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solxamber · 3 days ago

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Ace of Gates || Ace Trappola

You’re an A-rank Esper. He’s an A-rank Guide with too much mouth and not enough fear.

Together? You accidentally become the most functional duo in the building.

or: Guideverse!

Series Masterlist

The thing about life before the Gates was that it wasn't exactly good, but it had a kind of grimy charm.

You might have stubbed your toe on every available table leg in existence. You might have been ghosted by someone who claimed to be "allergic to commitment." You might've even once set off your smoke detector boiling instant noodles.

But at the end of the day, you could still wake up, brush your teeth, and go about your business without being chased across the freeway by a four-dimensional carnivore with sixteen elbows and the personality of an angry Yelp reviewer.

Then the Gates opened.

No warning or even subtle foreshadowing. One day, the sky said, "You know what this timeline needs? Suffering," and split open like the world's worst piñata.

Out poured creatures that looked like eldritch entities failed out of clown college—too many limbs, not enough skin, occasionally speaking in cursive. Spatial distortions started warping downtown office buildings. Birds flew backward. Somewhere, a tax accountant developed pyrokinesis and accidentally leveled a Subway.

And as the world collectively spiraled, humanity did what it always does in times of crisis: made things weirder.

First came the Espers—humans with the uncanny ability to punch reality back into place.

Blessed (or cursed) with psychically-charged nervous systems, Espers could tear Gates apart, launch energy blasts, and generally break the laws of physics over their knees like bad pencils.

Unfortunately, they also have the emotional regulation of a sleep-deprived toddler mid-sugar crash. Put too much strain on them and they'd short-circuit, cry, explode, or all three at once. You never really know.

Which is where the Guides came in.

Guides were supposed to be the grounding wires in this cosmic fever dream. Cool-headed, calm, attuned to the fluctuating mental states of Espers, and just functional enough to keep society from collapsing further.

But the truth was, most Guides were held together with caffeine, chronic back pain, and the sheer power of bitter determination. You could always spot one by their thousand-yard stare and that faint aura of "if one more Esper screams in my direction, I'm going to throw them into the sun."

Together, Espers and Guides became the last duct-taped hope of civilization. Gate opens? Send an Esper. Esper loses grip on reality after supression? Throw a Guide at them like a weighted blanket.

But somehow, society limped forward, staggering under the weight of Gate horrors and bureaucratic nonsense. Love, rent, public transport delays, emotionally unstable superhumans—it was all just part of life now.

A little messier and a lot louder. But still life.

Being an A-class Esper wasn't the worst gig in the world. You weren't flashy enough to get dragged into high-stakes Gate politics, and you weren't disposable enough to be thrown in like cannon fodder either.

You sat comfortably in the middle tier of survivability and suffering—overqualified for grunt work, underqualified for any high-profile heroic nonsense. Which was fine. You liked your soul intact, thank you very much.

But the thing about sitting in that sweet A-class spot was that you got a front-row seat to all The Horrors without the clout to veto them.

Like watching one of your training peers go nuclear mid-fight because their abilities decided to evolve like a traumatised Pokémon. Or worse—witnessing upper-class Espers go absolutely feral over Guide assignments like it was some messy dating sim with real-world casualties.

So when today's Gate spat you out after several hours of what could only be described as "spiritual hazing," you were ready to demand extra compensation on sheer principle. Not even hazard pay—ugliness pay. The creatures inside that thing were visually offensive. You saw one and instinctively gagged. They were so ugly.

You staggered out of the Gate, adrenaline fading and headache blossoming, reaching out instinctively for someone, anyone, to Guide you before your brain decided to pirouette off the mental cliff.

You were expecting warm hands. Soothing words. And you found a Guide who looked like they'd just crawled out of therapy and wanted to drag you in with them.

Instead, you got manhandled. By SS Esper Leona Kingscholar, no less—who apparently thought you were a misbehaving toddler in a mall food court. He picked you up by the scruff of your uniform like you were about to claw up his curtains and threw you across the recovery field toward some poor, unsuspecting soul with a Guide badge still so new it hadn't even smudged yet.

You landed in someone's arms with all the grace of a disgruntled, wet cat. Someone yelped. You blinked blearily up at them, registering orange hair, too much gel, and a look of pure panic barely hidden behind what was clearly practiced bravado.

Guide badge: present. Facial expression: overwhelmed.

You were too fried to be picky.

"First day?" you croaked.

His eye twitched. "I've totally got this under control."

Uh-huh. Sure.

He was stalling, clearly trying to remember some textbook protocol while you slowly disintegrated like a paper towel under a leaky tap. So you cut the formalities, grabbed his hands, and just pressed them to your cheeks. He made a squeaky noise not unlike a hiccuping kettle.

But damn, if the effect wasn't instant. It wasn't polished or practiced, but it was just enough at that moment. He fumbled his own breathing trying to match yours, probably counting seconds like his training manual told him to. But his guidance was warm and human. Grounded in a kind of sincerity that couldn't be taught.

And for the first time in what felt like hours, the pounding in your head dulled just slightly. The static eased. You exhaled.

"Not bad, rookie," you mumbled, eyes half-closed. "Now don't drop me, or I'm biting your shoulder."

"Wha—why would you—?!" He panicked, fingers twitching like he thought you might actually go feral.

You grinned.

This might be the start of something terrible. Or incredibly entertaining. Maybe both.

Ace—as you eventually learned his name was, after your brain rebooted enough to distinguish "man" from "tree"—has the vibe of a guy who showed up to a war zone thinking it was an unpaid internship.

Not that you were doing much better. You'd just crawled out of a gate that felt like fighting God in a parking lot behind a 7-Eleven, and your only priority had been: find a Guide, latch on, don't die.

You expected the usual from a Guide: firm grounding, minimal judgment, maybe a juice box if they were feeling generous. Instead, you got a panicked yelp and a pair of very nice hands that hovered like they were trying to defuse a bomb.

"Hey, hey, don't just grab—! I—um—this isn't covered in the training modules—are you bleeding internally or do your eyes always do that?!"

You cracked one eye open, squinting up at a face that was trying very hard to pretend it wasn't terrified. Gelled orange hair, vaguely delinquent posture, expression like someone just handed him a baby and said "good luck." You wheezed, "Are you my Guide or a weird hallucination?"

"Depends," he said, trying to puff up with confidence and failing miserably. "Do hallucinations get assigned A-rank badges on their very first day? Huh? No? That's what I thought."

"Oh great," you muttered, still clinging to him like a depressive barnacle. "I got the tutorial mode Guide."

"Hey! I'll have you know I aced my cert exams! All of them. Well. Most of them. I read some of the manual. Okay, look, I skimmed the headers, but still!"

"Guide me more," you said dramatically, like you were gonna drop dead. "Before I go feral and set something on fire."

He looked like he was going to pass out. "Why are you like this?!"

"You're asking that to someone who just spent four hours playing tag with a mutant centipede that screamed in Latin."

Somehow, miraculously, it worked. The haze in your mind lifted. Your pulse slowed. You were no longer vibrating at the speed of trauma. And your new Guide—Ace, looked down at his hands like they'd just sprouted wings.

"I did it," he whispered.

"You didn't drop me," you corrected. "Which is more than I expected. Congratulations."

He looked one part smug, two parts panic. "Is this how it always is?! Just people falling on me?? I thought I was gonna get, like, eased in. Assigned to chill D-rank espers with emotional support houseplants or something."

"Nope. It's just me and my trauma today," you said cheerfully.

Now that you were feeling only mildly like a wet napkin that had been through a blender, you shoved a vending machine coffee into his hands. One of the good ones—if "good" meant "tastes like burnt resentment with notes of despair." "Here. A little treat. You earned it."

"Why is it gray?" he asked, suspicious.

You smiled, patting his shoulder. "Because life is suffering."

And then you left him there, clutching a cup of sadness, looking like a man who had just realized this was his actual job.

The morning had started off pretty boring. You were catching up on the soul-crushingly dull backlog of post-gate paperwork—forms with cheerful names like "Guidance Feedback Report" and "Hazard Clearance: Tier Two and Below"—while sipping your third cup of questionable vending machine coffee.

You'd already filled out a whole page where you had to rate your existential dread on a scale of "chill vibes" to "screaming internally." You checked "Other" and drew a little raccoon with a knife.

Peace. Quiet. Administrative numbness.

And then: noise.

A high-pitched shriek echoed from down the hall, followed by a wet squish and the unmistakable sound of someone yelling, "PUT ME DOWN I'M NOT A STUFFED TOY." You knew exactly what you were about to see and were already emotionally checked out of it.

Sure enough, you rounded the corner and there it was: Floyd Leech, B class Esper, SSS class chaos goblin extraordinaire, had a full-body grip on some poor SS-ranked Guide who looked like they were halfway between having a panic attack and astral projecting out of their job. Floyd, meanwhile, was grinning like he'd just discovered a new chew toy and didn't plan on giving it back.

You made eye contact. With the Guide, not Floyd. The Guide gave you a desperate look.

You promptly turned on your heel. Not your business. Not your problem. Not even your plane of existence.

Just as you were about to flee back to the comfort of bureaucracy and caffeine poisoning, you caught a glimpse of orange in the corner of your eye. You looked again. Ah. There he was.

Ace Trappola, newly minted Guide, dragging in two boxes and a duffel bag, wearing a hoodie and sneakers and a Look that could only be described as "I survived my first week and all I got was this nervous twitch." The hair, formerly gelled within an inch of its life, was now flat and flopping wildly like it had been in a fight with gravity and lost.

You jogged over and took the top box without asking. He blinked at you.

"Wait—seriously? You're helping?"

"I enjoy manual labor when it comes with leverage," you said.

He gave you a look that tried to be offended but mostly just came out tired. "Yeah, well, don't expect gratitude. I'm still recovering from my last gate. One of the espers threw up on me. Not near me. On me."

You nodded solemnly. "A baptism by bile."

"That was not in the handbook."

"Nothing in this job is in the handbook."

You helped him get the stuff into his new office—an aggressively beige space that looked like it had been furnished by a government official with a vendetta against joy.

He started taping up his beloved sports team posters, all the while throwing glances at the hallway like something might bite him if he let his guard down. Which was valid. There were a lot of people here who might.

"So is it always like this here?" he asked, gesturing vaguely toward the corridor where Floyd was presumably still clinging to his victim like an emotionally unbalanced barnacle.

You stared at him. "Dude. Rule number one. Do not make eye contact with other espers. Especially not the twitchy ones. Especially not Floyd. That's how you get conscripted into a hug you'll never escape."

Ace looked genuinely alarmed. "You people are insane."

"We're passionate."

"You say that like it's better."

You flopped down on the couch in his office and pulled out your breakfast—an aggressively stale bagel that had the texture of a rubber sandal and none of the flavor. He watched in horror as you took a bite.

"Is that safe to eat?"

"It builds character," you muttered, chewing with the solemnity of someone at war with both the bagel and their life choices.

Just then, your phone buzzed. You glanced at it. A single, terrible phrase: Level A Gate.

You groaned so deeply it echoed in your ribcage.

Ace raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

"I had a whole plan today," you moaned. "I was going to sit in my office. And rot. Gracefully. Like an abandoned fruit cup."

"Well, looks like you're the fruit cup on call," he said, with absolutely no sympathy.

You stared at the beige ceiling. "Tell my dust bunnies I love them."

Then you stood up, still chewing, and walked out the door like a martyr going to war—with half a bagel in one hand and resignation in your eyes.

The last few gates had been a breezy little vacation, if your idea of vacation included blood, screaming, and a lot of ugly creatures. But compared to the usual hellscapes, they'd been mercifully tame. You'd barely had to flex your powers.

A brief dramatic pose here, a mild energy burst there, a lazy thumbs-up to the rookies watching you and panicking. Quick stabilizing sessions with whatever Guide hadn't already checked out of reality for the day, and boom—you were back home eating chips with your socks half on and your brain half off.

It was beautiful. Peaceful. And very, very suspicious.

Because nothing good in this godforsaken world ever lasts. You'd forgotten the first rule of living in a society balanced on the emotional regulation of human warheads: if things are going smoothly, you're about to get uppercut by fate wearing brass knuckles.

And it happens, of course, the moment you do something reckless. You'd made the mistake of feeling a little hopeful that day. Thought maybe—maybe—you'd go outside and feel the sun, not because you were being forcibly evacuated, but just to walk. To sniff a flower. To make eye contact with a squirrel and feel alive again.

You cracked open your door and the universe took that personally. Your comm lit up with the kind of emergency alert that usually means something has exploded or is about to.

Massive gate breach. Immediate dispatch. Bring everything.

So you showed up at the scene, and wow. If gates had Yelp reviews, this one would have gotten zero stars and a government shutdown.

The structure had collapsed in on itself like overcooked flan . Monsters were pouring out like rats fleeing a burning house. You watched one particularly unfortunate Esper get launched across the sky like a sack of potatoes. Another C class Esper was holding their shoe like it could ward off demons.

The entire street looked like it was being eaten pixel by pixel. Guides were sprinting around like unpaid interns at a fire festival for demons. The air stank of ozone and regret. The coffee in your thermos curdled in real time.

You took it in with the resignation of someone who's already mentally gone through all five stages of grief and accepted that today was going to end in blood, tears, or possibly being eaten by a bird-faced horror from dimension twelve.

And then—through the blur—you spotted him.

Ace.

Clearly regretting every career decision that led to this moment. It was still his first week as a Guide after all.

He was standing off to the side, looking like someone who'd been told this was a casual office job and was now watching someone get disemboweled by a worm made entirely of teeth.

His hair, which had been styled into "I'm employable" during the last gate you saw him at, was now sticking up like he'd fought a wind tunnel and lost. His hoodie had a suspicious stain. He has was gripping his Guide manual like it was a shield, which it absolutely was not.

And yet—he didn't bolt. You could see it on his face: sheer uncut panic, barely held together by ego and trauma, but he stayed.

You sighed. He really was trying. But the idea of this baby deer of a Guide trying to emotionally stabilize you (or anyone) while you were fried like an overcooked spring roll was… a lawsuit waiting to happen.

So you walked up, grabbed him by the sleeve, and said, "Car. Go sit in it."

"What—"

"My car. Passenger side. Americano in the cupholder. Go."

He blinked at you, somewhere between confused and offended. "I'm literally here to guide—"

"You're literally here to cry if something sneezes too loud. Get in the car."

He hesitated. You didn't. You gestured at the car again, channeling the authority seen only in pissed-off parents at amusement parks. "Ace. If you so much as catch eye contact with one of these things, it's going to sense your new-hire energy and take you out like a starter pack snack. Go. Sit. Drink the coffee."

And—miraculously—he did. He shuffled off in the direction of your beat-up car like a tragic little duckling, muttering something that sounded like "I hate this job," but he still got in and shut the door behind him.

You turned back to the chaos, took a deep breath, and summoned your weapons.

Time to go do the absolute most, again, while the new Guide cowered next to your glovebox and tried not to spill anything on your emergency taser.

By the time the higher-ranked Espers arrived, flanked by whatever fresh hell of support units HQ had managed to scrape together at the last second, you were already halfway to being burnt toast with a personality disorder.

Your limbs had felt like they were being held together by sheer spite for the last hour, and you were pretty sure you'd used a move that wasn't technically legal under Esper Regulation 12.6-B—something about "not summoning energy constructs larger than public transit."

Not that anyone noticed. The moment the S+ ranks dropped in, the remaining monsters were obliterated so easily that it made you wonder if they even knew what effort felt like. You didn't bother sticking around to hear the post-battle gloating.

Instead, you crawled over to the curb and planted yourself down, tucking your head between your knees like you were trying to fold yourself into a nice, compact package of trauma.

You breathed. In. Out. Didn't punch the concrete. Didn't vaporize the mailbox. Did not scream because your head felt like it had been playing host to every radio signal within a fifty-mile radius.

And then—there was a touch. Light and gentle. A hand on your head, cautious like it wasn't sure if you were about to bite. Which, fair.

You lifted your face just enough to look, and there he was.

Ace.

No longer in the car and no longer looking like he wanted to fake his death and live as a farmer. He was kneeling right in front of you, brows furrowed, face uncharacteristically serious. One hand was still on your head; the other came up to cradle your cheek like he actually knew what he was doing now.

He didn't say anything—just closed his eyes and let the Guiding energy pulse out of him in careful, practiced waves. And okay—maybe he had figured it out.

The energy hummed through your system like a warm tide, smoothing over all the sharp edges and static that had built up from overusing your powers. You inhaled shakily, and the scent that hit you was unmistakable: chocolate.

The exact brand you kept stuffed in the side panel of your car for emotional emergencies. You almost laughed, but it caught in your throat, tangled up with exhaustion.

Instead, you just leaned in. Right into his neck, your face pressed against the still-damp collar of his hoodie. He yelped—just a little—but didn't pull back. His hand slipped around to support the back of your head and you melted into him like he was the last unburnt bit of the world.

You didn't know how long he held you like that, only that when you opened your eyes again, the world felt a little less bright and your heart wasn't trying to break out of your ribcage anymore.

Eventually, you managed to stand. Your joints cracked like pop rocks, but hey, you were vertical.

Ace rose with you, a little more confident now, like helping you not implode had somehow restored a piece of his soul. He glanced away as he dusted off his pants. "Thanks, by the way," he said, voice just the tiniest bit shy. "For earlier. Y'know. The car thing."

You snorted. "You mean when I told you to sit there and drink coffee like a sad raccoon?"

"Exactly that." He grinned, then smirked. "Best part of my whole day, honestly."

You leaned in and ruffled his hair—deliberately ruining the way it had finally grown back into some form of chaos management. He squawked in protest, tried to bat your hand away, but he was grinning too hard to be mad.

You turned before you could say anything sappy. There was still work to do. A cluster of lower-ranked Guides were struggling to contain a group of Espers who were shaking like soda cans left in the sun, on the very edge of a full mental detonation. You squared your shoulders, rolled your neck, and headed toward the chaos.

Because sure, you were fried. Sure, your legs felt like overcooked noodles. But if Ace could pull himself together and hold you through your mess?

The least you could do was return the favor.

You had finally completed enough missions, clocked in enough hours, and filled out just enough headache-inducing paperwork to earn the privilege (read: institutional liability) of being assigned your very own Guide. Not just a harried intern with a flashlight and a pamphlet on deep breathing exercises.

And, to be fair, you were excited. Truly. Genuinely. But also deeply concerned for whatever poor soul had been sentenced to the eternal emotional rollercoaster that was… you.

You knew your reputation. You were mostly fine, except when you weren't, which was usually right after crawling out of a gate like some freshly molted nightmare creature with a migraine and an attitude problem.

You didn't mean to be difficult. You were just, as your last temporary Guide had eloquently put it, "a high-strung pressure cooker of unprocessed trauma and volatile energy." But you meant well. That counted for something, right?

The sterile white waiting room didn't help the nerves. Everything was so aggressively clean it felt like a trap. You sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair, bouncing your knee, trying not to explode before anyone even showed up. Across the room, a vending machine blinked ominously, refusing to take your credits. You glared at it. It glared back. The air hummed faintly with fluorescent lighting and barely-contained dread.

That's when you saw him.

A Guide—clearly veteran, clearly so done—dragging a protesting SS-class Esper by the scruff of their collar like a furious mom hauling a toddler mid-tantrum. You didn't know either of them personally, but you gave the man a nod of quiet respect, which he returned with the dead-eyed focus of a man who hadn't known peace in years.

The Esper threw a tantrum about being micromanaged. The Guide looked like he was mentally designing their tombstone.

You shrank slightly in your chair. Yeah. No thanks. You weren't built for that life. Higher-ranked Espers terrified even you. You were A-class and even you thought most of your own were unhinged.

By the time your name was finally called, you had witnessed two more Guides dragging their Espers out like disobedient golden retrievers, and one Esper sobbing dramatically into the corner like they'd been paired with the ghost of their dead ex.

You were thoroughly psyching yourself out. Your brain had already crafted seventeen worst-case scenarios and was midway through number eighteen when the attendant handed you your assignment sheet.

You took it with hands that were definitely not trembling (they were, though), and glanced down at the name.

Ace Trappola.

You sagged so hard in your seat you practically became part of it.

You didn't even try to hide your relief. Out of all the possibilities, this was a win. Ace might not have had the experience, but he had charm, resilience, and—most importantly—not the eyes of someone one bad conversation away from spontaneous combustion.

"Oh thank God," you muttered under your breath, hugging the sheet to your chest like it was a sacred relic. Maybe—just maybe—this was going to be okay.

Ace's office was already a mess, and not the charming kind that said "creative genius at work." No, it was the other kind—the one that screamed "I've lost control of my life and also my filing system."

You knocked anyway, because manners, and cracked the door open to find him pacing in a circle like a disgruntled hamster. He didn't even notice you. He was too deep in what could only be described as a righteous fury spiral.

"—and then they just assign me a new esper, like, boom! Congratulations, here's your emotional landmine, hope you enjoy spontaneous combustion with a side of caffeine withdrawal. Do I get a warning? A dossier? A name?! No. Just a shiny little memo with 'new assignment incoming' like I'm a damn Pokémon center," Ace barked at the air, hands flying. "I swear, if this one screams or bites or starts levitating—!"

You leaned on the doorframe and bit your lip to stifle a laugh. It was always fun watching Ace have a crisis. His hands flailed more when he was stressed, like he was trying to physically throw his emotions into the void.

He finally stopped pacing, glanced up—and froze.

"Oh great," he said flatly, "you're here. Did you come to laugh at my suffering? Again?"

You shrugged. "I mean, maybe. Depends. What if I am your esper?"

He stared.

You smiled.

He stared harder.

Then his eyes widened like you just told him you were secretly three raccoons in a trench coat. "No."

"Yup."

"No way." He pointed an accusing finger at you like you were personally responsible for his current descent into madness. "You're joking. You're messing with me. You—this is hazing. This is some dumb esper hazing thing, right?"

You handed him the assignment form like a receipt for emotional damage. He snatched it and scanned it so fast you were surprised it didn't catch fire. And then he just… stared at it, like the paper had personally betrayed him.

"I can't believe this," he whispered. "Of all the people. Of all the people."

You clapped him on the back. "Hey, at least it's someone you know. We've got rapport. Chemistry. Vibes."

"You ate all my fries the one time I let you drive me to work," he deadpanned.

"They were completely unguarded," you countered.

He sighed and sat down like the weight of responsibility had aged him fifteen years in five minutes. "I'm never getting hazard pay for this, am I."

You beamed at him. "Nope. But you get me."

"Yeah," Ace muttered. "That's what I was afraid of."

The next time a Gate popped up on your radar, you felt something dangerously close to joy.

Not because of the monsters, obviously. No one in their right mind enjoyed getting gnawed on by interdimensional hellbeasts with poor skincare and too many limbs. But because—for once—you wouldn't have to rely on a trembling intern Guide who looked like they'd rather take their chances inside the Gate than be within a five-foot radius of you.

No. This time, you had Ace.

Your own Guide.

And if that wasn't the emotional equivalent of being handed a complimentary emotional support soda after surviving a hurricane, you didn't know what was.

So you fought. You dodged. You possibly kicked something in the jaw that wasn't a monster but in your defense it was slimy and made a horrible noise. You made it out with only mild trauma and one (1) concerning scratch that may or may not be sizzling a bit, but that wasn't important.

What was important was that when you finally stumbled out of the collapsing Gate, there he was—Ace, standing at the edge of the suppression field like someone had personally promised him pizza if he didn't flee. He spotted you, eyes wide, mouth parting like he was about to say something deeply sarcastic—

And then you stumbled straight into his arms.

You didn't even think about it. It just happened. One second you were vertical, the next you were face-first in a hoodie that smelled vaguely like Axe body spray. You sagged into him, finally letting your shoulders drop and letting your head fall to his shoulder like the universe had finally decided to cut you some slack.

Ace, to his credit, didn't immediately drop you like a hot potato. He wobbled under the sudden weight of your whole being and then steadied you, arms wrapping around you without complaint—well, almost without complaint.

"You do know we can just hold hands, right?" he muttered. "Like. Normal people? Normal guiding protocols? This isn't a fainting couch situation."

"Yeah," you sighed, eyes closed. "But you're very comfortable."

There was a pause. You could feel it—the exact second the words reached his brain, ricocheted around his synapses, and triggered a full-body blush.

"Hey!" he squawked, indignation peaking—but he didn't let go.

In fact, his arms tightened around you just a little.

You didn't say anything else. Neither did he. But you did hear him complaining about "guiding being a scam" and "you're the worst" under his breath, which—coming from Ace—was basically an affectionate poem.

The farmers market Gate incident would go down in your personal history books as both a magical catastrophe and the worst advertisement for locally sourced produce since that time you accidentally blew up a vegan co-op.

You were enjoying a rare moment of peace—by which you meant doing exactly nothing and feeling deeply smug about it—when the gate alert buzzed on your phone like an angry bee with a grudge.

You skimmed it. Normal stuff. Minor rupture. Medium-range creatures. Casualties pending. And then you saw it.

Location: Public Farmers Market Guides trapped: Multiple Hostile rating: High

You blinked at the screen. Then texted Ace:

"pls tell me you're not in a gate buying overpriced jam rn."

No reply.

Your soul left your body just a little.

There was no logical reason for a whole flock of Guides to be at the farmers market. It was like a divine joke. Or a badly written fanfic plot twist. You were already halfway into your gear, muttering a prayer to whatever Gods handled idiot emergencies, because let's be honest—if any Guide had decided to go sniff tomatoes and talk about microgreens on gate day, it was going to be Ace Trappola.

When you got there, it was already chaos.

There were monster corpses everywhere—half-eaten leeks, shattered jars of "sun-blessed lemon marmalade," and the unmistakable scent of kombucha violence. Someone's dream of ethical farming had died here today.

You ducked a flying melon. You saw a mid-rank Guide trying to use a literal baguette as a weapon and briefly considered quitting the entire profession. You helped two baby Espers escape from under a collapsed garlic stand.

A Guide was desperately swinging a massive leek at a monster, eyes wild and determined like they were avenging their grandmother's greenhouse. You almost saluted them on the spot out of sheer respect.

And then you saw Ace.

Standing on top of a wobbly fruit stall, hurling seasonal produce with impressive arm strength and zero dignity.

He whipped a honeycrisp apple into the jaws of a slime beast and screamed, "SAY HELLO TO FIBER, YOU UGLY CHIHUAHUA!"

You couldn't look away. You were too stunned. Too amused. Too horrified. He spotted you mid-pitch and practically sagged with relief.

"DUDE," he yelled, mid-ducking a flying zucchini. "A LITTLE HELP?? I'M RUNNING OUT OF PERSIMMONS!"

You helped. Because that was your job. Because despite your desire to let him stew in the compost bin he metaphorically built, you were technically a professional. So you and a bunch of barely-standing Espers wrapped the gate up, sealed it, and survived.

When the dust settled, Ace was sitting on a crate, shirt half torn, tie missing, and what might have been a berry smoothie dripping from his bangs.

You walked over, arms crossed.

"That's what you guys fight?" he asked, voice thin. "Like. Regularly?"

"Mhm," you said, chewing on a granola bar you looted from a nearby tent.

Ace looked haunted. Like he'd just learned about mortality and also taxes in the same ten seconds. He leaned forward, forehead thunking against your shoulder.

"Never. Speak. Of this. Again," he whispered.

You patted his head with the affection one reserved for shell-shocked war heroes and dumbass coworkers. "Sure," you said. "Your secret fruit war is safe with me."

He just shook his head like he'd seen the other side and it was powered by vegetables.

"Forget this ever happened," he muttered, eyes fluttering shut.

You didn't say anything. You just pulled him a little closer, steadying him with one arm while the other waved away a very confused emergency response team.

You'd tease him about it later. But for now, you let him rest.

Ace called you at 3 AM, which was frankly criminal behavior.

You stared at the buzzing phone like it had personally insulted your lineage before you picked up and croaked something unintelligible that may have been your name, or possibly a spell to banish him.

"Heyyy," came his too-cheerful voice, already suspicious. "Wanna go to a magic show?"

You blinked. You looked at the time again. 3:08 AM.

"Ace," you said, voice hoarse, "do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, that's the whole point," he said, with the sort of maddening logic only a chaos gremlin could wield. "It's a midnight magic show. Come on, when else are we gonna see a dude try to pull a live fish out of his armpit? This is culture."

You almost said no. In fact, your soul did say no. Loudly. But your mouth was overridden by a strange instinct, the same one that told you not to eat discount gas station sushi but still you did it anyway.

"...Fine," you muttered. "But if this is some cult initiation, I'm pushing you into the altar first."

There was no logical reason for this. No rational part of you that wanted to be out of bed. But something in your soul—some ancient, unkillable gremlin instinct—told you this was the right choice. Or at least that it would be entertaining.

You met him outside a theatre that looked like it had once been a pawn shop and was now held together with duct tape and multiple.curses. Ace was leaning against the wall, half-grinning, wearing a hoodie that claimed he ran a marathon in 2013 (he didn't).

His hair was sticking up in defiance of gravity, and he had the manic gleam of someone who'd either discovered enlightenment or downed an energy drink mixed with coffee.

The show, against all odds, was happening. You squeezed into two creaky folding chairs and immediately regretted it. The magician on stage was trying to pull coins out of a bowl of soup. The soup did not cooperate. Ace was already snickering.

The magician's cape had visible ketchup stains. There was a rabbit that looked like it had unionized. The crowd consisted of six other people, one of whom might have been asleep and another who was loudly booing even during the introductions.

It was awful.

You tried to be polite. You really did. But then the magician dropped his wand, apologized to it, and accidentally kicked over a prop bucket labeled "DO NOT KICK," and Ace whispered, "We're witnessing history," and that was it. You broke. You were gone.

Somewhere between the magician's card trick that turned into a live chicken and the very dramatic poetry interlude, you noticed Ace wasn't laughing quite as loudly anymore. He was still grinning, still nudging your knee with his, but his eyes kept drifting to the exits, and he flinched when one of the props fell too hard against the floor.

The gate incident must've rattled him more than he let on. Of course it did. The monsters were nightmare fuel, but you'd been around long enough to swap fear for disgust. He hadn't. He wasn't used to things getting that close, to hearing people scream, to being helpless while chaos chewed its way through the air.

You didn't mention it. He didn't bring it up. But you laughed a little harder, leaned a little closer, and handed him some of your stale popcorn like it was sacred. He took it and commented something about you probably poisoning it. You told him you absolutely had.

This wasn't about the magic show. This was about feeling human again. And if that meant watching someone fail to saw a fake body in half while Ace whispered "That's going to haunt me more than the gate," then so be it.

You'd be there. Even at 3 AM. Even when the magician made eye contact and asked for volunteers and you had to physically hold Ace down in his chair.

Honestly? Best terrible night ever.

You'd started hanging out with Ace more because you were worried. Genuinely, responsibly, adult-level worried. The job was eating him alive. The early signs were all there—the stress-yawning, the sarcastic jokes that sounded a little too real, the thousand-yard stare whenever someone mentioned mandatory overtime.

You'd seen it before: one day they're drinking instant coffee and guiding B-ranks through minor breaches, the next they're staring at the wall and whispering "I'm fine" like it's a lie they've told too many times to believe.

So, you made yourself present. Not pushy or clingy but just there. Like a houseplant, but taller and with worse coping mechanisms. You started dropping by his office after your missions under the noble excuse of stealing his snacks.

You made him leave the building for actual food when he looked pale enough to pass as a ghost. You started showing up at his apartment with takeout when he pretended he didn't have time to cook. (Spoiler: he never did have time to cook. You found out he considered cereal and three leftover fries a dinner once.)

But then the concern turned into something else. Something far less noble and a lot more annoying.

Because now you hang out with Ace not because you're worried about him burning out, but because he's kind of…your person? Despite the fact that he talks like he's the main character of a sitcom and eats chips like they owe him money, you've never had someone so effortlessly sync into your orbit. He makes everything a little funnier, a little lighter.

He gets your jokes. He rolls his eyes when you fake-dramatically pretend to collapse on the couch after missions, but he always tosses you a bottle of water after.

And if your heart fluttered the other day when he leaned in too close just to steal your fries with the kind of grin that should be illegal? No it didn't. Your heart was just startled. Yes. Like when a cat sees a cucumber. Totally physiological.

Because this is fine. You're fine. You're definitely not catching feelings for your Guide, who once tripped over his own shoelace trying to show off and who called you "a disaster in a cool jacket."

Nope.

This is normal. You're just...bonding. Like coworkers. Like comrades. Like people who happen to spend all their time together and sometimes maybe fall asleep shoulder to shoulder watching a bad sports documentary neither of you picked.

Totally normal. Completely not a problem. Everything's fine.

The floor of Ace's office had truly seen things. Blood, sweat, tears, a spilled iced coffee that achieved sapience for twelve minutes before being vanquished with a napkin.

And right now? It was you. You were part of the floor. You were the floor. The couch was unusable—stuffed with enough junk to declare itself a sovereign nation—and frankly, this was fine. Ace had stepped over you four times already and you had no intention of returning to vertical society.

Then the alert came in. It was the kind of blaring screech that implied the God themselves had stubbed their toe.

You didn't even lift your head—you just groaned into the suspiciously warm floor as Ace yelled from the other side of the room.

"Nope! Nope. Nuh-uh. I haven't even finished my boba!"

You tilted your head just enough to peek over at him. He was holding his phone like it had personally insulted his bloodline. "SSS-class gate," he read aloud, voice flat with horror. "This is workplace harassment."

You finally sat up and sighed. "S+ Espers are going in. A ranks are on standby."

Ace narrowed his eyes at you. "You're A rank."

"Congratulations on knowing the alphabet."

"Oh, you think you're funny now. Just wait till we get there and your kneecaps try to vacate the premises."

Despite the dramatics, he was already gathering his gear. You both knew there was no skipping this one. When a gate got rated SSS, it meant things were already bad enough that someone in admin had cried on the official report.

You reached the scene, and it looked like a discount apocalypse sale—everything must go! Reality included! A guide was crying into a clipboard. An Esper had tried to fight a monster with a traffic cone. One guy just laid down on the pavement like he was hoping the ground would adopt him.

You were getting out of the car when Ace suddenly reached over and gripped your wrist like he was trying to keep your soul tethered. His expression was weirdly serious for a guy wearing a hoodie that said "Espers Are Just Goth Pokémon."

"If you die in there," he said, "I'm going to kill you."

You blinked. "That's not… how that works."

"I will find a way."

You tried to smother your grin, but it was already halfway out. "You gonna haunt me?"

"I will invent necromantic litigation. I will sue your ghost."

You tried to reply but you were wheezing too hard to make words. He looked dead serious and also vaguely like he was going to cry. You ruffled his hair—he yelped like a kicked cat—and stepped out of the car.

You gave him a wink and a "Don't die while I'm gone, it's my turn first," before heading off into the swirling chaos of the gate breach.

Ace said something after you, but you didn't catch it.

You gave him a thumbs-up. That meant love. Probably.

The gate was already breathing wrong when you got there. That was never a good sign. Gates weren't supposed to breathe, and definitely not in that horrible stuttered wheeze like a dying fax machine.

You stood at the perimeter with the other A-ranks, all of you collectively pretending not to notice that the S+ Espers inside were fighting like their pensions were on the line. There was screaming. There was fire. At one point, a building developed teeth and bit someone. You weren't sure who, but they definitely didn't have insurance for that.

Usually in situations like this, someone higher up would appear and fix things with grace and devastating power—SS/ SSS Espers were good at that.

Unfortunately, all the top-tier meat shields had been scattered like sprinkles over three other hellmouths that had opened up across the city.

You'd gotten the memo about it twenty minutes ago and had been deeply hoping the gate would just collapse out of pity. Instead, it expanded. And burped. And then let out a sound like a blender full of marbles.

And then they called your name. Specifically. Because apparently someone up in the control center looked at the current death forecast and thought, Yes. Let's throw this poor A-rank into the cosmic garbage disposal. That'll go well.

You stepped in, and instantly regretted not writing a will. Or at least a passive-aggressive goodbye email to the HR department.

Calling it an SSS-rank gate was generous. You'd call it a "Don't ever speak to me or my timeline ever again" gate. It was evil in that weird, administrative way, where the environment itself wanted to make you cry. The gravity was off. The lighting was offensive. The monsters were aggressive, densely packed, and had no regard for personal space.

And there were so many. Every time you thought you'd cleared the last one, five more would spawn like this was a cursed MMORPG with no cooldown settings. At one point, you tripped over your own boot and ended up elbow-dropping a creature with more legs than opinions. Another Esper high-fived you mid-battle and then immediately exploded. You didn't even ask.

Your arms hurt. Your soul hurt. Your favorite jacket was in tatters, and you were reasonably sure your socks were on fire. After hour ten, you stopped checking your communicator and accepted that time was now a lie. You were running on adrenaline, spite, and whatever residual trauma gave you extra DPS.

And still—still—the gate wouldn't collapse. It refused to die. It was the kind of persistent that could ruin marriages and survive nuclear winter. You didn't even know where the monsters were coming from anymore. Were they breeding? Was the gate duplicating them out of salt and collective despair? You had questions, and none of them were getting answered because you were too busy trying not to get dismembered.

Then, around hour eighteen, just as you were beginning to suspect this would be your new full-time job until retirement or death (whichever came first), the air shifted.

The pressure dropped. The temperature dipped. And then an SSS-class Esper appeared at the gate's edge like they'd been summoned from the plane of Being Way Too Tired for This.

They didn't say a word. Just strolled in, wrecked the largest monster in a single move that looked suspiciously like an over-the-shoulder stretch, and then left without making eye contact. You didn't even catch their name.

What you did catch was the sigh of relief from every Esper present, followed by the collective collapse of ten people who had clearly been holding on out of sheer stubbornness.

You sat in the remains of a smashed car—might have been an Audi once—and looked at your busted gloves, cracked weapon, and gelt your internal organs playing musical chairs.

You considered dying. Then you remembered you'd promised Ace you wouldn't, and he'd probably kick your ghost out of spite. So instead, you closed your eyes, let the chaos buzz around you, and thought about how tomorrow, you were going to sleep for sixteen hours.

You woke up to someone shaking you like you were the vending machine that just ate their last coin.

"Hey. Hey. Don't do this. Wake up, right now. I swear, if you die, I'm putting ghost pepper in your electrolyte packets."

Your eyelids creaked open like they were rusted shut, and there was Ace's face hovering above yours, which would've been more comforting if he didn't look two seconds away from ripping the sky open with sheer panic.

"You're awake," he muttered, and for one unguarded moment, his whole expression went soft—terrified and overwhelmed and so stupidly relieved that it punched you harder than any S-rank monster ever had.

But then the emotion vanished like a magician's rabbit, replaced by a scowl so deep it could've been classified as a crater. "What the hell were you doing in there? Hosting a rave with your immune system? Playing tag with the horror squad?"

You blinked again, because your mouth wanted to say I'm fine but your brain was still buffering, and your limbs were attempting to unionize against the concept of "consciousness." You barely had enough strength to keep your eyes open, much less regulate your leaking powers, which was currently sparking.

Ace pressed his hands to your cheeks like he was trying to physically plug the chaos leaking out of your soul, muttering all the while. "Come on. You know how to do this. Sync with me. You've done it a million times. You got this. Don't go all Final Boss right now, I haven't even finished the side quests in my life."

His hands were warm, but your body was still in full static meltdown. Every time he tried to Guide, your energy fizzled, refused to settle, like it didn't trust him—not because he wasn't capable, but because you were too far gone, too brittle and overdrawn and already halfway to self-combustion.

You croaked something that might've been "calm down" or "carbonara," it was hard to tell.

"I am calm," he snapped, clearly lying. "I'm the calmest. Look at me, I'm a zen master. I'm inner peace incarnate. And if you die, I'm going to haunt your ass with passive-aggressive monologues about how you never listen to me."

He was spiraling. You were spiraling. There was an entire mutual disaster spiral happening in surround sound.

And then he did the most absurd thing.

He kissed you.

Just desperation and instinct and a split-second decision that said: if emotional regulation won't work, maybe making out will.

And—God—you kissed him back.

Because of course you did. Because somewhere between the midnight magic shows, the bad vending machine coffee, and the weirdly heartfelt threats about dying on his watch, you'd fallen stupidly, irrevocably in love with him.

The kiss was messy and slightly tilted because your body still thought gravity was a lie, but it worked. Your powers, which had been throwing a tantrum with the intensity of a sugar-high toddler, finally started to settle.

Not because of fancy techniques or textbook hand placements but because it was him. Just Ace, with all his ridiculous jokes and flailing hands and heart thudding loudly right under his hoodie.

When he finally pulled away, breathless and wide-eyed and clearly unsure what dimension he currently existed in, he didn't say anything at first. Just stared at you, jaw clenched, as if debating whether to scream or faint.

Then, in the flattest voice imaginable, he said: "You're banned. From gates. From work."

You laughed, because your soul was still a little frayed at the edges and your emotions had gone full goblin-mode. And Ace, clearly still running on leftover adrenaline and half a caffeine patch, leaned in again, kissed you like it was your punishment and his apology rolled into one, and whispered:

"Next time you do that, I'm requesting a raise and a leash. In that order."

When Ace took the Guiding classifier and got told he had "potential," he practically floated out of the room.

A rank, easy, he'd bragged to himself while spinning a pen between his fingers and imagining all the mildly impressive medals he'd soon be awarded. He hadn't even taken the real test yet, and he was already picturing himself leaned back in a high-backed ergonomic chair, sipping something overpriced while patting a trembling esper on the head and telling them, "It's okay, you're safe now." Preferably with dramatic lighting. Maybe a cape.

In theory, it was going to be glorious. In practice, it was a scam orchestrated by the universe to humble him.

The training program didn't help. Oh, sure, they talked about Gates and Espers and "emotional regulation" and "mental shielding," but no one ever sat him down and said, "Hey, kid, by the way, most of these people come out of Gates looking like they fought a Lovecraftian horror and lost."

No one showed him clips of people sobbing into their hands while leaking so much unstable energy it set off car alarms. And no one mentioned that sometimes the first Esper you ever have to Guide gets thrown at you by Leona Kingscholar himself like you're a damn emergency pillow.

That Esper being you was probably karma. He just didn't know what for.

He hadn't even had time to scream. One second he was adjusting his stupid tie (why had he even worn a tie, what was he trying to prove??), the next second he was catching a battle-scorched Esper like a sack of potatoes. He'd frozen. Completely blanked. Training forgotten. Mental scripts on fire.

You'd been glowing like a Christmas ornament left too close to a microwave, and he was just there, mouth open, hands half-raised, wondering if this was the part where he got fired or vaporized or both.

And then—you guided him.

You grabbed his hands like it was normal and pressed them to your cheeks with the resigned look someone who had absolutely no faith in his skills and wasn't subtle about it. "Just do it like this," you'd mumbled. And you were trembling, clearly on the verge of blowing a hole in the parking lot, and he was supposed to be the one grounding you—but instead you talked him through it. Patient. Steady. Calm.

He was the Guide. You were the one glowing with leaking energy. And you had to help him stabilize you.

And the kicker? It worked.

Somehow, between the tremors in your fingers and the pulse of too-much-power in your veins, the sync clicked. You stabilized. He didn't faint. There was no catastrophic explosion. Just silence, breath, and the faint, nauseating hum of vending machine coffee warming behind him.

Which, speaking of, was what you gave him as a thank-you. Bad vending machine coffee in a paper cup with your fingers still shaking. He took it because it felt too awkward not to. It tasted like burnt toast and regret.

He sat with that coffee for ten full minutes after you left. Staring. Processing.

He might be in trouble.

Ace wasn't built for warzones. He was built for dodging responsibility, making snide comments, and winning card games with smug grins and sleight of hand—not for waiting outside a screaming, crackling Gate that looked like it wanted to swallow the sky.

His first week as a Guide had been a slow descent into madness already. His coworkers were all clinically unhinged in different flavors. And now he was standing thirty feet away from a Gate that radiated the kind of energy that made your bones itch. Great.

And then you, ever the chaos-swathed miracle you were, showed up, took one look at him, and said, "Go sit in my car."

"Wait, what?"

"Car. Americano. Dashboard. Stay put. Don't explode."

He wanted to argue—something about not needing to be babied, something about not wanting your pity—but you shoved your keys into his hands with that A-rank glare that suggested you'd knock him out with one of your boots if he didn't obey.

So he went. He sat in your car like a well-trained pet, sipped your surprisingly good americano, and found the emergency chocolate you kept stashed in the side panel. And he thought, as he gnawed through caramel and panic, that this was probably your weird, overpowered Esper way of saying, I've got this. Don't worry.

When you finally stumbled out of the Gate hours later, looking like you'd been dragged through hell by the ankles, his heart dropped to somewhere around his knees.

He didn't even think. He was on the ground in front of you in seconds, pressing his hands to yours, trying every technique he could remember. His voice shook, but his hands didn't. Not now. You were relying on him. It was the least he could do.

Afterward, you leaned into him, quietly muttering something about how gross those monsters were, and he didn't have the heart to tell you that you'd just bled on his hoodie. He didn't care anyway.

He just held you tighter, tucked your keys back into your pocket, and decided he might start bringing emergency chocolate. Not for you, obviously.

Ace knew he was screwed the moment he moved into his office and met the cast of his new workplace.

The halls were filled with chaos incarnate wearing ID badges. There was the one guy who muttered to himself in five different languages and might've been growing moss. Someone had definitely duct-taped a "don't feed the Esper" sign on a door.

And there was a B-rank Esper with the energy of a caffeinated raccoon doing cartwheels in the training yard. Ace stood there with a box full of supplies, his dignity hanging on by a thread, and genuinely considered walking right back out.

You helping him move in had been unexpected. You were just there, strolling up with a stale bagel in one hand and a half-sincere "Need help, rookie?" on your face. He'd recognized you immediately—how could he not? You were the Esper who'd practically hotwired his Guide training back to life just a few days ago by pressing his hands to your face like it was a universal adapter.

He still had nightmares about it. Slightly fond nightmares. Unfortunately.

Still, you seemed—comparatively—normal. You didn't bite anyone. You didn't hiss at the fire drill siren. You didn't threaten to collapse a hallway with your brain. You were also sharp and a little terrifying, yeah, but you also handed him a coffee without judgment and helped him navigate the vending machine settings that lied about having lemon tea.

So when he was told three days later that he was being assigned an exclusive Esper, he fully assumed it was a mistake. What did they mean, "exclusive"?

That sounded like some VIP bonding situation that required a blood pact and a welcome fruit basket. Why didn't anyone tell him who it was? Was it a typo? Was it a trap? Was it Leona? Would he survive a second throwing?

He spiraled. Openly. Loudly. He was mid-rant, flailing a pen around like it personally betrayed him, muttering about how he was too young and too pretty to be sacrificed this way—when you walked into his office and stood there like you belonged.

He blinked at you.

You grinned and said, "I'm your new Esper."

He died. Briefly.

There was a moment of silence in which he reconsidered every life decision that had brought him here. Then he laughed, a little hysterical, and buried his face in his hands like he could dissolve into the floor tiles. "Of course it's you," he muttered. "Of course it is."

Because fate clearly hated him. And because you had that look in your eye like you already knew this was going to be hilarious. And because the universe had decided that Ace Trappola, rookie Guide and emotionally constipated disaster, was going to have to survive this job with you of all people.

Ace had never cared about ethical produce a day in his life. He didn't care if the tomato had a name, a mortgage, and three kids—it just had to go in his pasta.

But apparently, being a Guide also meant being roped into group outings under the guise of "team bonding" and "supporting local agriculture," which is how he found himself at a farmer's market full of artisanal beets, overpriced mushrooms, and Guides pretending they could taste the difference between moral zucchini and regular ones.

He was already plotting his escape via a strategically-timed "emergency call" (read: pretending to answer his ringtone-less phone and bolting) when the sky cracked open and the unmistakable shimmer of a Gate ripped through the middle of the market.

To say Ace wasn't prepared would be a generous understatement. The most violent thing he'd seen that week was someone cutting in line at the burrito stand.

But now? Now there were monsters with too many eyes and not enough laws about personal space crawling out from the produce section, and he was standing on top of a stall throwing apples at a thing that looked like it ate dreams for breakfast.

He'd never seen a Gate monster up close before, only in training footage. In those, everyone fought like it was choreographed.

What they didn't show was the part where your knees shook and your brain screamed, "This is fine," while you tried to bludgeon a slime demon with a persimmon.

Then you appeared—sprinting in like some post-apocalyptic action hero, and Ace could have cried. No, really. If his tear ducts weren't frozen in pure existential terror, he might have.

You didn't mock him for his current situation, which was a feat in itself. You just helped take down the monster like it was just a regular day in your life and then let him lean into you as the adrenaline crashed and the smell of radishes filled the air.

When you pulled him closer, murmuring something like "Good job, produce warrior," he thought his soul left his body and slapped him on the back of the head.

Ace wasn't dramatic. Really. But he was genuinely unsure if his heart would survive the way yours beat steadily against his chest like nothing could hurt him as long as you were there.

He wasn't touching an organic vegetable ever again, though. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Ace was not okay.

No matter how many times he told himself he was. No matter how confidently he pretended the slime monster at the farmers' market hadn't scarred his soul and permanently altered his relationship with zucchini. No matter how many snide jokes he made about "getting slimed Nickelodeon-style"—he was very much not okay.

He'd wake up sweating, convinced he could still smell radishes and horror. He started carrying a flashlight in his pocket "just in case." He got weirdly jumpy around cucumbers.

And at 3 AM, lying flat on his back in bed, surrounded by crumbs from three different snack brands and trying to decide if the ceiling crack looked like a crying bird or a turnip, he realized something terrifying.

He needed to talk to someone.

Worse—he needed you.

So he called you. At 3:08 AM. Because, in his defense, time was fake and also he was spiraling. He had fully prepared for you to reject him. Or cuss him out. Or maybe teleport into his room just to stab him for waking you up.

Instead, you picked up and just… said, "I'll come. Text me the location."

And he froze. For five whole seconds. Phone still pressed to his ear, staring at it like it had just turned into a very smug banana.

"…Wait, for real?"

"Yes, Ace. For real. I'm already putting on pants."

"Ugh, cringe. Could've shown up pantsless for the drama."

He met you thirty minutes later, wildly underdressed in a hoodie and one croc, the other foot bare because the matching croc had vanished under mysterious circumstances and time was of the essence. You gave him a Look, and said nothing about it.

Just raised an eyebrow at the theater sign blinking "The Mystifying Mustachio & Friends!" and followed him in like this was a completely normal thing for battle-hardened combat Esper-Guide duos to do on a random weeknight.

The magic show was, predictably, a tragedy.

It was less "magic" and more "cheap dollar store props and one dude's misguided dream." A dove escaped during the second act and dive-bombed a toddler. One of the assistants audibly whispered the next card before the magician could "guess" it.

You laughed so hard you nearly slid out of your seat. Ace laughed even harder, maybe because he was delirious or maybe because he needed this. Needed something so dumb and low-stakes and idiotic after nearly getting dismembered at a produce stall.

Halfway through, he looked over and caught your profile in the flickering spotlight. You were still chuckling, leaning on his shoulder like you belonged there. Your fingers tapped absently on his arm in time with the magician's increasingly dramatic music.

And you didn't ask why he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. Or why he flinched when the magician pulled a rabbit out of his hat with a slightly wet squelching sound that, unfortunately, reminded Ace of slime monsters. You just leaned back in your seat, laughed louder than anyone else at the terrible sleight of hand, and nudged him every time a trick went wrong.

And Ace, in turn, said absolutely nothing about how your shoulder kept brushing his.

Did his heart flutter a little? Maybe. Was he going to tell anyone about that? Not unless someone wanted to get roundhouse kicked into another Gate.

You didn't talk about the slime monster. You didn't ask how he was doing. But you came to that dumb magic show at three in the morning, and that was more grounding than anything he'd gotten from mandatory post-trauma Guide therapy.

Maybe he was still a little messed up. Maybe he'd never buy ethically sourced squash again.

He would never say any of that out loud, of course. If you even hinted that he was getting sentimental, he'd chew drywall. But deep down, while watching Mustachio pull a limp bouquet out of his sleeve and dramatically yell "ABRACADABRA!" with enthusiasm, Ace thought—

Yeah, okay. I think I might be in love.

When the emergency alert for a full-blown SSS-ranked gate lit up his phone like it was Christmas and the apocalypse had scheduled a joint party, Ace was very vocally Not Okay™.

He didn't want you to go in. No part of him wanted you to walk into the flaming jaws of death. But how do you say that to someone without also saying "If you die, I will never recover, I will fall apart like a badly made IKEA shelf, and I'm already two screws short as is"? You can't. Not without it sounding like a confession.

So instead, he told you, "If you die in there, I swear to god I'll kill you myself."

You laughed, ruffled his hair into oblivion, and climbed out of the car with the swagger of someone who was entirely too casual about going into monster hell.

He muttered a barely-audible "don't leave me" into the steering wheel the moment the door closed. Which, thankfully, you did not hear. Ego: saved. Mental health: wrecked.

What followed was eighteen hours of what he could only describe as spiritual waterboarding. The kind of dread that nestles under your skin and chews through your ribs like a termite.

Every time another mangled esper came out of the gate looking like they'd aged six years and lost their last two brain cells, Ace had to stop himself from throwing himself into the gate with a sign that said "WHERE'S MY DUMB ESPER" and fists full of prayer.

And then the gate finally stabilized. The air stilled. And you—

You were lying there. In the middle of it all. Motionless.

Ace didn't remember running. One second he was behind the barricades, the next he was on the ground, hands shaking you, voice cracking like a poorly tuned violin.

"Wake up, come on, don't be stupid, this isn't funny, you're not allowed to make jokes about ugly monsters and then become one, wake the hell up—"

And then you blinked. Eyes barely focusing, but looking at him.

And for one heartbeat, Ace thought everything was fine.

Until he realized your energy was so unstable he couldn't even sync with you. He couldn't stabilize you. He couldn't even bring you back to baseline. He tried everything—breathing exercises, grounding, full contact hand-holding—and nothing worked. You were too far gone, and he didn't know what to do.

And you—being you, being you—were still trying to calm him down. Which, frankly, pissed him off even more because this was backwards. He was the Guide, you were the Esper, why were you comforting him while actively dying?

He didn't think. He just kissed you.

It was frantic, and messy, and tasted like ash. He kissed you because he was scared, and because you were still warm, and because if he didn't do it now, he'd never get the chance. He kissed you because he loved you. Had loved you for a while now. Loved you so much that watching you on the floor had made him feel like the whole world had just punched through his chest.

And when he finally pulled back, panting, hands still on your face like he could tether you there—your energy finally clicked into place. The guiding finally worked.

You smiled, loopy and exhausted. And Ace, who didn't even try to hide it anymore, kissed you again. Slower. Steadier.

"You're not allowed to do this again," he whispered into your temple, voice trembling.

Because this time he'd managed to bring you back.

Next time, he wasn't sure if he could survive it.

You were technically supposed to be on medical leave. That meant sleep. Rest. A healthy amount of soup and zero proximity to gates, monsters, or things that try to eat you faster than your anxiety.

But what it actually meant was you lying on the couch, nursing a dull, bone-deep ache, while Ace paced around your apartment like a wind-up toy someone forgot to turn off.

He was jittery in a way that made even you concerned, and you'd once finished a mission with three cracked ribs and a mild concussion and still stopped to buy an energy drink on the way home.

His leg bounced when he sat. He kept sighing like he was auditioning for a tragic play. He reorganized your spice rack. He threatened to reorganize your socks.

Eventually, you were like, enough is enough. You cornered him by physically grabbing the front of his hoodie while he was mid-fidget and pulled him down onto the couch with you.

"What's going on in that Guide brain of yours," you asked, voice soft but very, very serious. "You've been twitchy for three days. Are you dying? Are you going to attempt a second reorganization of my kitchen? Please tell me before I preemptively set something on fire."

He stared at you for a long second. And then he said, quieter than you'd ever heard him, "I can't do it again."

You blinked. "Do what?"

"I can't see you like that again," he muttered. "I thought—when you didn't wake up right away, when you didn't stabilize, I thought I was gonna lose you. And it's not fair. It's not fair for you to keep throwing yourself at death and expect me to sit on the sidelines. It's not fine."

You had no words for that. Your throat clenched. Because he wasn't wrong. This world was a mess and you'd grown used to being one of the few willing to throw yourself in headfirst. Because someone had to. Because if not you, then who?

But Ace had always been in the middle of it too. Not as flashy or as reckless, but there. And maybe you hadn't realized just how deep your scars were starting to show on him too.

"I'm sorry," you said eventually, voice low. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know," he said. "But I also know you're not gonna stop, so I'm not asking you to. Just—bond with me."

You blinked again. "What."

"Permanently," he clarified, in the tone of someone very determined and also slightly terrified. "So I always know where you are. So I can reach you faster. So you'll always be tethered to me and I can yank your sorry ass back before you're too far gone."

Your heart did a weird thing. It fluttered. And it ached.

You looked at him, at his furrowed brows and stubborn little frown, and you knew it wasn't just about the utility of it. He didn't want to lose you. Not ever.

"Okay," you said, and the smile you gave him was the softest one you'd managed in months. "Let's do it."

You kissed him. You kissed him the way you'd been wanting to for ages, with no near-death scenario in the background this time. Just the two of you and the smell of burned popcorn and a couch that really should be cleaned.

Later, when the bond was sealed and his energy pressed warm and familiar against yours, you leaned into his shoulder and sighed.

"Life is still garbage," you mumbled.

"Yeah," Ace agreed. "Certified dumpster fire."

"But," you added, pressing a kiss to his cheek, "at least I've got my favorite Guide."

"Ugh," he groaned, hiding his very red ears. "You're so sappy when you're not actively dying."

You laughed.

And maybe life did suck.

But if you had Ace? You could live with that.