to get someone to stop hating you? To stop being afraid of you? Determine what they need the most, and then give it to them.

Your insomnia. Your desperate loneliness, always there, under your skin, for as long as you can remember, but amplified in the aftermath of losing your family. Your craving for human touch and connection, the kind of touch and connection you can’t bring yourself to ask of your friends. That you can’t stand to seek in strangers anymore, after so many failures.

And of course, Sylus has known what you so desperately want, since the very first night you met him. Your mind drifts to your hand, wrapped securely in his. To him pulling you against him, and reading you bedtime stories about indemnification and allocation of risk and remedies in case of breach. To his soft kisses along your shoulder. How many times did he drop in at your place after he released you from his base? Three? It’s only taken three evenings to accomplish his plan that probably began with the deal about the brooch. Lull you into complacency, acquire your affection instead of your hate, and your willing help instead of your fear. Three evenings, to replace him choking you until you blacked out. To replace … everything that came after.

You look down at your bare feet and bare legs. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

You make an inventory of your current situation. You’re barefoot. Unarmed. Soaked in sweat, and the wind is gusting. You don’t have your phone. But you do have your Hunter’s watch. That’s enough. You’ll get far enough away from the base to avoid Sylus or his minions alerting to your absence and finding you outside, call for help, find some shelter, and wait for someone to come pick you up. You recall that the landscape along the winding road leading up to Sylus’s base is fairly isolated. You gamble that there won’t be anyone coming all the way up here at this time of night.

Once you’re home, you will be able to think straight. When your heart isn’t jackrabbiting in your chest. When this jittery feeling, like you can run a marathon without breaking a sweat, isn’t coursing through your pounding veins. When the lingering despair from the nightmare about your grandmother’s house has faded to the tolerable thrum of grief you’re used to these days. And you will uphold your end of the deal with Sylus. You meant it, when you let the coin decide. You can be as resolute in your decisions as he is. You will be his friend. Why, when you know that most of his behavior toward you is calculated, manufactured—a talented forgery? Because Sylus is very good at getting what he wants. He wanted your affection, and your willing help. And he has been successful in acquiring it, despite your best efforts to resist his charm. You’re honest enough to admit that to yourself. And what even is friendship, if you expect something in return? He may only be able to think of friendship in transactional, cost-benefit, return-on-investment terms, but you don’t want to live that way. Despite your best efforts, you like him so terribly much, and that’s the beginning and end of it. 

You will help him with his love, for whatever your help is worth, and you’ll finally wipe the slate clean. You just need… you just need your heart to stop for a minute. That’s all. And that can’t happen here, in the place where Sylus treated you more honestly than he has ever treated you since you were allowed to leave.

You take a deep breath and begin to jog. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

***

After being thoroughly entertained at Amnesia by Sylus’s Hunter, Luke and Kieran finally managed to dump Noah with Linda after settling the terms of their bet regarding how long they think it will take their boss to successfully woo the object of his unhinged obsession.

The one rule: no interference that could tip the odds one way or the other. Luke, Kieran and Noah must act as neutral observers of the hilarious conundrum their boss finds himself in regarding the highly skilled, highly oblivious Hunter not being able to see what is obvious to anyone who has the unfortunate opportunity of being within a five kilometer radius of the two of them: that Sylus is head over heels, and so is the Hunter.

Each concerned party committed to upholding this sacred rule of non-intervention. Each of them lied through their teeth while making such a commitment. But Luke and Kieran can tell that countering whatever Noah will likely come up with to drag out this complicated courtship will require all of their combined talents to ensure the odds remain in their favor, and that Sylus will convince the Hunter to accept him sooner rather than later.

Luckily for them, this shitshow is a win-win situation. As long as Sylus is happy, Luke and Kieran are happy. And they can tell, the Hunter is already making Sylus happy. They can see it in how drastically his mood has improved ever since the protocore auction. He no longer vacillates between the few emotions he has shown in the years they’ve known him—rage, utter boredom, and the worst: an unsettling blankness. A cavalier attitude regarding whether he lives or dies, whether he wakes up in the morning or not, whether his heart is beating or at a standstill. He’ll sometimes make off-hand comments about the banality of just… surviving, of waking up to find that he’s still alive and being utterly indifferent to that fact. Every time he says shit like that, shivers run down Luke and Kieran’s spines. They’d much rather he punch holes in walls in a fit of rage or blow up buildings out of boredom than encounter him when he’s at his most… empty.

But ever since the auction, the twins have seen a veritable rainbow of emotions clear as a Linkon City’s sunny afternoon on their boss’s otherwise impassive face. Amusement. Worry. Fascination. Yearning. Pining. Longing. Craving. 

“Luke, I’m truly proud of you for actually reading the thesaurus,” Kieran says from behind the steering wheel of their sleek, powerful muscle car. It was a present from Sylus. He claimed it was a bonus for their help in a particularly ugly business feud that ended up in more corpses than anticipated, but they both thought it was hilarious that the “bonus” arrived on the exact date of their latest birthday. Their boss really is the best.

“Thanks, man. It was like, really mind-blowing to learn how many words there are for Boss’s thirst for his pet.” Luke leans back in the sexy black leather bucket seat and enjoys the seat heating. Tonight is the coldest it’s been this fall. He fiddles with the sound system.

Kieran swats his hand away. “Driver’s choice. You know the rules.”

Luke pouts. “I’m not in the mood for Bach. Boring. I want Rachmaninov.”

“You don’t need to get wound up this close to home. It’ll take forever for you to settle down if you listen to Rachmaninov right now, and we really need to get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re about to get really busy with how distracted Boss is going to be with the Hunter.” He drums his fingers along the steering wheel. “He’s going to need all the help he can get.” 

“Ugh, fiiine.” Luke hunches further into the comfy seat and stares out the windshield, watching as the bright headlamps slice through the dark gloom, lighting up a swath of the deserted road leading up to their home. Suddenly, he jolts in the seat.

“What the fuck—”

“Is that—?”

“The Hunter, yeah—”

“And, what the fuck—”

“Yeah, no shoes—”

“Call—”

“Boss. On it.”

Luke already has his phone clutched in his hand, and the ringing fills the car through the sophisticated sound system Sylus ensured the car had, along with the fastest, strongest engine for this model on the market.

Kieran watches the Hunter disappear in the rearview mirror, while simultaneously slowing the car as quickly as possible without making excessive noise that could spook the Hunter.

Sylus’s deep voice suddenly fills the car. “Speak.”

“Uh, Boss?”

“Who else, Luke?” Sylus says dryly. “Speak.” 

“Do you know where your Hunter is?”

The line is silent for a beat. “I left Kitten in my bed, asleep, while I went to take care of some paperwork in the study.” He pauses. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?” Anyone who didn’t know their boss like they do would think his tone of voice was indifferent. But all Luke and Kieran hear is a spike of worry.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure we just passed someone on the hillside road to base who looks, like, a scary amount like your Hunter. With no shoes on. Or coat.” Luke winces in anticipation of their boss’s response.

The line goes dead.

Kieran has slowed the car sufficiently to be able to pull a u-turn without tires screeching, and expertly swings the car around. He cuts the headlights, counting on the light from the blood-red moon to provide sufficient visibility. He then accelerates until he has the Hunter in view, and slowly follows the lonely figure, ready to provide protection until their boss can arrive and take the situation in hand. Luke and Kieran can tell that whatever you’re experiencing, this is not a situation that they are equipped to handle, and if they come up too quickly behind you, they’re worried you will bolt off-road and be even more difficult to collect again. They really, really hope you don’t notice their presence behind you until Sylus arrives.

***

Fuck. You’re being followed. And you haven’t found one damned area along the roadside that looks like it could serve as good cover since leaving Sylus’s long, convoluted driveway, because this region is a lifeless wasteland of bare dirt and rock and only small outcroppings of earth along the hill’s descent.

You didn’t remember it being so desolate. Probably because you were just so relieved to be escaping with your life, you were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and failed to notice that the area leading up to Sylus’s base is as hospitable as the N109 zone’s red, red moon.

You had stiffened, almost pausing in your steady jog along the roadside as a sleek, sexy car that looked like it was built for racing came careening around a bend in the road, the two figures in it just silhouettes behind the blinding headlights as they roared past in a huge gust of wind and gravel. You had hoped, with all of your wildly out-of-control heart, that they were just business associates heading to the base for a meeting or something, and that whoever was in that vehicle wouldn’t recognize you or care about a lone nutcase going for a middle-of-the-night run in the middle of nowhere.

But you’re a highly trained Hunter, and you’ve gotten more sleep lately. Without turning around, you can tell that the same car is following behind you, which would be alarming enough, without the fact that whoever’s driving it is trying to be a sneaky shit with the headlights off. As if you can’t hear the purring of that sweet engine even over the strong wind. Idiots.

Your mind races. You have no weapon. You don’t even have shoes. Surprise is the only means of gaining an advantage. You half-turn, wrap your arms around your stomach and drop into a crouch, as if your stomach hurts and you can’t keep jogging because of the pain. Head down, you watch out of your peripheral as the car keeps slowly approaching in the dark. You let one arm drop from your waist on your side not in view from the car, and feel around on the ground until you find what you’re looking for. Then you wait.

When the car is only just a couple meters from you, you launch yourself from your crouched position and sprint directly at it. Its brakes screech as the driver is taken by surprise, but it’s too late. You’ve already vaulted from the hood onto the roof, and you’ve brought the heavy, dense rock clutched in your hand as hard as you can against the driver’s window. As it shatters, you reach through the now open space with your other hand and grab the driver by the throat, half pulling him out of the tinkling window frame. You hold the rock high above your head.

“Why the fuck are you following me,” you bite out through clenched teeth.

You hear the other car door open, but remain focused on the person you have by the throat.

“Don’t come any closer or I will make your friend unrecognizable for identification at the autopsy,” you snarl. You see the other person freeze in your peripheral vision.

You return your focus to the driver. Staring into his grimacing face, you see a young man, one you don’t recognize. He has a riot of floppy dark curls, shaved to a sharp fade on the sides and back of his head. His big dark eyes reflect the light of the red moon as they dart all over your face. He takes a deep breath.

“If I told you that you do not have anything to fear from me, or my brother, would you kindly put me down?” he asks in a voice that sounds alarmingly familiar. Your stomach cramps almost as painfully as your heart has been for the past hour. Without letting go of the driver’s throat, you turn and look at the man standing at the open passenger door, looking back at you with the same face as the man you have in your grip.

You let go, and Kieran sinks back into the car with a grunt. You scramble off the car roof and back away from it.

Just as you’re about to apologize, you see headlights cutting through the dark. You’re suddenly overcome with the wish that Sylus had killed you when you first met, because you can’t imagine how he’s going to react now, when he sees that you assaulted his employee and damaged his property with the rock that is now falling out of your nerveless hand.

You want to turn and run. You want to put this fucking night behind you. You hate that you’ve been thinking that so often lately. Every single time, you just want the night to be over. You’re so tired. Your heart won’t fucking stop doing that horrible thing in your chest, and you still feel like you need to run until you collapse to make it stop. But you’ve learned by now that there is no running from Sylus. Not in any way that matters. So you just stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to enjoy toying with his prey tonight, because he quickly comes to a stop and parks the tank behind the twins’ car. He gracefully climbs down from the driver’s seat, slams the car door, and strides up to Kieran’s side, his black biker boots with the chains crunching on the broken glass. You wince with each footfall. He leans down and looks at Kieran. “You good?”

You can’t hear Kieran’s response, but you see Sylus nod and straighten. He gestures for Luke to get in the car, who obeys without comment. He then taps the roof firmly, twice, and strides toward you as Kieran pulls the car into the road, hangs an efficient u-turn, and disappears into the night.

You close your eyes and wait for Sylus to… you’re not sure? Hit you? Slam you with his evol? You brace yourself. Just because he’s been affectionate up until now, even through you throwing the duffel at him in front of an audience, doesn’t mean he’ll suffer you hurting his employees for no good reason. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time you've ever seen them without their masks on, and that it felt incredibly threatening as they followed you, for some unfathomable reason, with their damn headlights off.

Sure, you could fight back. Try to block his blow. But at this point, you feel like you fucking deserve it. You want to punch yourself in the face for hurting Kieran. You don’t know him, but he’s never been mean to you. The worst he’s ever done is give you a flare gun and pretend a pair of handcuffs could magically restrict Sylus’s evol. He didn’t deserve to be scared half to death and choked through a broken window because of his earlier prank. It occurs to you now that maybe stalking you with the headlights off was the twins’ idea of another prank? And you broke their car window and choked one of them. For fuck’s sake, at this point, you’ll welcome Sylus’s fist.

But instead of the hit you’re still bracing for, you jerk a little when you feel the heavy weight of a warm coat being draped around your shivering body.

You open your eyes. Sylus stands in front of you, wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

“If you wanted to go for a run, sweetheart, you could have just told me. We have a perfectly functional home gym, equipped with treadmills with big screens that make you feel like you’re running on a serene mountain path or along the beach. There’s no need to endure the desolation of the N109 zone’s ‘scenery’ when you’re here with me but want to work out.”

You just stare at him. 

“What’s wrong? Crow’s got your tongue?” One corner of his mouth lifts as he taps the corner of your mouth gently with his index finger.

What the hell is happening? “Are you not mad at me?” you ask, completely at a loss.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

You gesture a little helplessly. “I hurt Kieran. I damaged your property. I interrupted whatever you were doing since you’re now out here instead of back at your home.”

“You didn’t damage my property. The car belongs to Luke and Kieran. Can I touch you?”

“What?” Your heart is a bloody, clenched fist, punching your body from the inside out. Sylus’s apparent calm in the face of all the mess that is you is making you feel like you’re insane.

“I said, can I touch you?” he repeats, as if he has all the patience in the world to repeat questions you clearly heard the first time.

“Like, can you hit me? Or strangle me? You want my permission to give me what I deserve?”

Sylus’ face changes. If you hadn’t been spending so much time recently watching videos on micro expressions and bluffing and acting, you might have missed it. He looks furious for a microsecond, and you want to take a step back. But you deserve whatever it is he’s feeling right now. You force yourself to stay still. You look up into his now neutral, lovely face.

He breathes in through his nostrils. “I will repeat this as many times as you need to hear it,” he says calmly, as the wind sweeps his silver hair across his forehead. Your heart is going to kill you, as you live through the eternity of the pause in this sentence. “I will never, ever hit you. And I will never think that you deserve to be hurt, for anything that you do, or don’t do.”

Okay. Okay, weird. He’ll strangle you, but he won’t hit you? He thought you deserved to be held captive for three days, denied food and water, forced to resonate, but he expects you to believe that he doesn’t want to punish you for fucking up as big as you did tonight? Where is the thin red line here? How can he say that he will never think you deserve to be hurt, when he hurt you so terribly during those first three days?

“Ask your question,” he says, but it’s not a command. It sounds more like a gentle invitation. What alternate reality have you stepped in tonight?

“I don’t understand how your mind works,” you say instead of obeying him.

“If you don’t ask, then you’ll continue not knowing how it works.” He still sounds infinitely patient. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t read your mind. Unless you ask, I won’t always know what you need from me.”

You shiver, even under the warmth of his heavy coat, but can’t bring yourself to answer. You close your eyes against the memory of his calloused hand around your throat. Of him tossing you in front of a huge mecha battlebot, sneering “You can handle it.” Of him telling you to survive the night, or else enjoy your last meal at his table. You open your eyes.

Sylus is watching your face, thumbs hooked in both trouser pockets. He shakes his head a little. “All right. I propose that we go back to the base, and you can pose all your questions there, no strings attached, without you standing out here freezing to death on your bare feet.”

This time you do take a step back, shaking your head. “No. No, nope, no thank you. If you could just dump me somewhere closer to the city, I can just get someone from the Association to pick me up. We can talk another time.”

He watches you closely, and you feel naked, with your heart a sledgehammer against the brittle framework of your ribs, and the sweat still soaking your hair. “Is there a particular reason you’re reluctant to go back home with me?” he finally asks.

You choke a little on a laugh. “You could say that,” you say dryly, with all the calm you can muster through the chaos in your chest.

“Care to share?” 

You’re so tired. You’re so, so tired. None of it seems to matter anymore—whether he hits you, leaves you on the side of the road, or splatters you onto the gravel with his evol. “Do you really not know, Sylus? With all of your insight, do you really need your aether core to figure out why I wouldn’t want to go back to your criminal headquarters?”

“I thought you were getting used to the idea of the criminal aspect of my life,” he says slowly, as if that’s the important part.

“You’re right. I care less and less, every day, that you’re a wanted outlaw. But I really have no interest in reliving the days you spent choking me out and trying to brute force your way into resonating with me,” you murmur, because it’s so hard to say out loud, let alone think about it. You’re shaking. You’re shaking so hard, your bones hurt. Your teeth are chattering. None of these things have anything to do with how cold you are.

Sylus becomes very still, with the red, red moon above him, the wind still gusting through his hair, pulling at his sweater, and the dead earth stretching behind his tall figure.

“Can I touch you?” he asks again. 

Can he touch you? Of course he can. All he has to do is what he has always done. He can just reach out and take what he thinks he deserves from you. As he has done since the first moment you met. But you don’t want to have to give him permission for it. You know you deserve it, but you still have enough of a sliver of self-preservation, or pride, or backbone—something in you refuses to give him this last bit of yourself by being complicit in whatever he wants to inflict on  you right now.

“Can I touch you? Not to hit you. Not to choke you. Not to cause you any pain, in any way, whatsoever.”

You’re so confused. “Then why are you asking for permission, when you’ve never done that before?”

“Because I can see that bringing you to the base tonight, without talking to you about it, when you haven’t been back since our first few days together, was a mistake on my part. I may be many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I do not intend to make the same mistake more than once.” 

“I was stupid for not asking you where we were going,” you try to protest, although you don’t know why, through your clicking teeth.

“No, you weren’t. You trusted me to take you somewhere you would be comfortable. It was my fault for not considering that you would not feel safe in my home because of the way we began.” His voice sounds so resolute.

You just look down at your toes.

“Can I, please, touch you?” he asks, yet again, but this time he sounds a little strained.

Now that you know he’s not going to try to hurt you, you can finally nod. As soon as you start to bob your head, you feel yourself swept into the air, his strong arm under your knees, the other under your shoulders, and he holds you tightly, so that your face is tucked into his throat.

He carries you to the tank and manages to get the door open without letting you go, but instead of putting you on the passenger seat, he sets you on one of the bench seats further back in the vehicle, pulls the door shut behind himself, and sits next to you. He pauses, taking you in from head to toe, and then leans forward next to the driver’s seat and fiddles with something on the dash screen. He then sits back and pulls you onto his lap. Apparently, he hadn’t turned off the vehicle when he first arrived, because it’s so warm in here. He rests his hand, somehow still warm after standing out in the cold, against your heart.

“I know you want to go home right now. But it’s over an hour away. You need to get warmed up sooner rather than later. Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole armored vehicle?” he speaks, lips against your wet hair.

“It’s a tank, Sylus,” you protest, because even now you can't help yourself.

“Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole tank?” Sylus murmurs into your hair.

You don’t want to go back there. You just want to close your eyes, and be anywhere else but inside your body right now. Your mind drifts back to how thirsty you were in that house, the house he wants take you now. How thirsty you were, and no water was given. And when the terror would recede and exhaustion seeped into its place, the awareness of your hunger, and no food was given. How did you ever trust him to come near you again? How can he possibly ask you if you trust him enough to take you back there?

But being in his arms like this, despite everything he has done to you, his hand against your broken heart, is calming you in a way that makes trust and choice seem meaningless. You want to just stay right here, in this moment, where the past and the future are just fever dreams, and the only reality is Sylus’s hand, his lips, his chest against your shoulder and side. You want to carve your way into him, force him to carry you inside his skin so you’ll never be cold again. Even though he's the reason you're cold to begin with. You're so tired of this tangled, terrible bond with this terrible man.

And yet. Like always with him, when he's right here, holding you with such fierce tenderness, you find yourself surrendering to the temptation, to the seductive illusion that you’re safe with him, and you let him have whatever he wants.

You just nod, your cheek rubbing against the soft sweater over his clavicle. You feel his chest expand in what might be a relieved sigh, or just exasperation, and the vehicle begins to move. You startle, but he shushes you. “It’s in self-drive mode, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You relax again, and the way back is a blur. You don’t want to look, as he lifts you from the car and carries you through the underground garage beneath the base, into the elevator that lifts you to the floor on which his bedroom is located. The same expansive windows, soaring ceilings, subtle light in wall sconces stream by as he strides forward.

“I can walk,” you try to protest, but again, he softly shushes you. 

“No, you can’t.”

“I’m cold, not paralyzed,” you counter, exhausted, amazed you still have the capacity to argue with him.

“Yes, yes, but you haven’t seen your feet. And I have.”

“What?” you lift your head, but he presses your face back into his chest.

“You ran five kilometers without shoes on a semi-paved road, kitten. I’m pretty sure you’re not accustomed to barefoot running, based on the state of your feet.”

You shudder even harder. You hadn’t even noticed the pain.

And then, you’re back in his bedroom. You feel him shift, toeing off his shoes at the threshold. He passes the lounge area, his hulking desk, the bookshelves and the bed, and takes you into the black marble cave of a bathroom you recall from your hunt for the brooch. He sets you on the padded bench thingy that probably has a fancy name that you imagine every rich person has even in their bathrooms and then goes to the walk-in shower and turns on the water. Almost immediately, steam begins to fill the expansive space. He returns and kneels at your feet. 

“Your clothes need to come off,” he says softly, but loud enough that you can still hear him over the spray.

Since you’re back here, the place where you spent so long helpless and trapped, it’s easy to slide right back into that space, but this time you don’t have the energy to even try to help yourself—you just nod again, but don’t move.

Sylus pauses, but then slowly reaches out and slides his coat from your shoulders. Then, so, so gently, he lifts the lower hem of the sweater you’re wearing, knuckles drifting along the sensitive skin of your stomach, and gathers the material under your armpits. With his other hand, he lifts one of your arms and pulls it through and out of the sleeve, and gently rests it back at your side again. He repeats the movement on your other side, and lifts the sweater over your head. Then, with one arm, he scoops you from the bench, gently but efficiently peeling the sleep shorts from your hips and over your legs. You’re left in just your underwear.

He carries you to the shower, the steam warm on your skin, and lowers you on one of the marble benches built into the wall. The water streaming from the shower hits him full on, and his own clothes are soaked through almost immediately. He reaches behind himself and pulls the sweater and undershirt over his head and tosses them back into the bathroom. He then grabs his belt, unbuckling it in practiced moves. Unzips his trousers, slips out of them, tossing them behind him as well. Clad in only a black pair of boxer-briefs, wet hair tarnished silver, he sits next to you on the bench and pulls you onto his lap again, your back to his chest. 

And then… the two of you just sit like that, floating together in a timeless space composed of water, skin, and the steady shush of the shower water. His arms around you are as tight as a straitjacket, securing you against him as if he thinks you’ll dissipate like the steam and drift away if he doesn’t anchor you to his own body. He doesn’t say anything at all. He doesn’t ask anything at all. He just holds you, his cheek resting in your hair, and doesn’t let go.

Slowly, so slowly, your heart slows in your chest. Your body-wracking shivering ebbs in violence, until, finally, you are completely still. Now that your muscles aren’t locked into defending against the convulsions from the cold, and… everything else, you melt into Sylus, head lolling on his chest, the spray of the water soothing everything that hurts, and his steady heartbeat at your back soothing everything else.

But of course, because you’re you, and this life is your life, this peaceful emptiness doesn’t last long. You slowly become aware of the most terrifying need welling up inside you, one you’ve managed to resist since… now that you think about it, since the last time you were in Sylus’s home. You need to fucking cry. 

All of your efforts to avoid this feeling—the terrifying loss of control, the exposure of the weakest part of yourself to yourself, or to another—refusing to speak about the terror and the pain inside you, the terror and pain you carry through every minute of every day, to your friends, to your doctor—all in a desperate bid to keep the floodgates of your tears bolted shut, are crashing onto the shore of this ocean of need. The need to cry. You’ve tried so desperately to avoid it, because once you start, you’re afraid that you will never, ever stop.

But now, being held by this man, who is so deeply threaded into the source of this feeling, somehow triggers the switch in your brain that says safe, safe, you can release the flood behind the gates, and you will not drown, because he’ll hold your head above water, no matter the cost .

You have no idea why your brain thinks this. You can guess why your brain considers a gunshot the same as a bomb, or why your first instinct when approached from behind is threat threat threat, neutralize first, ask questions later . But you cannot fathom for the fucking life of you why your brain sees Sylus and whispers, Shelter. Sustenance. Safety.

You can’t help it. The first tears begin to gather at the edges of your eyes. Your breath quickens, your chest begins to heave with the effort of holding it in. Your face is hot. But despite all of your will focused on not. fucking. crying... the tears begin to fall. At first, silently, but then from deep inside your chest, the sobs clawing their way out of your lungs through your throat, and suddenly you’re howling.

It hurts. It hurts so much. You hate it. You hate that Sylus is here as silent witness to all the weakest parts of yourself. You twist in his arms, straddle his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face in his throat, and then you weep. You wail, snot and spit and tears sliding down his chest, because you’re blocking the shower’s spray.

And Sylus? He keeps his arms wrapped around you, his cheek still in your hair, and doesn’t say a thing. After a while, you realize that he has started to shift on the bench, gently rocking you as you fall apart in his arms. One big hand, pressed flat on your back, runs firmly from the top of your spine to your lower back, and then back again. Still anchoring you to him. You feel a low vibration in your chest, under all the other sounds of the loud shower, and realize he’s humming very quietly. You have no idea if he’s humming something in particular. But the feeling in your chest is so soothing, eventually you realize that your sobs, and your tears, have slowed, just as the shivering of your body did while wrapped in his arms.

And then you’re done. You don’t have anything left—just the hollow relief of not being afraid, not shivering, not crying—the relief of not feeling much of anything at all. You try to hold on to it, grasp it in your fists. But like everything else, it slips through your fingers all the same, and you feel the shame come.

Miraculously, the shower water is still hot. It’s beating down on your back, your lowered head, still tucked under Sylus’s chin. You try to sit up, move away, but he just tightens his hold.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” he asks, sounding like he has sounded since the end of the auction. Slightly amused. Curious. Infinitely tolerant. 

You can’t say anything. You’re so embarrassed that he just witnessed all of… that. You just want to escape now.

“Hmm?” he murmurs into your hair, to emphasize his question in the face of your refusal to respond. And then, “Why are you always trying to leave me?”

You’re so surprised by the raw vulnerability in his question that you pull back to look into his face. He’s still holding you so tightly, your noses brush. His eyes are wet from the shower spray, droplets clinging in his dark lashes.

“What do you mean?”

“You leaving the base without saying a word is the second time in just one night that you were considering leaving me, without even telling me,” he says evenly, big hand still spread across your back. “Why?”

Suddenly, you’ve had enough. You are so tired of not understanding him, of trying to decipher clues from his inexplicable behavior, the incongruous way he touches you, treats you when you’re at your lowest, compared to how he treated you when you first met. “Why do you even care, Sylus? No amount of utility that I may have for you is worth you putting up with… this,” you gesture to yourself, face twisted in disgust.

“Utility?” he repeats, tilting his head. The hand on your back drifts upward until he has his big palm wrapped around the back of your neck, thumb along the side of your throat, fingers plunging into your hair.

“The dating advice… the resonance,” you remind him, though you don’t know why. You assume he knows exactly what you were referring to, that he’s just buying time to think of an answer that will make you stop asking inconvenient questions.

“You think I’m… ‘putting up’ with you, as you so charmingly phrase it, because I want your help with convincing my beloved that I’m sincere, and because I want you to resonate with me again? Is that what you’re saying?” he summarizes your thoughts.

“Why else would you go to all this trouble to spend so much time on me, when at every turn I end up doing something ridiculous? First, almost having a panic attack at the auction. Then, the very next time we’re out in public together, I make a scene during one of your business meetings. Then, the same night, because I’m just that awesome, I have another panic attack and almost kill one of your employees because I thought they were some human trafficker thinking he had an easy target tonight.”

“Why did you think they were human traffickers?” Sylus asks.

“He was following me with his fucking headlights off in the middle of the night on a deserted road in the N109 zone! What would you have assumed?” you demand, forgetting the whole point of this conversation.

He tilts his head, makes a little moue with his mouth. “Fair enough,” he acknowledges. “And that’s exactly why I’m not mad at you. I didn’t believe for a second that you would attack him for no reason. And, neither did he, by the way. Which is why you’re still in one piece.”

You eye him. “What do you mean?”

Sylus considers you for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you think you’re up to getting washed up before we unpack what you just said? I’ll make us something to eat and we can talk about everything once you’re clean and dry.”

You look down at your fingers, and see that their tips resemble raisins. You’ve made Sylus sit in this shower for at least an hour while you lost your shit. Despite the rich bastard being able to afford never-ending warm water, apparently, you can’t imagine this is how he wanted to spend his version of his evening. You nod.

“Finally, some sense from you,” he smiles slightly, lifting you in his arms. He sets you gently on the shower floor, and grabs a bottle from the built-in shelving containing a bunch of shower products. He kneels in front of you, his broad back blocking the spray from hitting your face. Despite the heat in the room, you shiver as he reaches toward you, as you feel his fingers slide from your calf to your ankle. Your brain stalls out and you can’t bring yourself to protest as he lifts your leg and gently foams some fragrance-free soap, and as delicately as possible washes the now-stinging sole of your foot. He gently lowers it back to the shower’s marble floor, and does the same with your other foot. When he’s done, he simply holds your foot in his palm, looking at it contemplatively, thumb running along the skin near your ankle. 

After a few moments, he eyes your face, and then his gaze drifts to your hair.

“I probably suck at washing someone else’s hair. Can you teach me how to do yours?”

You start shaking your head. “I may have hurt my feet, but I’m still capable of washing my own hair. You really don’t have to do this for me,” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“Just indulge me. Please.” He looks steadily at you. Something about the way he says please, and the fact that it’s the second time tonight he’s asked you so earnestly for your permission to touch you, has you nodding, again. 

He gently squeezes your foot, and then moves to get a few more bottles from the veritable drugstore he has stashed in the shower shelves. He then kneels back at your side and shows you, to your amazement, the same products that are sitting in your own shower back home. “Show me how you use these,” he says.

You stare at the bottles. Then you stare at his face. His eyes seem to gleam through the shower steam.

“Why—?” you ask, but he just shrugs.

“I was hoping you’d visit me,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to stock all of his friends’ personal hygiene products in his bedroom’s en suite bathroom.

Your mind drifts over all of the assumptions you’ve held about this man since you met him. All of the assumptions that have been utterly incorrect. You think about your assumption that he was dreaming about someone else, as he was biting your neck. You think about your assumption that the person he was describing in the Lethe lounge was someone else—anyone else, either one of your friends, a fellow Hunter, or someone you don’t even know. You think about the deal he made with you tonight—the help he says he needs in convincing someone that his feelings are sincere. Someone who refuses to consider that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive in treating them with kindness. In spending time with them. In devoting his precious free time to caring for them. Your gaze drifts between the bottles of the mid-range shampoo and conditioner he’s holding in his strong hands, because you can’t afford the really fancy shit you would really like to splurge on but you have too much pride to just buy the stuff from the grocery store. 

You understand the nature of tools. You work with tools every day in your job. Your knives, your swords, your guns. You maintain your tools with a diligence that others may consider fanatical, but which you know will help you survive, in the end. A whet stone, to sharpen your blades. Gun brush and oil, to clean and ensure the weapon doesn’t jam when you need it the most. These things are essential in caring for your most useful possessions. 

If you are a tool, the only things Sylus needs to maintain your utility are an absence of fear, your willingness to help him, the strength of your body in being well rested and well fed. Everything he has done up till now could be interpreted as serving the purpose of maintaining a tool he intends to use in the future. But a tool doesn’t have to be attractive. A tool doesn’t need clean, well-moisturized hair to function. The cosmetics of the thing are irrelevant, as long as it can efficiently serve its purpose. But you also know that Sylus likes shiny things. He likes the best, finest things. But if he wanted you to be as attractive as possible for aesthetic purposes, he could have bought the expensive, top-of-the shelf products that you’re sure he buys for himself if he was hoping you’d visit and inexplicably be showering in his bathroom. But no. He bought the products that you use. That you’re used to. That he knows you like because you had bought them for yourself. You cannot understand how the presence of your own shampoo and conditioner in his shower could serve any of the purposes of an owner maintaining the utility of a tool. 

You look back up into his face, and he’s looking at you patiently, but also with an eagerness to get started on helping you with your hair. Aside from everything else—how you started, how he treated you in this house—you don’t dare believe that the assumptions you’ve been making up until now are wrong. You aren’t ready to handle the emotional devastation if you begin to hope that the person Sylus wants in his life is… not someone else, only to find out that such an assumption is also wrong. You can’t. You can’t, not yet.

So you just gesture at the shampoo. “I start with this.” 

He sets the conditioner down. You proceed to tell him how you take care of your hair, and he follows your instructions silently, with a clumsy obedience that is incredibly endearing. His fingers along your scalp are so soothing, you melt into him as he washes your hair, your back to his chest. When he’s done, he takes the same care with the conditioner, touching you like you’re made of the most delicate blown glass instead of the scratched and scuffed stainless steel you imagine yourself to be.

When he’s done, he withdraws his hands from your hair and says next to your ear, “I’ll leave you to finish washing up. Towels and clothes will be on the bench. Call for me, and I’ll bandage your feet.”

And then you’re alone, with the water still beating down on your chest and shoulders. You peel off your underwear, and just sit there, knees drawn to your chest, letting the soothing heat stream down your back.

Your mind drifts. Again, you think of his calloused hand around your throat. You think of him sneering that you’re such a disappointment. You think of the thirst, and the hunger. You think about him dragging you across the floor with his evol, every time you tried to claw your way of the room where he forced you to resonate, over and over again.

You think about his embrace as you danced at the auction, your clasped hands as he let you decide when to detonate the bombs before you slipped into a panic attack. You think about the first time you fell asleep with him, on the back of his motorcycle. You think of a pot of poisonous flowers, wine the color of his eyes in a glass held to your mouth, his hands in your hair tonight.

You know that you can’t continue like this. Something has to give. You can’t be his friend, while being terrified of your memories of him. You need to do what he has asked and ask him questions, so that you can finally reconcile the man who just washed your feet so tenderly with the man who suggested cutting off your hand to break the linkage between you the first time the energy shackles bound you two together. The man who brings you wine, and more food than you could eat in a week, with the man who starved you for days.

You slowly get to your feet, wincing at the pain in your soles. You must have cut your feet up pretty bad, but you don’t want to look. You hobble to the shelves and let your hand drift over the array of neatly organized bottles. Your hair products are the only familiar products. Everything looks fancy as hell, with minimal branding, dark and masculine. You find body wash, and squeeze some onto your palm. The scent of citrus rises to your nose—you’ve finally found the source of oranges you sometimes detect on Sylus’s skin. You eagerly lather the soap between your hands and quickly cover your body with it.

When you’re done rinsing, you hobble out of the shower and find the towel and clothes stacked neatly just as Sylus had described. You even find the same type of towel you use specifically on your hair. You wrap it around your head, slip into the silky tank top, shorts and robe, and sit for a moment, elbows on your knees. You see yourself in one of the huge mirrors above the large sink and counter. You look so fucking tired. It’s time. You can’t keep shoving everything down, down deep. You need answers.

“Sylus,” you call. You wait. He appears in the doorway, leans his long body against door frame, shirtless with black silken pants hung low on his waist, warm looking slippers on his big feet.

"Yes, my dearest treasure?"

You laugh a little at the absurd endearment. Somehow, even when you're feeling at your worst, he always manages to make you laugh. It would be so easy, to close your eyes. To pretend that the way you began with him was the dream, that his gentle touch and silly endearments are the real Sylus. The only Sylus. But you're tired of lying to yourself. If you try to shove it all down, down deep, what happened tonight will only repeat itself, in possibly worse ways. You need to find a way forward, a way to realign the conflicting images of Sylus, to sift through them like mirages in the desert. You'd rather see him clearly, from his most malignant to his most tender selves, than continue to be lost between your horrific memories from those first three days and how he's looking at you right now. As if you're somehow precious to him. You take a deep breath.

 “Can we talk?”