zenyattaiscute

[zenyattaiscute]

the stimmerrrrrr

[zenyattaiscute]

however long I stay --

(post-Realization Hector Valentino Airnesto Condicionado x non-binary plus size Reader)

summary: Hector, missing you terribly after a longer absence from your life than intended, shows up at a Goth Night event in hopes of seeing you. what follows is perhaps a more complex reunion than he intended.

warnings: major spoilers for Hector's game ending, some spoilers for several other dateables as well. discussions of loneliness and abandonment issues (author reader picked Nightmare's option for ending up alone).

general: 19k-ish. fluff, angst to comfort, some making out in an elevator but that's about it. casual discussions of life post-realization. reader is goth (obviously), non-binary and plus-sized. Hector is an old-school romantic with some slight delusions of grandeur, and maybe wishes he didn't have to share with the other dateables so much. no use of y/n, tried to keep petnames neutral as well as mentions of skin/hair.

you ever go to write about something cute for fun and then it turns into a whole exploration of your own emotional baggage, with some likely overwrought mythological allusions?

honestly this all started when I went to my own local goth night and thought Hector would have fun there, and then over a couple weeks it turned into... well! this! and here we are!!

I think of it as being the same Hector/Reader from rule 34, but you don't have to have read that one to read this one. I also consider this a sort of fix-it fic as someone who wants to be able to ask at least one of my faves to live with me after the game, but alas.

(also, to everyone who was kind enough to leave a comment on rule 34 -- I have seen them and read all of them over and over again bc they're the best mood booster in the world. I have restrained myself from printing them out and eating them. I'm sorry, I get overwhelmed when people say nice things, I really do intend to answer all of them at some point.)

okay, enough stalling on my part. off we go!

It was nights like these that Hector most wished he was back in the vents.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He loved his human body, which still felt like a new miracle every morning he woke up. Truly, it had felt like a divine gift ever since his first time with you, when you’d shown him just what flesh and blood could experience: the kind of heat that scalded him from the inside out and seared your name on his freshly minted heart.

Even now, with his own place and his own pursuits, art that he loved beyond anything he’d made as his old self, he could swear he still felt the scar tissue with every heartbeat. A part of him that would stay irrevocably tied to you.

Which was what had him standing outside of this club as the ride-share pulled away behind him, watching the pulsing lights from the windows and missing the dark safety of the ducts that had kept him hidden away from the world for so long.

He hadn’t gotten to see you in a month, now; the longest he’d ever gone since he’d first laid eyes on you between the slats in his grate. Sure, the two of you kept in touch: a smattering of texts back and forth in the evenings, a photo here and there when something reminded one of you of the other. But even that had gotten quieter as he’d gotten busier, until eventually, he’d begun feeling something like pressure at the bottom of his chest. As he became more caught up in his new human world, it grew with the time he spent away from you, until it was a constant, dull ache. Missing you was infinitely worse than when he’d watched you from afar, never thinking he’d get to actually talk to you. 

Because he’d known you, now. He’d known what it meant to have his devotion reciprocated. To go without you, even for as short a time as this, felt like going without the warmth of the sun. In his days as an HVAC, he’d justified this deprivation with the relative protection and privacy of the attic; how could he have you when he couldn’t bring himself to leave the safety of the darkness that shielded him? It seemed a fair enough trade, as much as it left him wanting.

But now he was only a man, without shelter or protection — without excuse. 

He knew what it sounded like when you called his name, when you laughed, when you sighed in exhaustion or contentment or longing.

He knew what you tasted like, and it haunted his dreams.

So here he was, on the threshold of... 

Goth Night at the local venue, of all things. Determined to face an entirely different kind of darkness, if it meant he got to see you again.

You’d gone to these semi-regularly for a while, before you started staying home more and more, then finally found employment with Valdivian and then the Dateviators. He’d always enjoyed watching you getting ready through the vent in your upstairs bathroom; observing your careful application of eyeliner and powders and a lipstick so dark, it made him run hot to imagine it smeared across his skin. He’d then follow you to where you’d stood in front of your vanity and tried on clothes made of mesh, of lace, of leather, until you found something that suited your mood — all either tight or sheer enough, it left little to his already very capable imagination. 

Whenever you departed the house on a cloud of fragrance, he’d lay in the attic for hours, daydreaming of being there with you. Of being brave and charming, even asking you to dance, until he could steal your night-colored kisses for himself.

And when you returned in the wee hours of the morning, glistening with sweat and smiling, then stripped it all off again to reveal the sweet, raw you he knew underneath - well. Those had been some of his longest and most productive nights of writing, among less… articulate forms of his admiration.

(He’d always envied his metamor Amir for being able to watch this process up close; he’d seen the man mooning over you more than once, practically pressed against his own glass from the understandable and overwhelming urge to reach only inches away and caress your skin. 

Should he be successful tonight, he was tempted by the petty urge to send his shinier counterpart a photo of the two of you together. Nothing revealing or intimate — he was too much a gentleman for that. Just himself enjoying the closeness the other had so longed for. It wasn’t particularly becoming of him, he acknowledged that. But what could he say? 

He was only human now, after all.)

To accomplish this dream, though, he would at some point have to actually go inside.

He’d tried to dress the part, simple as his attempt was. After a bit of texting with Skips, who had seemed delighted to be consulted, he’d ended up a long black trench coat over a dark dress shirt, with some pinstriped trousers that he’d bought and then immediately second-guessed with the heavy dark boots his more shadowy metamor had recommended. 

But he’d actually left the house with all components on, so he was already considering that a form of pre-victory tonight. 

He’d wanted the relative camouflage they could provide him here; he was a guest in the space, after all, he wanted to respect customs that weren’t his. But there was also a not-small part of him that wanted to see if he could imagine what you experienced in front of your own mirror. If swiping on the dark eyeliner - admittedly less gracefully than you, but it still counted - could give him some sacred insight into what you might be thinking. How you wanted to be perceived, to feel when the eyes of others eventually fell on you. 

He’d wondered if he could taste a fraction of the joy he’d always seen radiating from you when your outfit was complete.

Looking in his own mirror at home (still a strange experience, for multiple reasons), he’d been… decidedly less radiant to his own eyes. Granted, it was one of the rare times his chaotic dark hair seemed to be a boon, looking more purposeful and devil-may-care now than the ‘man lives in attic without comb’ vibe of his recent past. He had to admit he enjoyed the flowing feeling of the coat, both for its striking silhouette, and being able to hide the parts of him he was less certain about underneath it — not unlike his old thermo-regulating chassis, in a way. He’d definitely be trying to wear that out more often when he could get away with it, even if he combined it with some of the colors from outside the attic that he’d quickly come to love.

The shirt and pants felt too… close. Too revealing of the soft parts of himself that he was still learning to embrace outside the safety of metal. But they were also the parts of him you seemed to love, your hands frequently resting on his soft chest, stroking his stomach, even tracing down his thighs when the two of you were alone…

He tried to encourage himself by thinking that maybe you’d notice those parts of him more in these clothes. That maybe you’d be even more inclined to touch them, run your fingers over them with such care, when they were covered in what was obviously your favorite color.

The slightest metallic tang made him realize he’d bitten his lip at the thought. 

He still stood rooted to the spot, barely noticing the people passing him like a ghost to get inside. If he stayed in his head like this, he’d be out here all night.

A small part of him, the part that still felt like it was hiding in the ducts, pointed out that this might not be the worst strategy. You had to come out eventually when the night was over, after all. Then you’d find him right here, waiting for you, just like always. And wouldn’t that be a reassuring return to your past? Him here, stalwart and sure, your coming back to him as natural as the tides? (…Not that he’d seen those in person yet, but from what he’d read, anyway.)

But another part of him, one he considered firmly belonging to the outside world, chided the first for this cowardice. The whole point was that he came to see you of his own volition, wasn’t it? To admire you in motion, to be a real human man who could show up somewhere new, and surprise the person he loved most with an unexpected reunion.

If he wanted to be a ‘real human man,’ he had to act with intention. He had to make choices like one.

He did, in fact, have to show up despite his fears.

…Not to mention, if he kept standing out here, the other humans were inevitably going to get nervous. They didn’t seem to like it when someone just stood somewhere for too long, doing nothing else. But he supposed that’s what came from them not being anchored in one place most of their lives.

With a last deep breath, his hands still in his pockets, he forced himself to pass through the club’s glass double doors. The heft of the boots made him feel like he was wading through something rather than walking, and combined with the deep thuds from the speakers inside, he had the distinct impression that he was entering some sort of strange other world.

Oddly, he found himself recalling a library book he’d borrowed; one of his first, after you’d introduced him and your other lovers to that wonderful place as part of their early ‘How to Human’ lessons. He’d learned that thousands of years, humans had told each other stories: ‘myths,’ they called them. He’d found he quite liked those, tearing through whole books of them in attempt to catch up on the things he assumed most humans already knew intrinsically. 

One of many that stuck with him was of a lover who’d been suddenly parted from his beloved, and in his determination to right this injustice, he had traveled to a dark place where the living were forbidden to go, to retrieve them and restore them to their natural place at his side.

A night club was not nearly so treacherous as all that, he could admit. But as he crossed the threshold (after quickly paying the cover, like he’d practiced at home), he did feel a strange sort of kinship with that man from long ago.

Once inside, he defaulted to his instinct of quickly locating a clear spot on the edge of the room, slotting himself on a far side with his back to the wall amidst the packed and clustered bodies and the din of overlapping voices. One of the other things he missed most about the vents was the perspective — rooms seemed much smaller, so much more navigable, when he was seeing them all top-down. Sharing the same view with everyone else in the room had been a huge adjustment for him now that he was human; he hadn’t been omniscient in the vents by any means, but at least he could see the boundaries of almost any space.

And more importantly, its occupants.

Scanning the room from this new vantage point didn’t reveal you right away, which he hadn’t been expecting, but would’ve been a relief. Granted, he had gotten here exactly when the doors opened. You had explained to him in the others in the “How to Human” sessions that (cultural variations depending) lots of people didn’t show up to public events like these until after the prompt starting time. This was confusing to him for multiple reasons, but for the moment, it was soothing. It meant that maybe he’d gotten here before you. Maybe that would even add to the surprise — the romance of a chance encounter.

So long as you still wanted to see him, his self-doubt purred in his ear.

He had to restrain himself from shaking his head, as if he could physically shoo it away. You loved him as he loved you. You’d shown that to him well before he was human, and redoubled that as soon as he was. You were his fiercest champion for everything he had pursued in his new life: you’d helped him sign up for the art classes that led him to mask-making, you’d encouraged him to branch out into creating a business from it to support himself.

You’d even helped him find an apartment. You’d been the one to ask him if he wanted to try living on his own, just for the experience. And to be fair, he had. He’d promised himself that above all else, the one thing he was going to force himself to be as a human was brave. There would be no fear in making his decisions; he would no longer deny himself what he loved out of a misplaced sense of shame.

And for a while, it had been fun. A bit strange, without you and his attic neighbors, and it definitely took some getting used to. But he’d kept himself busy — learning, growing into the new world now at his fingertips.

If maybe he found himself missing you more than he thought, if he found the silence without even your breathing growing more and more intolerable… well. Wasn’t that just part of living alone? Didn’t that just make his visits all the sweeter, causing him to bask in your laughter and your voice like it was light incarnate?

But this last month in particular had been more trying than usual, and all for reasons he couldn’t explain. Nothing was wrong, per se: his apartment was fine and functional (even if he did still feel a little strange about having another HVAC do all the work). His business was thriving, especially since he’d just gotten booth space at the nearest renaissance faire for when he wasn’t at some of the local arts markets. He was having to spend most of his day in the studio to keep up with commissions, on top of just keeping his usual stock available. To be able to sit for hours in a near-trance, dedicated to his art was something he never would have dared hope for before he was Realized; not with his constant responsibility to the house. Now, though, he found talking with others was something that was much easier to do over his own work. The people at the booths on either side of his were friendly, even inviting him to get a bite with them when they had a mutual break. It was all going rather swimmingly. He was genuinely enjoying himself, his life.

…Which was what made the dull ache in his chest all the more noticeable when he was alone, especially at night. It was somewhere between a hunger and a wound, what he would almost call a chill around where his new human heart was busily thudding away. It was most active when he was lying in his bed (also still a new and wonderful feeling, despite said ache). He noticed he had a tendency to sleep to one side of his mattress, gazing at the spot you’d occupied when you’d helped him pick it out at the store.

Though he hadn’t gotten to share a bed with you often, he couldn’t help the overwhelming sensation that you should be there with him. Even if you were peacefully dozing in a dream of your own, the ability to watch you up close (rather than from his vantage in the vents) was something he still felt a strange longing for.

He wasn’t sick, he knew that;  he’d gone so far as to see Farya for it at the local medical center, wondering if his new body was failing him already. But no, after many (many) tests, she was almost disgusted to announce that he was perfectly physically healthy.

“Whatever’s wrong with you, Hector, it’s not anything I can help with,” she’d said, frowning as she helped him take several electrodes off his chest. “…Yet, anyway. I haven’t reached the psych portion of my residency, but maybe then—”

He’d only managed to get away after several professions of his thanks and promising her that if he was still feeling this way in about a year or so, she’d be his first stop.

But in truth, the idea of having to sit with this feeling for any longer than he had to was genuinely unnerving. Between the loss of his vents, his cold-smooth exterior, and now your prolonged absence, he couldn’t help but wonder if his heart was feeling some sort of… draft. If layer by layer of his very self was being peeled away for his new existence, until eventually, his heart would just be a raw, wet thing on the concrete for passing strangers to prod or step on or—

He forced himself to blink, to interrupt this chain of thought. That was spiraling; it would serve nothing. Especially not now, in this new place, when he needed to find you.

His body might never be metal again, he might never return to the attic, but he could still feel at home at your side. He knew that in his bones, fresh as they were.

Desperate for any sort of distraction, he at last drank in the room for things that caught the attention of his senses — again, another early lesson from ‘How to Human.’ He couldn’t remember the ratio of things he could see to feel to the rest of them, but there was no shortage of things to take in now.

The room, for one, was bathed in a fascinating red light, with spotlights that occasionally glided across the floor to the music positively thudding from the huge speakers positioned on some sort of low stage. Some of the snatches of songs he’d caught thus far had sounded familiar from your room, Phoenicia playing them as loud as you wanted while you got ready for your nights out. Outside the warm familiarity of the house, though, some of them were a bit much for his taste — especially when the speakers threatened to overtake his own heartbeat, replacing the still-novel rhythm in his chest with what felt like a foreign body. ‘Industrial,’ he distantly remembered you calling them once. Some of the assembled goths seemed to like those the most, though, storming the floor with even stompier boots than his and doing something aggressive that he guessed kind of looked like dancing… from a distance. 

Honestly, it was a spectacle in itself to watch the various dressed subgroups within the dark and teeming whole sweeping on and off the floor to different kinds of songs, a masquerade unto themselves. If he wasn’t here on a mission, this would have made for a perfect study of fabric, texture, and movement. As brazen as he’d felt when he’d walked in, many of their outfits put his to downright shame. 

He watched the playful sheen of slick PVC, reminding him of limbs dripping in oil; he observed how leather clung like a second skin, the real skin underneath it glistening and flushed in the heat of so many bodies together; he saw the way gauze and taffeta and lace added chiaroscuro to bodies under the frenetic spotlights. The sheer amount of metal - chains, studs, grommets, safety pins heaped on safety pins - reminded him of his own shed mechanics. He had been so eager to abandon his own cold impenetrability, but here were so many warm-bodied humans striving to adopt it for themselves. He was so curious what they wanted from the other side; if there was something they admired about the unyielding shapes, or if the contrast of sharp and hard against their own skin reminded them just how breakable they were. 

How beautiful it was to be so… fragile. So vulnerable and exposed, and still out and about in a world that could bruise that flesh so easily.

He wondered if the dancing shadows in front of him ever realized how lucky they were, to already exist in delicate machines made of muscle and blood and bone.

But wasn’t that why so many of them liked the masks he made? Because indeed, they knew just how terrifying it was to have the tender parts of yourself on constant display? To have a mask took the pressure off — off the viewer to like what they saw right away, off the wearer to make sure that twitching bundle of nerves and impulses performed the right thing at the right time. It was a vessel, but also a shield. Bought time. A precious centimeter of space between how you really felt and the rest of the world.

The makeup on the faces all around him, if anything, reminded him of masks with less material.  More bare, but no less constructed. Eye-sockets hollowed out with deepest black and bruising purples and reds, cheeks made hollow with grays and mauves and taupes. He’d felt so daring in his thick lines of black under his eyes, but he realized now just how much he’d left undone. He hadn’t thought to cover his skin in a stark neutral, painting himself like a statue of porcelain or bronze. He found himself admiring the flashes of silver he saw in the corners of eyes, the stripes of gold blended down noses and into cheekbones. If he came out again - when he came out again, remembering his promise to be brave - he would have to get so much more creative with his face.

And lips, so many lips, every shape and size in a dazzling array of burgundy and greens and blues — every shade one could imagine, so long as it could be found under the moon.

His hands were itching in his pockets, restless. He should’ve brought a pen, something to draw on, anything that could have helped him capture this. Here he was standing still in a room positively spinning with fresh ideas, with faces for recreating in new material, and all he could do was watch.

He was so enchanted with watching them all that he almost missed you entirely, only realizing just who he was staring at when his heart seized abruptly upon recognizing your profile.

You were also off to the side, not quite in the crowd but also not totally separate from it. You were leaning against a table set into the wall next to the bar, swirling some sort of dark drink in your hand, your nails glinting like chips of obsidian against the plastic cup. (A drink, of course! Why hadn’t he thought of getting one? He’d have to remember that for next time, if he was brave enough to do this again.) Your eyes were half-lidded and somehow regal as you watched the crowd with an interest not unlike his own. But what were you looking for, he wondered?

He honestly meant to follow your gaze, to see what held your attention so, but he was so… taken with what he saw. He hadn’t seen this outfit before, something skin-tight that hugged the landscape of your curves, but still completely opaque, putting emphasis on the bare skin of your shoulders and arms. (He adored your shoulders, strong but smooth under his hands, and the skin there just so delicious to kiss or bite— he had to stop himself there, lest he lose his head entirely.) Your eyes were rimmed in a black that mirrored his own, but on you it looked so powerful, so certain. You knew it belonged there; your marks were delicate but deliberate, whereas he had just been hoping not to poke himself in the eye.

And your lips… he had seen black lipstick on his attic neighbors, Sophia and Memoria, and found it interesting. He’d seen it on you before, from a distance, and found it lovely. But on you now, it looked divine - in the original sense, like a cosmic phenomenon. Like they were always meant to be the color of space, of night and shadow. 

You looked like you could describe the very hour and manner of his death to him, and he would take every syllable like a sacrament. On his knees and waiting, even ready, for his end.

He was, for once, grateful for the circumstances of your first meeting. Since being Realized, he had begun to wonder if it somehow… not illegitimized his relationship with you, but lessened it.  Of course he had fallen in love with you - how could anyone not? - but he had no past to speak of, besides just being lucky enough to be in your house. He had no life from before to bring to you and lay at your feet. He was just… himself, and all the neuroses that entailed. What you saw in that, what you claimed to love, he still had trouble accepting. He only felt more aware of it now, out in the human world and vividly aware of how much history and art there was to know that he might never catch up on. How many stories humans his age had about themselves; how many different versions of their identity they might have put on and taken off in the time it takes to live a life. He had only ever been himself, maybe a little braver here or there, until Realization.

But right now, he could only think how endlessly glad he was that he’d seen you before he was human, spending years getting to see you in all your aspects: open and soft from sleep, fresh and flushed from the shower, raw and unadorned in the comfort of your solitude. The real you, one that few were privileged to see.

If he had only ever met this version of you first, he knew he would’ve never been brave enough to introduce himself, much less approach you. That would have been akin to approaching a deity on their sacred ground, with only himself as the meager offering. Whatever affinity or identity he might have cultivated in learning reading about gods of the Winds, their roles as messengers and guides across cultures, it would have done him no good in the face of your sheer intensity.

What interest the rest of the gathered crowd had held for him before was entirely eclipsed. Your presence had become the defining feature of this room, a dark sun whose orbit was already pulling insistently at his feet. 

Was this how you saw yourself on the inside? Was this how you wanted others to see you?

You were beautiful, to be certain. You always were, but especially now, with so much care and intention put into every aspect of your presentation. His hands flexed at his sides, finally out of his pockets. He swore his palms burned with the urge to walk up and touch you, to reunite with the skin they missed so, but every inch of you looked like a warning. ‘Look, but touch at your peril.’ It was breathtaking, but it was so… opposite, of how he knew you.

The you he’d woken up next to on his first full day as a human with the hazy eyes, the swollen lips, and the mussed hair. The you in your red shirt that had wandered up to the attic, taking him in at that fateful meeting with a slight tilt of your head and a warm smile. Despite the fact he’d never shown himself before, your expression had filled him with a sense of being recognized. Your eyes spoke without you saying a word: ‘Oh, of course, there you are.’

When you’d called him beautiful for the first time, it had sounded like ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’

Seeing you like this - in person, not like a distant star from the safety of his vents - filled him at once with a longing and a worry. Had it been too long? What if your heart had closed to him now? What if he wasn’t what you remembered? What if you weren’t what he remembered?

Before he could think to move, you tossed the now-empty cup in the trash, sizing up whatever was in front of you apprehensively. He about snapped his own neck following your stare, a chill of dread building, but found… nothing. There was no siren in black holding your gaze, no smoldering ‘come hither’ look from a stranger. No one but him appeared to be looking at you, too engrossed in their own conversations. (Their loss, he thought, but he was still grateful.)

So what were you, his beloved, so worried about?

With your dark lips pressed together, you seemed to be making a decision. For a moment, your gaze flickered back towards the opposite side of the room, almost longingly…

Towards… the doors?

He frowned, looking over his shoulder to confirm this, then back to you. That couldn’t be right. You couldn’t possibly be… anxious? Not you, not his angel. You always looked so happy and content when you came home from these, he’d seen it himself.

Was something wrong? Were you not well?

Tentatively, he saw you step towards something… then pause, as if thinking better, and turn quickly back towards the bar. You found a gap, smiling to catch the attention of a stranger behind the counter, and leaned across to mouth something he couldn’t hear over the current song winding down. The bartender poured you a shot and slid it to you, and you grinned, thanking them before throwing the whole thing down your throat with a fluid gesture. (He made a quiet note to practice that at some point, too. He’d never been one for the Breaker Box, but he knew you had, and if it was something you could do, he could at least try.)

As you turned away from the bar again, you exhaled through pursed lips, your expression grimly determined. Again, he checked the general area you seemed to be looking at, flummoxed; what had you of all people so nervous? You had been human longer than anyone he’d ever met. You’d taught him how to be human. Was there some harder level of human-ing he was unaware of? Did you regularly encounter that part here, at Goth Night? Was that what parties were like outside of the house, and he’d just had no idea?

He watched you as if entranced, his eyes tracing the way you stood up straight with your shoulders back. How you set your face so it was a mask unto itself, aloof and noble. How you strode forward towards the stage as though you commanded all the powers of the night, and upon finding the predestined spot —

You planted yourself and began, gently, to sway to the rhythm of the newest song.

Oh.

Oh.

Hector covered his mouth with one hand, the knowledge flooding his chest like a blast of the heated air he used to channel. 

You were shy. About dancing. In front of people.

You, the love at the center of his being, who had made interfacing with this new world seem so effortless if one were just brave enough to try… 

You were still anxious around the other humans, too.

Indeed, you kept your eyes closed as you moved to this song with the odd plucking strings, one that reminded him of the aural equivalent of a spider’s web. You kept yourself contained to one spot, maybe moving a step or so to either side at most, but the majority of your motion was reserved for the enticing rock of your hips and the delicate tension of your spine. The rare moments when you did open your eyes, you kept them down on your shoes, as if minding some boundary he couldn’t yet see. A splayed hand moved upwards occasionally, a feather possessed by some errant breeze, but for the most part you were a self-contained storm. As though it was you and the music, alone in the room.

He was grinning behind his hand, his face nearly aching with it. How could you, of all people, be shy? Could you not see how charming you were in your earnestness? How graceful, even in your brief moments of uncertainty? You, who had been adored by so many in your house, who had been his truest love his whole life — you still couldn’t believe in your own right to be there and take up space? Even after reassuring him of his own so vehemently, and passionately supporting every other fledgling human who had left your side for the bigger world?

He thought his heart might catch fire with the way it burned for you right now. He had never believed it possible to love you more, and yet here, for the first time… he had never felt closer to you. To think that this, of all things, was something you both still had in common in his new humanity. This urge to turn inward, even in a room full of people who felt just as part of the dark as you did.

To wonder if there was something still… wrong, with just you.

Whereas walking into the building had felt like wading through something heavy, crossing the floor to you felt like he was walking on air. 

He couldn’t bear to let you be alone for even another moment.

When he paused at the edge of your space, you had turned, putting your back to him without realizing. He watched you for a second, taking in the way you moved, how the figure he’d missed in his very sleep shifted hypnotically under the dark clothes. He bit his lip as he decided how best to get your attention - just a spoken greeting? To simply join you, until you noticed? (No, no, he still wasn’t quite there yet.)

At last, after an eon crammed into a minute, he very gently tapped your shoulder with two of his fingers.

The contact of his skin on yours, brief as it was, was like an electric shock straight to his heart.

You froze abruptly in place, then stepped back and turned towards him with a question already in your eyes, your lips parted at the beginning of confusion —

And when your eyes found his, it felt like coming home.

“Hello, my beauty.” His smile was as soft as his words.

For as long as he lived, he thought he would remember how your eyes lit up and widened, the disbelieving grin that bloomed on your face. “Hector?” 

Your voice was ever-so-slightly breathless in a way that made his chest ache.

Before he could say more, you positively flung yourself upwards, seizing him in a fierce hug that nearly took him off his feet. “Oh my god, Hector! Love! You’re actually here!”

He returned the hug just as fiercely, kissing the top of your head before leaning down to hide his face in your shoulder. The scent of your skin, soap and perfume and the trace of sweat from the room, was what he imagined heaven smelled like. 

“Hello,” he repeated there, hoping his voice didn’t break and give him away. “Hello, my love.”

“What’re you doing here? No, wait, let me look at you!” You grabbed his hands before you pulled away, as if worried he would disappear if you lost contact with his skin. 

He squeezed yours back, feeling himself straightening up with a strange sort of pride as you looked him over. “How’d I do?”

“Fantastic! Oh, sweetheart, you look amazing! You look absolutely… hot,” you admitted, and he could practically feel the heat in your cheeks as his own flushed. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Like… really hot. You can pull this whole look off quite well.” 

You looked up at him then, your smile silly and smitten, and his heart leapt in recognition of its own. There you were, his You, under all the makeup and shadow.

“You think so?” He raised an eyebrow, your hands idly swinging together between the two of you like children’s on a playground. “Even the eyeliner?”

You blinked, and he saw your breath visibly catch in your chest as you seemed to notice his makeup for the first time. “Oh.” Your voice was barely loud enough for him to hear it over the music, but the way you nodded said everything. 

He wondered, suddenly very distracted himself, if you even realized that you were biting your lower lip like that.

“Yes. Especially the eyeliner,” you said at last, meeting his gaze again. “That… I mean, you already had exquisite eyelashes,” you added, making his face heat even more. “But with this, too? God, it’s not even fair.” You rolled your eyes playfully, your smile causing his skin to break out in goosebumps (something he still wasn’t used to). “You look gorgeous, love.” 

Gorgeous. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to such a word, let alone applied to him. But if it made you say it, he was seriously considering wearing eyeliner every day for the rest of his life. What was a couple eye pokes per day to being called gorgeous by one such as yourself? And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t stop poking himself eventually, right?

You tugged on his hands until you were chest to chest again, your arms wrapping around his waist and leaning up so you could talk over the music. “If I’d known you were into this scene, I would’ve invited you to just come with me, baby,” you spoke into his ear. “But I thought you’d been pretty busy lately!”

His heart sank at that. Had he seemed too busy for even you? The person his world revolved around? “Well…” He held you, trying to figure out how to explain himself. He wondered if suddenly this was too much. Too overt of a bid for your attention.

“…I’m still… pretty new at this,” he said at last. He pushed some of your hair away so he could speak into your ear as well. “It’s, uh. My first time here, actually.”

You leaned back to look at his face, your grip shifting to his shoulders as though scared of losing him. He leaned with you, his hands bracing against your spine.

You took him in, your nose wrinkling in that adorable way you had when you were trying to suss something out. “Wait, really?” You looked him over for a second more before meeting his gaze again. “I mean, that’s great! I’m really glad to see you here.” You beamed again, and his heart threatened to melt. “I’d be happy to loan you some of my CDs and stuff to help you figure out what all you like, maybe pick out some favorite groups for next time! Or - wait, have we gone over what CDs are yet?” Your head tilted as you tried to remember.

“I think Jerry had some,” he said absently. Jerry kept lots of useless things, and you still loved him for it, which puzzled Hector immensely but only endeared you to him even more. “But it’s - it’s not so much about that, amor.”

“Oh yeah?” You were curious as you took him in yet again, still clearly a touch confused. “Just felt like trying something new?”

Did you really not realize? How could it not be obvious?

He searched your face, trying to figure out if you were kidding, before at last feeling the pressing need to make himself clear. “…I’m here for you, my love.”

You blinked, a softer echo of your earlier surprise at seeing him. “…What?”

“For you,” he repeated, worried you couldn’t hear him over your proximity to the speakers. “Because I - I needed to see you.” He had to swallow. “I’ve missed you.”

His hands tightened against your back, and he had to will himself not to abruptly clutch you against him again. He didn’t want this to be too heavy, he didn’t want to ruin your night. But the ache in his chest was back and throbbing, threatening to take him to his knees.

The way you looked at him then threatened the same:  the faint wrinkling of your brow, as if in disbelief. “…Wait, really?” You looked him up and down, as if this contextualized him in a different light entirely. “You… you dressed up for me?”

His stomach dropped. Had he done the wrong thing? Was this, in fact, too much? The two of you had been writing outright erotica about each other in the house, whole novels of it — what was a simple outfit compared to that? Or was there some sort of human taboo about clothes he hadn’t discovered yet, that he was about to crash into with his own melted wings?

“…Yes,” he said slowly, trying to understand just what you didn’t see.

You blinked yet again, and for an instant, he thought — but no. Could that really have been a glimmer of liquid, at the corners of your eyes? Here? “Because you missed me?” you repeated, as if this was somehow inconceivable.

“Of course I missed you! I love you.” Hector was truly frowning now, looking down at you with concern. “My heart, are you feeling alright?” He looked subtly from you to the bar and back again; just how much had you had to drink tonight? How could this not be an obvious gesture from him, of all people?

But then you took his face in your hands, and closed the scant few inches between you to kiss him fully.

It was gentle, and surprisingly chaste for the two of you. But to Hector, it was everything. 

He was reminded of the ill fated post-Realization swimming lessons with some of the others at the community pool, and the almost painful relief that came with finally forcing his head back above the water after far too long underneath it. You had been there then, too, holding onto him with your soft reassurances and your praise for trying, helping pull him back to the steps on the shallow side with the promise that he could always try again later.

Kissing you felt like inhaling fresh air for the first time in a month, and in that instant, he swore to himself he would never go this long without it again. No matter what it took, it would be worth it. He couldn’t imagine a future without this - he didn’t want to.

When at last you broke apart, you kept your hands in place, searching his face. There was something in your gaze he couldn’t place, but on some primal level, some part of him was… almost alarmed by it.

Like if he hadn’t had his arms around you, you might had disappeared into thin air.

Then you swiped gently at his lips with one of your thumbs, and he blinked, even more puzzled.

Noticing this, you gave him a small smile. “Sorry. Lipstick,” you said by way of explanation, pointing to your own mouth, which itself still looked gloriously dark. “Has a habit of transferring.”

He only nodded, this inconsequential to him. He would’ve proudly worn every trace of the color from your lips if it meant you’d keep kissing him. 

"You're perfect, Hector." You smiled, something still dreamy and distant to it that he couldn’t totally attribute to the alcohol. “Thank you. For coming here.”

Did it… did your smile just quaver? Was he imagining things?

He reached up, gently taking one of your hands from his face and holding it in his own. He called your name over the music, looking at you intently, which in turn seemed to snap your eyes into a sharper focus. “Really — are you okay?” Something felt… odd. He couldn’t articulate precisely what this feeling in his gut was, but it almost felt like some part of you was playing in a minor key. A little faded, compared to what he’d expected.

He tried to mask his own anxiety as his thoughts raced behind his eyes: had your feelings changed after all? So soon? That would be so… unlike the you he knew. But if there was something he hadn’t realized about how human life worked - and there was so much he knew he didn’t know - then maybe —

But then the song changed to something that made the entire crowd look up with vocalizations of recognition, or even joy. This song was still fast, beginning with a strumming of jangling strings, but something about it was different than the ones that had passed — something lingering rather longingly in the background.

“Oh, I love this song.” Your eyes glittered as they moved to the DJ, and when you looked back at him, it was with that smile he adored. “Dance with me, please?”

Hector had to fight not to freeze as his heart raced. Here it was, the moment he’d always dreamed of.

And here you were, just like he’d hoped.

“Of course,” he said, with only minimal hesitation on his part.

You pulled him further into the crowd, and he only just managed not to give into his urge to try to steer you back closer to the edge. But once you found some space, you wrapped your arms around his neck, looking back to him with the same reassuring gleam in your eyes you had whenever he tried something new for you.

“We don’t have to do a lot.” Your lips brushed his ear again when you spoke into it. “Just… be here with me, okay?”

He nodded. “Anything.” He moved so you could see his eyes. “Anything you want, my love.”

There it was again, that edge of sadness to your smile. What was this? What was happening?

But then you began to sway against him, and he followed you, his arms finding their way home around your waist.

Once he got accustomed to this, you expanded a little: the two of you spun together with the beat, his feet following yours as you moved. He did his best not to think about it, not wanting to overcomplicate it in his own head and ruin whatever spell was happening here. 

It was a song the whole room seemed to know by heart. When he wasn’t fixated on your eyes, or the way you mouthed the words under the red lights, he could catch snippets of the crowd singing unevenly along to the chorus:

“However far away,

I will always love you —

However long I stay,

I will always love you —“

Yes, his heart leapt in his chest. This was exactly right. This was everything he was dying to say to you. Everything you must know, that he would remind you of again and again until he entirely erased whatever doubts had crept in with his absence.

You laughed, not at him but at the simple joy of movement, and he found himself at last able to relax. He even let you go long enough to let you spin away, until your joined hands pulled taut and he could spin you back against his chest.

He caught you and held you there, brave enough for a moment to dip you parallel to the floor. You grinned, giddy, and when he pulled you upright again, you didn’t hesitate to kiss him once more.

When you broke it to catch your breath, he wrapped one hand around the back of your neck - one of his favorite spots on you - and pressed his forehead to yours.

“I will always love you,” he insisted softly. “I do.”

You stayed still, leaning just as solidly against him with your eyes closed as your hands found his chest. He couldn’t tell if they were trembling, or if that was just his heart threatening to hammer through his skin.

Then the last notes of the song echoed off the walls, and you opened your eyes again. “I have so much I want to tell you.” Your voice was low enough for him alone to hear. “I know it’s early yet, but - come with me, Hector?”

He pushed any internal protest aside. If this is what you needed, this is what he would give. “Of course, mi vida.”

He walked with you briefly back to the bar so you could do something called ‘close your tab’ (he thought you’d covered this process once before, but he’d clearly have to ask for a reminder later), then with you out into the night. You kept your arms wound through one of his, like in the old-fashioned black and white romances the two of you had watched together before he’d moved out, and the idea made him stand up a little straighter.

He thought he saw you smile out of the corner of his eye, but if it was because of that, you didn’t say.

When you both got outside, the chill in the air was almost refreshing. He hadn’t realized just how warm it had been in there, packed in with all those other humans and their beating hearts.

The two of you headed towards the sidewalk, away from the curb outside the club. “So, do you want to call a car, or should I?” He was proud to be the one to ask first, feeling very prepared, very normal for a human. “I can’t imagine you drove yourself.” No, you knew better, and you had been very clear with him and the others just how much those huge metal death machines did not mix with any sort of alcohol—

“Actually, I walked,” you said.

Hector nearly missed his footing, balking. “From- from the house?” He looked down at you, perplexed, then snuck another glance at your boots. Those weren’t too much taller than your usual pair, but really, the sidewalks were so uneven here, and your ankles were so delicate to him —

“Um. …About that.” You paused in place under a streetlamp, squeezing his arm to signal him to do the same. He felt your ribs expanding and pressing against him slightly as you inhaled slowly, as though preparing yourself for something, before you looked at him directly. 

“I… moved,” you said, with obvious hesitation.

If you had been acting strange before, this was strangest of all. Hector reluctantly pulled himself from your grip so he could face you fully, his mind reeling. “You… moved?” He nearly perfectly replicated your pause, but not on purpose - the world as he knew it was suddenly turned on its axis. 

There were three constants in his human life, there always had been: his art in all its forms. You. And the house.

And now suddenly one was just… gone? Forever?

“You moved from the house,” he repeated, the words feeling strange in his mouth. “From- from our house?”

You nodded, your lips pressed together. “Not without thinking it over extensively, first,” you said at last. Your eyes found his again, and yet again, he found himself trying desperately to read them. “And not without consideration for everyone else, I promise you.”

“I…” Hector felt like his brow might never un-knit itself. “Why?” Then he paused, realizing how that sounded. “I’m sorry,” he corrected immediately. “I’m sure - I’m sure you did think about it. You don’t just up and… and Do Things without planning, I know that. I know you.” He nodded a bit too fast, wanting this to be true, to be on your side despite not at all understanding. “So what - if you don’t mind. If I can ask,” he added hurriedly. “What - what made you, um. When did you —”

“You can ask, Hector, it’s okay.” Your tone was familiar, honey-soft.  You took his hand in yours again, squeezing it gently like you always did when he was starting to get overwhelmed. For a moment, the two of you could have been back at that very house again, talking through the intricacies of another one of his many What-Ifs. “You know you’re always allowed to ask me questions.”

That had always been the number one rule of ‘How to Human’: if someone didn’t know something, they had to ask. Even if it felt like it should be obvious, or they felt ridiculous doing so. Better to not know and learn than never know and need it.

And god, did he need to know now.

“…When?” he blurted. “To where? And just - why?” He knew he was repeating himself, but really, he didn’t know how else to ask.

You took another deep breath, keeping his hand firmly in your own and giving it another little squeeze  - he wondered, distantly, if this was about soothing yourself as much as it was him. 

“This past month,” you said. “I was planning on telling you - on telling everyone, honest.” Your caught your lower lip slightly in your teeth, your eyes wandering to the side like they always did when you were anxious. “But… There just never seemed to be a good… time, to let people know. Not without interrupting people’s plans.” You shrugged one shoulder, half-hearted. “And I just - I needed a change.”

“Was something wrong?” Hector had lived in that house for decades; for all its faults, the place was solid, well-constructed for its time. He couldn’t imagine it coming apart on you, not now.

But you laughed, short and dry, drawing him out of that line of thought. “I mean… not physically.” You gestured loosely, as if searching for the words. “The place is still standing, if that’s what you mean. It hasn’t sold yet, either; I haven’t really been ready to find a realtor. I haven’t had the heart, I guess. I mean, I suppose I could always use Volt and Eddie, but. I wondered if that would be… I don’t know, weird, given the circumstances.”

“So the house itself is fine?” Hector was scrambling, trying to puzzle this out. What could have made you leave the home you’d shared for so long? The place where he’d fallen in love with you?

“Yeah. It’s exactly as everyone left it.” There was something unreadable in your eyes again, and it made his stomach twist. “Perfect working order, give or take some old switches.”

“Then what - what happened?” He squeezed your hand gently in his own, tilting his head to try to get you to meet his eyes again. This wasn’t like you. You didn’t just make big changes and not tell people. 

Not tell him.

“It was too big for just me.” You kept your own eyes stubbornly on your boots, but your hand never left his.

Hector shook his head. “But it’s always been that size. You’ve lived there for years before now, something had to have changed —”

You looked up at last, your face holding that slight undercurrent of sadness he’d seen inside. “I decided that… I wanted my own fresh start. I mean.” You threw up your free hand in something that wasn’t quite exasperation, but came close. “Everyone else moved out, you know? So I figured, ‘why not?’ Might as well try something new for myself, right?” You attempted a chuckle, but something about it didn’t quite reach your eyes.

Hector hesitated. You weren’t wrong. Everyone had, upon realization, left to seek their own way in the world. Some of them had taken longer than others, but eventually, they’d all made it out.

“…You needed a change,” he repeated, watching your face to see if anything would shift again when you heard the words from his lips instead of your own.

“Yeah. I did.” You nodded, biting your lip before you looked at him again. “Would you believe it was just too quiet?” There was a wryness here, a glimmer of your old self in it, and he felt himself exhale a little.

“…Yes.” He nodded at first just to mirror you, but the longer he thought about it, the more it did actually make sense. “Yes, I suppose it would be. Very quiet.”

He was suddenly struck with a pang of guilt. He’d been so caught up in establishing himself, in making sure he made you proud, that he made himself proud with this miracle… he hadn’t truly considered what it must have been like there, after everyone left.

He hadn’t ever asked you if you minded staying there, in that house with a hundred or so less people in it. If you had wanted something else for yourself. It had just been in his mind that, you being the sun by which he numbered his days, some part of you was just as bound to the house as he had once been. That even if everyone else was gone, there would still be you, in your constancy and steadfastness. The one he and so many others adored.

As if you’d read his mind, you shrugged, squeezing his hand again. “It’s fine.” There was that smile again that didn’t quite make it, like a ghost of what it should be. “I figure once it’s about to sell, I’ll tell everyone so whoever wants to can go back and say goodbye. Not that it’s required - no one has to, if they don’t want to.” You hurried to shrug yet again, as if this was all just so laissez faire. “I don’t blame anyone who has… other stuff going on.” You broke eye contact again, looking down at the sidewalk, over at the street, anywhere else. “People are busy. That’s normal.”

Hector’s heart sank a little more, his own absence beginning to loom larger in his mind than it had before. “I’m sure everyone would want to come see you, at least.” He squeezed your hand before gently nudging your hip with his own. “To celebrate your fresh start, like you celebrated ours with us.”

When you looked up this time, there was a false brightness to your expression. “I mean, if they have time.” You waved a hand airily. “I know everyone’s schedule is swamped, you know? If they make it out, then of course I’d love that. I’ve missed everyone — I’ve missed you, especially.” Your smile softened into your real one for just an instant… but then you looked away again, as though you couldn’t bear to keep eye contact. “But if not, I’d completely understand.” You added that last part too quickly, as though covering how sincerely you’d meant the first. “It’s no big deal, really.”

They don’t believe you, Hector’s self-doubt purred, rearing its ugly head yet again.

And what was even worse was that it was right.

For a split second, he almost desperately wished he could crawl down a storm drain just for the sake of being somewhere small and close, somewhere hidden away, where he could just think and figure out how to make this better.

“I - of course it’s a big deal.” He shook his head, disbelieving. “It’s… it’s you. You are a big deal to us. To me.” He lifted the back of your hand to his lips, kissing it like it was fragile, and you at last looked at him again — with a small twinge of surprise that caused his gut to twist even more. “We might all be busy to some degree, my love, but we still love you. I still love you.” He ran his thumb over your knuckles, as if trying to spell this out on your skin. “…Most ardently,” he added, almost under his breath.

Something shifted behind your eyes again, like back at the dance floor. As though you were trying to make a decision again, sizing something up.

He wanted to fall to his knees in front of you, to squeeze your shoulders and beg you to dispose of these niceties. Something was wrong! He could see it; you could tell him anything! He was yours, he would only ever be yours, how did you not think he wouldn’t do anything in his power to fix it?

Then you laughed softly — something that was too shaky not to be real, but still didn’t feel right. “Oh, Hector.” With your free hand, you cupped the side of his face, but your eyes were still ever-so-slightly veiled… like you were holding something back. “You’re always too good to be true, you know that?” 

You kissed the corner of his mouth before he could protest, wondering what you meant by that, before re-intertwining your fingers. 

“So I… haven’t shown my new place to anyone yet,” you sounded like you were confessing something, your smile sheepish. “But do you still want to come over, even if it’s not what you were expecting?”

“Yes.” He nodded immediately, re-squeezing your hand in his. “Yes. Absolutely. I’d be honored, even.” 

“Don’t get too excited; it’s just an apartment.”You gently nudged his hip with your own - a gesture that had become something affectionate between you two since his discovery of his curves. "It’s probably going to feel pretty small compared to the old place.” You tugged on his hand, leading him again down the sidewalk you’d started on before.

“It doesn’t matter.” Hector took your arm in his once more as you resumed your walk, his heart skipping a beat when you wound your other one through as well. “It could be a destitute shack, but as long as it was yours, I'd still consider it an honor to be invited.”

“Okay, hold on, it’s at least better than a shack—”

“You’re being very specific about my level of enthusiasm, beloved.”

“I’m trying to give you realistic expectations, here!”

The two of you fell into your familiar banter as you walked, and it was almost like old times. There was, unbecoming but true, a sharp twinge of sly pride in the idea that he would see your new place first. That you would share it with him before any of the others. 

He knew realistically that he had no more claim to your heart than they did, but he had loved you for so long. He had been the first person in the house to confess his own feelings for you, and the first person to hear your confession in turn. He’d been the last to be Realized other than Skylar, spending as much time at your side as he could steal before beginning on his own path. Sure, there were others, and many of them he’d even call friends. But he’d always been with you, and always called himself yours.

To put a storybook spin on it, he thought of his metamors as fellow knights under your banner. Siblings-in-arms for your happiness. There was camaraderie in it, to be sure. Anyone who brought you joy could only be a boon, and he would forever welcome them with open arms to the round table of your love.

But secretly, he would always consider himself your herald, and the bearer of the rose that was your favor.

Call him jealous, even greedy, but you were beyond precious to him. If that meant he held you slightly tighter or closer when he finally had you to himself, or felt a little smug when you sought him out for something special like this… well. He’d admit to it, but he’d never say he felt guilty.

He lifted your hand to kiss your knuckles at the thought, almost missing when you stopped in front of somewhere until you - as gently as possible - brought him up short.

"This is me." You lifted your chin towards the stoop, somehow still shy but with an unmistakeable note of pride in your voice. 

"Oh!" It felt like you had only been walking for a few minutes. "You weren't kidding. That wasn't far at all." He leaned back somewhat, taking in the brick building - older, but still in decent shape. Suitable for you, in his esteem.

"I was going for something a little more downtown than our last place, you know? More walkable." You brought his knuckles to your lips in turn, lingering with them there just long enough for him to forget to breathe. "...Shall we?"

"Yes," he said immediately, that breathlessness apparent. He flushed as you giggled, then led him eagerly by the hand up the concrete ramp towards the front door.

From there he followed you into a dimly lit awkward structure that was trying to be both a hallway and a foyer, where you hit the call button on a somewhat dubious-looking elevator. "We could just as easily take the stairs," you said, leaning slightly against the wall. "But, y'know... these boots and all." But there was something in the way you looked him up and down, the corner of your mouth lifting into a smirk, that made him think it had nothing to do with anyone's boots whatsoever.

Indeed, when the elevator doors opened with a discordant attempt at a chime (the speaker somehow sounding like it was under water), you carefully made sure no other passengers were present before you grabbed the lapels of Hector's jacket and pulled him on with you.

He found himself abruptly flush to your front, his hands coming to rest on either side of your shoulders against the elevator wall in attempt to steady himself. Your eyes as you looked up at him were wide and searching, but your hands continued to stay somewhat twisted in his clothes. 

When you pressed a slow kiss to the corner of his mouth, as if testing the waters, the ache in his chest from the last month opened its maw with a renewed hunger.

What followed was, to Hector's admittedly brief knowledge, not considered elevator-appropriate behavior. Definitely not the way one of his hands moved to your hip, then down covetously over your clothed plush thigh, as his lips moved over your skin towards your ear and then down your jaw. Your hands were sliding down his chest, your nails catching lightly at the fabric of his shirt, and when you tilted your head back to grant him access to your throat, he took it gladly.

For an instant, this was a selfish fantasy of his from back in the attic. He could pretend he met you for the first time as a human, tonight, and had swept you so completely off your feet that you were taking him back to yours. That this was the beginning of a love story just like anyone else's, and he had always been this.

...Until you shattered that entirely with four words he loved even more. 

"I missed you, Hector," you whispered in his ear, and he let slip an actual moan.

"I'm sorry." His lips brushed your skin as he whispered back, before he sucked a mark into your neck just to feel you shiver and whine. That would stay with you for a while, a physical reminder of what you inspired in him. "I'm sorry, my love, amor, I never meant for time to slip away like that. Not for you, never."

Your hands were pushing against his back, as if being chest to chest still wasn't close enough, and Hector obliged, biting a second mark into your pulse. He felt it between his teeth, going... surprisingly fast.

Were you actually nervous while kissing him? Your fondest admirer?

"It's okay," you said softly. Your hands curled into the back of his jacket, clinging. "Really." You swallowed hard, like there was something in your throat. "I'm just... glad you came back to me."

His jaw actually dropped slightly, releasing the hold he had on your skin, and he looked up to ask you what on earth that meant --

But then the doors opened behind the two of you with that same garbled sound.

You didn't move immediately, your eyes searching his face and the shock he was certain was there. 

Glad he came back? Like he'd ever for a moment considered otherwise? As though he wasn't bound to you by an invisible string tied around his heart and tangled in his ribs?

You gave him that small smile again with a dusting of sadness like powdered sugar. Even as you delicately disengaged yourself from his frame, you quickly took his hand once again in yours. "This way."

He followed you out of the elevator, his lips still buzzing from contact with your flesh, but his free hand fiddled anxiously in his pocket. 

Had he given you reason to doubt the certainty of his affections? Had he done anything to make you think that he was that changeable, that fickle? The very idea made his stomach flip and roil as he followed you down a close dimly lit hallway, his footsteps muffled by an aged carpet. This was not the open and airy house by any means, and as the two of you proceeded further and further towards the hall’s end, he couldn’t help but anxiously wonder what else had changed.

But as you led him by the hand, something happened.

You looked discreetly back over your shoulder, as if sneaking a peek at his face. It wasn’t a look meant to be shared, nor did he get the impression he was even meant to see.

It was like you were making sure he was still there, or at least still wanted to be.

He was reminded again of the myth of the separated lovers; how the one who went seeking lost the one he went to find because he looked back too soon, breaking the rules set by the dark majesty he’d bargained with to get his beloved back. 

This part had tortured him so much, he’d had to set the book aside for days. He didn’t think he would ever be strong enough not to look back for you. Not only would he want to make sure you were with him, he would want to know that you were safe. That you weren’t afraid, even if he might be and doing his best to hide it.

So much of his life in the attic — his life before he could speak to you — had been defined by fear. Since he’d fallen in love with you (real love, one that was seen and returned), he’d been trying hard to keep it at bay and make his own decisions. But in learning to be human, he’d still been looking to you to assuage that same fear: if you weren’t afraid of things like LLC applications, or driving, or the even the cursed public pool, then he would try his best not to be afraid either. It wasn’t easy, but you made him want to be braver. He wanted to be someone who belonged at your side as naturally as any human would, who could navigate effortlessly through the world and your life in it.

But that little look, so uncharacteristically shy and uncertain, hit him now like a bolt of lightning.

Were you looking back for him, as one lover had once looked back for another?

Were you afraid, for once?

He squeezed your hand before he realized quite what he was doing, his thumb tracing the delicate bones under your skin. The same heat that had roared through him back at the club did so now, when he had watched you take the floor to dance. Now that you were alone together, he realized that this heat was twofold.

Part of him felt that same strange closeness from watching you on the dance floor — the realization that you were just as prone to self-doubt and self-consciousness as him awakened an even stronger love than he’d thought possible. The bravery that he once took for granted, just saw as inherently part of you, was so much more beautiful now that he had seen you have to will yourself to summon it. And not only did he love your act of conjuring it, he most of all loved you, the conjurer underneath, and everything you might have thought you needed to hide from the world behind the magic you put up. He would love it, even if you couldn’t. Perhaps especially then.

The other part of him felt a protectiveness he had only vaguely been aware of before; a sudden certainty in his own ability to be brave for you when your own fear crept in. If you were uncertain in this moment, then he would do his damnedest to be very certain: about being here, about seeing you, about seeing the new home you’d made for yourself.

About making sure he was so constant in your life from now on, you would never come to be uncertain of anything to do with him again.

But what if it’s not fear? His self-doubt hissed low in his ear. What if it’s bracing before a fatal blow? What if they’re going to destroy you, and they’re preparing for the fallout?

This time, Hector didn’t feel the need to shake his head, or blink, or anything.

You wouldn’t do that. He knew it as instinctively as taking his first breath with his new lungs. He’d seen it in the way you’d loved him, in the way you’d cared for the hundred souls that came out of that house. The cruelty that he’d always flinched from wasn’t in your nature - or if it was, it wasn’t something you easily accessed.

What if they’ve changed? The voice hissed again.

But he could see this now for how preposterous it was. Of course you were going to change. That was the whole point of being alive, wasn’t it?

He’d only been alive for less than a year, after all, and he’d already changed almost everything he’d known about himself. The only constants had been his creativity, the house from which he’d emerged, and you.

And now it was down to just you, and his ability to see beauty that wasn’t there yet.

If it ever came down to him and his love for making that beauty from nothing, alone, then he would find a way to live with that.

But being in love with you meant that he would trust you to love him as you both changed, and him you. That’s all either of you could do.

At last, the two of you stood in front of a doorway at the end of what had felt like the longest hallway of his life.

You pulled your keys out of your pocket with your free hand, unlocking your door before glancing over your shoulder at him again — this time longer, establishing real eye contact. 

“It’s probably kind of messy, compared to… the house,” you said, smiling shyly.

Hector only returned your smile, all calm. “That just means it’s lived-in,” he said with a shrug. “I’m sure it’s lovely. And let’s face it, it has to be better than my last place.”

You chuckled a little at that - a real one, the first he’d heard from you since you left the club, a lone sunbeam through a cloud - and opened the door.

Upon taking in what turned out to be the living room, Hector was certain that it was definitely smaller than the house you were both accustomed to, but it also somehow felt like he had walked inside your mind itself.

The room was softly lit with table lamps, your walls covered in new art (some of which he recognized from other local sellers), and posters for plays (at the theater where Skips worked) and other small shows. There was a special section for your striped flags of pride (he still didn’t know all of them yet, but he at least recognized the colors that he understood meant You). Glancing around the eclectic thrifted furniture, he could recognize something here or there from the house: Mateo’s blanket slung over your new-to-you couch, Jerry’s junk-art on a shelf, some of Prissy’s plants on your window sill. In the corner where your still-crammed bookshelf waited, he could see where you’d built yourself a makeshift desk with a solid board and a couple of file cabinets, already covered in notes to yourself around the gap where your laptop must normally live.

When your air conditioning kicked on, you both looked up at the vent out of habit.

“…Still exactly seventy degrees,” he said once the temperature had shifted, unable to help a smile.

You returned it, and his heart leapt to see the sadness from earlier was absent. “It’s kind of spooky how you can still do that.” Though you’d let go of his hand walking in, your fingers brushed his again. “The new guy’s fine, he gets the job done,” you teased. “But I have to tell you, he’s not up to much in the prose department.”

Hector took your hand in his, lifting it to his lips for a long moment. “I’d say give him time - he could just be shy,” he said quietly. “But I’m also not about to entertain competitors of any sort.”

You giggled - another hopeful sign - and turned your hands so the back of his was pressed against your sternum. “You know I still have to stop myself from blowing kisses to the vent sometimes?” Your thumb ran along his knuckles. “Old habits, and all that.”

His free hand reached up to your face instantly, stroking the line of your cheek with a fondness beyond words. “What a coincidence,” he murmured. “Because I haven’t stopped looking for you whenever I walk into a room.”

Your eyes went soft at this, and he internally allowed himself to be a little proud of that phrasing on the spot, even if the sentiment was perfectly true.

For a split second, your eyes dropped to his lips, and he couldn’t help but glance at your black lipstick again - now even darker in the muted lights of your home.

“…So, living room, obviously,” you said quickly, as if remembering where you were and what you were doing.

“It’s lovely,” he agreed just as quickly, nodding. “It really feels like you.”

“It’s coming together,” you said, with a note of pride he found adorable. You nodded to the kitchen visible over a countertop that separated it from your living area. “Kitchen, laundry’s back that way to the left… and then my room’s through here.” Still holding his hand, you indicated a hallway over your shoulder. You hesitated, looking almost strangely shy, then added, “As long as you don’t have to… be somewhere else, tonight?”

He shook his head, leaning into being your certainty again. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, my love.” He stretched the fingers of the hand you were holding against your chest so they brushed your skin. “Believe me.”

He didn’t miss the way your shoulders eased down just slightly, or the way you pressed his hand against the low neckline of what you were wearing. “Okay.” You searched his face a moment more before turning, leading him again. “This way.”

He followed you through a short hallway, the walls bearing the less embarrassing photos Lady Memoria had saved from the attic, as well as a few new ones: the shot of yourself and your newly human lovers in the driveway of the old house, a last hurrah before everyone went their separate ways; a collection of polaroids from Sam’s last birthday party; photos from both Dolly and Hoove’s academic hooding ceremonies; and a smattering of postcards collected on a bulletin board with postage from all over the world — mostly from Gaia on her travels, but with several other names he recognized as well.

And then, there was your room.

It was bathed in the soft glow of a series of string lights that lined your walls, giving it a strange dreamlike atmosphere. On your vanity, he could see the scattered tools you’d used to create your mask of makeup tonight (all of them from Barry’s line, naturally), and on your dresser sat what had once been Teddy, as well as a few newer cuddly friends from Tyrell. Despite your new bed frame, you were still using Betty’s sheets and pillows —

And on your nightstand next to your meds, he immediately recognized your now well-loved, one of a kind copy of Grate Expectations.

He paused, walking over to it almost automatically. He picked it up only for it fell readily open in his hands, certain passages highlighted and underlined, with a series of bookmarks corresponding to the pages that seemed most thumbed-through.

Those, upon further inspection, had lines where the ink almost seemed faded, as though worn — like you had traced them not with a pen, but with your fingers.

He knew the work backwards and forwards. It had been one of his most beloved creations, back in his attic days.

All the faded lines were not moments of steam and bated breath, but just… him saying how much he loved you. In a million ways, even though that would still never be enough to capture the enormity and complexity of it.

“Don’t tell the others,” you murmured from the doorway. “But it’s my favorite thing in my apartment.”

He closed the book immediately and turned to look at you, realizing he’d just walked over and started inspecting without saying a word.

You didn’t seem bothered by that, leaning against your doorframe and watching him intently. Your eyes fell to the book still in his hands, and a distant smile crept across your face once more. “I find I return to it most often when it’s too quiet here, by myself,” you said softly. “When I need a reminder of sorts.”

“…Well. In that case.” Hector set the book back on the nightstand, then extended his hand to you. “I’m here now, amor,” he said, just as softly. “Allow me to be the one to remind you.”

Your eyes moved from his hand to his gaze and back again, as if weighing something, before - at last - you crossed the threshold of your room, giving him your hand.

Hector pulled you to him as soon as he felt the contact of your skin, shrugging off his dark coat so it fell with barely a whisper to your floor. As soon as he was free of it, he locked one arm firmly around your waist, the other hand sliding up your back until he was stroking the back of your neck beneath your hair.

Your hands were on his chest again, fingers spreading against the fabric. You were taking your time, taking him in, your eyes subtly searching his face as he gazed at you - albeit distractedly, your gaze repeatedly dropping to his lips and back, as though at war with yourself.

Hector squeezed the back of your neck with just enough strength to make you shiver lightly against his palm, your eyes fluttering closed. “I missed you,” he admitted again, almost under his breath. And it was true - almost truer now than before. He was surprised the ache in his chest wasn’t an open wound under his shirt.

Your eyes opened, and in an instant, that not-quite smile was back. “Hey, it happens. Life gets busy.” You set your arms on his shoulders, and one corner of your mouth twisted into something coy. “You’re here now. I can give you something to remember me by until next time, yeah?” 

But he saw you subtly wince even as the phrase left your mouth.

He froze. “What is it?” He saw it, he knew he saw it —

You shook your head. “I - It’s fine.” You smirked, attempting to look vixen-ish again. “I’m just in my own head, don’t worry about it.” 

You leaned forward to kiss him, and for a minute, Hector allowed this — selfishly, more than anything, something brief to make the ache ease even a little — before pulling away just enough to look into your eyes. 

“You can tell me anything,” he murmured. “You know that, my love.”

He saw your coquettish mask flicker once more, your eyes darting sideways. “I’m okay,” you tried to assure him. “It’s nothing. I’m - I’m nervous, I’m overthinking. That’s all.” You shook your head, trying to get the smile back. “It’s no big deal.”

“Why are you nervous with me?” he asked. “You have my heart completely. You know that.” He reached up, his fingertips ghosting over your cheek.

“Hector, you don’t… have to placate me,” you said, your eyes dropping down at your floor. “It’s okay.”

“I’m not.” Hector shook his head. “I mean it.”

“You don’t have to,” you repeated, too quickly. Your eyes snapped back up, as though you’d just realized what you’d said.

Hector froze at this, his brow furrowing into knots. “…Don’t have to ‘placate’ you?” he asked quietly. “Or don’t… have to mean it?”

You pressed your lips together for a heart-wrenchingly long moment. “…I’m just glad you’re here,” you whispered at last. Against his chest, your hands shook just enough for him to feel it. 

Hector’s heart threatened to crash through your floor. His hands fell to your hips, and he spoke your name in an urgent whisper. When he had your gaze again, he tilted his head towards the side of your bed. “Sit down and talk to me, my love.”

“No, it’s okay.” You shook your head quickly, your hands moving to his shoulders and squeezing. “I’m fine, I swear. Don’t - don’t let me ruin it—”

“‘Ruin’?” He felt his eyes widen, aghast. “What on earth do you mean, ‘ruin?’ How could you possibly ruin anything?”

“I’m sorry.” You looked away, taking a breath and straightening your spine. He’d seen you do it a million times, including tonight on the dance floor — it was how you got yourself back in control, pushing away your inconvenient feelings. You looked back to him, shaking your head as if to clear it. “I haven’t seen you in a minute, and I just. I’m trying to be cool, and chill, and totally fine, and —” You bit your lip, clearly struggling.

“Mi vida, you’re clearly not fine.” Hector took you in, his chest aching worse than before. What was hurting you? Why wouldn’t you just tell him? He put the back of his hand gently to your forehead, frowning. “And I hate to tell you, you’re not even close to cool, or chill, for that matter. Do you want me to go adjust your—”

To his horror, you made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a whimper, hiding your face in your hands.

“I’m sorry!” Hector half-choked, alarmed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pointed that out, that was probably rude--”

But then you were hugging him tightly, your arms wrapped around his waist and your face hidden in his chest.

He stood there for an approximate half-second, stunned, before he wrapped his arms around you just as tightly. He did the first thing he thought to do: stroked your hair gently, shushing you, as you used to do for him when he was overwhelmed. 

In his arms, you only hugged him tighter, and he thought he could feel your shoulders shake.

“My love, please,” he begged. “Talk to me.” He kissed the side of your head, then your temple. “I only meant to surprise you this evening, because I missed you so, but… I can’t help but feel like something’s wrong.” He swallowed. “Is it me? You’re allowed to tell me if it’s me, you know that — I want you to, even. Just, please, tell me how to help you.”

He heard the muffled sound of your voice against his chest, and he paused mid-stroke.

“…I’m sorry, my beauty, I didn’t quite catch that,” he admitted.

You pulled away from his chest, taking a deep, shaking breath. “It’s not you.” You looked up at him, and once again, your eyes were overbright like they’d been on the dance floor. “You’re perfect, Hector. I promise.” Your smile, pained though it was, was genuine. “It’s just… it’s me.” You looked away, embarrassed. “It turns out that I’m… really bad at this.” You gestured helplessly with one hand. “And I don’t want to be.”

“Bad at what?” Hector shook his head, confused. “And why does it matter? You said that it’s normal to be bad at things. Remember?” He tilted his head to try and catch your gaze again. “That was one of the very first parts of being human you explained to us, was that some things take practice, and we might be bad at them for a while. But that didn’t mean it’d be forever.”

“It’s different, love.” You smiled a little, as if despite yourself. “That was for things like… I don’t know,  riding a bike.”

“And we got the hang of it eventually!” Hector nodded eagerly. “Remember? Only three skinned knees between us, and Dasha buffed out that dent in your car. We all got better.”

“You did,” you agreed, smiling still even as you pinched the bridge of your nose. “None of us are entering the Tour de France anytime soon, but you all did learn.”

“So what’s so different, really?” Hector pressed. 

“This is me, like…” You let out a long sigh. “Being bad at my own feelings.” You looked at your wall, at your floor, anywhere but him. “And I don’t want to be bad at this,” you said. “Because I don’t want to… make things complicated, for you. Especially not now.”

“But you’re not being fair.”

When your eyes snapped back to his at this, as he knew they would, he took your face gently in his hands. “My love, you’re saying this like you know something is going to happen,” he said. “When I don’t even know what’s going on. I just know that every time I say I missed you, you act like it hurts you — there,” he said, seeing you flinch again. “Just like that. And I don’t want to keep hurting you,” he pleaded. “But you won’t tell me what’s wrong, or how to help, and I don’t know why.” The ache threatened to rip his chest in two, now. “All I know that I love you, more than anything,” he said, his voicing going up in pitch as his stomach twisted into knots. “And I wish you would just… talk to me.” He searched your eyes, desperate. “Please. That’s all I ask. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

You gazed at him, that familiar veil of decision over your eyes… before, at last, you closed them briefly, looking exhausted. 

Taking his hands in yours, you sat down on the edge of your bed where he’d originally nodded to. Before you could motion for him to do so, Hector sat immediately, brow puckered with worry.

“Um.” You pulled your hands back, your fingers nervously curling in on themselves on your lap. You looked towards your floor as if you belonged there, and Hector had to try hard to find the certainty he’d been determined to be for you before.

You took a small breath, as if once again preparing yourself, before resuming eye contact at last. “So… I need to ask you something.” You swallowed. “And it’s… something really hard to ask. For me, in particular. Whatever you're going to say after, I'll hear you out, and I'll respect your answer, I promise -- just let me make it through first.” Your eyes were beseeching. "Please?"

Hector’s stomach sank under your mattress, but still he nodded, unable to deny you anything.

He had no idea what you were about to ask of him, but if it helped you hurt less in any way, he would do it. No matter how it might pain him.

You looked away again towards your window, before you at last began to speak. “I know… that you’ve really thrived outside the house, since becoming human.” You smiled when you looked back to him, sweet and somehow sad at the same time. “And I couldn’t be prouder of you, Hector. I really am. I love you, I want you to have everything that you want in your new life.”

Hector blinked. You loved him still. That was not… where he thought this was going.

But then what could still make you so hesitant?

“I just…” You paused, pressing your lips together. Was your lower one quivering? 

His chest ached even more at the very idea, but his hands stayed clenched on his knees. You had asked him to let you speak. He would honor that, even if it pained him.

“…I miss you,” you spoke in a whisper. “I really miss you. I don’t even know how to describe it.” You - you actually sniffled, which nearly stopped his heart entirely, but you pressed on. “I miss having you close, like back at the house - at home. I know it’s selfish of me, and I hate that. I don’t want to make you feel at all obligated to me because of…” Your voice hitched, threatened to break, and you looked away. “Well, with… Our past. You have your own life now, your own plans, and I want to respect that. I don’t want to cross a line, or wreck anything, or—”

“‘Wreck’?” Hector blurted. He was breaking his promise, he knew. But was this what you honestly thought? Did you really imagine you meant so little to him now?

“I’m sorry,” you said, your voice strained with tears. Your carefully applied liner began to smear in a way that the observant artist’s eye couldn’t help but fixate on (it was still beautiful against your skin, the way it followed the curve of your cheek, he wondered if he could replicate that with ink on—)  

But the way you had to muffle a small sob yanked him back to this moment with you, and how it threatened to shatter the whole of him.

“I just... I used to think I was good at being alone, you know?” You gave him an unsteady half-smile. “Before I met you, and the others. I told myself that I was content. It wasn’t exciting, and I was lonely, but I was comfortable enough that I could just… deal.” You shrugged as you looked down at your bedspread, striving for a matter-of-factness your wavering voice betrayed. “So when everyone was realized, I thought ‘okay, no big deal, I can do this again. And I’ll even have this whole beautiful web of people that I love this time, and they’ll be h-happy.’” But your voice broke on the last word. “And I’ve been trying to tell myself that’s enough. That all I need is everyone to be happy, to live their lives, and I’ll have done my part.”

This stung somehow beyond words. He knew what it was like, to content yourself with loneliness. To insist upon it because you believed the alternative was too cruel. He knew maybe better than anyone how much you had to justify giving up because you were certain pain was not only your only option, but inevitable.

But for him to hear such similar thoughts spilling from your lips, for you to think that you were at all asking too much of him… he felt a lump in his throat that threatened to choke the very air from his lungs.

Your arms crossed protectively in front your chest, trying to use pressure to alleviate a physical ache, and he had to fight not to hug you himself. “I haven’t wanted to tell anyone, because I didn’t want to impose, you know?” You wiped an escaping tear away with the base of your thumb, an impressionist night sky spreading across your orbital ridge. “It’s my feeling, so it’s my problem to deal with. I didn’t want to interrupt something important, or make anyone change their plans for me, or anything that would mess something up for someone else." You swallowed another sob, but Hector distinctly saw your chest buck against your arms. "Everyone has come so far, worked so hard to get where they are now... I can't be the one to take that from them. It wouldn't be fair." You shook your head. "It's not an equivalent exchange to ask someone to stay with me. Not in the least."

Hector's knuckles were white, his hands positively shaking. No. This was all wrong. You were the world to him. Everything he did, it was inspired by you, and how much he'd learned he could love. You were the sun in all your aspects, dark or radiant or wan, and he adored each of them the same.

How could you think otherwise? After you had worked so hard to help him accept his own beauty, how did you think you had less to offer him? Or anyone?

"I left the house because it was empty, and everywhere I looked, I only saw where someone used to be. Even though I knew it was better, for everyone, I couldn't make it not... not hurt, once I was by myself." You ran a hand over your hair. "I know it's selfish, but I just needed something else. Something where I didn't feel so much. So I came here," you gestured to your room. "And I told myself it was fine. I even managed to believe it, for a little while."

Hector had moved so your legs were barely inches apart, his nails digging into his palms where they rested on his kneecaps. Was this dying? He was pretty sure this was what dying felt like. His eyes were fixed on yours, begging you to stop, to let him soothe your hurt and your worries and show you that they were just shadows in your mind, never with any anchor in reality. That you were so, so loved, by him above all.

"...But then you showed up tonight,” you said, looking up at him at last. “And I was just so… happy.” You managed a small laugh, wobbly though it was. “I hadn’t been that happy since the last time I saw you, Hector, and I think…” You reached up, smearing the makeup of your other eye as you wiped at a threatening tear. “I think I just couldn't lie to myself about how I really felt  anymore.”

Your face in its earnestness reminded him of a sun breaking through rainfall; he’d only seen it twice, now that he was out in the world. But both times he had, it had stopped him dead in his tracks with its beauty. 

In his chest and flooding through his skin, the echo of heat returned. You missed him. He made you happy. To hear you say it, even now, felt like when he had seen his first full moon outside the house: trying to comprehend something impossibly enormous and beautiful.

But then all too quickly, that heat turned to chill — you had felt like this for how long, and hadn’t wanted to tell anyone? To tell him? 

Because you were scared the love you so easily gave to him and his housemates wouldn’t - couldn’t - be given back to you just as easily?

“So I don’t know… how, or what to ask,” you said at last, your smile fading as you looked up towards your ceiling. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to give up your independence for me. I don’t want to take anything away from you.” You bit your lip and worried it with your teeth. “But I think - no, I know I hate being apart like we are now.” You exhaled at last, and it shook like you'd been holding your breath this whole time. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Enough.” Hector let his hands finally move, reaching for your face but pausing just an inch away, conscientious as always. “Please, I must have my say. I can’t watch you torture yourself like this.”

“No, of course. I've been talking a lot,” you said quickly. He watched you straighten up, but your gaze stayed down, as if bracing yourself for something. "I’m being silly, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t,” Hector nearly whispered, cutting you off. When you froze in place, he reached around your arm, carefully brushing your tears away with both of his thumbs. “Don’t you dare apologize to me, of all people.” 

Off your stricken expression, he couldn’t help but smile just a little, holding your face between his palms and stroking your cheeks like they were glass. “My love, I must ask: have you entirely taken leave of your senses?”

“…Um?” you croaked, your voice small and your brow furrowing in confusion.

“Do you really think you have no right to ask anything of me? Me, who asked for your help to face my own demons because I didn’t want fear to rule my life any longer? Who could only do so because my feelings for you outweighed how much I disliked myself?" Hector leaned closer to you until your foreheads were touching, and he could gaze unobstructed into your eyes. “Me, who loved you as soon as I laid eyes on you? Who knew as soon as you asked that I would do everything in my power for you, for the rest of my days? You think your presence could possibly take anything away from me? As if it wasn't the very thing that brought me out into this world, to see how you and I fit into it together?" He shook his head, his thumb tracing the bruise he'd left on your skin and making you inhale sharply. 

“You are my most beloved muse. You were my heart made flesh, before I had a heart or flesh to speak of. The first of my dawns and the last of my nights, you are still the prime feature of my thoughts.” He kissed your forehead, smiling as he saw the furrow there vanish, your eyes widening in relief. “You must know that. If you know nothing else after tonight, know that.”

He slid to his knees in front of you, taking both your hands in his, and you turned fully to face him, still for some reason still looking surprised. 

“The entire reason I wanted a human life at all was to be human with you,” he insisted. “‘Our past’, may I remind you, is that I fell in love with you before I was even able to reciprocate it like humans do. Telling me you miss me, that you want me closer… that’s not an imposition. I want that just as much. I will never not be in love with you. I love you as the tide loves the moon — and it does, I looked it up.” He nodded seriously, and this of all things made you giggle. He felt his shoulders relax and drop, the sound like music to him.

He reached upwards, cupping your face in one hand as he intertwined your fingers with the other. “Whatever would stop this hurt, ask it of me and it's yours," he whispered. “Tell me to come home to you, and I—”

“Come home,” you murmured, not even waiting for him to finish. 

In the dim light, Hector beamed. As though you’d cast some spell, the dark ache around his heart evaporated immediately. He could feel himself beaming, lighter than air for a second time that night.

“Please come home, Hector." You covered his hand on your face with your free one, nuzzling his palm with closed eyes. You planted a kiss there, then opened one eye before you spoke again. “As long as it’s okay time, of course, and you’re not too tied up with, like, work, or class or—”

“Oh, amor, enough!” Surprising you both, Hector practically sprang from the floor, caging you in his arms against your bed covers. He covered your face in kisses, making you laugh helplessly as you tried to wiggle free. “Enough conditions, enough hesitation. Accept it!” He pulled back to look down at you, finding you giggling and out of breath, your hair now a mess and your dark makeup smudged everywhere —

And when you looked back up at him, eyes sparkling with mirth at him demanding something for once, he thought you had never been more beautiful.

“Accept that I love you just as much as you love me," he said quietly. “And that I want a life with you, too. That asking me to stay isn’t a step back, it’s a step forward. For both of us.”

He surprised himself with the absolute certainty he said this. But now, in this moment, it seemed perfectly obvious to him.

Of course the only thing missing from his new life had been you. How could it have been anything else?

"Accept it and trust me," he whispered. "That there is nowhere else I'd rather be than by your side. Please."

“I will,” you murmured. “I do.” You were so solemn even as you smiled, that between the two of you in your dark room, it somehow felt like a vow. 

He leaned down, kissing one corner of your mouth — “And I will,” he repeated softly. Then the other — “And I do.”

In the hushed after as you gazed at each other, as though the universe was absorbing these vows into its very fabric, there was only your breathing against the backdrop of your air conditioning’s low hum.

As if unable to help yourself, you reached up to wind one of his dark curls around your finger, his hair somehow even wilder now than before the club.

He smiled as he let you, closing his eyes at the much-missed contact. 

“…You know, darling, now I don’t know what I was so worried about,” you said, breaking the silence at last.

“Oh?” He hummed softly at your touch, hopeful. “Is that so?”

You nodded, your expression immeasurably fond. “Apparently I was so nervous, I somehow forgot that I was going to be talking to the world’s biggest romantic.”

Hector felt his face flush. “Ah. I - Well.” He looked askance for a moment before shrugging, playing at confidence. “Who am I to deny my title after all this time?”

With a giggle, you pulled him down to you, covering his face in kisses in return. He tried to counter by kissing your neck, and the two of you attempted in vain to out-affection each other until you both fell on your pillow in quiet, breathless laughter.

“Aw.” You winced with amusement, reaching over to gently stroke his cheek with your thumb. “I got my lipstick all over you, love, I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize." Hector smirked, though inside he was positively giddy at the thought. “Because that was my goal this entire evening.” When you laughed yet again, swatting his shoulder gently, his smirk melted into a bashful grin. 

He reached over to stroke at the dark stain that had spread to the corner of your mouth. “If anything, amor, you’re still wearing more of it than I am.”

“Oh, god.” You covered your eyes with your arm, embarrassed, and he thought it adorable. “Do I look like I’ve been eating markers, or what?”

“Hmm. The pigment’s far too rich for just markers.” Hector leaned closer, pretending to gaze with a critical eye, which only made you laugh more. “More like... a passionate rendezvous with some very interesting paint?”

“Ugh, that’s not better.” You sighed, sitting up. “Okay. I'm at least teaching you the closing ritual of Goth Night.” You lifted yourself from the bed with as much grace as you could muster, then turned back to extend a hand to him in turn. “Makeup removal.”

“Clearly, I’ll be learning from the master.” Hector took your hand without hesitation, as always, and followed you into your small bathroom.

Not long after, the two of you were standing in front of your sink-mirror, him having borrowed one of your hairbands to push his messy mane back away from his face. Your dark wardrobes lay in a joint puddle of black on your floor, almost indistinguishable from one another. (He’d noticed you looking approvingly at his clothes while you were taking them off him, though admittedly he was more focused on taking yours off you). You were now in only an old band t-shirt and your underwear, while he had changed to just some of the larger sweatpants you kept lying around - a bit snug, but he didn’t mind, especially with the glances you kept sneaking at his hips when you thought he wasn’t looking. 

The two of you were washing away your respective eyeliner; he noticed that you kept sneaking glances at this as well — he really would have to try to wear that more often. Over the warm water and the scent of your cleanser, the two of you chatted about moving preparations: your apartment versus his, where he would have a studio in both, what would suffice for you in terms of an office to write in (which he insisted you needed the proper space for, even if you denied this). He wasn’t sure which of you had suggested looking for a mutually new place, but as soon as it was in the air, you both were alight with ideas, thinking of neighborhoods, colors for shared spaces, how to combine your tastes into something beautiful.

As he looked at your reflections in the mirror, the grim romance decidedly stripped from both for something more vulnerable and raw, he realized that there would be more nights just like this. The two of you, comfortable in the same space, your most natural and relaxed selves as you imagined a future together.

His heart felt crammed with light, fit to burst. He couldn’t imagine anything he would ever want more.

…Until, once you were both under your blankets, your kiss goodnight turned heated and lingering.

But that, truly, was the only thing that even came close.

A little less than a month later, the 'Lover's Tears' mask -- dark paint seeming to drip from the eye sockets, a motif suggesting sorrow and misunderstanding and ruined eyeliner -- had become one of his new best sellers almost as soon as he revealed it. You teased him about it whenever you found him working on his next one, kissing his cheek and suggesting new colorways: silver on his favorite shade of green, or a glittering red on a dark stormy gray. 

(Both of these would become very popular at future Goth Nights, which you would whisper about together on the dance floor, giggling as you counted the ones you spotted.)

"I'm glad my failed setting spray paid off for you,” you always joked, giving him a wink before leaving a small snack or some tea a safe distance from his workspace. 

“For us. And I’ll have you know, it’s only because you were my model," Hector always assured you in turn, returning the kiss to your cheek before you slipped out. 

And it was true -- you were indeed the first person to wear the original, late that first night in his new studio. It was a moment he'd captured in a photo for his commissions samples; the low lighting and your bare torso, obscured only by his shop apron, gave it an added drama that seemed to inspire anyone who saw it to eschew any shyness about asking to try on a stock version.

The original was now hanging over your shared (a thought that continually delighted him) bed, the black ink stark against the parchment color he'd selected for you. Next to it was its match, 'Orpheus Rewarded': a mask in a similar color with sharp, bold strokes of black around the eyes, contrasting in their sureness to Tears's liquid lines. 

On one cheek was a black lipstick print, perfectly preserved. For this reason, it would only ever be one-of-a-kind; not something he would ever dream of offering for sale or replication.

Though he still spent the majority of his day in his studio, Hector found it a far more fulfilling experience hearing the steady clicking of your keyboard from only a room away, or with the interruption of one of the two of you getting up to wander in and check on the other.

If anything, he now found the near-trance state he entered as he worked all the sweeter by knowing just how fragile it was, able to be shattered at a moment's notice by the only thing he loved more than his art.

His neighbors at his various booths at the arts markets and the Ren Faire were all delighted to meet you, when you started occasionally joining him to help out on busy weekends. If talking to others about his art was easy, having you there made it even easier. Indeed, several of them now had an invitation to stop by your new place at some point for dinner -- something he never would've been brave enough to do on his own. Between your old friends and his new ones, it seemed like it might turn into quite the popular spot in time.

Even Amir was one such visitor-to-be. Hector had never ended up actually sending him a photo of the two of you together that night; he hadn't had to, since you posted your move-in day photos on your social. That very same day, Amir - among others from the old house - had sent you both a text congratulating you, and immediately promising to visit as soon as his schedule allowed.

To Hector alone, he'd sent a simple message: 'You're lucky.'

Hector, smiling to himself, had responded with an even simpler one: 'I know.'

if you read this far, you're a gem, and I hope you have a lovely time at your own local goth night next time you go 🖤

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Wanted to have an excuse to draw Dunk and Tina, and ofcourse more hector. Here it is. Hope you enjoy it.

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CGM looks so pretyyyy

some GHS doodles I did recently while on a school camping trip yes I dedicated an entire page to Umbaba I love them

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Oh my god I love them.

🧢👁️🥓

I don't usually post plushies, but I think you all need to see this one

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Cactus Shenanigans

Learn how to talk to your short bf, there's cacti in my boots, something ironic i guess, photos with grandma, Cactus Crew, and a smoothie! .... and the Cactus rattlesnake.

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Forgot to share this here but once Hector has been realized he most definitely is the small spoon and wants to be cuddled 24/7 trust me he told me himself fr fr

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Yo if you had sex with The Hanks would they call it “Hanky Panky”?

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Something something first date doodles 🥺🫶🏻✨

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Hector from date everything :D

Hector from Date Everything is Autistic!

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//and here’s some more emojis for the discord server!

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Cute tiny doodle I did of Hector’s head with crayons

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I'm back

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what if I kiss the oddly shaped muffin ? 😇

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Hiiiiiihihihi Hector nation 🫣🫣🫣

I'm feeling things today, but that's all for now I think,,,

Sighhhh.........

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//working on some Hector emotes for the discord server,,! Probably gonna make more tonight :3

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God I wish that were me

Guys I am just forever sick ig I am so drained and all I wanna do is draw hector cuddles (sobs) plz take this crappy sketch.