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1800titz · 2 months ago

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THREE

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

WEE third part and she's a big one, this is where the plot kind of heavily starts to differ from the OG. This one definitely gives more of a deep-dive into Harry's character to set things up in that aspect. Reblogs/feedback always super appreciated. If you like a fic, sharing the work with the reblog button and leaving a comment/sending an anon keeps writers motivated to keep posting on this platform for free! (ꈍ◡ꈍ) <3

FETISH masterlist : PATREON masterlist (316.7K+ words of content and updating) : MAIN masterlist

CONTENT/WARNINGS: rumors, a DIY pastry delivery service (flavor: apologetic), sexual undertones/smutty insinuations, impact playing/spanking mentions

WC: 13.3K

Some people collect souvenirs. Harry collects tote bags.

It’s not inherently a purposeful, curated trove of keepsakes— not in the same way an avid mug collector would eye one of those kitsch ceramic cups with a city name stretched across it on a trip abroad, and then add it to their collection. It’s just one of those things that keeps happening. A bookstore here; a street fair there; a pop up farmer’s market that sold homemade pepper jam and, incidentally, merchandise that could not be ignored.

He likes them. They’re convenient, and whoever had started the stigma against man-purses just had an agenda to steamroll practicality. As a child, he’d had the hardest time wrapping his mind around it— seeing his mother with a heavy purse perpetually slung over her shoulder, always assuming the practice was some normatively imposed hassle, rather than a beacon of functionality. As an adult, however, Harry can confidently admit, with full disclosure, that he was naïve, misinformed, and frankly, uneducated.

From the array, he has his go-to’s— a jute edition with a singular green sardine embroidered into the center (both a durable option and quirky in its minimal, offbeat design), and a cloth alternative with the word NO in plastisol ink. Simple, effective, all caps, midnight black lettering; it speaks for itself. The third option is another cloth variant, but it’s decorated with the outline of a steaming mug, and he’d picked the piece up from a poky coffee shop during a trip to France, years ago.

Most from the assortment, however, remain as untouched bundles of fabric stacked in the corner of his pantry as soft, vaguely judgmental relics of errands past. There are four tote bags that he hasn’t used in over a year. One is from a pop-up wine shop. Another has a sardonic quote about late capitalism on it, and he only ever reached for it when he was in the midst of a particularly antagonistic streak. One is too stiff to fold properly and therefore exiled. The last one— plain canvas, no print, worn soft at the corners— has inexplicably developed a smell he can’t quite place. Not bad, just faintly of old paper and maybe a foreign shampoo that’s never existed in his possession— something that feels achingly, too closely squeezed between nostalgia and a sense of impending existential upheaval. He keeps intending to throw the bag out, but there’s something threaded into its lived-in texture that feels a little too personal to discard. It’s been to all the best places with him. He once brought it on a third date with a girl whose name he can’t quite place anymore, and he suspects that’s part of the reason he’s held onto it for as long as he has; sentiment by proxy. The bag has stayed, for whatever reason, even as the woman it vaguely reminds him of has almost completely faded from memory— face, and name, and all.

It’s the kind of thing Harry doesn’t notice has become a habit until he’s opening up his pantry door and discovering the tangle on the floor, shoved up under the lowest tier of the shelving unit. Something he’s reminded has calcified without his conscious awareness. The tote bags. The particular corner by the door where he deposits his keys out of muscle memory. The rhythm of casual consistency interacting with the other tenants carries: a nod in the hallway; cheerful smalltalk; one of those instances where one of the elderly ladies Harry has befriended in the complex— by the grace of God-given dimples and a sense of charm his friends scoff at— (Barb, who lives on the same floor, and Eunice, who resides on the seventh) ropes him into a conversation and ultimately hands off a plate of baked goods. It’s consistent— it’s comfortable.

Which is why, Harry supposes, the shift in energy feels so loud.

It’s been four days since Y/N had confronted him head-on with her grievous misconceptions— in the middle of the night, surrounded by a half-awake cohort of their neighbors, no less— and despite his upfront explanation, within those four days, the rumors have multiplied at a rate that defies science.

Only a couple of days ago, he’d stepped out to water his plants and overheard a group of girls, unbeknownst to his eavesdropping— a circle of collegiate roommates, as far as he understands, given that he’s heard them discuss Kappa Sigma’s infamous Brett’s cock in disgustingly avid detail (is girth more important than integrity? The world may never know)— conversing out on the balcony right beneath his own. Once, he’d sat through four whole minutes of what sounded like an intervention about “the ethics of fucking your lab partner for Adderall.” The conversation wasn’t nearly enthralling enough to stomach more before he finished his joint and went back inside, but this time, the snippet he hears gives him pause. He stands still with his watering can in his hand, hovering over Monte (a bushy thing that’s tripled in size since he first acquired it from the plant nursery), and his pink mouth slowly settles into a grimace the longer he listens.

“I heard he was on house arrest, but they removed the ankle monitor early.”

“No, no, he’s just in witness protection. But like, bad at it.”

“Wait, I thought he was an ex-cop?”

“No, he’s a dom.”

“…A what?”

“A dom. You know. A professional one.”

“Like a dominatrix?”

“Isn’t that just a woman?”

“I don’t know, I just know he runs one of those torture chambers and probably wears leather.”

“Holy shit, Jess.”

Oh, Jess. A 3.9 GPA— honestly, impressive, given that she’s spent more time scrolling GreekRank gossip forums and contemplating professor tier lists based on cuddle game than studying— and still, somehow, so, so off.

When someone else tacks on, after an awed pause, “…Do you think there’s a sign-up sheet we could hit?” and a peal of girlish giggles erupts, the man literally has to muscle down his eye roll. The last group of people he wants on his roster are a freshly-legal coalition of matching crop tops with vodka breath. It’s not exactly his ideal demographic.

Harry walks back inside off the balcony with a new understanding that day; according to the messy sorority circle in the apartment under him, apparently he’s a dom-for-hire. Which is also— he discovers in the oncoming days— probably one of the friendlier, more innocent assumptions.

It’s not overt; it’s not like anyone says anything to him directly, or plasters misdirected anger management flyers to the back of his door. It’s soft-burn, subtle things. Quieter than a simple dirty look pointed into his direction.

For starters, the man in 9E, who unironically refers to him as buddy, in the way only a middle-aged dad does during a Superbowl party with an amicable shoulder-clap, doesn’t return much more than a brisk yep in response to some cordial, small-talky joke Harry makes in passing regarding a local sports team. It’s an instance that isn’t inherently suspicious, but when taken into consideration alongside the way the lady in 9G with the green glasses doesn’t smile back at him all of a sudden... well. It packs a little more of a punch. Even the yappy little pomeranian leashed around her knuckles— who typically opts for self-strangulation via collar in its pursuit to get closer to him and paw up at his knees— seems to hang back, sniffing at the air as he passes and choosing to chase its own tail instead.

Harry doesn’t consider himself to be paranoid. Intuitional, contemplative— sure. Paranoia, though, that’s for the type of man that trims a duct tape square to stick over his laptop camera and tells someone that 5G will give them brain tumors. And yes, in theory, every semi-curt interaction he’s archived with his neighbors over the prior days could be chalked up to perfectly excusable coincidences in a collective bad experience, entirely unrelated to him, but Harry simply has awareness. It does not operate off of a tinfoil hat or a conspiracy rant posted onto a niche online forum— it involves that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach and dresses itself far better than delusion. A group of ladies stops and stares in the mailroom, huddled like an overly lip-glossed coven— all pristine acrylics, and Gymshark workout sets, and coconut dry shampoo— in a way where Harry can feel their eyes searing into the muscle along the side of his shoulder.

It’s not guilt. He knows that much. It’s not quite shame, though, either. No, he’s long past shame— that’s a mechanism he discarded a long time ago when he’d started wearing those tiny running shorts that ride high on the thigh and realized he didn’t particularly care who watched him haul a bag of frozen peas out of Trader Joe’s while donning them.

It’s something worse.

It is a vague, creeping certainty that a version of him now exists that he can no longer control.

It’s always existed, somewhere, at some point, he supposes. It varies— mutates— wears one face in a group chat somewhere, takes another shape in a soft-spoken recollection over a plastic coffee cup, one girlfriend to another. He’s been around— a… polite, genteel euphemism for the flyer miles he’s packing below the belt, Harry supposes— gotten around enough, to know that this piece of him lives like a shadow and occasionally reinvents itself through word-of-mouth. He’s self-aware. Probably alive as a screenshot and a one-sided story in a group chat or three.

The problem with this edition, though? It’s alive, and it’s false, it spores. It magnifies, and it reaches, and it’s current— it does not exist like a weak echo in a group text; it smears itself over his face like a clear film as he walks the halls, and he can’t wipe it. It is a version constructed out of silhouettes, and assumptions, and just enough circumstantial evidence to stick.

He’s lost control of the narrative on a large scale, and he doesn’t know how to get it back.

It’s not that he even cares what people think, not necessarily. He’s a grown man. He pays his bills on time and almost every lighting fixture in his home is bluetooth. He doesn’t crave approval from a bunch of twenty-somethings who, as far as he can tell, spend their nights screeching over which of their exes had the best dick game and arguing over whether or not a “real feminist” would get lip filler. He’s not interested in being a topic of conversation among girls named Kennedi and Tiffani with an “i.” He just… would prefer not to be accused of domestic violence in a vague, wafting way that only groupthink and mildly traumatic social media exposure can concoct.

The thing is, he can’t even find it within himself to be truly upset with Y/N for the fallout. Not in a sincere way, at least, like a burgeon of spite rooting in and gnarling into a grudge. He’s a little miffed, sure, (frankly, justified, given that having his reputation dismantled over adults exploring consensual bruising techniques was never exactly the ideal), but he doesn’t fault her for her vigilance. In fact, he would probably have similar assumptions and a similar moral dilemma; if only he wasn’t on the other end of the misinterpretation, and if he wasn’t aware that what sounded like violence was just a consensual implementation of a fairly aggressive fetish.

He thinks he can pinpoint the incident that’d caused the spiral, vaguely, but really it’s a bit of a raunchy blur given the usual rotation, isn’t it? Really, it’s basically, probably Katy’s fault for being so loud in that session with the hairbrush over an overdue parking ticket (not quite short and sweet, but she’d literally asked for it, please and all), which in turn translates into it being his fault for not coaxing her to practice a little more restraint with her pipes.

Anyways, he can technically retrace the steps and find the root of how a little agreed upon accountability has branded him into public enemy number one, but he’d at least like some benefit of the doubt (given that every unsmiling neighbor has entirely bypassed the fairly thorough explanation he’d given the girl). A little guilty-until-proven innocent action. It’s the bare minimum, really.

The man stares up at the popcorn ceiling and a little frown envelops the pink corners of his mouth, tucking them down. Guilt is strange, he thinks, especially when he’s technically done fuckall wrong. It’s not that it’s a foreign emotion by any means, but so many times he’d resided on the other end of the equation, with the guilty party strung over his lap, or on her knees between his legs, or caught up between his fingers. He can’t fathom how the sensation coiling in the pit of his belly could ever be twisted into an aphrodisiac, but he supposes it’s a bit different when a power exchange is involved.

Something taps his socked foot. Slowly, the man lifts his chin and blinks down from the angle where he’s craned his neck flat against the back of the couch. Snuggles climbs over his foot nonchalantly.

It would blow over. Of that, Harry was grotesquely certain. Canceled Tuesday; forgotten by Friday. People, as a collective, mostly remembered rumors with the clarity of a windshield smeared in expired mayonnaise— foggy, patchy— and had attention spans mirroring all the longevity of a soap bubble in a hurricane. Right now, he’s become the unfortunate centerpiece in the monthly community scandal, but it would only take one yoga mom inevitably starting an affair with her personal trainer, and the spotlight would be diverted. Eventually, the soft-core cancellation would fossilize into one of those half-remembered stories, not nearly exciting enough to be retold, and the mythos rots.

Besides, in a world where a man could get a sponsorship for reviewing moisturizer on TikTok while actively evading tax fraud allegations, Harry figures a mild spanking kink has ever been grounds for permanent exile. It’ll be fine, the man reminds himself. There is absolutely zero call for spiraling.

Y/N is spiraling.

As the days pass and the realization of what she’s done— what she’s managed to accomplish with a cracked moral compass and a sense of justice wired too tight— truly settles, the consequences, (uninvited, overdressed, in heels), anchor somewhere behind her ribcage. It does not crash. It glides in, quietly, like a cat with blood on its paws circling her ankles, and the young woman steeps in the tracks the longer she weighs it out in her head and picks it apart. Puts it back together. Picks it apart again.

The little investigatory descent into his digital footprint had, shockingly, been for the worse after all— it’d only fostered a new dilemma. Because now, not only did she feel bad about the accusations, but she was catastrophically aware of his large hands and what they looked like doing pixelated, raunchy (terrible, horrible for whatever flimsy scaffolding of morality she was still clinging to, and his dignity, in that order) things.

It is with this vague sense of impending doom that Y/N decides she probably owes the man a formal apology. The only question— a daunting conquest she’s been left to unpack— is how. A note left stapled to his door, despite the efficiency, feels far too impersonal (given the… weight of her transgressions). A note slipped offhandedly into the envelope collection residing in his mailbox, on the other hand, feels downright intrusive and borderline stalker-ish. It’s soaked in the same energy of shoving love notes into locker grates in junior high, retreating with a whistling speed walk, and the sheer notion nearly puts a bad, familiar taste in her mouth. Surely if Zachary didn’t appreciate the method fifteen or so years ago, her next door neighbor wouldn’t, either. She doesn’t have his phone number, but sending a text would probably feel just as sterile as the first idea, chock-full of the same emotional sentiment as elevator music.

Hey, so— sorry I accused you of being a felon! (cup-pong attachment).

This conclusion, of course, is what leaves her clumsily following an apple pie recipe off of Pinterest on her day off, flour smeared across the crests of her sweaty cheeks and dusting the front of her Arctic Monkeys sleep shirt. The best way to express regret and make amends— the valiant, adult method— Y/N decides, is to confront the conflict head on, face to face, in the flesh; and the proper measures to decrease the likelihood of having a door slammed in her face would be the introduction of a baked good alongside her tight, awkward smile. A touch of sweetener.

The pie— honestly, as Y/N had pessimistically expected, despite the way she’d gingerly followed the digital instructions to the T— had dissolved into the kind of spectacular failure typically reserved for first-though tweets and mid-season AMC finales.

The filling soaked through the undercooked base. The crust was too aggressively homemade— patchy in some places, too thick in others, with a venting cut-out that had vaguely resembled a uterus, or possibly a jellyfish. It was a shape that was hard to place. Ultimately, it was the kind of in-the-flesh reminder of her aggressively consistent inability to bake that had prompted her to opt for store bought treats. Namely, the cute little scones her cafe offered; partly due to the employee discount, and partly on account of how popular the menu item seems to be.

So, here she is; metaphorically twiddling her thumbs in front of his door on a Saturday afternoon with her knuckles curled around a paper bag of edible reparations, attempting to convince herself to just knock.

Just knock. Just… knock.

She’s not entirely sure if the way she feels her pulse rabbiting (a steady, progressively intensifying thrum that makes her head feel a little light) in her throat should be credited to her general sense of apprehension addressing this, or the different lens she sees him through, courtesy of his video diary archive. She had always found the man next door attractive (it was unavoidable, really— she had a working set of eyes, after all), but the little research project had spun him up into a new light, and the lewd details still web across in the pit of her underbelly. For courage, Y/N puckers her mouth and blows out a deep breath, and then she lifts her free hand and raps her knuckles against the door.

And for a long moment, there’s no answer. Shifting her weight from one knee onto the other, the young woman lets her eyes peruse over the crown molding that decorates the hallway. The only noise in the lull is the sound of the paper bag in her hand crinkling and the undeviating whir of the AC pumping along the floor. With all of the delicate, calm patience reserved for the waiting room in a dreaded dental appointment, Y/N casts a glance to her own respective door, only a few, short steps away. The stretch of lingering silence reminds her that he may not even be home at all, given that it’s a weekend, (and this whole thing is so impromptu, and strange), and—

Before the young woman’s paper-thin shred of courage inevitably combusts, the familiar sound of a door chain slipping open on the other side and then the door lock unfastening breaks through the haze of her thoughts. She freezes.

As the door peels back to reveal her innocuous (tenderly sleepy-looking) neighbor— bare feet, sweats (the kind that cling to and hang from all the right places), conspicuously vulgar tee (Safe Sex!: two cartoonish, faceless lilac figures with their arms crossed and their hands fisting over the others’ phalluses), and gently sleep-mussed curls— Y/N can only blink up at him with all the words she’d rehearsed so meticulously lodged at the back of her throat.

Finally, as if her sense of social awareness has kickstarted into recalibration, the young woman pastes a smile over her mouth, so flimsy she feels her lips wobbling as they curl around her teeth and so wide that her cheeks burn from the strain. The vague sense of anxiety coursing through her blood spikes, and the hammer behind her ribcage forces her numb tongue into motion off the roof of her mouth as her cheeks blister and her head swims.

“Hi. I, uh— I have scones. There’s, uh. Three of them, here,” Y/N launches, glancing down at the paper bag and nearly prying it open as she over-explains the unanticipated visit. “They’re not poisoned,” she tacks on, lashes fluttering as her nervous system forges on in overdrive, and the idiotic statement nearly has her gnawing her tongue in half the second the words slip off its textured, wet landing, “…don’t worry.”

With all the energy of a man limned in fatigue, facing a door dash delivery he’d never ordered, Harry blinks.

Y/N is a nice girl. Up until only a few days ago, in fact, Y/N had been just about the picture-perfect definition of Harry’s ideal next-door tenant; relatively reserved and just polite enough to bypass the awkward inconvenience that rode on the recurrent issue of their mail interchanging. There was, of course, the misaligned streak of vigilantism, but at her core, Harry’s sure that Y/N is still a nice girl.

This theory in mind, the curly-haired brunette genuinely feels a little bad at the level of amusement swelling up within him as he watches her, with no apparent trigger, self-destruct in real time. Although, if he’s being entirely honest, it’s only a faint echo of a thought— all things considered— and is significantly outweighed by his mirth.

There’s a flavor of entertainment— a rare, emotional genre that lives in that exclusive umbra between secondhand embarrassment and morbid fascination, the kind that morally treads the same bandwidth as laughing at a video of someone getting hurt in an unpredictably ridiculous manner. And Harry— still fuzzy around the edges with the kind of creeping, misty stage of somnolence that dozing off midday entails (he’d been in the midst of a particularly important ritual; lying spread-eagled on the couch with one leg kicked up onto the back, half-engrossed in a documentary on luxury trains, eating dry cereal out of the bag when the drowsiness started settling like fog in the hollows of his limbs)— watches Y/N flounder with the same mild fascination he reserves for Youtube compilation videos of cats falling off of countertops.

Her hair is slung up into a messy, haphazard updo, loose strands climbing out and stretching in soft static wisps to cup her cheekbones, and she’s wearing a short sleeve brown tee with a small Sip Happens logo embroidered over the left corner of her chest. It’s a coffee shop that the existence of vaguely lives in the dells of his memory, based on how often the man passes by it on his runs, and the wardrobe choice implies she’s either an avid punch-card user, or she works there. Tiny, almost imperceptible dry flakes of mascara cling to the soft skin of her under-eyes, like the layer of pigment has crumbled off her lashes over the course of the morning. Her cheeks are flushed as if she’s run a mile, and her grin (if it can even be called that) resembles trembling enamel more than friendliness. It’s cute in a way that probably shouldn’t be, doesn’t intend to be. Oddly endearing.

Apparently she has baked goods— scones, three of them, unpoisoned (which is a mildly relevant detail)— and she feels the need to announce it, so, based on context clues, he can only assume this element is related to her presence at his doorway. He thinks he can deduce what this is supposed to be (apology with a capital A; one that comes wrapped around café-sourced penance), but he hasn’t quite uncurled the warmth from the stretch of skin where his forearm had pressed into the couch for two hours too long, and her dewy pupils are cha-chaing behind her lashes like she wants something from him, so.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, finally. His voice sounds thick (aggressively all too familiar to the kind of husky sounds she’s heard from the other side of the wall); vocal cords blatantly weathered in sleep, (verve cudgeled in sex, palm probably all sore and stingy from)—

The curly-haired brunette clears his throat, and Y/N simmers in the heat welling up under her skin.

“Are these—“ Harry nudges with his chin, pointedly into the direction of the paper bag lodged under her clammy fingers, “…are you sharing?”

“Yes! Yeah. They’re, well,” she holds the bag out to him, her tone laced with only the kind of over-enthused notes nervousness could conduct, “they’re for you, actually.”

Slowly, one of his hands reaches out, and as he locks his fingers over the side of the bag— right beneath where she’s got her own grip clasped over the haphazardly rolled top— the only thought that the young woman can conjure is a hysteria-laden mental-screencap of an image she’d rather not describe out loud.

As if entirely to dismantle Y/N’s sanity, the sheer size of his palms and the way they cradle the bag as she hands it off is enough to make her feel like something vile and wicked is clumsily somersaulting in her stomach. The indisputable fact is this: they are just hands. Long, delicately svelte fingers; colossal, massively, unjustifiably large hands, but hands nonetheless.

The other irrefutable fact? These are hands Y/N has watched in incredibly obscene action.

The thing is, by all technicalities, he is so soft, and his current state does no favors to dispute this impression. Right now, sleep-tousled and low-toned, words spilling like honeyed molasses in the languorous husk of his words, the whiplash spills through her like dense ink. Delicate tattoos reside over and under his kneecaps in fine lines, and in every other circumstance, a soft beam chisels dimples into his cheeks as he casually toes the line between real, alive man and fresco escapee. Behind the door somewhere, he’s got a rabbit called Snuggles, and that’s the brutal anomaly, Y/N decides. It is the foundation to which the geometric edges of her brain refuse to bend around. Because there is a fine, fine line in the way his soft, indigo-lacquered hands stretch out to accept an olive branch sown from overly-processed carbohydrates, and the way they move on camera; the way they plant flat, open-palmed blows on warm skin like bruising kisses, the way they trace the pink welts smacked alive in their wake with a delicacy reserved for reverence. They’re strong, rugged, steadfast, mean—

The young woman’s molars squeeze into the smooth, gummy lining along the inside of her cheek. There’s a little vein that runs up along his wrist, and that tendon bracketed by that jut of bone flexes in a manner so heavenly when he pauses to shake his fingers out. The bag, by no surprise, is dwarfed in his grip, and Y/N stands there with his eyes feeling like sticky, heavy inkpools drilling her into place.

“How thoughtful,” Harry responds, eventually, faux musing, and an undeniable, little smile teases at the corners of his mouth on the latter fragment of the statement, “thank you for the… unpoisoned scones.”

Sensing the man’s amusement at her awkward introduction, Y/N restrains the vivid sense of embarrassment that buoys to the surface, instead opting to tell him, “Right! Yeah. You’re welcome,” as her face flushes. With the original point of the delivery in mind, the girl clears her throat. “It’s… well, it’s actually, like, an apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift,” she admits, gnawing into her lower lip.

He leans a shoulder onto the doorframe then, brows shifting (rising) just a smidge, as an almost imperceptible symbolism of intrigue, before they settle back into place. “Is that hyphenated?”

Y/N stares.

“Apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift.”

“I— maybe?”

For a moment, her neighbor doesn’t say anything. Meaty arms crossed, paper bag hanging out from the hand that’s tucked under inky, smooth muscle, dark, cherubic ringlets coiling around his forehead. He purses his pink mouth like he’s biting back another simper, and then he sighs theatrically.

“I won’t sue you,” he murmurs, faux-rolling his eyes playfully, as if the notion involves him being the bigger person and shedding a grudge, rather than letting her settle into a rightfully earned consequence. “Do you wanna come in, then? Miss Hyphens. I’ve got tea.”

His teeth— the front two, blocky and just a tad longer than the others— gently lodge over his plump lower lip expectantly. “Or coffee,” he tacks on, casting his gaze briefly onto her workwear. “Whatever goes with… scones.”

Y/N, for all the time she’s spent living next door to this man, despite sheer proximity, has never actually, fully held a conversation with him beyond simple mail-swap pleasantries. And for a man she’s so thoroughly defamed— a man she’s practically publicly sacrificed on the altar of assumption— he’s almost unexpectedly forgiving. Sure, the sweeteners are working just about as brilliantly as expected, but the invitation, unanticipated nonetheless, throws her so heavily that for a long beat, Y/N can only wordlessly blink at him from the hallway. That is, until her social awareness mechanism, sculpted by a handbook of socially acceptable etiquette rules hammered in from her from kidhood, kickstarts for— what? The third time? Maybe the fourth? In all honesty, she’s lost track, and frankly, it’s by no fault but her neighbor currently interacting with her. The thing is— he’s not even inherently doing anything. Just standing there, propped up against his own door frame, curls tufting around his ears, dewy eyes vibrantly taiga-like. And in all honesty, perhaps the only thing worse than dragging his good name through the mud, like a public medieval ritual, is the way she’d turned around right after the fact to sexualize him behind his back. That part? The softcore porn part? The way something low in her tummy had swirled, seeing him like that, rings denting faint shapes into skin? That’s something she will not— will not— revisit contemplating while standing in the radius of his jawline. It’s not even a jawline, she thinks. Not really. It’s a weapon.

And despite however shitty of a person Y/N believes herself to be in this particular moment, libel and objectification and all, the rational fragment of her mind (chiseled by those social expectations), considers that accepting a warm drink from her neighbor when prompted— as opposed to wordlessly gawking— is the right choice. The normal option. Something a normal person would do. The alternative is spontaneous death on his welcome mat, and frankly, she doesn’t have the social stamina for that kind of posthumous legacy. There are only so many seconds a person can stand there, sweating through their coffee-stained work shirt, before offbeat, maybe semi-endearingly awkward takes a sharp pivot into the direction of downright strange.

And right now? He’s looking at her like she’s still in the former.

So, with her face hot and her hands cold, Y/N blinks and nods, anchoring as much nonchalance into her voice as she can manage given the circumstances, “Yeah. Yes. Sure.”

The young woman is not entirely sure what she expects of Harry’s apartment. Not anything in particular really, beyond the fact that the layout should, in theory, be a mirror of her own home right across the drywall. What she discovers, inching quietly across her neighbor’s living room, is that while the general floorplan is almost a precise duplication in terms of spatial organization (that, while they share the same, pasty painted walls and worn beige carpet), the actual integrity of his design sort of puts her own to shame. On the granite peninsula that juts from the wall in the little kitchen beside the living room, in place of where Y/N has a stack of half-sutured envelopes— various bills, coupons, credit card offers, that one cancellation notice from her car insurance she’d received months ago (now resolved, but something she’d forgotten to bin)— there’s a stack of apartamento magazines with a half-burned Le Labo candle on top like a paperweight. In place of the barstools she’d picked up from a garage sale, there’s a record stand: wide, wooden, sleek, and by educated hypothesis, probably full and meticulously organized behind the doors. A tall shelf lined with books resides beside the sliding glass door to the balcony; classics, topics on philosophy, fiction, and self help. One book is all about failed utopias of the twentieth century, and another is on the cultural significance of soup. A hardback edition of the Kama Sutra is crammed into the corner.

Y/N’s couch was a hand-me-down from a cousin. A ratty, jet black recliner that looked like it withstood the tale of time, surrendered over into her possession when said cousin’s wife finally convinced him into a new one after their ugly little maltese scratched up the leather. Harry’s looks like it’s a direct derivative from an Eames design catalog page. It stands facing the flat screen on the other side of the room, and beside it, there's a floor-level chair that, paradoxically, manages to somehow look both comfortable and like the stiffest resting invention to ever exist. In the center, there’s a dark, wooden accent table and on top of it there’s another pile of magazines, as if for the sole sake of decoration, and a stack of ceramic tile coasters with mismatched mid-century patterns, each one seemingly a different retro motif— abstract fruit, vaguely psychedelic squiggles. Beside the handful of other eccentric decorations Y/N notes (a framed architectural drawing on the wall, a marble fig with a chipped stem on the bookshelf, a tray with exactly seven multicolored lighters— three of them are red— an arc floor lamp with a tan paper-shade that dramatically arches over the couch), she can’t help but recognize that the apartment is painstakingly clean. Organized. Enough for her to gingerly toe off her non-slip sneakers by the door before she makes her way further into his home.

Instead of immediately taking a seat, the young woman hovers.

The first words out of her mouth are: “Where’s your bunny?”

“Probably off eating cardboard, somewhere. He’s a very… independent sort of bloke.”

Y/N nods, as if the admission is entirely in the ordinary. The man turns toward the television, operating on low volume, currently detailing some sort of video inside of what looks to be a carwash, with a close up of a mechanism being the shot that plays as he acknowledges it. His brows furrow. “Care to learn about the… wonders of carwash mechanics— I dunno what the fuck this is actually, I was watching something about trains.”

He looks up at her, a lopsided smile ticking the edges of his lips when he recognizes that she’s just lingering by the coffee table like she’s unsure of what to do with herself. “You can sit, you know.”

Y/N blinks like a deer in headlights as she’s called out, limbs unraveling from the way they’ve caged over her chest in universal symbolism of apprehension. “Oh. Thanks.”

She’s kicked her shoes off, and she’s standing in his living room in a fashion that implies she’s afraid to touch something (lest it break), and it’s a sight that’s still, from a morally dubious standpoint, sort of deliciously entertaining. But, he’s a decent host after all, and she did go out of her way to bring him baked treats, which is a considerate notion, so he’s not going to let her literally stand there and stew in her own awkward hesitancy, no matter how amusing the view is.

“You brought scones,“ the curly-haired brunette twists his chin over his shoulder as he passes into the kitchen, quipping playfully, “That’s at least fifteen minutes of hospitality.”

When Y/N takes a seat on the couch, hands gluing to her knees— opting for the safe choice (she’s not quite ready to discover whether the leathery, pillow-looking togo chair on the other side will sculpt to her posture or annihilate her tailbone)— she discovers that this seat, at least, is more comfortable than she’d anticipated. She’s still not quite sure what to do with herself though. What to say, whether she should launch into an apologetic monologue on the misunderstanding (given his unexpectedly cheery disposition, she supposes she won’t have to grovel for forgiveness, which is a reassurance). Meanwhile, her neighbor busies himself in the kitchen, picking up an electric kettle from the counter and propping the lid open with a button on the handle, filling it with water from a filtered container beside the sink, and then setting it back onto the heating base that’s plugged into the wall. The process takes an entire, silent fifteen seconds.

“I like your place,” the young woman settles on, eventually, her eyes still wandering over the expanse of his decor. Her gaze ends up resting on a little bear statue on the TV stand. “It’s… nice. Like, quietly cozy.”

“Surprisingly no screaming women,” Harry responds nonchalantly, still turned away with his back in her direction.

The comment catches her off guard, and the squeezy, sick feeling coils up her stomach at the reminder. Right. The monologue was… probably the correct choice, after all.

“Oh, God.”

“You said ‘quiet,’” Harry pivots, still only half-facing her (granting her the sight of his hulking shoulder), but he sounds far more amused then disdained, like he’s muscling it down and teasing, and a dimple presses into his cheek like punctuation before it fades out, “Not me. Tea? Coffee?”

“Yeah, please. Tea. I’m… sorry. That was— I don’t even know.”

Y/N wants to bury her face in her hands. She doesn’t. She keeps them very politely sealed over her knees, because that’s a new level of self-pitying pathetic she won’t let him witness, but she can’t bridle her grimace as she contemplates what had happened, nonetheless. It’s like a… bad memory she can’t burn out from behind her skull.

Pulling open the kitchen cabinet across from him, Harry retrieves a plate alongside two mugs. One is a deep shade of blue, hand-glazed, with just enough imperfections to insinuate he’d either picked it up as one of those hand-made junk-donations from a thrift store or wheel-thrown it himself. The origin is the latter; he’d sculpted the creation in a little pottery shop downtown with a group of friends, years ago, and, admittedly, the shots the cohort had taken before taking on the crafting experience shows through its craftsmanship. The other is a white mug with a little doodle of an orange jellybean on one side, and it has a chip on the rim. Not sharp enough to cut, but just misaligned enough to require constant lip navigation. From the same cabinet (different shelf), he also culls a sealed cardboard cylinder of loose-leaf black tea that he prefers to order online. He reserves the chipped option for himself and carefully shakes out a serving into each cup.

“Hm, yeah. Horribly offensive,” Harry murmurs offhandedly, his voice laced with faux-disappointment as he twists the lid back on, “You should be flogged. But I’ll accept the scones as a plea deal.”

Despite the way the joke is delivered with no openly coy motive, spoken with the same energy as a jesting “jail” comment (no intended innuendo), something twists deep in Y/N’s belly when it lands. Something distinctly different from the shame that’s been bubbling.

A nervous bark of laughter squeezes at her vocal cords, scraping its way out from the back of her throat before she clears it and pivots the topic of conversation sharply. She is not going to soak in that inadvertent double entendre or attempt to dissect what the suggestion means.

“What do you do, um, for work?”

As the kettle continues to heat to the required setting, with the tea stored back into its spot and the cabinet door softly closed, Harry turns back to face his guest and reaches for the bag of scones he’d set onto the peninsula.

“I’m a videographer.” For a moment, his features crinkle up, green irises skating to the ceiling as if in brief thought, then smooth, “Well. Kind of. I was, now I just mostly stick to the editing side. I do, like, real estate listings for social media.”

“Oh,” Y/N says, genuine notes of intrigue coloring her tone, “that’s awesome.”

One of his shoulders rides up in a shrug, like the job is what it is, as he one-handedly spills the packet’s contents out onto the plate he’d earlier set aside— scones, three of them, unpoisoned. Although the job itself is comfortable and remote, with a wide spectrum of clientele (courtesy of his networking abilities), it has its difficulties as much as its perks. The man sets the plate up onto the peninsula as he discards the bag into the bin. “It’s alright. I used to do weddings and I always thought groomsmen choreography was tragic, but I’ve learned that you don’t know despair until you’re working with a realtor that looks like they’re being held at gunpoint because there’s a camera in their face.”

Last week, he’d been sent a collection of files in which, in the most polite terms possible, no clip was any better than the last. While technically filmed well (given that he partners with other reputable videographers he’s worked with before, usually borderline unemployed college kids looking for gigs, comfortable taking a cut of the profit— Harry had realized early on he couldn’t handle directing camera-shy gen x-ers without feeling incredibly drained by the end of the day, and honestly preferred the almost entirely remote work), it was the behavior of the agent being filmed that had made him cringe. He’d sat there, one hand dug into a bag of Hippeas and the other on the mouse, with the monitor screen providing the only light source as he watched through the attachments on the drive. It genuinely took so little effort to forge some drive into whatever pre-scripted spiel they were giving— check out these custom cabinet handles! or this gorgeous flooring, genuine wood, dates back to…— and flash a few smiles into the direction of the lens that Harry was sure just about anyone could do it. And watching some of the horror-show clips he’d received back left him slightly unsure of how exactly some of these clients managed to make a living to begin with. In theory, these people should already know how to sell a house, and the entirety of the process should be even easier given the fact that there are no limits on exactly how many clips are taken. And still, somehow, Harry had sat through about nine of the same— similar enough— recordings of an agent completely demolishing what little hope Harry had for the industry.

Some involved long pauses and mispronounced words. Others involved awkward body language through the delivery— hangs swinging nervously, eyes lingering to the side where he imagines cue-cards were held up. Every clip involved the same lifeless tone and the same uncomfortable posture. A genuinely dismayed, semi-disgusted sound had spilled from his mouth as he witnessed the fallout before he’d plucked another puff from the bag and chewed. The thing is, yes— Harry can alter the footage. Cut any awkward breaks, sew clips together seamlessly enough if anything doesn’t work. But he can’t actually alter whatever the person is doing on the clip, and when every sentence sounds like someone is threatening them from the other side of the camera, he can’t even opt for voice-overs over b-roll.

Needless to say, sixteen hours of editing later, Harry had a semi-presentable product to send off, but he also had a headache and a distinct mental note to never work with that man again.

“That sounds… unreasonably bleak for a job involving marble countertops and voice overs.”

“It is,” Harry admits, deadpan, “It’s like if HGTV and a hostage video had a baby.”

He turns back to the kettle as it chimes, signifying the water has heated to the optimal temperature, and then lifts it off the base to pour water into both mugs and let the tea steep.

“And I’m gonna assume,” he says, twisting his chin over his shoulder at her in acknowledgement as the water trickles, plumes of steam seeping up from the tops of the mugs, “you’re a barista? Lucky guess?”

Y/N blinks, batting her lashes at him from the couch at the assumption. “Why do you think that?”

With the kettle back in its spot, Harry turns slightly, one hand planted onto the counter and the other situated on his hip. The one on his hip motions out as he pretends to mull it over, brows furrowing, “Well, you’re either the Sip Happens unofficial brand ambassador, or you work there.”

He blinks and nudges his chin pointedly at her choice of wardrobe, a slow smile unfurling over his lips as the girl glances down and the realization hits her. She’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was still wearing her uniform from the morning shift, and she blinks back up at him with sheepish recognition swelling in her features, a little half-smile cresting her mouth.

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

“Milk?” his pointer taps against the granite, “Sugar?”

Y/N takes a deep breath. “No thank you and yes please.”

As the man turns on his heel and picks up a jar of sugar situated beside the kettle and then pulls a spoon out from a drawer, Y/N swallows and clears her throat again. The sound of the metal spoon clinking against the edges of ceramic overlaps with her inquiry as he mixes the sugar into her respective cup. “How did you get into videography?”

“I went to school,” Harry answers once the sugar’s been mixed into the hot beverage, and the leaves are in the process of settling to the bottom, swirling around in the liquid. He sets the utensil into the sink, and takes a mug in each hand. “And then I realized that law felt like a… very expensive way to slowly rot from the inside out. Just about as soul-sucking as everyone promised.”

The proximity between them decreases as he explains, and by the end of his statement, he’s stood ahead of her in a way that has her chin tilting up to meet his gaze. His fingers are cupped over the rim of the mug in a purposeful way— to have the handle readily available for her to take. She glances down at the offering, gingerly curling her fingers over the curved attachment so as not to burn her skin on the heated ceramic, murmuring a quiet thank you as he hands the tea off.

“Don’t worry,” he assures, voice low and teeming with low grade playfulness, “It’s also not poisoned.”

“Ha,” Y/N responds flatly. Despite the molten heat spilling through the ceramic and the way it stings at her fingertips when she touches it, she takes the mug by the handle and grazes the other side with the opposite hand. The heat, to some extent, grounds her.

That same nervous edge itches into her veins as she watches him pick a coaster up from the stack on the accent table and set it down ahead of her. Then, he sets the plate of scones into the center, on top of the magazines, plucks one up, and takes a seat on the togo chair with his own respective mug.

“What about you?” Harry asks, motioning out with the treat between his fingers before he takes a bite, “Caffeine always been your calling?”

It’s a good scone, he’ll give her that. He can almost taste the notes of apology sewn into the blueberry flavoring as he chews. He watches her shoulders sag as she breathes, her gaze skidding to the side in thought before it settles back on him.

“Surprisingly enough, it’s incredibly hard to find anything besides museum curating or glorified church janitor work with a bachelors in anthro,” Y/N nods, a little simper gracing her mouth before she cups the mug up to her mouth and puckers her lips into a soft ‘o’ to blow over the heat.

He takes another thoughtful bite, chewing slowly as his brows furrow before he swallows the mouthful. “Church janitor work? You need a degree for that?”

As Y/N takes a sip of the beverage, she raises her eyebrows over the top of the mug in response before she answers softly, “It’s technically a historical monument.”

“Hm.”

The third bite is the final one, and he works it over for a longer, quiet beat. And he looks so sexy like that, is the thing, Y/N thinks— carved jaw flexing, thighs split wide, gaze pensive, off to some corner of the room as if in deep thought. It has her head swimming, and simultaneously, the self-awareness has her pulse thumping heavily in her throat. She peels her gaze away from him, opting to sling it onto the television instead, where some stocky male is discussing something about car washes, and she buries her mouth against the mug as she tips it for another drink. It burns her tongue a just a tad, but the way the warmth spills down into her chest is a solid enough distraction from whatever is going on in the chair beside her.

The silence, of course, doesn’t last.

“The girls downstairs think I’m a dom-for-hire,” Harry comments with little to no warning, and the admission is so sudden that it catches the young woman off-guard mid-sip and causes her throat to close up around the heated liquid.

She presses the backs of her fingers to her lips as she chokes on the mouthful of scorching liquid, all to prevent coughing and spewing tea all over his carpet and his nice accent table. Summoning every morsel of strength to inhale through her nose and swallow the rest down, Y/N clears her throat as she glances over at him. She thinks he might be fighting down a grin, but it’s hard to say.

“I’m… sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Harry tells her as she clears her throat again, lifting a shoulder. She thinks he might be done. But then he says, offhandedly, like he’s just nursing this odd icebreaker and not currently wringing her guilt like a twisted wet shirt, “I reckon it’s a nicer thought than what some of the others must think.”

Y/N frowns, glancing down at her tea, where her own shiny, wounded-eyed reflection meets her over the burnt umber depths. Sincerity bleeds into her cadence, and she meets his gaze earnestly to repeat the words, “I’m sorry. I really do feel so horrible about it.”

There is, typically, something so oddly delicious in hearing a pretty girl say sorry. Watching it; in the right context, of course. It’s a strange predilection, really, and sort of sounds oddly cruel, but in all honesty, it’s because of how doughy they get. Because they become all doe-eyed, dewy; soft. It doesn’t have anything to do with some weirdly misplaced remorse in actuality, or genuinely negative emotion. Of course, that’s only in the right context, and seeing Y/N, truly frowning, a little ruckle creasing its way between her brows— the posture of her shoulders folding in just slightly as she holds his gaze and then apprehensively casts it down to the hot tea cupped between her palms— has a little burgeon of… not pity, it’s not quite that. It’s more cautious, and it blooms apart in that soft space between his lungs and his ribs. As misguided as his neighbor had been in her assumptions, his intent wasn’t to pestle her down over it, or contrive some sort of revenge by any means. Really, his intention was only to tease the girl, and he tucks as much earnestness as he can manage into his soft tone as he blinks and meets her eye, ducking his chin a bit.

“I’m just messing, yeah?” Harry tells her then, shaking his head, “It’s all good, really. I understand where you were coming from. And I’ve already accepted your scones as a plea deal,” his lips twitch, “remember?”

Y/N doesn’t immediately respond, and for a moment, Harry thinks she might start crying— God forbid— or something equally as uncomfortable, and then he’d probably truly be fucked, because what does he even do in that situation besides awkwardly side-glance? He’s already starting to mull it over, he remembers he might have a pack of tissues still tucked into the coffee table somewhere, courtesy of… things (whichever direction one would like to think in: probably yes), and—

“Do you think,” Y/N’s soft voice breaks him out from his thoughts, and he redirects his sight from the corner of the floor he’d reluctantly driven his eyes into to avoid the fallout in its full, uneasy glory. She’s looking at him from under her lashes, her short nails scratching over a divot in the sculpt of the mug, “they could work as a rebrand? A mass baked goods handout?”

The quip catches him so off guard that it takes him a second to respond. And then he recognizes that she’s attempting to jest— he pauses, intrigued, settling with his back fully against the backrest as he pretends to ponder.

“Damage control in the form of a baked goods giveaway… I like it. I figured we let the press cycle cool down, first.”

“Right,” Y/N ducks her chin into a nod, “Standard protocol. Lay low. Tasteful radio silence. Avoid the balcony.”

A slow-splitting grin shapes its way around his teeth, dimples engraving into his cheeks, “Exactly,” and then he schools his features into a mask of mock-seriousness, draping himself in fabricated contemplation once more, “Maybe leak a blurry photo of me donating books to an underfunded library.”

“We can give you a rescue dog to hold,” Y/N offers, holding one hand out, palm up.

“You’ll need to be seen crying on a bench,” Harry muses, raising his eyebrows and directing his index at her, before he rubs his palm down his jaw in consideration. “Something tasteful. Cashmere coat. Glossier skin tint. A latte you’re too tired to drink. Public remorse, but chic.”

“Strategic vulnerability,” Y/N nods, chock-full of agreement, as if they really are on the same wavelength, and then her brows pinch together, “What about a pinned instagram post? Empty chair, caption starts with something like, ‘I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but—‘“

“No, that’s too deflecting,” Harry waves out with his hand, reciting the plan as if he’s got the whole thing figured out to the minor details, “We draft a joint Notes app apology. Story post. You take full responsibility. I forgive you graciously.”

“And I’m assuming…” one of her brows climb as she talks, “I’m writing this?”

“You’re head of PR,” Harry deadpans, blinking, “It’s literally your job.”

To stifle her smile, the young woman buries her teeth into her lower lip. She clears her throat and then asks, “Do I get health benefits?”

“No,” Harry responds, eyeing her over the rim of the mug where he’s hiding the beginnings of his own grin. He takes another drink, swallows, and then asserts, like it’s all common sense, “You get tea.”

The duo settle into a comfortable silence, then. The kind of comfortable neither would have really anticipated, but with Y/N’s feelings on the matter clearly regulated and with the man’s (Y/N has assumed) issues on the manner squared, both parties feel as though they can breathe and just co-exist. Tentatively, Y/N is the one to shatter the lull this time.

“How did you, um. Get into that?”

A gust of air spills out from his nostrils, something like an almost-laugh. “Fake press management or the alleged spanking enterprise?”

Y/N raises an eyebrow once more, this time pointedly. “…Alleged?”

Behind the mug, a little smirk paints over the man’s mouth. “Very delicate segue.”

Harry had never really been a fan of labels. Titles.

Roleplay-adjacent nomenclature; whatever the grand performance of slipping on a new skin before climbing into bed (or worse, therapy-scented kink discourse spaces) is called. Labels— well, those are cementing. Not in the warm, anchored, adult-in-therapy sort of way, but in the slowly-filling-sandbag-on-his-chest kind; the kind that wouldn’t let him wriggle out even when he’d decide he changed his mind.

They’re too serious. Too official altogether, and there was always something about the label-happy subculture associated with kink, in particular, that made him a little itchy. Acronyms, micro-identities, moniker-wrapped semantics, all to take the form of raunchy, glorified LARPing, clad in latex knee-highs, bull-whip draped around a nape like an explicit rendition of a loose winter-wear accessory, specifically tailored for those who liked to edge others just to see them cry—

He just didn’t identify with it. Dom-status. Disciplinarian— he doesn’t like that one. It’s a word that, in his opinion, belongs more to the musty back corner of a Catholic prep school than to anything involving arousal. Something with chalk dust in its teeth and a ruler clutched in one authoritarian fist, the kind of persona that comes with polished oxfords and an aggressive disdain for late homework. It wears a waistcoat and has strong opinions on proper trouser ironing techniques (he doesn’t particularly care how many people say it’s hot— there’s nothing remotely erotic about a title that sounds like it comes with a pocket watch and a library card).

It just wasn’t him. Isn’t.

And still, somehow, he now exists, tangled several years deep into an increasingly absurd, niche pattern of carefully arranged connections with women who want one very specific thing from him: structure, and the inevitable sting that follows when they break it.

He likes spanking. That’s the clean-cut version, at the very least, that doesn’t devolve into the complexities surrounding why arousal and red-hot bruises go hand in hand. That’s all. That was how it started, and how it remains— more or less— though the logistics have evolved into something far more complicated and softly bizarre, the way simple shrubbery mutates into a crawling jungle over time. And the way it all began? It wasn’t even his idea, really. It hadn’t been a lifelong compulsion, or some neatly traceable fixation formed in adolescence that sharpened over time into a clean-cut kink identity. It wasn’t that profound. Or that romantic, or nearly as organized. He didn’t find kink through an orphaned copy of the Story of O left on a bus seat, or through anything nearly as intentional as looking for it. Instead, looking back, it was something that had settled over him slowly, then all at once, until he couldn’t remember a version of himself that hadn’t been holding the reins. He’d fallen into it in college, the way people fall improv groups or casual coke habits in that weird semi-adult stage where nonchalant self-destruction masquerades as self-discovery. Accidentally; socially.

It started with an ex, naturally. One of those shitty apartments he was renting on the outskirts of his university with mold along the bathroom ceiling and a sink that groaned like it resented being used. The air always smelled vaguely of canned soup and boyish delusion, and the windows didn’t shut all the way, which meant everything— relationships, tea, existential spirals— happened against a soundtrack of distant sirens and someone else’s Spotify Premium echoing through the wall, including the throwaway comment about whether he’d ever considered putting someone over his knee.

The ex in question was a second-year film major with a horizontal tongue piercing. She wore thrifted leather boots year-round, almost perpetually had this little patch of chipped red polish on her index finger that drove him weirdly mad, and once insisted she could tell if someone had divorced parents based on how they held a cigarette. (Apparently, Harry was obvious. He still refuses to comment on what kind of emotions that psychoanalysis stirred up).

There were exactly three tattoos on her body: one was a poem for her mother, another was a joke no one else understood, and the third was just the word reminder in verdana font, tiny and delicate in that soft spot along the inside of her elbow. She claimed that last one literally served as a reminder for whatever trivial detail she needed to remember in the humdrum of a day, and offhandedly commented that the pain getting it done had felt strangely good, which in hindsight, should have been… an indicator.

Harry’s usual type had always been a tragic amalgam of self-titled tender parasite and art-soaked amateur philosopher.

Usually at least mildly broken. INFP’s, typically, because— yes, MBTIs carry more rational bearing than star signs. There was something vaguely magnetic about their (usually) self-imposed torment, the way they pressed into an old, metaphorical bruise on themselves like they wanted to feel the ache again. Creative types with unresolved emotional turmoil. It’s not that he has knight syndrome— he doesn’t feel the need to be needed and he’s never been compelled to fix anyone. Maybe it’s the fascination. Maybe, without ever acknowledging it, he has more in common with them than he’d ever be willing to admit. But maybe? It’s just easier to justify the fallout when it was always partway broken.

It’s always worked like this: he chases, coaxed by some deep itch inside of him he hasn’t quite ever been able to dissect, and they meet him halfway. And for some reason or another, he’d always seemed to gravitate toward something usually halfway to collapse.

Emotionally battered baristas with bite, who’ll flirt by mocking his order and blushing when he tips; the Etsy shop entrepreneur with an anxiety disorder, hand-stitching lingerie as she watches true crime. Bookstore clerks with a collection of expired bus passes, calmly annotating erotica with a pencil behind the desk. Music school girls with frayed cuticles and a pack of nicotine gum next to their crumpled sheet music.

And back in the day, a film major with snake eyes and a bruised peach of a laugh? She went right in the drawer of Harry’s mental taxonomy marked bad decisions with excellent legs. There was this trick she had with the tip of her tongue during oral (probably courtesy of the snake eyes— apparently wildly controversial in the piercing community) that, without fail, made his toes curl into the carpet like he was grappling to keep himself physically grounded. It was euphoric.

They’d been seeing each other for a few months. Maybe less. Time was slippery in college—measured more in backlogged assignments and 2 AM curry fries than any real emotional awareness. It didn’t happen during sex, which— statistically speaking— would’ve made more sense: a bit of rough play, a tap that landed harder than expected at an awkward angle, a moan into his mouth in response. No, when the actual conversation happened, they were sharing a tea bag between two chipped mugs, and she was still waiting on the third coat of polish to dry on her toes with two of those stupid-looking foam-spreader things on her feet, and she’d asked the question the same, nonchalant way someone might ask for a stick of gum.

“Would you ever spank me? Like, for fun. Or, well— like, not for fun, too.”

It was spoken politely, offhandedly, like it was just another item on the grocery list. Eggs, coffee, a handprint across her ass. It was asked like this particular inquiry wasn't about to rearrange the way he saw sex, power, touch, and trust in the span of one aggressively under-furnished semester. Harry genuinely doesn’t remember the exact reaction he’d had, but the word spank had hit him square in the dick like a cartoon piano falling out of a third-story window, and logically speaking, he was probably weird about it. He was twenty. He still got flustered when someone made eye contact while eating a popsicle. He was weird about everything. He was still getting off to whatever suggestions existed in the first three queues of the Pornhub homepage, and had no sexual creativity, and he thinks he might have settled on something eloquent like, “Uh.”

He probably tried to be cool after that. Said something like, “Define spanking,” in that insufferable way he was just learning to mold flirtatious, which was an important development considering he’d only recently learned how to avoid burning scrambled eggs and still called his mother with a debrief of how his week was going every other night.

He’s not entirely sure what it was even about him that didn’t just make her scoff and roll her eyes, but maybe he should give his past self more credit.

Anyways, he did it, despite the entirety of the awkward preamble. He was careful, moving through the motions wearily, like he thought he might break something. Which, to be fair, was entirely the right, justified instinct— only the thing is, he’d missed the mark a bit by assuming it was her body that needed caution. It wasn’t. It was his own.

Because something in that moment short-circuited. Not in a cartoonish, lightning-strike way. More like a slow-burn short fuse in the recesses of his brain, something cellular, and ancestral, and alarmingly simple— he liked it. Maybe too much. More than he’d anticipated. It didn’t feel dark, or deviant, or devouring. No. It felt… focused. Singular.

Harry didn't plan for it to become a recurring motif. It was never intended, from his perspective, to anchor him, and it certainly wasn't there to define him. At the time, he'd thought it was a one-time thing, like waxing his chest, or trying hot yoga, or letting someone gaslight him into believing that olives don't just taste like someone preserved despair in brine. At best, he'd figured it would be a strange, mildly entertaining story to pull out after drinks with a select, close-knit group of attendees. It'd fall in line somewhere between the one about the dentist with the singular nipple piercing and the time he'd mistakenly crashed a wake because the GPS rerouted him through a church parking lot.

And then she called him Sir.

One minute he was perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed he'd snagged off of Facebook marketplace (suspiciously low price tag— maybe haunted), wondering if tilting her too far would result in blunt force trauma via nightstand, and the next, she was twisting her chin to look at him over her shoulder, voice low and syrupy-sweet, eyes half-lidded as she was saying it— Sir— with this kind of reverence that made him feel like someone with gravity. Purpose. Like he was something more than a financially unstable, sleep-deprived undergrad sporting a semi; like something cracked open in her ribs every time she used it, and he was the only one who could crawl inside.

He remembers the sex was really good after. Her on top, nails digging jagged, rosy pink lines into his pectorals, her warm ass in his hands. Somehow, it made him cum harder, holding onto that; the warmth there. Feeling that. And after, she fell asleep on his chest, like she didn’t short-circuit the last decade of his sexual development in the span of a singular afternoon.

Retrospectively, that was the beginning of the end.

A kind of slow-brand over the pit of him that he wouldn’t recognize had fundamentally changed his outlook until it was just… his norm.

Anyways, of course he went to the party.

Not a sex party— he wasn’t that interesting yet. Party was a form of loose, glorified nomenclature for the impact play mixer said film major later dragged him to. A very specific, curated event deep within the subgenre swamp of the kink community was a fairly unconventional idea for date night, but at the time, most of their dates consisted of glassy-eyed coffee stops between study sessions or makeout intervals on a creaky couch with something random on the TV in the background. He thinks it might have been called Spankapalooza, or something equivalently tragic, and it was held in a borrowed warehouse that smelled like spilled spearmint lube and leather conditioner. There was a registration table and color-coded wristbands. There were demo tables and a table spread of gluten-free baked goods.

He didn’t play. Just watched. Took mental notes while people negotiated scenes like they were unionized actors: pacing, tone, tools, aftercare methods. Someone got lectured in a New Zealand accent about not cleaning the kitchen counters. Someone else got paddled, smiling and bound, with a toy that was being handed around a group of three other people. It was all very adult in a way that felt mildly deranged and weirdly beautiful.

It was also, oddly enough, incredibly peaceful. Everything negotiated. Everything explained. Nothing creepy, or secret, or shameful. Just people with wristbands, and name tags, and decades of learned wisdom about which parts of the body bruise best and why it matters whether someone uses a bath brush or a frat paddle. One man— Gene, possibly the most soft-spoken person Harry had ever met— casually mentioned that he typically tasked his submissive with picking out a switch from the backyard if she forgot to charge her phone overnight, and (wow! Okay! moment) Harry had to physically sit down for a second just to process that reality (it was the only incident, to date, that ever managed to top the first time he’d had a threesome and had just ended up starfished on a beanbag afterwards in a state of catatonia).

And here’s the thing: he liked it. Not the performative bits. Not the leash-wielding, collar-clanking theatricalism of it all; it was the honesty. The focus. The moment of contact, the sting, the way a breath hitched when someone realized they were being paid attention to, thoroughly and with care. It felt like the kind of intimacy no one admitted to craving. It felt like holding something steady while the world spun stupid around him.

What struck him most wasn’t the spectacle. It was the precision. The ritual. The unblinking sense of acceptance, because this was normal, and attainable, and safe, and something that made him feel like he was on fire and so strangely serene all at once. The structure didn’t take away the heat— it was the heat. Like edging, but emotional. Like someone had found a way to turn boundaries, and sadomasochism, and niche methods for conflict resolution into foreplay. It made everything feel deliberate. Made the intimacy feel earned.

It was an intimacy in and of itself.

When he and the film major broke it off, eventually, inevitably— blocking each other on social media but staying logged into the same Netflix account for the next three years— she was gone, but the idea of it, of this, had already imprinted itself somewhere deep in his wiring.

And the rest? Well. That’s as they call it, history.

The blog was an offhand thing. Not entirely intentional. He’d launched it a year later with another girl he was seeing, and it was her idea, yet again. They filmed it (without their faces) because watching it back made her wet. It was grainy, and shot on his old iphone 4S with poor lighting. There was some animal documentary on in the background and the camerawork was shit in his shaky hands when he picked the phone up off the dresser to film the color her skin bloomed into. But then came a comment about branding sex in a cinematic light, something-something authentic kink education— her words, not his— and he’d laughed and said something noncommittal. They put it up.

Eleven million profile views later it's just a thing. Another collection, like the totes, only this one is intentional— personal, and feels far more like an art form than a pile of cloth sacks in his pantry. It’s a folder of observations. A quietly color-corrected archive of records. Documentation of the way someone melts when they’re understood through restriction like it’s softness. The quiet smugness in knowing exactly what someone needs and how to deliver it in increments of five.

When his casual flings rotated out like seasons, the blog stayed, and so did the growing name. The brand. The requests. Women kept showing up. People he’d meet at events, or friends of friends, recommending him through the grapevine like a sordid new lunch spot to hit up: “Have you tried Rings&Paddles? They have really good… service.” Although that analogy sounds far more prostitutional than it’s ever been, and he’d like it to be known— officially, on the record and all— that orgasms are not an actual menu item, readily available for order. More of a secret menu arrangement type-deal. What he does, according to the fact that the only currency he takes is obedience and punctuality, is basically just civic duty.

Charity work, practically, according to the young woman who once messaged him on FetLife to say his videos made her feel "more emotionally regulated than therapy," which was both flattering and a sign that the world was very, very deeply broken.

He never labeled himself a dominant. Still doesn’t. The title feels too large, too performative, like a costume two sizes too big, even with an excel spreadsheet detailing his usual churn of dynamics, rules, preferences, timestamps, and all. The more rule-heavy type stuff, the kind that leans into that prep school punishment cosplay he’s actively disavowed? That didn’t come until later, and wasn’t inherently by his own volition, anyways. It escalated, as these things do, somewhere between a girl getting a recommendation from a friend for a method of mild catharsis (because she had a shitty receptionist job and little to no coping mechanisms) and the way he’d let her sit on his lap after and cry into his hoodie for twenty minutes like his loungewear was baptismal cloth for her emotional exorcism.

Despite his inflated reputation and the nature of the hobby, less of these things were actually sexual than not. Not every session led to something carnal. Not every dynamic cracked something open beyond this deeply intimate genre of connection and, ironically enough, casual politeness afterward. Some girls showed up, got spanked, said thank you, and left like they were clocking out of a very niche part-time job. Some messaged him twice a month like it was a recurring dental appointment. A few never made it past one session, deciding— respectfully— that it just wasn’t their thing, or that Harry wasn’t their particularly-sought flavor of authority, and that was fine.

He didn’t push it. He didn’t chase it. The structure (or the psychological purge, depending) was what most of them came for. The sex, when it happened, was entirely incidental. But he did make friends along the way. Eventually, he’d sit with a repeat visitor after and discover they both liked the same music, or had the same disdain for couples matching roman numeral tattoos, or some equally surface-level interest that whittled a genuine bonding moment.

And that? Those evolutions, probably alongside the whole mechanism of aftercare paired with vulnerability— incredibly important step to the whole process, in his opinion— started to foster something new. Just an… unacknowledged softness. An edge of rawness that started showing up in the way they wrote to him.

More emojis. More thank you’s. One of them left him a voicemail once— completely unprompted, completely uncalled for— just to say that he was helping her feel like a person again, that no one had made her feel this safe in years. That she didn't know how to explain it, but it mattered.

Harry had listened to the recording exactly once, standing in the cereal aisle at Trader Joe's, staring down the shredded wheat like it had personally wronged him. He'd paused it, locked his phone, and then bought two boxes of something sugary and chocolate just to reassert control over his own autonomy. It didn’t help.

Initially, Harry didn't like the feeling. It was strange, being mistaken for someone capable of that kind of generosity. He wasn't safe— he was consistent, and that was only because he was a stubborn creature of habit that was allergic to change. But the girls kept coming. Kept asking and saying things like, "Would it be okay if I told you when I mess up?" and "You don't have to reply, I just like knowing you're there."

And what was he supposed to do? Say no? Say, "Sorry, I'm only emotionally available when someone's bent over my lap with their skirt hiked up and a very clear safeword system in place" or, "Actually, I'm more of a benevolent pervert than a real support system, but thanks for the vote of confidence"?

He just said, "Sure."

And then he added a new tab to his spreadsheet, and then he re-sorted it by name and infraction type and timestamp. He never meant to become a fixture in anyone’s story, but apparently, structure— when delivered with a calm voice and a little spectacle— sticks. Even when the rest of it doesn’t. He was good at it. That was the problem. He was too good at it— too good at tone, at pulling someone across his lap and delivering a scolding that made them blush before he ever lifted a hand. He was the type of person who didn't make things weird. Who could calmly say things like that's ten for the attitude and two more for being late, isn't it? and could make a girl feel like following some arbitrary rules was the fun part, but breaking them, just a little, just enough to get his attention, was even better.

It’s sort of a bit like very hands-on therapy, in a way. Nowadays, only a handful of them, if that, are rule-heavy (and looking back, it was always that way— a full spread kind of catering project, instead). Not all of them are punishments. He tailors. Sometimes someone wants routine emotional regulation. Other times, a girl he’s been fucking basically asks for glorified lovetaps and his nails lightly trailing over the backs of her thighs before his fingers find their way between her legs. It’s not about control. It’s about closeness, the quiet calm that settles into his bones. The way he knows he’s giving the other person the same.

But he likes spanking. All kinds. Silly, giggly bratting that ends in threats and cherry-red skin. Lazy, indulgent swats between kisses. Stern, structured correction with lectures, and safewords, and someone blinking up at him like they need to hear it— that what they did mattered, that someone’s paying attention.

And when it is disciplinary— when it’s not about sex, or flirting, or fun— he expects to be called Sir, because every man needs a little gravitas to offset the fact that there is a hungry holland lop roaming the same living room, between their feet, like an equal shareholder in every square foot of the property. It’s not about the title. It’s about the shift. The mutual recognition that they’re stepping into something together, something that requires structure, presence, follow-through. Something that says, I will hold you to this, because you asked me to, and I care enough to do it right.

So, that’s the story. There’s no deeper meaning. No psychosexual backstory he’s ready to unpack in therapy. And sometimes…

Harry sits up and stretches over the table to reach for the next coaster available, setting his mug on top of it as he gives his palms room to motion. Folding his hands and his lap and pursing his lips as he stares down at a piece of the carpet across the room, he chews over where to begin. Eventually, he meets her eye. “So, there’s this girl in uni, right?”

Sometimes, when it’s late and the room is warm and someone’s looking at him like they trust him to know when enough is enough, he lets himself think that maybe that strange little corner of connection is the closest thing to intimacy he’ll ever not run from.

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rotworld · 4 months ago

Text

Blue Moon

the treaty of aneptyra states that every witch must be partnered with a nightbound, but the system is far from perfect. some people slip through the cracks. some, like you, make it all the way to adulthood without ever arousing suspicion. unfortunately, all it takes is a single stroke of bad luck to ruin everything.

->an introduction to the "meanvamps" universe. contains mild gore, power imbalance, mind control and mild feral behavior.

Your office is about to be haunted.

It’s fixable. The lights dim and flicker but they still turn on. The cold spots are confined to one corner of the breakroom and those whispers you hear echoing in the vents are soft and indistinct, no intelligible words just yet. But management would actually have to do something to keep it from getting worse, and they’d rather fire off condescending emails about the “charm and personality of historic buildings,” as though you and all of your coworkers are collectively hallucinating the tap water in the restroom turning to black sludge, or the humanoid silhouettes that settle in empty cubicles at night.

The printers have started spitting out eerie images so you’ve started collecting them on the office corkboard, partially as a joke and partially as a cry for help. When things get quiet during the late shift, everyone gathers around to gawk like it’s an art gallery or a collection of Rorschach inkblots, musing over possible meaning in the smudges.

“Looks like a human heart, I think,” Monroe says.

Cindy shakes her head. “Really? I think it’s a palm tree. With skulls for coconuts.”

“I kinda see a cat,” Devon says. He squints over his coffee mug. “A cat with a gun.”

“With a gun?”

You stare at the misshapen thing. You know exactly what it is but you pretend you don’t. “Praying mantis, maybe?” you say.

Monroe sighs and rubs his temples, trying to smother a budding headache. “We shouldn’t have said anything about the printer. They’re just going to say printers always act haunted. And they’re right.”

“Maybe we should send them some pictures next time,” Devon says. You all nod, and you all know it won’t make a difference. Inspection and cleansing services aren’t cheap. Nothing will change until absolutely damning evidence rears its head, probably when someone gets mauled by whatever coalesces from the unnaturally dark shadows growing like mold in the breakroom. If the company’s smart, they’ll sell the building just as things start to boil over and make it somebody else’s problem. If your coworkers are smart, they’ll take all their emails and creepy print-offs to a good lawyer and sue this place into oblivion for endangerment and concealment of a haunting.

It’s a mess, but it’s not your problem. You’ll be long gone by the time that happens, onto the next town.

“Hey, uh, guys?” Your boss, Bryant, rushes over and you expect a problem because you’ve suddenly become “guys” rather than “team” or “buddies” or “my favorite people,” whatever faux-friendly corporate bullshit he usually calls you. To your surprise, he’s not here to chew you out for chatting on the clock. In fact, he doesn’t say anything right away. He keeps glancing back over his shoulder, twice, three times, tugging at his company lanyard and ID nervously. “Hey, so. I know there’s been some, ah, stress in the office lately. And I just want you to know that I hear you, and I am absolutely willing to pass along any of your concerns—”

“Is this about the thing in the bathroom?” Cindy asks.

“The—I’m sorry?”

“The thing,” Monroe says, “in the bathroom. It moves when you’re not looking at it. We told you about it months ago, did you finally see it?”

Bryant looks back again and you follow his gaze this time, starting to worry. He leans in, lowering his voice. “Which one of you called him?” You share silent, searching glances with your coworkers. Nobody seems to know what he’s talking about. “There’s a fucking fed outside,” he hisses. “And he wants to interview everybody who’s here right now—”

“Excuse me.”

The fed is inside, as it turns out, strolling between the cubicles with his hands in his pockets. Bryant looks like he’s going into fight-or-flight and your coworkers aren’t sure what to make of him. You stay behind everybody else and hope that he can’t distinguish your racing pulse from Bryant’s. Hauntings, potential or otherwise, fall outside the jurisdiction of human authorities. This guy isn’t a normal fed. He’s wearing something that looks borderline military, a black tailcoat with a collection of small, shiny symbols emblazoned on one shoulder, a golden canary embroidered on the left side of his chest. His ID is in its own leather case, his name and face printed on a little white card.

Canary Task Force, it says above a headshot with the same sideswept black hair and olive eyes. Edmund. No last name listed, because he doesn’t have one. Most nightbound don’t. “My apologies for intruding,” he says, stiff and formal. “I’ve been dispatched as part of an active investigation. My name is Edmund. I’d like to speak with each of you privately before you leave this evening, if that’s no inconvenience.”

If that’s no inconvenience, he says, as if he can’t hold you here as long as he wants. He sets up in the conference room across the hall. You can see his silhouette moving on the other side of the frosted glass. Bryant gets called in first and the rest of you convene around the water cooler.

“You think he’s here about the haunting?” Cindy asks.

Devon shrugs. “He said ‘active investigation.’ Sounds like something else. Probably doesn’t hurt to mention it, though. The CTF loves stuff like this, especially if they get to punish somebody.”

“We should bring him some of our printouts. You want the gun-cat or the dead spider?” Monroe jokes, nudging you with his elbow. You don’t answer. You’re too busy staring at the carpet, trying to get your breathing under control. “Uh. You alright?”

“Yeah,” you say too quickly. “Just wasn’t expecting this.” You can’t fucking believe this! You’ve kept your head down, you’ve stayed busy, you’ve avoided attracting attention to yourself as much as possible, and yet here’s a CTF agent sniffing around your workplace, about to get you alone with him. He doesn’t know, does he? He can’t know. Nobody knows. You’ve been in town for three months at the very most, smoothly left the last one by accepting an office transfer. This can’t be happening.

“They kind of freak me out, too,” Cindy admits. “They’re so intense, right? Like the way they look at you…” Devon cuts her off by clearing his throat, glancing pointedly across the hall. You can’t hear what’s going on in there but nobody’s screaming for help yet. Bryant comes out looking a little bewildered but still in one piece.

“Excuse me, Miss?” Edmund leans out of the conference room doorway, nodding to Cindy. She stands up shakily whispering ohshitohmygod and tells you to water her daffodils if you never see her again. You consider slipping out while everyone’s distracted but that’d put you on the CTF’s radar if you’re not already. You’ll have to get through this interview. And you can—you will. You picked this city for a reason. If Edmund gets suspicious, he’ll have to investigate further, poke through your files and follow your paper trail to its eventual dead end. You’ll have skipped town by then, gotten a different name, changed your hair, whatever it takes to disappear again.

Cindy’s interview passes quickly, or maybe you’re just so panicked you’re losing track of time. She rejoins your group huddle with a small frown. “Huh,” she says, sounding dazed and a little hoarse like she just woke up. “It wasn’t that bad, I think?”

“Next, please.” Edmund is at the door again, looking right at you. Cindy gives you a pat on the shoulder in encouragement. You’d much rather take your chances jumping out the third floor office windows but you swallow hard, steel yourself, and head for the conference room.

Edmund smiles in what you imagine is supposed to be a friendly gesture as he shuts the door. He sits much closer than you’d like, taking the chair beside you rather than sitting across the large circular table. His posture is painfully formal like he’s posed for a professional photo, back straight, legs crossed to one side, hands joined in his lap.

“You’re nervous,” he says.

No shit. “Uh. Yeah,” you say. You don’t look at him. Should you? Is it more suspicious if you don’t? You glance up and then quickly back down again. His stare is unsettling. You’ve heard that the keen senses of the nightbound are a double-edged sword. They have to train themselves to filter extraneous stimuli, ignoring anything beyond their current focus so they don’t get overwhelmed. You have his undivided attention right now. He’s observing everything from the way you nervously squirm in your seat to the slightest twitch of muscle in your jaw. He can probably smell your sweat. He can definitely hear your heartbeat.

“Don’t worry. This is going to be a fairly routine interview. You’re not in any trouble.”

“Oh,” you say, feigning relief. Does it work? Are you convincing enough? You wish he showed any emotion beyond cold scrutiny or exaggerated concern. “Great. Okay. What do you wanna know?”

Edmund slips back into his affable mask, that same too enthusiastic if that’s no inconvenience smile from before. “All the usual things. Your name, to start. Are you local to the area or did you move here recently?”

You give him your most recent alias, the name your coworkers know. The rest of your answers are just as easy, and some are even the truth. You’re new in town, you’ve worked here a couple months. Night shifts in a company call center, nothing special. He asks about your commute, about your colleagues, about your boss. Easy, too easy. You see the curve ball coming before he even makes the pitch and you’re ready for it.

“Apologies, but I’m required to ask,” he says, smiling insincerely. “Are you a witch?”

You’ve practiced this in the mirror a thousand times. You pause, just long enough to sell the surprise, the confusion, a wry little smile that asks, who, me? “Uh, no,” you say, laughing awkwardly. Too awkwardly? You tone it down. “Do I look like one?”

Edmund stares at you blankly, unimpressed with just a hint of annoyance. Good. Perfect. Maybe he’ll leave sooner. “Moving on, then. I’d like you to tell me more about your coworkers.”

You don’t let yourself linger on the relief that rushes through you, not wanting him to sense it. You’re not in the clear yet. Yes, you like your coworkers just fine. No, you don’t really know the day shift people. You’re not very social and you like the quiet, almost-empty office. No, nobody’s been acting weird lately. That’s a strange thing to ask, you think. You wonder what this “investigation” is all about. But you keep answering and Edmund listens intently, drumming his fingers on the table. You’re not sure when he started doing it. Ta-ta-ta-tap, like he’s bored or restless. Fine by you.

“Does anyone in the office seem unusually tired lately?” Edmund asks. Ta-ta-ta-tap. “Maybe you’ve noticed someone coming in late, or calling in sick often?” Ta-ta-ta-tap.

You let your confusion show but you keep your apprehension to yourself. “I don’t think so. I mean, we’re all pretty worn out by the end of our shift,” you say, drawing the words out and glancing at the ceiling to feign careful consideration. You’re a little too focused on minding your own business to notice what anyone else is doing. And even if you had, you wouldn’t tell this guy. Bryant would rat you out in a heartbeat but the rest of you are sworn to secrecy.

That’s a huge red flag, though. He’s definitely looking for someone, but who and why?

“I see. Just a few more questions and I’ll let you go.” Edmund smiles. Ta-ta-ta-tap. The noise was a little annoying at first but now you hardly notice it. It’s kind of nice to listen to, something other than the low hum of the air conditioning. More questions, easy ones, about the minutiae of your work schedule. When does your shift start? When does it end? What’s a typical evening like? Gradually, you sink back against your chair in a comfortable slouch, relaxed, calm, tired. Really, really tired. You can barely keep your eyes open. Ta-ta-ta-tap. Edmund says something but it’s just noise, wordless murmuring you could fall asleep to.

And then he asks, “Are you under?”

“Mm. Yeah,” you say. You feel like you’re floating. Drifting away somewhere. Edmund opens a notebook and starts jotting something down, his free hand continuing that same, soothing rhythm. Ta-ta-ta-tap. A sudden realization settles more firmly into place. You can trust him. You feel absolutely certain of this, more sure than you’ve ever been about anything. He’s not your enemy. You think you were afraid of him before but that feeling is far away now, distant and forgettable. He’s here to help. He’d probably help fix the haunting if you told him about it.

“You told me about the haunting already,” he says. You did? You can’t remember. “You did, just now. One of your colleagues also explained it in detail. You’ve endured that for long enough and I’ll inform my superiors so it’s handled promptly.” His pen pauses over the paper and he looks at you. His eyes scared you before, but they calm you now. You were completely wrong about him. You can tell him anything. “That’s right, you can. That’s all you have to do right now. When I ask you something, you answer and tell the truth. Simple enough, right?” You nod. You can do that. It’s so nice of him to make things easy for you and take all the complicated thoughts away. “Now, I have to ask you some questions. I know it’s silly, but they’re the same questions I asked you before.” That is silly, but you don’t mind. “One more time. Your name?”

You say it. Your real one this time, not the alias you gave him before when you didn’t realize you could trust him.

He regards you strangely, frowning a little. Was that wrong? Did you make him unhappy? “No, not at all. Thank you for telling me. I have more questions about that, but we’ll come back to it later.”

He asks the same things he did before just like he said he would. You answer everything the best you can. You don’t want to disappoint him. You see him making notes, scribbling quickly. Where are you from? How well do you know your coworkers? Have you noticed any of them behaving strangely? Some of your answers are different now but he tells you that’s okay, everything is okay. Ta-ta-ta-tap and your worries dissipate before they’ve properly taken root.

“And are you a witch?” he asks, a question which makes something inside you lurch like you’re about to fall. You’re not sure why. It’s not hard to answer.

“Yes,” you say.

Edmund pauses. He looks up from his notes and stares at you. His expression is complicated. Too complicated for you to think about right now, so you don’t. It’s okay. Everything is okay. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? To confirm, you said you’re a witch?” he asks slowly. There’s that feeling again, that yanking nausea, your heart plummeting in your chest. That smooth, easy current carrying you through mindless tranquility seems choppy and dangerous now. That soothing ta-ta-ta-ta-tap makes you flinch. You shouldn’t listen to it. He’s trying to drag you back under again. “It’s okay,” he says softly, so softly. Everything is okay. You can trust him, can’t you? You can tell the truth.

“Yes. I’m a witch.”

Terror shocks you awake. You feel like you’ve narrowly escaped drowning, tense and gasping, skin tingling unpleasantly. You bolt out of your chair, sick with fear. Edmund is on his feet just as quickly, hands raised in a pacifying gesture.

“It’s alright,” he says gently, like he’s talking to a spooked horse. But it’s not alright. Everything is fucked. Your life is over. “This is…completely out of my jurisdiction. Not my department at all.” Somehow he looks just as lost for words as you are, just as blindsided. His eyes dart to the door behind you and you know you’re both thinking the same thing, planning a swift exit that doesn’t alarm your coworkers. “You’re not registered in Skelveross,” he says. “Do you know how I know that?”

You don’t answer. You don’t care. Your eyes scan the room in a frantic and useless search for exits.

“Because there’s a database, and I have every name and face that’s in it memorized. It’s not as long as you might think.” He takes a half-step forward and you stumble back, heart in your throat. “Something tells me you’re not registered anywhere,” he says, sounding almost pained. “I don’t know how that could’ve happened, but we can fix this. You just have to see the Council. In fact, I could escort you—”

“No,” you say hoarsely. You’re not going to cry in front of him even though your whole world is crumbling. You’re not.

Edmund seems surprised by your refusal. He flinches at your interruption, frowning tightly. You see him thinking. Weighing his options. Eventually, he smiles, and this one is terrifyingly real. His coldness thaws and he is awed, hopeful and brimming with adoration, looking at you like the most precious thing in the world. He finally lowers his hands and his posture relaxes, leaning casually against the table. “Understandable,” he says. “I wanted to ask you a few more things, but I suppose that can wait until next time. Your shift ended half an hour ago, didn’t it? You’re probably exhausted.” He’s careful, angling his body so you don’t see him settling one hand against the surface of the table, but it doesn’t matter. You’re already gone.

You don’t care who sees you sprinting full speed out of the conference room or what they think. You barrel into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. He let me go. The thought cycles through your mind on a panicked loop. He let me go, but why? He should’ve been faster. Is he starving? That can’t be right. He doesn’t have to be partnered to have access to blood. Maybe he knew how it’d look, a nightbound chasing after a terrified human after being stuck in close quarters together. Predation charges don’t usually stick but it’d be a headache and a PR blunder for the local Council, a potential stumbling block the next time they want something from the human authorities. In that case, the smart thing for him to do is wait. Reassure your coworkers. Leave calmly.

Then come after you while you’re alone, without any witnesses around.

The only thing that keeps you from sprinting all the way to the train station is the need to keep a low profile. You’re minutes from every nightbound in the city knowing your name and where you work and probably where you live. You fidget restlessly at the platform, racking your brain for a way out of this. Seven hours is too long to hide and wait for sunrise. Go home and pack? No, no way, they’ll check there first. Showing up at the airport is a bad idea but maybe you could hitchhike? Leaving town is just the start. You need to get out of the territory entirely to shake the CTF.

You toss your phone in the trash without a second thought. It was a burner anyway. They can fish it out if they want but your call history is all business and your texts won’t tell them anything more than what Edmund already got out of you. Could you catch a bus? There’s a cheap intercity service with a terminal downtown, but you’d need to leave tonight. Edmund might not be able to chase you when dawn rolls around, but you know the CTF playbook: encirclement, then slowly closing the noose. They start at the edge of the territory and work their way inward, setting up barricades and strangling the highways with checkpoints that will slow traffic to a single-lane crawl. It usually takes a day or two for the Council to wrangle approval from the human municipal government to start closing roads and getting their hands on surveillance footage. You can’t wait around to see how fast they manage it this time.

The glowing sign of a car rental business lures you in. That’s your best bet, you think, especially since it’s some dingy fly-by-night company that takes cash and doesn’t ask too many questions. The only problem is you’re not the only one with the same idea tonight. The line is short but slow, a kid who doesn’t look old enough to even rent a car himself slouched behind the counter. The dingy off-white of the wall clock is seared into your eyes, the sweep of the minute hand seeming purposefully cruel in its slowness.

The automatic doors are overly sensitive and misaligned, squealing open for a sufficiently strong breeze. You always look, just in case. You yawn and stretch, making a show of your exhaustion to mask your fear, and take another look around. It’s fuck off o’clock on a week night. Nobody around but the desperate few, people who look tired, pensive and a little bit haunted. The man ahead of you in line takes a phone call that’s nothing but hissed whispers. A couple who came in after you doze against each other’s shoulders. A fluorescent light tube winks and buzzes. The shadows are too thick to trust. When you finally have your keys and a pamphlet of paperwork you won’t read, you all but sprint out the door.

You’re flinging the driver’s side door of a silver hatchback open when you suddenly break out in a cold sweat. It’s the feeling of being watched cranked up to its maximum, skin-crawling intensity, the ghostly weight of a predator’s gaze raking down your back. It’s fine. It’s fine. You start the car and check the rearview mirror a few times as you pull out of the lot. Somebody’s just coming out of the automatic doors in what looks like a uniform but you’re too far away to tell for sure. You turn on the radio and try to calm down. Somewhere along a quiet country road, you hear what you think is the start of a storm. Something like thunder but soft still, far away. Heavy gusts of wind.

“…lo? Hello? Can you hear me?”

You almost swerve into the guardrail. It sounds like someone’s right next to you, whispering in your ear. You swear you can feel their breath tickle your skin. But there isn’t. The passenger seat is empty.

“Please slow down. You’re well over the speed limit.”

“Edmund?” you say. Your voice is remarkably steady for how terrified you feel. “Wh—how—?”

“My mesmerism is…slow.” You feel a nervous twinge in your chest. Embarrassment? Sheepishness? These aren’t your feelings. They’re his. “But it also takes much longer to wear off. Right now, you and I are connected, although it’s tenuous given the distance between us.” He must be out here somewhere, trying to find you. You don’t see any other headlights yet. “You feel…afraid. And lonely. You’ve been on your own for a very long time.” You don’t dignify that with a response. You feel soothing warmth, like Edmund is trying to embrace you, but the sensation doesn’t last. You’re too furious to be soothed by the very thing that wants to cage you.

“What would it take to make you look the other way and pretend you lost me?” you ask.

You feel his dismay like a cold trickle, unpleasant and distressing. “I’m only going to ask once,” he says, tone hardening. “Pull over.”

“Fuck you.”

“Then I apologize in advance. I’ll try to be careful.”

The wind picks up again and the thunder seems closer, but it can’t be a storm. The sky is clear, a waxing moon shining through a thin gauze of clouds, trees motionless at the roadside. You look back again, searching for a CTF vehicle, and that’s when you see it—a moving shape in the dark. Not a vehicle at all but something alive. It’s big, you think, like a horse, an elk, a stampeding thing but sleeker and gaining on you. You can barely make out any details with nothing but the glow of your taillights haloing the thing’s frightening shape, but you think you see large, reflective eyes and horn-like protrusions, dark fur and sinewy limbs stretched wide.

Wings, you realize. That noise is the sound of the thing flying, soaring after you with predatory grace and agility. It shrieks and its voice is nails screaming down a chalkboard, a painful shrillness that makes you wince and slam your foot harder on the gas. You hear it screech again and see it darting and swooping through the air behind you, struggling to keep up. The road goes blurry through your angry, helpless tears and you drag your palm across your face. You’ve had nightmares like this before. Getting found out, cornered, chased by nightbound, torn to pieces or bled dry in a fit of rage, dragged before an unfeeling Council that sentences you to a life of servitude beneath something so ancient it no longer understands what it means to be human.

Your connection with Edmund has become a headache-inducing stream of pleading and hissing and primal desire all at once, no stop stop slow down not safe listen not going to hurt you listen need you need you NEED YOU!!

The thing lets out another horrible screaming noise and you see it coming, descending, closing in on you like prey. It rams into your car hard enough to send you screeching off the road. You hit the ditch too hard and at the wrong angle, still trying to straighten out and stop yourself from slamming into the trees ahead. The car starts to lean and tip and you realize you’re about to roll, crash, die—

The collision comes before you expect it, a thunderous slam on the passenger side that dents the door and brings you to a sudden stop. All the air in your lungs rushes out in a wheeze, your head spinning. You’re in shock. You shouldn’t be upright, you think, probably shouldn’t even be alive. Something drags over the hood of your car with jerky, animalistic movements, claws scraping steel, a translucent, fleshy membrane squealing across the windshield. The doors are locked but that doesn’t matter. The driver’s side is wrenched open, the door torn off the hinge and flung skittering and sparking down the road. The thing looms just outside, lowering its head to examine you. You look back at it, the two of you studying each other in tense silence.

Yes yes yes have you now, you hear as bright, smothering joy floods your thoughts, safe you’re safe you’re with me safe now.

This is a hunting form. Like many nightbound, its shape is something like an enormous bat. It has a short, curved snout and small daggers for teeth. Those things you mistook for horns are large, conical ears that twitch and swivel. Its body is covered in black fur, a thick patch wreathing its neck like a lion’s mane. One of its arms is crooked, you notice, and starting to swell. You’re alive because it threw itself at your car to keep it from flipping over. You want to hate it but you can’t tear your eyes away from the fresh wound, the way one wing droops like a ripped sail. It did that for you, without hesitation.

You’re dimly aware of things happening beyond the two of you. Car engines rumbling. Tires scraping the cement. Black CTF vehicles blocking off every escape route, stylized canaries emblazoned on their sides. Doors rumble open and slam shut. You could fight if you really wanted to. You could try to push your way past the thing, run for the trees. You wouldn’t get far. It’s over, you know that. You can’t make yourself move. You’re so tired of running, of leaving every place you go and every person you meet, of changing yourself over and over again, living as a stranger because the real you will bring nothing but trouble. You want a bed that’s yours. A place you can always go back to. A person who knows you and cares about you—who would love you even if your blood was the same as anyone else’s.

There’s a sick sound of cracking bone and the leathery squeal of skin reshaping. The thing grunts as it twists itself into a smaller shape, fur receding into sweat-soaked skin. When it settles, Edmund is kneeling there naked and panting. Without his uniform, you can see the marks littering his body. Lashes and claw slashes, burns in gnarled, spotty patches, old bullet wounds that healed into puckered scar tissue. He runs a hand through his hair, his carefully combed bangs now disheveled and sticking to his forehead.

“This is overkill, isn’t it?” you say as more headlights blink over the horizon. Thirty, maybe thirty five CTF agents in total when you do a rough headcount, watching them watch you. A lot of them are making phone calls. Reporting to the Council, you assume, piecing together all the identities you’ve lived under in the last few years. “All this for one witch.”

“You’re worth it,” Edmund says. Even winded and still struggling to catch his breath, his voice has a hard, determined edge to it, absolute and unshakable conviction. There’s no reasoning with someone who’s so sure they’re right. “I know you’re afraid. But this is going to be—”

“Shut up.” You tilt your head back, letting out the breath you’ve been holding. “You have no idea what’s about to happen to me. You can’t possibly understand.” Edmund frowns. He looks at you the same pitying way one might look at a waterlogged kitten or a child crying on a playground, some small, sad thing in need of rescue or protection. You can’t stand it, so you lean back in your seat, close your eyes, and savor your last moments of freedom with tears spilling down your cheeks.

The Skelveross Dusk Council meets in Harrow Creek, a city near the heart of the territory. It’s an hour drive from where Edmund ran you off the road, plenty of time for you to break down completely in his backseat. He looks physically pained by your distress, clearly uncomfortable as he murmurs useless platitudes about how good it’ll be to “put this all behind you.” He stops twice to crack open the cooler sitting in the passenger seat, sipping from a blood bag kept on ice, and that lets him use his broken arm without wincing. By the time you’ve exhausted yourself into listless apathy, you’re in what might be a historical district surrounded by brick buildings and manicured lawns. You don’t have to ask where you’re going. There’s a behemoth of Gothic architecture looming ahead, a cross between a cathedral and a courthouse. The white stone exterior is adorned with decorative arches, crescent moons and birds in flight, ancient symbols of the nightbound.

Edmund clears his throat awkwardly and doesn’t quite make eye contact in the mirror. “That’s the Council building,” he says, gesturing with a nod. “The CTF offices are right behind it if you, ah. Ever need anything. I’m not sure how much you know about this area. You can think of Harrow Creek as the ‘capital’ of the territory. Skelveross is a small region, comparatively speaking, but it’s extremely well-defended. You’ll never have to worry about hunters here.”

He keeps glancing back at you, maybe hoping you’ll say something, show interest, ask him a question. You don’t. You watch the Council building and its spire bell tower grow steadily closer with dread cold and heavy in your stomach.

Edmund offers to put you under mesmerism for the meeting and seems taken aback by your shock and revulsion. “I thought it might help. You’re so nervous,” he says. You’d like to scream, but you settle for an exasperated glance and follow him inside.

The Council building is dark like a tomb. There are no light fixtures, no candles or lamps. The weak, watery light that seeps into the mazelike corridors is the glow of street lamps filtered through stained glass, too dim for you to properly take in your surroundings. You cross paths with other nightbound only rarely. Most are CTF agents who exchange greetings with Edmund before continuing on their way, but you spot others just waiting around, sitting outside of offices or filling out paperwork.

A pair of double doors waits at the end of a long hallway, old wood carved with intricate swirls and floral patterns. Each has a spot of vandalism, deep gouges where the etchings have been obliterated by repeated slashes. “The Dagaric family crest was once displayed upon these doors,” Edmund says solemnly. “They were removed centuries ago to symbolize our transition to a democracy. This is no place for tyrants.” Nightbound politics. You don’t want to know. Edmund pushes one of the doors open and steps aside, holding it for you. You see darkness broken by islands of light, candles lining a grand staircase. The wax is red, the puddles they melt into thick like coagulated blood. A chandelier adorned with dangling crystal strings glows with golden dusklight. This is all for you, prepared for your arrival. The nightbound need no light.

You descend between rows and rows of red velvet seats, most of them empty. The nightbound in attendance are clustered at the very bottom, seated before a raised stage platform. You catch glimpses of grandeur in the flickering candlelight; a Victorian patterned carpet, curtained alcoves with sculptures and glass display cases, a mural on the ceiling of winged figures in lurid embraces. This might have been a theater of some kind once, an opera house that entertained the nightbound nobility of bygone eras. You can’t imagine how much blood has soaked the floor over the years.

There’s a table on the stage, long enough to accommodate the five nightbound seated behind it. The Dusk Council, you assume. They’re not much different from how you imagined them, stern-faced and imperious, dressed like Victorian lords and ladies in stiff coats and billowing sleeves. They’re all chatting when you walk in, the conversation light and casual with a bit of quiet laughter, but they fall silent when you’re halfway down the steps. That’s when the ones on stage spot you and Edmund. Nightbound eyes gleam in the dark like an animal’s. You fight an instinctual surge of terror when they all turn to look at you, points of silver light following your every move.

“Edmund,” one of the Council members says, nodding. “Well done.”

Edmund bows his head and you roll your eyes. ‘Not his jurisdiction,’ my ass. At the bottom of the stairs, you find two seats that have been left open in the very front row. Edmund waits for you to sit before taking the open spot beside you, as if running could get you anywhere now. Your name is spoken. Your real name, in full. You flinch. Nobody’s called you that in a long time. One of them passes a stack of papers down the table and they take turns giving you incredulous looks.

“We must apologize for the disorganized manner of this meeting,” one of them says. “Your situation is unusual and we don’t have all the information we normally would. For a witch to reach your age without proper registration, even as a latent, is simply unheard of. I don’t suppose you’d tell us if you’ve been staying with other unregistered kin?”

“I haven’t seen my family in years,” you say.

For some reason, this confuses them. They look at each other, then at you, then back at one another with some whispering. You shift uncomfortably in your seat. Edmund is giving you that misty-eyed veterinarian with a sick dog look again and you wish he’d stop.

“Are you aware of who currently holds the title of Lord Regent in Skelveross?” you’re asked.

You stare at them. “Am I supposed to know that?” you ask. More worried looks and muttering, papers shuffling and being passed around.

“This is highly irregular,” one of the Council mutters. “Highly irregular. And without records, I’m not sure how we can make a proper match.”

“They’re not walking out of here unpartnered,” another says firmly. “That’s much too dangerous.”

You clench your armrests in irritation. “I was doing fine, you know,” you tell them. “I was just living my life. Sometimes it was tough, but that was your fault. When I wasn’t looking over my shoulder, I was happy. I didn’t need you.”

They don’t care. They keep talking in hushed tones, gesturing in your general direction from time to time—all but one. The one in the middle, two Council members on either side of him, sets his papers down and gives you his undivided attention. This one is ancient. You can sense it. His face has the same unnerving, ageless quality as all nightbound, neither soft and youthful nor particularly wizened, but his eyes pin you in place. You expected something more like Edmund, a gaze sharpened with piercing, predatory focus like a wolf who isn’t quite hungry yet, but this one’s eyes are like no living thing found in nature. Nothing is meant to live that long, to see that much and remain unchanged. He stands from the table with effortless grace, his chair scraping the floor as he pushes it out behind him.

“Then surely you can prove it,” he says.

The sudden silence feels like a warning. The Council stops their overlapping conversations to look between the two of you in muted shock and dismay. “Wh—prove what?” you ask.

“You said you do not need us. An extraordinary claim, but I am open to a good argument.” He holds your gaze as he walks slowly down the length of the table and around it, coming to stand directly in front of you. He’s dressed like a CTF agent but the tails of his coat are longer, the waistcoast beneath a shimmery, midnight blue brocade. His hair is just long enough to tie back in a low, short ponytail. “You have survived the treacheries of the world without the protection of a partner thus far. If you can prove to me that this was a matter of skill rather than luck, then I will let you walk away. You will not be pursued.”

“Lord Regent,” someone stammers behind him. He stops them with a curt wave and watches you carefully.

This has to be a trap. There’s no way he’d risk letting you go. But the Council is exchanging worried glances now and Edmund is trying desperately to make eye contact in your periphery. Don’t, he mouths, the word faintly echoed in your waning connection. The Lord Regent—the title sticks in your mind just long enough for you to think that this is a bad idea, that you shouldn’t be doing this, that this might actually get you killed—cocks his head to the side, awaiting an answer. He smiles, and you see red.

“Good,” he purrs, watching you unceremoniously haul yourself up onto the stage. He removes his black gloves one finger at a time and then shrugs off his coat, letting it crumple on the floor.

“Lord Regent, do you really think this is—?”

“I would like to take this opportunity to reopen a discussion started earlier this evening,” he says smoothly.

Your blood is boiling. He doesn’t seriously think he’s going to hold a meeting right now, does he? You can’t remember the last time you were this angry, your face hot and your hands balled up into shaky, sweaty-palmed fists. You’re outmatched, you know that, but you want to hit him at least once. You want to feel his nose crack and shift under your knuckles, want to see that cocky sneer swallowed up by bruises when you knock his fangs out of his mouth. You throw yourself at him with no plan, no strategy, nothing but searing anger, and he neatly sidesteps your fist. He’s still smiling when he lunges forward and it all happens too fast for you to see or understand—a hand grasping your shoulder, a leg sweeping you off your feet, and then you’re spinning, landing hard on the wooden stage with all the air knocked out of your lungs.

“What is our greatest obstacle in ensuring a witch is properly registered?” he continues, turning his back on you. You wheeze furiously, struggling to push yourself up with your elbows. “I will tell you: it is the witch themselves. Concealment is an epidemic of such staggering proportions that we have lost entire generations. This wayward child knows nothing of the world they rightfully belong to. How many have gone unpartnered because of this? How many live and die beyond our reach?”

He must hear you stand up. You’re slow and clumsy, your head throbbing and your shoulders sore. The stage creaks beneath your unsteady feet and your pulse thunders in your ears. Your vision swims and your stomach quivers with dizzy nausea. You shouldn’t be on your feet but you push yourself forward, one shambling step after another, driven by hate and fear and desperation unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.

Your hand wraps around his shoulder, squeezing. Under black silk sleeves, you feel steely cords of muscle. He turns just slightly, just far enough for you to glimpse the smile on his lips. And then he has you, a hand clutching the back of your shirt, another grasping your sleeve, pulled close to him like you’re dancing but only for a moment. Then you’re weightless, the room tilting, the floor rushing up to meet you. You land on your back and there’s an awful animal noise like something shrieking half-dead in the woods at night, and it takes time for you to realize it came from your own mouth.

“Lord Regent, please.” That sounds like Edmund, you think. You aren’t sure. You can’t even lift your head to look. There’s murmuring all around you, words you can’t understand with the ringing in your ears. Trying to get up again makes you feel like there’s shards of glass ground up into your muscles, pinpricks and sweeping pulses of pain. You’ve got nothing left. Even turning on your side is a monumental effort, a mistake that makes your side prickle and burn.

You see him. The Lord Regent. His back to you. You see the rest of them, too, standing from their seats with stern, solemn faces, Edmund biting his lip so hard a rivulet of blood trickles down his chin. Your fingers twitch, arms outstretched and hands splayed limp. No. You have something left. You can’t control it and you don’t fully understand it, a true last resort, but you have something. You try to clench your hand into a fist again but it just curls weakly. You smell it first, just faintly, a paradox of odor—sharp, permeating, yet featureless, a scent that isn’t. The chill in your nose on a frigid winter day. You feel numbness and tingling. You see magic, weak and unfocused, gathering at your fingertips. It shivers like a mirage.

This is a bad idea. You’ve been on the run too long and you’ve never had lessons, no mentors, not even a chance to practice. The magic spins into a miniature vortex, a whirlpool of distortion in the air, and you feel it growing, getting hungrier. It might kill you. It might kill everyone here. It might bulldoze through this auditorium like a wrecking ball and leave a gaping wound of all your last furious thoughts behind, a haunting the size of an office building—

The Lord Regent lunges for you, one hand wrapped around your throat in a firm, choking grip. You don’t have the strength to stop him. You try to hold onto the magic but it’s fizzling out, unraveling in your hand. He’s so close to you now. Pinning you down with his body, straddling your waist. His hands are not perfectly smooth. You feel bumps and ridges against your throat. Scars. Calluses. His eyes are a stormy blue. His lips are moving and you can’t hear him, can’t hear anything over the static in your head, but somehow you know what he means to say.

"That’s enough."

You breathe slowly beneath the loosening pressure of his thumb. You can feel yourself slipping under. His mesmerism is subtle but it’s stronger than Edmund’s, a wave of stifling calm washing over you. No matter how hard you cling to your anger, it fades like dying embers. You don’t want to fight anymore.

"I do this for you. For all of us. We will not survive alone, you or I. Someday you will understand."

Time passes, but you’re barely aware of it. Everything is softness and delight. Sometimes the pain will come back, needling at your back and sides, but it’s chased away with a soothing whisper and a hand stroking your head. Gentle fingers massage your scalp and you bury yourself deeper in the warm comfort of the moment. You surface gradually. The Lord Regent gives your mind back piece by piece. Awareness first, the realization that you’re kneeling. That there is a cushion under you, keeping your legs from the hard ground. That you’re at his side while he sits at the Council’s table and he wants to keep you there—forever if he could, just like this, drifting and happy. That someone is speaking, and that he is petting you like a beloved, loyal animal, stealing glimpses whenever he can.

You pull your head out of his lap slower than you’d like, mindful of the ache in your neck and shoulders. He gives you one last look, smug and satisfied, and then returns his attention to the rest of the Council. “Loathe as I am to admit it, perhaps you have a point,” he says, sounding contrite. “I cannot claim impartiality. Someone else should draft the proposal. We will hold the vote another time.”

“We appreciate your understanding, Lord Regent,” one of the others says. “No disrespect is meant, but perhaps it is best to approach this with the benefit of time and distance. None of us are as clear-headed as we should be tonight.”

“Indeed. That just leaves us with the matter of placement.” All eyes are on you again. The Lord Regent frowns thoughtfully. “Young nightbound take priority. And yet, I cannot in good conscience partner a fledgling with a witch so…volatile.”

“May I address the Council?”

A new voice speaks and a new, unsettling silence falls over the auditorium. You see a nightbound walking down the aisle, already halfway down the steps. You didn’t hear him come in but that’s not surprising. Even now, his footsteps are nearly silent. The others recoil when he draws near, trembling and wide-eyed. They respect the Lord Regent, but they fear this one. You can’t see him clearly until he’s nearly reached the bottom of the steps, stepping into the glow of the chandelier. He’s stunning. Long dark hair tumbles over his shoulders and frames sharp, androgynous features. He wears a long, trailing garment, form-fitting at his chest but loose and flowing below the waist like an evening gown, clinging sleeves of black lace adorning his arms. His footsteps are slow and graceful as he glides down the stage.

“Athanasius,” the Lord Regent greets. He’s the only one who doesn’t look scared shitless. He inclines his head in a slight bow, smiling like there’s a joke you’re missing. “It is rare for you to grace us with your presence these nights. Please, speak.”

Athanasius surveys the Council with a quick glance back and forth. Each of them flinch in their seats. Some avert their eyes, clinging to their papers in desperation for something else to look at. Then he looks at you and your breath catches in your throat. His gaze is paralyzing. You’re reminded of the unnerving feeling you got when you first saw the Lord Regent, the incomprehensible abyss of time within his eyes. This one is old, too. Maybe even older. “As you know,” he says, his voice soft and irresistibly sweet, “I have a convenire, here in Harrow Creek. We recently had a new arrival. They are all young, but the newest is by far the youngest. He was sired during the last Waxing Nights.”

You expect to hear muttering here, discussion, disagreement, but there’s nothing. Not a word from any of them. It feels like the entire auditorium is holding its breath. The Lord Regent hums, considering. “Ah, yes. The dissenter’s child.” You glance between them, trying to piece together what’s about to happen to you. A convenire—that’s just what nightbound call it when a bunch of them live together, isn’t it? “That would indeed solve several problems at once.”

The rest of the Council gradually thaws from their frozen terror, a few of them offering weak platitudes and agreements. You have no idea what they think of this, but you see more paperwork emerging from somewhere, hear the rapid scribbling of ink pens. They seem eager, at least, for him to leave. “It’s a bit unusual,” one of them says. “But so are the circumstances. Perhaps this will be a good match.” Several of them glance at you briefly with sad, pitying gazes.

“Very well.” The Lord Regent offers you a smile. Maybe it’s genuine. Maybe it’s not. You can’t tell, but he sounds far too excited. “Wayward child,” he says, his tone solemn and official, “you are hereby sentenced to sacramental service within the convenire of Athanasius. You shall defer to his judgment and you shall submit to his authority before all other nightbound. You shall offer your blood to all members of the convenire without complaint or question. Should you perform your duties satisfactorily, you may earn the sacred gift of partnership. May you find peace and fulfillment in your service.”

You inhale shakily. That’s it, then. You belong to someone. A packet of papers are passed down the table, signed by each Council member. It makes its way back to the Lord Regent, who stamps it with an ink seal. That’s all the fanfare there is, and then they start talking about something else.

“Shall we go?” Athanasius is standing beside you on the stage. The suddenness of his proximity should scare you, but you don’t have the energy to be afraid anymore. “Unless you would like to stay longer,” he says. He smiles, teasing you gently. As though this is something you might find humor in. You watch him sink down to one knee. The folds of his gown gather in a puddle beneath him, dark like shadows. “I will not pretend to understand how you feel nor will I feed you sweet lies. Sacramental service is a punishment. The fledglings in my care have suffered greatly and they will likely inflict this suffering upon you. They do not know what else to do with it. You will be housed, fed and protected, and you will have your own quarters, but I know that means little to you now.”

You hear him but you aren’t really listening. Tears spill down your cheeks and you do nothing to stop them. You flinch when Athanasius lifts his hand, catching a droplet trickling by the corner of your mouth.

“There is a car waiting for us outside,” he says. “Can I trust you to cooperate, or will you make this difficult?”

“I’ll make this as difficult for you as I can,” you promise him. You hold his gaze no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. You don’t back down. “You won’t know peace. By the end of this, you’re going to hate me as much as I hate you.”

Athanasius laughs, melodic and clear as a bell. His hand traces the curve of your jaw, thumb stroking your lips. “How delightful,” he purrs, “that you think there will be an end to this.” He leans in, pressing his lips to your forehead. There is no gentle easing, no subtle nudge of mesmerism, just the maw of thoughtless oblivion swallowing you whole.

#rotpeach writes #meanvamps #this is pretty long and will also be posted on ao3 later tonight if youd rather read there

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