#Call to Power II | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fleurbly · 1 month ago

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HER FATHERS KILLER, HER HEARTS KEEPER.

part I, part II, part III.

summary: being the daughter of a vampire hunter is complicated enough especially when you’re sneaking out at night to be with the vampire you’re meant to hate — torn between loyalty and desire, caught in a dangerous game where every choice could cost you everything.

warnings: sexual content, explicit scenes, non-consensual undertones, coercion, manipulation, domestic tension, family conflict, pregnancy and forced pregnancy, power imbalance, emotional abuse, distress, threats of violence, threats of murder.

pairing: dark!remmick x reader

w/c: 12k+

DNI IF THE TAGS AFFECT YOU, YOU HAVE BEEN WANRED.

Your shoes were already ruined.

You tried not to look down, but you could feel it with every step—how the soft leather had soaked through, how the stitching was pulling loose from the soles, how something sticky was tugging faintly at your heels each time you lifted your foot. The hem of your dress had given up a half-mile ago. Now it dragged behind you like a flag in the dirt, pale blue fabric stained dark with mud and bent grass, torn where it had caught on brambles.

You hadn’t even wanted to come.

Not because you were afraid—though, now, deep in your chest, you could admit that maybe you were. But mostly because you had known from the start that you didn’t belong here. Not like this. Not in your good dress, with your hair pinned up neatly and your hands still smelling faintly of lavender soap. Not with a borrowed bow in your arms like it was a clutch purse, like you had to carry it because it would’ve been rude to say no.

“Just a quick look,” your father had said when the sky turned strange, his voice gruff but warm. “Thought you might like to see what my days are like, now that the weather’s cleared.”

You’d wanted to say no. You’d almost said it. But then he’d rested one of his heavy hands on your shoulder—careful, like he always was, like you were made of something fragile—and you’d only nodded instead.

Now you were ankle-deep in a part of the woods that didn’t even feel like woods anymore.

The trees here were too old, too tall. They bent inward like they were sharing secrets just above your head, their branches tangled like ribs, pressing in. The air beneath them was wrong—too still, too thick, with that sour-damp smell like mildew and closed-up cellars. No birdsong. No breeze. The only sound was your own footsteps and the squelch of earth pulling at them.

The light—if you could call it that—had stopped changing hours ago.

It hung in the trees like fog, tinted a strange kind of blue-lavender, like the sky couldn’t decide if it was night or not. There was no sun. Just a heavy, purplish glow that turned everything soft and dim around the edges. Not dark enough to be dangerous, but not light enough to feel safe. It felt like the world had paused, like time had sunk into the earth and left you wandering through the breath between two heartbeats.

And you were sweating. God, were you sweating.

You could feel a line of it slipping down your back beneath the stays of your corset, itching as it went. You’d pulled your gloves off half an hour ago, and your fingers looked out of place without them—narrow and flushed, your nails too clean for all this earth. You kept looking at the bow your father had slung over your shoulder before you guys had stepped off the path. It felt wrong in your hands. Too big. Too quiet. Like it was waiting for you to do something you didn’t understand.

“I don’t know how to shoot this,” you’d said earlier, your voice too light and sweet and soft.

Your father had smiled in that tired way he did sometimes. “Doesn’t matter if you shoot. Just need to hold it. Makes you less of a target.”

A target for what, he hadn’t said.

And you—foolishly, stupidly—hadn’t asked.

You thought you saw the path curve—just ahead, behind the long fingers of a willow that leaned too far into the trail, its tendrils brushing the ground like it was searching for something lost. Your father hadn’t said where the path led. He hadn’t spoken much at all since you passed the creek. His eyes stayed ahead, watchful—not worried, just focused, like he was trying to remember something half-forgotten.

You stepped over a cluster of roots, skirt catching in a low tangle of thorns again. They left little marks on the hem, snagging at the embroidery. You sighed softly and smoothed the fabric with your hand. And that’s when you noticed it.

The air had changed.

Not wind—there was no breeze, not even a ripple in the tall grass—but a kind of hush. Like the trees had paused mid-breath, like the world was listening.

“Papa?” you asked, gently, just behind him.

He lifted his hand without turning. A small motion, like asking for quiet—not out of fear, just... wanting to see something clearly before it slipped away.

And then the woods thinned.

The trees parted all at once, and the light turned strange—soft, pale, the color of a storm that never came. It painted the world in a faint wash of violet-blue, as if the sun had never quite risen and never would. At first, it was hard to tell what you were looking at. Everything was so still. But then you saw them—rooftops. Faint outlines of buildings sunk into the wild growth, their edges softened by time and vine.

A town. Or what was left of one.

There were no signs, no fences. Just the slow fade of wild woods into old pathways—grass overtaking cobblestones, ivy creeping up broken doorframes. The houses leaned gently, as if bowing to the years, not broken, just tired. The windows were open to the air, empty but not lifeless.

And at the far end—a church.

You didn’t realize you’d stopped walking until your father did too.

It stood quiet, worn white paint peeled to the wood, the steeple bent just enough to feel graceful in its fall. The cross at its top was half-broken, yes—but it didn’t look ruined. It looked weathered, like a memory. The front doors hung loose from their hinges, and the windows—tall, arched, bare—let in the violet sky like they’d been meant to.

It didn’t feel frightening.

Only... still. Like something left in peace.

“I don’t know what this place is,” you whispered. “It feels strange. Not bad—just...”

Your father glanced down at you, then toward the church again. He didn’t look alarmed, only quiet. The kind of quiet he wore when something touched a place in him he didn’t speak about often.

He placed his hand gently on your arm. “Stay here,” he said. “I just want a look around. I won’t be long.”

Your hand reached out without thinking, catching the sleeve of his coat. “Don’t go in without me,” you said, the words a little breathless. “Please.”

He hesitated, just for a second. Then he gave you that small, familiar look—the one that said he didn’t quite understand your worry, but he’d carry it for you anyway. He shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around your shoulders like a blanket.

“You’ll be alright,” he murmured, tucking the collar closer to your chin. “Just don’t stray too far. Not here.”

You nodded, though your chest felt tight in a way you couldn’t explain. It wasn’t fear. Not really. Just something quiet and strange and wide, like the kind of hush that comes before a snowfall.

You watched him go, his figure moving steady down the worn path, past the quiet buildings and the empty windows, toward the slanted church that waited at the town’s end like a sleeping thing.

You stood alone in the purple-tinted stillness, your hands tucked in the too-long sleeves, the bow loose and forgotten at your side. The air was warm and soft, full of the smell of dust and growing things. It didn’t feel haunted. It felt... paused.

Like something beautiful had been waiting here a long time to be remembered.

And above you, the sky stayed that same strange color—neither dusk nor dawn. A deep, endless twilight that made everything feel like a dream you weren’t sure you were meant to wake from.

You stayed where you were, just like he told you. Standing quiet, your fathers other spare coat wrapped around your shoulders, the hem of your dress catching in the grass when the breeze finally stirred. If it even was a breeze. It felt more like the town had exhaled. Long and low, like it had forgotten someone was listening.

You shifted your weight, glancing back at the path, then toward the church where your father had gone. The doors were still open. No sound came from within.

And then—

Movement.

Not from the church.

From the far end of the street, near a small house tucked behind what had once been a garden. It was the only one that didn’t look half-swallowed by the land. The shutters still clung to their windows, the porch hadn’t caved in, and the front door was crooked, but not broken. There were even wind chimes strung near the eaves—silent now, but still hanging, like someone had tied them there not too long ago.

From the shadow of that porch, a cat stepped out.

You blinked, surprised—not because it was there, but because it looked so... ordinary.

Gray, with white socks and a patch over one eye, its fur soft-looking even at a distance. Not starved. Not wild. It stretched its back in the warm light, tail high, and padded across the road with no urgency at all, like it walked this path every day.

It didn’t look at you, not at first.

It only moved with slow, sure steps, past the weeds growing between the cobblestones, past the hollow houses and the yawning windows. Then, halfway across the street, it paused.

And turned its head.

You found yourself taking a small step forward before you meant to.

The bow at your side shifted in your hand, light and awkward. You glanced at it, then back to the cat.

It blinked once. Slowly.

Then turned again, swishing its tail once behind it, and walked back toward the house. Not hurrying. Not calling for you. Just moving, like it expected you to follow.

You hesitated.

Only for a second.

The church still stood in its quiet lean, unmoving. Your father hadn’t come back out. You weren’t worried—not yet. But you were alone. And the house—that one house—felt... different. Not inviting, exactly. But alive. In a way nothing else in the town quite was.

You looked back at the cat.

It had stopped on the porch and was watching you again, one paw resting delicately on the step, tail curled neatly around its legs.

Waiting.

You looked once more toward the church.

Its silhouette stayed the same: quiet, still, folded into the soft horizon like it had been drawn there with a piece of charcoal. No sign of your father. No sound from inside. Just the sky above, holding steady in that odd not-evening hue—somewhere between violet and stormwater blue.

You turned your gaze back to the cat.

It had settled on the top step of the porch, tail curled neatly around its body like a ribbon. It didn’t blink when you met its eyes—just stared, unbothered, like it had all the time in the world and none of it belonged to you.

You walked slowly toward it, your skirt whispering through the tall grass that had overtaken the cobblestone path. Your boots caught once on a loose stone, but you didn’t stumble. One hand held the bow loosely at your side, the other clutching your father’s coat closed around your frame. It still carried the smell of tobacco and pine sap, and you breathed it in like a small kind of bravery.

The cat didn’t move.

Just watched, blinking slowly as you reached the bottom step.

You stopped there a moment. Let your eyes trace the curve of the porch rail, the lean of the ivy as it climbed in quiet spirals along the side of the house. The wood under your boots groaned softly as you stepped up, and the cat gave the barest flick of its tail.

“You’re not lost, are you?” you said quietly, crouching down a little. “You look like you know where you are.”

The cat tilted its head just a little.

You offered the ghost of a smile.

“I don’t. Not really.” You glanced back over your shoulder, down the path you’d come. The church still waited there at the end of the road, shadowed and distant. You swallowed. “My papa says not to wander. But he didn’t say anything about following a cat.”

As if in reply, the cat stood and slipped through the half-open door without a sound.

You hesitated.

Not because you were scared. Not really. It was just the feeling—the stillness of it all. Like this place had been waiting for you. Like the moment you stepped inside, it might close its hand around you and hold you in place for good.

But still, you followed.

The door opened just wide enough for you to slip in after it. The light inside was dim but soft, stretched through old lace curtains that filtered the sky into lavender and pearl. It painted everything in that same dream-haze as the world outside.

You stepped gently, boots pressing into old floorboards that sighed beneath your weight but didn’t protest. The air was warm. Clean. Carried that faded scent of dried herbs and cotton sun-bleached long ago. Your fingers brushed the edge of a side table as you passed—a bowl of smooth river stones sat in the center, their colors dulled by time but polished to a gentle shine.

The cat had already made itself at home.

It was curled on an armchair to the left, nestled deep in the cushion like it had always belonged there. One paw tucked under its chin. Eyes closed now. Content.

You smiled, soft and a little unsure, as you walked past it.

“You’re lucky,” you murmured, letting your voice fall to just above a whisper. “If I could curl up somewhere and sleep like that, I think I would too.”

The cat’s ear twitched, but it didn’t open its eyes.

You stood there for a long breath, your hands fisted gently into the sleeves of your father’s coat, the bow still resting awkwardly in the crook of your arm. Everything in this room was soft and still and careful. Like it was holding itself together so it wouldn’t startle you.

You didn’t sit. You didn’t move far.

You just stood in the middle of that little room where the air felt warmer than outside, where the walls felt thick with memory and quiet. Where a cat had waited on the porch like it knew you’d follow.

The cat’s purring was steady, its body warm under your fingertips as you gently stroked its fur. You hadn’t expected it, but the soothing hum of the cat’s contentment seemed to relax something inside you. The house, though old and worn, felt almost familiar in that moment. The soft, rhythmic purring made the world outside feel distant, almost like you were in a quiet bubble, away from the strange, unsettling nature of the woods and the things you couldn’t explain.

For a moment, you allowed yourself to forget. To breathe without the weight of worry. The cat’s presence, its warm body curled in the armchair, was simple and real. Something that could almost make you believe that not everything in the world was... strange. Something normal.

You ran your hand over its back again, slower this time, enjoying the peaceful moment. But as you did, a voice cut through the quiet—low, smooth, almost like it belonged in the room with you.

“He doesn’t usually take to new people.”

Your heart skipped a beat, and you froze.

The cat’s ears twitched at the sound of the voice, but it didn’t move from its spot. It seemed to know—just like you—that something had shifted in the room.

Your hand instinctively gripped the bow at your side, fingers tightening around the familiar wooden shape. Slowly, you stood, your body tensing as you turned toward the voice.

At the top of the stairs stood a man. His presence was almost too still, like he was a part of the shadows in the house, blending seamlessly into the atmosphere. His gaze locked onto you with a sharpness that sent a chill down your spine.

You took a step back without thinking, your heart racing in your chest. Your hand clenched tighter around the bow, as though it could offer some kind of defense against the unnerving calm that radiated from him.

His eyes never left you. They were dark, deep, and filled with something you couldn’t place. Something that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

The silence between you two was thick, heavy. You wanted to say something, anything, but the words stuck in your throat. He wasn’t threatening, not exactly. But there was something about him—something about the way he stood there—that made you uneasy.

“Who are you?” you managed to ask, though your voice came out quieter than you intended. It sounded almost like an apology, a soft question rather than an accusation.

The man’s lips twitched at the corner, just slightly, as if he found the situation amusing. But his expression remained composed, unreadable.

“You’re a hunter’s daughter, ain’t you?” he asked, voice low and smooth, as if he were merely stating a fact.

Your stomach twisted at the mention of your father’s occupation. You hadn’t said anything about it, and yet he knew. A cold shiver ran down your spine. The bow felt heavier in your hands now, though it hadn’t changed weight.

“I—" you started, but the words caught in your throat again. How could he possibly know that? How could he know anything about you?

The man didn’t press for an answer. Instead, he stepped down the stairs slowly, the creak of the old wood beneath his feet cutting through the stillness. There was something deliberate about his movement, calculated, like he was measuring every step.

For a moment, you couldn’t move. You were rooted to the spot, every instinct telling you to leave, but your body wouldn’t obey.

“You didn’t answer my question,” you finally said, though it came out more as a statement than a challenge. “Who are you?”

The man stopped at the base of the stairs, not too far from you now. You could see him clearly—his dark, disheveled hair, the sharpness of his jaw, and the way his eyes studied you with an unsettling intensity.

“I’m Remmick,” he replied, his voice carrying the weight of something ancient, as if the name itself held meaning that went beyond just the sound of it.

You swallowed hard, still unsure whether you were in danger. Remmick. It meant nothing to you, but it did something to the air between you two. It made everything feel tighter, heavier.

You opened your mouth to ask something, but the words didn’t come. Instead, you found yourself staring at the cat again. It had resumed purring, now almost as though it was unconcerned with the man standing behind you.

“You were asking about him earlier,” Remmick said, his voice drawing your attention back to him. “He’s… particular. Doesn’t usually take to strangers.”

His eyes flicked to the cat, who lazily blinked in response, as if confirming the claim.

“I didn’t do anything,” you whispered, your voice quiet again, unsure of how to proceed. You felt like you were losing your grip on the situation.

Remmick's lips quirked again, this time into something closer to a smile—though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. "I didn’t say you did. But he’s... not as welcoming as you might think. Not for just anyone." There was a pause, his eyes still locked on yours. “But then, I suppose you’re not ‘just anyone,’ are you?”

You frowned, uncertain about his meaning. It felt as though he was dancing around something—something that wasn’t being said directly. You didn’t know what he was implying, but you didn’t like it.

“I should go,” you said suddenly, the words spilling out before you could stop them. Your pulse was racing again, faster now, as the anxiety took hold of you.

You stepped back, but as you did, you didn’t notice your father’s coat slipping off your shoulders. The fabric fell silently to the floor with a soft rustle, the heavy weight of it landing unnoticed in the dim room. But Remmick didn’t mention it. He didn’t even look at it. His eyes remained focused on you, a faint amusement still tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re in a hurry,” he remarked, his voice quieter now, as though speaking more to himself than to you.

There was something in his tone—something that made you hesitate at the door. You didn’t understand it, but it made you feel like you were doing the wrong thing. Like you were leaving something important behind.

Despite the uncertainty pulling at you, you couldn’t stay any longer. You couldn’t be there with him.

With a final, hurried glance, you turned and moved toward the door, the weight of his gaze following you.

And as you stepped outside, the chill of the evening air hit you, but it was nothing compared to the cold you felt from leaving the house behind.

You left hurriedly, footsteps light but quick, your heart racing as you told yourself to put more distance between yourself and the man who still watched from the shadows.

You kept your head low, your steps quick and purposeful as you moved farther from the house. The air outside, even though thick with the weight of the sky, felt cooler, as though it was offering you a bit of relief from the tense knot in your chest. You kept walking, not daring to look back, feeling the heavy silence hanging between you and the stranger that now occupied your thoughts.

But then, as you rounded the corner of the old church, you froze.

Your father stood there, stepping out from the broken doorway of the church. His broad shoulders filled the frame of the entrance, his dark coat swaying slightly in the evening breeze. The sight of him, solid and familiar, made the breath you were holding catch in your throat. For a moment, you simply stared at him—eyes wide, heart beating a little too fast.

He didn’t seem to notice your startled reaction, his brow furrowing as he took a few steps toward you. “What’s wrong?” His voice was gentle, but there was an edge of concern, like he’d been looking for you.

You stood there, trying to steady yourself, but the encounter with Remmick was still fresh in your mind, the tension from the moment still clinging to your skin. You were out of breath—not from running, but from the panic, the unsettled feeling that you hadn’t been able to shake since you’d left that house. The weight of your father’s gaze made it harder to breathe.

“Just… just walked around,” you said, your voice soft but quick. It was a lie, but it was the only thing you could say that would make sense. You couldn't tell him what had really happened. You couldn’t explain the unease, the stranger, or the way that house felt too strange, too unfamiliar. You couldn’t risk him knowing.

He tilted his head slightly, studying you for a moment. “You’re out of breath,” he said, his voice still calm but with a flicker of worry in his eyes. “What’s going on, kid?”

You forced a smile, though it felt too tight, too practiced. You couldn't let him know the truth. You couldn’t tell him about the man you’d met, the way he'd spoken, the feeling that still lingered around you like smoke. You didn’t know what to think, what to believe, and you definitely didn’t want your father involved in any of it.

“I’m fine,” you said quickly, adjusting the bow in your hand as if it were the source of your anxiety. You wanted to change the subject, to distract him from the flush in your cheeks, the strange pounding in your chest. “I just got a little... tired. The air here, I guess.”

Your father didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t press further. His eyes softened, a gentle understanding there despite his earlier concern. “I say we head back,” he murmured, stepping closer to you, the warmth of his presence almost soothing after the cold encounter with Remmick. “Let’s head home before it gets more dark.”

You nodded, relief flooding your chest at the thought of leaving the strange town, the eerie church, and the unsettling man behind. You didn’t know what would happen if your father found out the truth. But you weren’t ready to let him see you unsettled, not when you couldn’t even explain it yourself.

“Okay,” you said, forcing a breath that felt too shaky. “Let’s go home.” Your father nodded and placed a hand on your shoulder, giving you a comforting squeeze as you turned to walk away together, toward the path leading back through the woods. But as you moved, your heart was still racing, still unsure of what you’d left behind in that old house, in the shadow of the church.

And the last thing you heard before the world closed back to normal was the soft purring of the cat in your mind, still echoing in the back of your thoughts.

You didn’t mean to come back. Not here, not now, and definitely not in this dress—the one you chose because it made you feel like you might be someone else entirely. Someone who belonged somewhere better. But the coat… the coat was a different story. Your father’s coat, left behind in that crumbling house you swore you’d never step foot in again. Somehow, the weight of forgetting it gnawed at you all afternoon, pulling you farther away from the path you’d promised to follow.

So you walked. Past the cracked sidewalks, the hollowed-out shops swallowed by vines and dust, your footsteps muffled by years of silence. The familiar comfort of the cat was gone, too—no soft meow or flickering tail to guide you this time. Instead, the air felt thick, heavy, like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something.

You tried to ignore it, tried to convince yourself you just needed to grab the coat and leave. But every step forward twisted the knot in your stomach tighter, and the house at the end of the street looked less like a home and more like a grave.

You stopped just short of the porch, heart hammering in your chest, breath catching in your throat. The house was still—the broken windows like dark eyes watching you, the front door hanging slightly ajar as if inviting you in. You reached out to touch the chipped paint on the railing, your fingers trembling, the rough texture grounding you.

Then, faint but unmistakable, a sound—something wet and awful—slipped through the silence.

You froze, every nerve on fire. Your eyes flicked toward the side of the house, where the shadows pooled thick and black. You wanted to turn, to run away from whatever your mind was trying to imagine. But curiosity, cold and sharp, rooted you to the spot.

And then you saw him.

Remmick.

He was crouched low, his back bent over something—or someone—you couldn’t quite make out at first. The sickening sound grew louder, more desperate. A wet, tearing noise that didn’t belong in this quiet town.

You blinked, heart skidding to a stop as you realized the horror before you. He was biting, tearing at flesh with a brutal hunger that sent ice racing down your spine. The way his jaw moved was too fast, too mechanical—like a predator who had been waiting for this moment.

Your breath caught, lungs tightening. Panic surged, sharp and sudden, but your body refused to move. You pressed yourself tighter against the cold metal of the fence, trying to shrink into the shadows, praying he wouldn’t see you.

The figure beneath him writhed silently, muffled gasps barely audible over the pounding in your ears. You felt your skin crawl, your dress suddenly too thin, too fragile. The thought of your father’s coat, waiting inside, seemed almost laughable now.

Slowly, so slowly your legs felt like lead, you stepped back, every movement measured, careful. Your eyes never left Remmick, watching the way he tore into his victim with terrifying calm. You knew—knew—if he saw you, it would be the end of whatever sliver of safety you had left.

You swallowed hard, mouth dry, and inched backward, each step a silent prayer that you’d slip away unnoticed. The night pressed in around you, thick and suffocating, the town’s broken streets like a maze you had to navigate without making a sound.

You didn’t look back as you vanished down the cracked pavement, heart racing, breath ragged. The coat wasn’t worth it. Nothing was. Because some nightmares don’t stay hidden, and some truths are too terrible to face.

You left the house, the coat, and whatever dark hunger lived in that shadow behind you. And you ran.

You didn’t stop running until the trees thinned out and the old wooden gate at the edge of town creaked into view. Your breath tore from your lungs in ragged gasps, chest heaving beneath your bodice, sweat pooling beneath the collar of your dress. You could still hear it — that wet, awful noise — the slick sound of something being torn apart. His shoulders hunched low, jaw moving like a machine, blood pooling dark beneath him. You hadn’t meant to see it. You hadn’t even meant to stay long. Just the coat, and then gone.

But you’d seen him.

Remmick.

And now your legs were lead and your heart wouldn’t stop stammering and your stomach had curled so tight it hurt to breathe.

You stumbled past the last fence, up the dry path, across the patch of cracked ground that passed for a yard. The porch creaked as your foot hit the first step—and that was when the door opened.

Your father stepped out into the golden spill of lamplight. His shirt sleeves were rolled past his elbows, suspenders hanging slack against his hips, jaw clenched so tight it made the muscle twitch. He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at you like he wasn’t sure you were real.

Then, flat and sharp as a whip crack. “Girl, where the hell’ve you been?”

You froze halfway up the steps, skirts clinging to your legs, breath too loud in your ears.

His voice dropped a little, quieter but heavier for it. “You leavin’ this house dressed like a bellflower and comin’ back lookin’ like you been chased through the woods by a pack o’ dogs.” He squinted, stepping closer. “And I been standin’ here goin’ half mad thinkin’ you were face-down in a ditch somewhere. You better start talkin’, and fast.”

Your mouth opened. Nothing came out at first.

“I went for a jog,” you said, voice thin, too cheerful, far too late to be believable.

Your father blinked. “A jog,” he repeated, real slow, like he was testing the word out for the first time. “You went for a jog.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In a dress.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stared at you. “Since when do you jog?”

“Well,” you said, pausing like you had to think about it, “technically, I’d call it… brisk walking. With passion. Very determined walking.”

His brows drew together. “In shoes that ain’t meant for nothin’ but sittin’ pretty in church.”

“They held up,” you said, glancing down at them. “Mostly. One of ‘em squeaks now. Adds character.”

He didn’t laugh. Not even a twitch.

He folded his arms. “You been gone over an hour. You looked me square in the eye not five hours ago and said you were stayin’ in for the evening.”

“I was,” you said. “But then I remembered I needed the air. And then… well. The air just kept goin’.”

“You tryin’ to be clever with me?”

“No, sir,” you said, swallowing. “Just stupid.”

That cracked something in his face — not a smile, not quite, but something eased. Only a little. He shook his head, exhaling through his nose, stepping down to meet you at the bottom of the stairs. His voice dipped lower. “Listen to me now, and I mean it — if you saw anything unusual out there, you tell me. You understand?”

You met his eyes, barely.

“I’m serious, girl. I know this town. You think it’s dead, but it ain’t empty. You see somethin’ that don’t sit right, you come tell me. I ain’t askin’ for poetry. Just truth.”

You hesitated. He caught it.

“Don’t you lie to me now,” he said, quiet. “You ain’t got the stomach for it.”

You forced a breath through your teeth and gave a smile that didn’t reach your eyes. “Saw a squirrel,” you said, nodding like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Big one. Looked like he had a grudge.”

He squinted. “A squirrel.”

“Mean as sin.”

“A joggin’ squirrel with a bad attitude.”

“Out-of-towner,” you said. “Didn’t have the local manners.”

He closed his eyes for a second like he was praying for patience. You didn’t move.

When he looked at you again, the anger was still there, but something else had taken its place too — weariness, worry, that particular kind of fear only a parent carries.

He let out a breath. “Get inside,” he muttered. “Before I say somethin’ I can’t take back.” You nodded and followed him in, the screen door creaking shut behind you.

You didn’t mention Remmick. Didn’t mention the body. Didn’t mention the way something in your chest had twisted with a sick sort of grief — not just fear for your father, but fear for him, too. Like some small, foolish part of you didn’t want him to die, didn’t want your father to go hunt him down, even after what you’d seen.

That part stayed quiet.

You left your shoes by the door and your secrets on the porch.

The church was a cavern of shadows and silence beneath the thick night. Outside, the world was drowned in darkness, but inside, the flicker of moonlight threw kaleidoscopes of stained glass colors across the ancient wood and cracked stone floor. The air smelled faintly of old paper and cold stone, and a soft draft whispered through the cracks in the windows, carrying the faint rustle of leaves from the outside.

You knelt there, alone, in the vast quiet, the heavy wooden pew pressing against your knees. Your hands were clenched so tightly that your knuckles ached, fingers interwoven as though trying to hold yourself together. Your dress rustled faintly with every breath, the fabric cool and rough beneath your palms.

The weight of everything you’d kept inside—the lies, the shame, the fear—felt heavier in this place. The silence seemed to press in on you, demanding confession and penance, yet you found no relief. You whispered prayers—half-pleas, half-accusations—into the darkness, your voice so low it was almost swallowed by the stillness.

Forgive me, you breathed, cheeks burning in the moonlight. Forgive me for lying to him. Forgive me for the things I can’t say out loud. For the thoughts I hide.

For two weeks, the lie had settled like a stone in your gut, twisting tighter each day. You hadn’t meant to deceive your father, but the truth was a thing too wild and terrible to speak. You’d told him you went out for a jog—two weeks ago, almost like a casual thing—and ever since, the lie had clung to you like a shadow.

Your mind flickered with images you wished you could unsee. Nights spent tossed in restless sleep, chased through tangled woods by his dark silhouette. Dreams that shifted and morphed, sometimes terrifying, sometimes aching with a strange, unwelcome longing. The last few were the worst—dreams where you felt his hands on you, rough and sure, and you woke drenched in cold sweat, heart pounding like a trapped bird.

You forced your eyes closed, biting back the flood of shame. The quiet was all you wanted now. To be swallowed in the silence, far from the world and its cruelties.

Then came the knock. Three sharp, deliberate taps echoing off the cold stone walls and the wooden pews, breaking the stillness like a breath held too long. The sound made your skin prickle, but you didn’t move. You kept your eyes tightly shut, not daring to look behind you, as if turning around would summon whatever was waiting.

Your hands were clasped tightly in front of you, knuckles white beneath the flickering candlelight. You murmured your prayers, voice low and steady, but the words tangled in your throat. The cold church air wrapped around you, settling heavy and thick, pressing down like a weight on your chest. Your heart hammered, a wild thing trapped beneath your ribs, pounding louder with every passing second.

“Come in,” you said quietly, barely more than a breath, but firm enough to will the door to open. You didn’t need to turn around to know it had. The air shifted suddenly, colder still, as though the shadows themselves had moved closer. You stayed where you were, knees pressed to the wooden floor, hands folded tight.

You tried to force your thoughts back to the prayer, tried to pour all your fear and shame into those quiet words, but your mind kept wandering—back to the things you’d seen, the lies you’d told your father, the guilt that burned deep inside. Your lips moved silently, but the faith you’d once felt seemed to slip away with every breath.

Then, something settled beside you. It was a presence you could feel more than see—a heavy weight in the pew, a warmth that didn’t belong in this cold, empty place. Your body stiffened, muscles tensing as if to flee, but you stayed rooted to the spot, frozen by something you couldn’t explain.

You didn’t turn. You didn’t want to. Your eyes stayed closed, the candlelight flickering softly against your lashes. Your breath hitched and caught, mouth suddenly dry and thick with the taste of iron and fear.

The weight beside you shifted slightly, just enough for you to feel the heat of a gaze burning through you—intense, sharp, impossible to ignore. It was as if the very air pressed closer to your skin, the silence stretched taut around your beating heart.

Slowly, reluctantly, you cracked open your eyes, blinking against the darkness, and turned your head just enough to see him.

There he was—Remmick. Sitting beside you in the dim, quiet church, calm and still, watching.

His eyes caught the faint glow of candlelight, dark and unyielding, steady and cold. The hard planes of his face were sharp against the soft shadows, lips pressed into a thin line that held no hint of warmth or welcome.

Your heart stuttered. Every part of you screamed to get up, to run, but your limbs felt like they’d been turned to stone. Fear, shame, confusion, and something deeper twisted in your gut. You hadn’t wanted to see him again, not like this, not alone in the quiet hours when no one else was around.

You thought you were safe here. You thought you were alone.

But that look in his eyes told you otherwise.

You jerked upright so fast it was like the floor beneath you had shifted, and your eyes snapped open wide, shining bright in the dim candlelight. Your breath hitched sharply, and you stumbled backward, the rough wood scraping under your skirts. Your fingers curled tight around the edge of the pew for balance, heart pounding like a drum in your chest. The chill in the church seemed to press down harder, filling your lungs with cold, stale air that tasted faintly of dust and old prayers.

You could feel him moving beside you, rising from the pew with a slow, deliberate grace that made every hair on your skin stand on end. His silhouette stretched tall in the flickering light, the faint glow catching on the sharp angles of his face, casting shadows that twisted like dark secrets. You didn’t dare meet his eyes—not yet—because even in the quiet, you could sense the weight of his gaze, like a coal burning straight through the fog of your panic.

When his voice finally broke the silence, it was low and smooth, carrying a drawl thick as molasses but laced with something colder than the night outside. “You done forgot your coat,” he said, slow and steady, his words falling like heavy drops. “The one you come back lookin’ for… 'bout two weeks ago now.”

Your throat tightened, your pulse pounding so loud you were sure he could hear it. You swallowed hard, trying to steady your voice, but it came out a breathless whisper, “I… I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Your eyes flicked away, desperate to find safety in the flicker of candlelight rather than the unblinking dark of his stare.

But he didn’t shift or blink. His gaze stayed pinned on you like iron hooks. “Don’t waste breath on lies,” he said, voice low, almost amused in a way that made your skin crawl. “I seen what you saw. That night. You thought you could slip away without me knowin’, but I know.” The quiet in the church grew heavier, as if his words themselves pulled the shadows closer around you.

You felt the cold seep deeper into your bones. There was no room for denial here—not anymore. The memory of that terrible sight, the awful, wet sounds, the raw hunger in his movements—it rose up like a sickness in your chest. Your lips trembled, but no sound came. You wanted to scream, to run, but the floorboards beneath you felt rooted, as if they’d grown roots and tangled around your feet.

He took a step closer, slow and purposeful, the faint creak of the pew under his weight breaking the silence. The air seemed to grow colder still, the candle flame flickering in protest. “You thought you was safe,” he murmured, the drawl thickening with a dangerous edge. “Thought I wouldn’t notice you there, watchin’, hidin’ behind that trembling heart of yours.” His eyes glinted in the dim light, dark and sharp, watching every flicker of fear, every faltering breath.

Your whole body trembled now, a mix of terror and something else—a strange, unwelcome pull you couldn’t explain. You wanted to hate him. You wanted to turn and run from this dark truth you’d buried so deep. But the weight of his gaze was a chain, binding you to the spot, freezing the air between you both.

“You ain’t safe,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper that wrapped itself around your skin like a cold wind. “Not in this town. Not anywhere close to me.”

The candle flame sputtered, casting long, crawling shadows that seemed to reach for you. You swallowed again, mouth dry and thick with the taste of fear. His presence filled the space, heavy and dark, and in that moment you knew you weren’t just a frightened girl hiding in an empty church—you were someone caught in the quiet hunger of something far older and colder than you ever dared imagine.

You stared at him, disbelief and fear twisting your stomach into tight knots. “You’ve been watchin’ me?” Your voice cracked, sharp with both defiance and disbelief. “My daddy’d have your head for what you are if I told him a single word.” The words slipped out before you could stop them, bitter and raw. Your eyes narrowed, daring him to laugh it off, or deny it. You weren’t sure which reaction would scare you more.

And then he did laugh—slow, dark, like a low rumble rolling through the cold church. It wasn’t the warm laughter of a friend or lover, but something colder, sharper, edged with something dangerous.

“Your daddy’s got no idea what’s been prowlin’ round these parts,” he said, voice thick with that drawl, the words slow and deliberate. “I been near enough to hear you when your windows are cracked open at night.” He took a step closer, the floorboards groaning beneath him, his presence swallowing the space between you. “When you think you’re safe and alone, moanin’ my name like you’re callin’ for salvation. When you clench your thighs tight, fightin’ somethin’ you don’t wanna admit… You reckon I don’t see all that from the shadows?”

Your breath caught—sharp, quick, trembling. You wanted to pull away, to slam the heavy wooden doors of the church behind him and lock yourself inside forever. But something in the way he spoke, like he knew every secret you hid from the world, made your skin crawl and your heart ache in ways you couldn’t understand.

“No,” you whispered, voice barely steady. “No, I ain’t like that.” But the words felt hollow even as they left your lips.

He smiled again, slow and crooked, eyes dark and unblinking. “You don’t get to lie to yourself, darlin’. Not when you’re lookin’ like that.” His voice dropped lower, almost a purr, thick with meaning you dared not unravel. “I been watchin’, waitin’—knowin’ you ain’t just scared of me, but what I am. What you could be, if you dared to let it in.”

The candlelight flickered, casting long shadows across his face—half in darkness, half in light. You could see the hunger in his eyes, the quiet promise of something wild and dangerous lurking just beneath that calm surface. Your body trembled, torn between fear and a strange, aching pull you refused to name.

“Don’t tell me you think you’re safe from me,” he murmured, voice like velvet dipped in ice. “Not here, not now, not ever.”

You swallowed hard, your heart pounding so loud you thought he might hear it. You wanted to scream, to run, to beg him to leave—but your feet felt rooted to the floor, your voice caught in a web of shame and terror and something you couldn’t quite grasp.

“I haven’t told a soul,” you said finally, voice breaking. “I swear on everything… I won’t.”

He leaned in closer, breath warm against your cheek. “I know.” His words were a quiet promise and a warning all at once. “And I ain’t lettin’ you hide no more.”

You stood frozen, lips parted like you might deny him again, but no sound came. There was something in his voice—low and rough, like gravel dragged slow across velvet—that rooted you there, spine locked, breath shallow.

Behind you, the air thickened. His presence coiled close, just shy of touching, but you could feel it all the same—heat, breath, the heavy pull of him. Every inch of you was trembling, not from cold, but from the unbearable awareness of how close he was. How your body reacted before your mind could protest.

Your eyes stayed locked on the altar ahead, flickering candlelight casting its glow like some holy warning. But you weren’t thinking about prayer anymore.

“You can’t show up like this,” you whispered, though your voice sounded weak even to your own ears. “This place ain’t for you.”

He laughed, soft and mean, like he knew the lie behind your words better than you did. “This place?” he echoed, stepping forward. “This place was built for sinners, darlin’. Not saints. And I ain’t the only one crawlin’ in here needin’ forgiveness.”

You didn’t answer. Couldn't. The scent of him—earth, smoke, iron—slipped into your lungs like sin made breathable.

“You think hidin’ in a church makes you clean?” he murmured, close now, his breath grazing your jaw, making you flinch like you’d been branded. “You think kneelin’ in the dark makes you innocent?”

“I am innocent,” you hissed, though your voice wavered, and your pulse betrayed you—hammering against your throat like a warning bell.

“You were,” he said, and that one word cracked something inside you. “Till you saw what you saw. Till you watched me tear that being apart and didn’t run. Till you started dreamin’ about me.”

Your breath caught. You hated that he was right.

“I didn’t mean to—” you started, but his gaze pinned you before you could finish.

“You did.” He tilted his head, eyes dragging down your throat, over your shaking hands. “Some part of you wanted to. Still does.”

You hated the heat blooming beneath your skin, hated the way your legs felt unsteady. But most of all, you hated how your body leaned toward him—despite everything, because of everything.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you whispered, not sure who you were begging—him, or yourself.

“Like what?” he said, voice low, amused. “Like you’re mine?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, as if darkness could keep him out. But his words pressed deeper, slipping under your skin, planting roots in the soft, secret places you never let anyone touch.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you,” he said, voice gentler now, though it still held that dangerous edge. “Not unless you ask me to.”

And somehow that was worse.

Because you didn’t trust yourself not to ask.

Not with the way your heart was thudding. Not with the heat pooling in your stomach. Not with the hunger he spoke of—your hunger—burning just beneath your skin.

You opened your mouth, but no prayer came.

Never in a million years would you have believed this—him—could take root inside you. That in just a few weeks’ time, you’d be sleeping beside the man who haunted your dreams. That you'd be living for him. Breathing for him.

And the worst part?

You wouldn't even regret it.

You’ve been doing this for months now—slipping away just as the last light dies, sneaking behind your daddy’s back through the gnarly woods that reek of rot and damp earth. The trees close in tight, branches clawing at your skin and clothes like they’re warning you to turn back. It’s scary, sure—but there’s a thrill too, knowing on the other side of those twisted paths waits Remmick.

Now, you’re here with him. His hands are firm on your skin, pulling you close, but your mind drifts away—back to the woods, to the creaking floorboards at home, to the lie you’re living. You think about how long you’ve been sneaking out, how your daddy probably has no idea where you vanish each night. How reckless you’ve been.

The quiet between you hums with something sharp and urgent, but it’s easy to get lost in your own head. Then, just as you start to slip away into your thoughts again, Remmick’s hand lands with a soft slap on your hip—a reminder. The moment snaps back, and it’s only you and him, right here, right now.

His hand cups your cheek, his thumb stroking the curve of your jaw, forcing you to meet his dark, intense gaze. "Eyes on me, darlin'," he commands, his voice a low, possessive rumble that vibrates through your very core. "Focus on me only."

He waits until your gaze is fully locked on his, until the swirling thoughts of home and deceit seem to momentarily recede from your eyes. Only then does he resume the deliberate thrusts that have your body aching and your breath catching in your throat. The sheets beneath you bunch and twist with your movements, the only sound besides your ragged breaths and his low grunts of satisfaction.

His other hand snakes down, his fingers tracing the slick heat between your legs, teasing and tormenting until a whimper escapes your lips. He watches your reaction, a predatory gleam in his eyes, as he continues his slow, agonizing pace. You try to focus on the sensation, on the way his body fills yours, on the raw, undeniable pleasure that threatens to consume you.

He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear. "Forget everything else," he murmurs, his breath hot against your skin. "There's only this." And then his teeth graze your neck, sending a jolt of pure sensation through you, momentarily eclipsing the guilt that gnaws at the edges of your desire.

The graze of his teeth sharpens, becoming a deliberate nip that pulls a gasp from your lips. He lingers there, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin, before his mouth trails lower, leaving a wet path down the curve of your neck towards your collarbone. You arch beneath him, your hands clutching at his shoulders, the need building with each slow, deliberate movement of his hips.

His fingers, still slick with your arousal, delve deeper, finding the most sensitive nub and stroking it with a practiced rhythm that sends shivers of pure sensation through you. You cry out, your head thrashing against the pillow, the carefully constructed walls of your control beginning to crumble.

"That's it, darlin'," he murmurs against your skin, his voice thick with lust. "Feel it. Feel only this."

He picks up the pace, his thrusts becoming deeper, more insistent. You meet his gaze, your eyes glazed with desire, and see the raw hunger mirrored in his. There's a primal intensity in his movements, a possessiveness that borders on brutal, and yet… it ignites a fire within you that you never knew existed.

His mouth returns to yours, his kiss a savage claiming. His tongue plunges deep, mirroring the insistent rhythm of his body inside you. You taste him, wild and untamed, and the guilt that usually gnaws at you is momentarily drowned out by the overwhelming tide of sensation.

He shifts, his hands sliding beneath your hips, lifting you to meet his thrusts with a deeper, more visceral connection. You can feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing against your core, each stroke sending waves of heat radiating through your body. You cry out again, your voice raw with need, the sound swallowed by his hungry kiss.

The tension coils tighter and tighter within you, a frantic knot of pleasure that threatens to unravel completely. You cling to him, your body slick with sweat, your senses overwhelmed by the feel of his skin against yours, the scent of his arousal, the taste of his kiss.

He senses your release, his movements becoming more urgent, more frantic. He whispers your name, a rough, guttural sound that echoes the primal rhythm of your bodies entwined. And then, the world explodes. A wave of pure, unadulterated pleasure washes over you, shattering the last vestiges of your control. You cry out, your body shuddering around his, your senses consumed by the intense release.

He holds you tight, his body shuddering against yours as he follows you over the edge. You cling to him, your breath coming in ragged gasps, the only sound in the dimly lit shack the frantic beating of your hearts.

His arms are still around you, holding you close in the low light of his bedroom. The sheets are tangled beneath you, and the air is thick with heat and something softer, quieter now. You listen to his breathing — heavy, slowing — the sound of it filling the room like a storm that just passed.

Your body’s still humming, but your mind’s already slipping away.

The bed creaks faintly as he shifts, pulling you tighter, like he can feel the distance in you. His skin is warm against yours, his fingers tracing lazy lines along your spine. But your thoughts drift — to the woods, to the way your boots scraped over roots and leaves as you ran here, the light almost gone. To your daddy, sitting in his chair back home, probably still waiting up with that quiet knowing look he wears when he doesn’t say a word but feels everything.

Remmick presses a kiss to your shoulder, then higher, along the curve of your neck. You don’t flinch, but you don’t lean into it either.

He feels it. You know he does.

“You good?” he asks, voice low against your skin.

You nod, slow. “Yeah.”

But you aren’t.

He waits a beat. Then, when you don’t say more, he brings his hand up and gives you a soft, playful slap on the cheek — enough to snap your attention back to him, to now. His eyes catch yours, unreadable in the dimness.

“Stay with me,” he says.

You swallow and try to smile, but the woods are still in your head. And your daddy’s voice, the one that never needed to be loud to make you feel small, echoes somewhere just beneath your ribs.

His arms are still wrapped around you when the silence starts to press in. The room is steeped in night — heavy curtains drawn, the only light a sliver of moon cutting across the warped floorboards. The heat between your bodies is starting to fade, leaving behind the stickiness of sweat, of blood, of breathless gasps swallowed in secret.

You shift against him, slow and quiet, but his grip doesn’t loosen. Not at first. When it finally does, it’s reluctant. A release not given, but tolerated.

You slip from the bed like a girl sneaking from a coffin, dragging the sheet up with you, wrapping it tight around your body even though there’s no real modesty left between you. You don’t speak. You never do, after.

Your bare feet hit the cold floor. The old wood moans beneath you, and you flinch — not from the sound, but from knowing he’s still watching. You can feel it. That gaze. Heavy. Burning.

Behind you, Remmick shifts. The bed creaks under his weight, the mattress sighing like it’s tired of holding him. You hear the soft, deliberate slide of him dressing — pants first, then the worn leather belt. He moves slow, like he’s buying time. Or maybe savoring it. Savoring you.

You crouch to find your drawers where they were kicked away earlier, near the leg of the nightstand. You bend to pick them up, and that’s when his voice breaks the silence — soft, feeling like something dead whispering in your ear. “Why d’you always run from me after?”

You don’t answer. You pull on your drawers and reach for your shift, laid over the back of the chair like it’s waiting to judge you.

He stands behind you now. You don’t need to turn — the weight of him is all around, like fog off the graveyard, clinging to skin and bone. You try not to look at the mirror on the wall, cracked at the edges. He never casts back.

“You think I don’t see how you look at me?” he says, closer now, his breath brushing the damp skin of your neck. “Like you hate yourself for wantin’ me. Like you’re scared of what I am but keep comin’ back anyway.”

You button your dress with trembling fingers, your throat dry. He doesn’t touch you. Not yet. But you can feel the way he wants to.

“You don’t get it, do you?” His voice stays soft — too soft. “I ain’t just fuckin’ you. I’m keepin’ you. Bit by bit. Night after night. You can lie to your daddy all you want, pretend you’re still his good girl, but you’re mine now. In ways you don’t even understand yet.”

You finally turn. He’s standing just behind you, shirtless still, his pants slung low on his hips, the belt hanging undone like a threat. His eyes gleam in the low light — not red, not glowing. Just wrong. Too deep, too black, like something ancient lives behind them.

“I let you leave,” he says, almost tender. “Ain’t that sweet of me? You walk back through them woods every night, thinkin’ you got a choice. Thinkin’ you’re strong enough to stay away. But you always come back.”

You swallow. “This isn’t—”

He cuts you off by stepping closer, forcing your back against the wall with nothing more than his presence. His hand lifts, slow, and he cups your cheek like he’s handling a vintage doll, his thumb stroking just under your eye.

“You think I couldn’t keep you here?” he whispers. “You think I ain’t strong enough to drag you down into the root cellar and bolt the door shut and keep you there ‘til you beg me to never let you leave again?”

You stare at him, wide-eyed, breath shaking in your chest.

“But I don’t,” he says, voice almost sad. “Because I want you to choose me. I want you to wake up in your daddy’s house with his prayers in your ears and still feel me inside you. I want you sittin’ at his Sunday table with me dripping down between your legs and my name caught in your throat.”

The room is silent again. Still.

Then, slowly, his expression darkens. Shifts.

“You smell like runnin’,” he says, the words curling out of his mouth like smoke. “Like you’re thinkin’ of leavin’ and never comin’ back.”

You don’t speak. You can’t.

He leans in, mouth at your ear. “You do that, and I will come for you. I’ll drag you from your daddy’s arms and make you watch me bleed him dry. I’ll leave his body hangin’ from the church steeple and put a ring on your finger before the sun rises.”

You’re shaking now, tears caught at the corners of your eyes — not from fear. Not just from fear.

Because you know something awful and true. Part of you wants him to. Part of you wants to stop pretending.

You gather your things with slow, shaking hands and back toward the door. He doesn’t follow. Just stands there, watching, always watching.

And as you slip out into the cold, moon-bitten dark — the wind carrying the smell of moss and smoke and something rotting deep in the trees — you already know you’ll come back.

Because you’re his. Even if you hate it. Even if it kills you.

You should’ve known.

You should’ve known when your monthly didn’t come — not the first time, and not the second. Nearly two full moons passed now, and still no blood. Nothing but that hollow, twisting ache deep in your belly. Like your body’s been holding its breath, waiting to tell you what your heart already knows.

You’ve been late before. Once. Maybe twice. But never like this. Not with the way your stomach turns every morning before the sun even breaks, your head light, mouth full of spit and nothing sweet. You wake up gagging some days, clutching your chest like that’ll keep the sickness down.

At first you told yourself it was nerves — the stress of sneaking through those woods, lying to your daddy, the weight of Remmick’s hands and his words clinging to your skin long after you left his bed.

But now? Now there’s no more lying. Not to yourself.

You stand hunched over the basin, breath shallow, eyes hollow in the chipped little mirror above the washstand. Your nightgown clings to your back with sweat, and your hair sticks to your neck from tossing all night, dreaming of hands and teeth and things growing where they shouldn’t.

You press a hand low over your stomach. There’s no bump. Not yet. But it don’t matter. You feel it.

Something’s wrong inside you. Or something’s already taken root.

Your chest tightens. It ain’t just a bastard child. It’s his. Remmick’s. A vampire’s. And your daddy… your daddy would kill you for this. No. He’d kill him. Then you. Maybe not in that order.

You turn away from the mirror, eyes burning. You shouldn’t have kept going back. Should’ve stopped the first time, when his mouth was on your neck and your heart was screaming louder than your breath. But he touched you like he’d die without it. Like you were something sacred and spoiled all at once. And every time you swore it was the last, you found yourself running through those trees again — like you were bewitched.

Maybe you were.

Outside your door, the floor creaks. You freeze.

Your daddy’s up. You can smell the smoke from his pipe — cloves and ash, bitter and thick. The sound of the front room chair groaning under his weight follows, slow and familiar. You know he’s just sitting there, listening, like he always does. Waiting for lies he won’t ask for but will see plain on your face.

You swallow hard. Because you ain’t no maiden anymore— that was certain months ago. And now something unnatural is growing in your belly.

Two weeks after, you left the house like usual.

No dinner, no goodnight. Just the click of the back door easing shut behind you and your boots moving fast across the dirt, swallowing the woods whole with each breathless step. You hadn’t seen Remmick in almost two weeks. Not really. You’d drawn the curtains tight, bolted the windows, let candle stubs burn down to nubs just to avoid the faintest flicker of him finding a way in.

You’d avoided even thinking about him.

But the sickness in the mornings wouldn’t stop. The twisting in your stomach. The missing blood. You counted the days again and again like beads on a rosary, praying they’d add up to anything else. But they never did. Every calculation pointed to the same answer.

And it was his.

You clutched your coat tighter around you as the trees pulled in close, your breath fogging the cold, damp air. The woods felt different tonight—watchful, almost. Like the trees themselves knew something was coming.

His house came into view through the dark. Same as always—crooked chimney, shuttered windows, ivy strangling the porch. You ran to it like something was chasing you.

You didn’t knock. Just pushed the door open and stumbled inside.

He was sitting in that old armchair near the fire, the light casting long shadows across his face. He didn’t look surprised to see you.

His eyes flicked up. That same bottomless black.

“Didn’t think you’d come back,” he said, voice slow and syrup-thick. “Thought maybe you were tryin’ to pretend I was just a fever dream.” You didn’t speak at first. Your hands shook as you closed the door behind you, heart pounding so loud it hurt.

“I’m pregnant,” you said.

The words dropped like lead. No soft preamble. No hesitation. Remmick didn’t move. Not for a long moment.

Then he stood. It was slow. Precise. Like a predator uncoiling.

He stepped toward you, each step so quiet it didn’t feel real. And when he reached you, he didn’t touch you right away. Just stood close enough that his presence swallowed you whole.

His eyes searched yours, and something behind them shifted. Something deep and furious and holy in its devotion. “You’re carryin’ my child,” he murmured.

It wasn’t a question.

You nodded. Barely.

His hand rose to cup your face, his thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. “You came all this way to tell me?”

You pulled your face back. “I don’t want it.”

The room went still.

The warmth bled out of the fire. The shadows deepened.

“What?” he said, voice a low rasp.

“I can’t—Remmick, I can’t have this baby. I can’t raise a vampire’s child while livin’ under my daddy’s roof. He’ll know. He’ll—he’ll kill me. He’ll kill you.”

Something inside him snapped.

His grip tightened—not enough to hurt, but enough to scare. Enough to remind you what he was.

“You think I’d let that old bastard lay a hand on you?” he hissed, the softness gone now. “You think I’d let anyone touch you or what’s mine?”

You shook your head, tears burning hot behind your eyes. “Please, just listen—”

“No,” he said, louder. “You listen.”

He turned away, dragging a hand down his face like he was trying to hold himself together.

“You came to me,” he muttered. “All them nights, you came to me. I didn’t force you. I didn’t take nothin’ that wasn’t offered. And now you wanna act like this baby is some kinda mistake?”

He looked back at you, something wild behind his eyes now.

“I should drag you back to that cellar and keep you there ‘til this child’s born. You think I wouldn’t? You think I won’t?”

Your breath caught in your throat.

He stepped forward again, slow and furious.

“You love your daddy?” he asked, voice dangerous and low.

Your eyes widened. “Remmick—”

“I said, do you love him?”

You nodded, shaking. “Yes. Please don’t—”

“Then you’ll keep this baby,” he said, final. “You’ll carry it. You’ll bring it into this world. Or I will put him in the ground and make you watch me do it.”

Tears slipped down your cheeks now, silent and fast.

He moved close again, gentling for the first time in minutes. His hand came back to your face, his thumb wiping a tear. “You don’t gotta be scared of me, sugar. I’ll protect you. I’ll protect our child. Ain’t nobody gonna hurt either of you. Not while I’m breathin’.”

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t.

You were trapped between the life you’d always known and the dark, magnetic force of him—a thing that was never fully alive, but more real than anything else you’d ever touched.

Remmick pulled you to him and held you there, your face pressed against his chest, his voice like a curse whispered in prayer.

“You’re mine,” he said. “And now they’ll all know it.”

And as the fire popped low behind you and the trees howled just outside the walls, you knew—one way or another, you weren’t leaving this.

Not anymore.

#remmick #remmick sinners #remmick x reader #dark!remmick x reader #remmick x you #remmick smut #sinners #sinners 2025 #jack o'connell #sinners movie #sinners fic

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solxamber · 26 days ago

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Mage x Menace || Jade Leech

You, a struggling mage-in-training, tried to summon a majestic beast to escape your cursed fate in the botany stream.

Instead, you got Jade Leech—chaos incarnate, collector of mysterious jars, and disturbingly enthusiastic about plants.

He now lives in your dorm, calls you "Master" with a straight face and might be seducing you via herbal tea.

this is a present for @hyperfixating-rn <3 I'm very late but happy belated birthday!!

You were going to be a great mage. A legendary one. The kind they wrote poems about—long, rhyming ones with unnecessarily dramatic metaphors. You had dreams. Ambitions. A Pinterest board titled "Epic Wizard Core." You practiced basic spells in your room, blew up your mirror once, and were 96% sure your magical aura was purple (which is obviously the most powerful one, everyone knows that).

So imagine your surprise when your entrance exam results came back and you were… sorted into the Botany stream.

Botany.

As in, plants.

As in, dirt and roots and sunlight and “communing with nature.”

You had never communed with nature. You had once tried to grow a cactus—the most resilient plant known to humankind—and it had withered in protest within a week. You had named that cactus Spiky. Its death was a tragedy. A murder, some said. By you.

So naturally, you stood there on orientation day, holding your shiny new textbook titled “Green is the Heart’s Color: Love and Magic in Leaves”, with the same vibe as someone who had been given a live grenade and told to hug it.

Your fellow classmates looked excited. Eager. Too green, in more ways than one. You watched one of them gently cradle a sproutling like it was a newborn. Another was crying over the “beautiful potential” of transpiration. Meanwhile, you were googling "can you accidentally poison poison ivy."

And then, of course, came your professor. You don’t remember much from the orientation speech because you were too busy having a silent breakdown about the phrase "the gentle whisper of chlorophyll." But you do remember one very important thing:

You’re in so much trouble.

You raised your hand at one point to ask if you were allowed to… switch majors. The professor smiled.

A warm, benevolent, lethal smile.

“Oh, dear. The plants have chosen you.”

What does that even mean???

You don’t know. But the tiny seedling on your desk keeps wiggling like it’s happy to see you. You don’t trust it. You name it Vermin and pray it doesn’t unionize with the moss on your windowsill.

You are a mage in training. A powerful wizard in the making.

And now you are at war… with horticulture.

After a week of trying to bond with leaves like they were long-lost family and nearly getting strangled by a particularly enthusiastic vine, you decided you’d had enough.

You needed a way out.

Not in the dramatic “storm out of class, set fire to the greenhouse, and flee into the mountains” way. (Though it was on the table.)

You needed a loophole. An escape clause. A forbidden back door in the curriculum forged in ancient times by other students who had also accidentally murdered cacti.

So you did what any desperate, dignity-depleted mage-in-training would do.

You found a senior.

Now, seniors in mage school are like cryptids. Powerful. Elusive. Sleep-deprived. And terrifying in the way only people who’ve once accidentally turned themselves into a plant can be. Your chosen senior was sitting under a tree, drinking coffee from a mug that said “I survived Magical Ecology II and all I got was this mug and lifelong trauma.”

You approached, clinging to your textbook like it was a lifeline. “Hi. I’m—uh. I’m not vibing with the flora.”

They looked up, eyes dark with knowledge and probably caffeine. “Botany stream?”

“Against my will.”

A pause. A long, sympathetic sip. Then: “You have two options.”

Your heart fluttered. Hope! Salvation! Maybe—

“One: Fail everything, get held back a year, reapply next cycle. Pray the plants forget your face.”

“I can’t afford that. Option two?”

“Summon a familiar so powerful, the faculty has to bump you into a combat-heavy stream for your own safety. And theirs.”

You blinked. “Like. A dragon?”

The senior shrugged. “Sure. Or a demon. Or a vengeful raccoon. Anything above ‘mildly homicidal housecat’ works.”

“And then they’ll just… change my stream?”

“If your familiar is terrifying enough, yes. Preferably something with fire. Fire fixes everything. Except greenhouses.”

You nodded slowly, feeling the stirrings of a Plan™. A terrible, beautiful, questionable plan.

"How hard is it to summon a familiar?" you asked.

They smiled, and it was not comforting.

“Not hard. Doing it without summoning something that wants to eat you is the tricky part.”

You thanked them and walked off into the distance, muttering under your breath and already flipping through your grimoires.

You were going to get out of this stream or die trying.

Hopefully neither.

But if a hellbeast had to be involved, well…

You were prepared to negotiate.

You had one job.

Just one.

Summon a powerful familiar. Save your future career path. Escape the dreaded Botany Stream before you're eaten alive by carnivorous radishes with anger issues and questionable ethics.

You’d studied forbidden texts. You’d drawn your summoning circle to perfect mathematical proportions using a protractor, three compasses, and something called “Manifestation Oil” you bought off a sketchy alchemy influencer.

You even lit candles by hand like a peasant. That’s how serious this was.

You had one last step: focus your intent. Picture what you wanted. Channel all your magic and will into the ritual. A dragon, perhaps. A fearsome spirit. A beast of legend. Maybe even a war general.

Instead, the unagi you were saving for dinner—your actual, literal eel—slid off the table mid-chant and splat landed right in the center of the summoning circle.

The summoning circle hissed.

You had precisely one second to scream “NO, YOU STUPID SLIPPERY FISH—” before the circle detonated.

There was light. Screaming wind. Something smelled vaguely of seaweed and crime.

When your retinas finally stopped sizzling and your ears recovered from their astral slapping, you looked up.

And there he was.

A tall, elegant man standing in the still-smoking circle, dusting off his sleeves like he hadn’t just been yanked across the realms by an overcooked eel. His teal hair shimmered like deep water. Heterochromatic eyes. He looked like a minor sea god and a professional tax evader all rolled into one.

He tilted his head. Smiled. “That was… dramatic.”

You stared. Still holding the empty microwave-safe eel tray like a sacrificial relic.

“I was trying to summon a dragon,” you croaked.

“Ah,” he said, eyeing the smear of soy sauce in the center of the runes. “Then why the seafood?”

You didn’t have an answer. Mostly because you were too busy silently screaming.

“I suppose I’m what happens when your spell gets rerouted mid-delivery,” he continued, delight practically oozing off him. “Fascinating. I'm Jade. Jade Leech.”

You, a mage of great ambition and even greater regret, took a deep breath and said the only thing that made sense.

“…Are you allergic to plants?”

Jade Leech, freshly yanked from the dark, swirling depths of somewhere much cooler than here, watched with the amused detachment of a man who had just witnessed his summoner go through all five stages of grief in under forty seconds.

You cursed the gods.

You cursed the stars.

You cursed your entrance exam, your cactus, your birth, and at one point—yourself in third person.

He said nothing. Simply folded his hands behind his back and watched with the kind of serene interest normally reserved for people observing an exotic animal fling itself against glass.

Eventually, once your vocal cords began to shred from impassioned screaming (and possibly mild sobbing), you whirled toward him, red-eyed and wild-haired, and gestured at him in disbelief.

“Are you—” you wheezed, dragging a sleeve across your face, “perchance a dragon?”

He blinked slowly. His smile widened.

“Perchance?”

“I don’t know!” you shouted. “You’re tall! You appeared in a bunch of smoke! Your hair defies gravity! That could be dragon behavior!”

“Hm.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “And if I say yes?”

You squinted. “...Do you breathe fire?”

“I’m more of a ‘poison your tea and watch what happens’ sort of creature,” he replied, pleasantly.

You screamed again—this time in cosmic betrayal—and stomped your foot so hard the candles trembled.

He made a note of this. You had good stomping technique.

“Well then what are you?!” you demanded.

He shrugged, like this wasn’t a magical emergency and more of a casual day.

“A Moray Eel, technically.”

You stared at him. Then at the summoning circle. Then at the empty microwave eel tray still on the floor. Then back at him.

“Oh my gods,” you whispered in horror. “The unagi redirected the target circle. I was summoning a power dragon and the ritual downgraded to ‘long sea worm.’”

He chuckled. “How dare you.”

“I wanted to cheat the system,” you whispered, falling to your knees like a tragic protagonist. “And the gods sent me seafood.”

“I’m standing right here, you know.”

You threw yourself to the ground and started sobbing into the floor.

Jade’s smile grew wider. He might stay. This was already more entertaining than anything back home.

And honestly, watching you spiral was kind of charming.

Jade made tea.

You weren’t entirely sure how or when. One moment, you were crumpled on the floor, dramatically mourning your dreams of becoming a cool elemental mage with a dragon familiar. The next, he was handing you a dainty teacup on a saucer you definitely didn’t own.

There was a slice of lemon in it. The mug was warm. You were terrified.

“…Did you summon this tea set too?” you asked, eyeing the porcelain like it was going to explode.

“No,” he said pleasantly. “It was in your cupboard.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

He smiled wider. “Was it not?”

You stared at him. He stared back, sipping his tea with the calm of someone who knew exactly where every spoon in your home was and wouldn’t hesitate to replace them with slightly longer spoons just to gaslight you.

You took a sip of the tea to assert dominance. It was delicious. You hated that it was delicious.

He watched you, unblinking. “So. Why the desperate summoning?”

You groaned, slouching like the tea had robbed you of whatever spine you had left. “I got sorted into the botany stream.”

There was a silence. You sipped your tea again to drown in the shame.

Then his eyes sparkled.

You felt it. Like a shift in the atmosphere. Like the moment before a lightning strike. Like the second someone said, “Trust me,” and you woke up four hours later in a tree, covered in glitter and mild regret.

“Oh,” he said, delighted. “Botany.”

“No,” you said immediately. “Don’t do that. Don’t say it like that.”

“Fascinating field, truly.”

“Nope. You’re not going to help me switch out, are you?”

He leaned forward, chin in his hand, elbow balanced too gracefully for someone who had appeared out of eel magic and poor life choices. “Why would I do that? I think you’ll thrive.”

“You don’t understand,” you said, pleading now. “I killed a cactus.”

“Oh, I completely understand,” he said. “And I'm going to help you fulfill your potential.”

You froze. “…You mean, like, help me survive until I transfer?”

“No,” he said.

You dropped your cup. He caught it without looking. You wanted to scream.

The only thing worse than being a botany student… was being a botany student with a chaos eel who found fungi romantically intriguing as your familiar.

You were so doomed.

Unfortunately for everyone involved—and by everyone, specifically you—magic law was a clingy little thing. Once the summoning circle did its sparkly flashbang thing and delivered you one (1) butler-themed eel man, the universe basically clapped its hands, said “it is what it is,” and slapped a contract in your face.

Minimum term of servitude: one year.

“But I didn’t mean to summon him,” you argued to literally no one who cared. “There was fish involved! It was a mishap, not a magical invocation!”

Jade, very unhelpfully sipping tea that you definitely hadn’t bought, slid the scroll across the table toward you like a cheerful IRS agent. “Intent is only one part of the ritual,” he said with the infinite patience of someone who enjoyed watching trainwrecks in slow motion. “The contract is already half-formed. You really should sign it before your house explodes.”

You stared at the scroll.

Then at him.

Then at the scroll again.

“Do I at least get a trial period?” you tried.

“No,” he said, smiling.

“A free return policy?”

“No.”

“Is there, like, an eel clause I can exploit?”

He chuckled. You were going to die in this major.

With the kind of reluctant grace that only someone who’d just accidentally legally bound themselves to a smug sea-creature man could muster, you signed.

The moment the pen left the paper, the air shifted with a cozy little pop, as if magic itself was tucking you both in and whispering “congratulations on your joint custody of chaos.” A faint glow danced around Jade’s shoulders. Your window exploded.

(You’d ask questions about that later.)

“There we are,” Jade said, clasping his hands. “Familiar and mage, officially contracted. Shall I begin compiling a weekly schedule for our fieldwork?”

“Field—oh no.”

“Oh yes,” he beamed. “We’ll be revisiting the entire kingdom flora catalogue, starting with mosses.”

You suddenly understood the reason why some mages went mad.

And unfortunately, you’d just handed yours the clipboard.

The next morning, you dragged yourself to class like a condemned soul to the gallows, weighed down by a sense of impending doom and also by the deeply unsettling realization that your familiar had organized your bookshelf by spore reproduction categories sometime during the night.

Everyone else looked so normal. There was someone with a fire spirit coiled lazily around their shoulders, someone else with a giant spectral wolf that radiated unbothered energy, and even one smug jerk with a miniature dragon who was definitely using it to cheat on practical tests.

And then there was you.

With him.

Jade stood a respectful half-step behind you, dressed like a mildly menacing butler who might also commit tax fraud if given the opportunity. He carried your books. He bowed to your professor. He smiled at your classmates.

You didn’t trust that smile. That was the smile of a man who had definitely poisoned a royal court and got away with it by turning the queen into a toadstool.

Someone asked what type of spirit you’d summoned.

You opened your mouth to lie.

Jade answered for you. “They were aiming for a dragon,” he said, serene as ever. “But an eel will have to do.”

The entire class stared at you. You stared into the void.

“It was the unagi,” you muttered, already defeated.

No one knew what that meant, but it sounded stupid, so they all laughed.

Jade patted your back like a supportive guardian. You were ninety percent sure it was to check your spine for eventual harvesting.

Gods help you. It was only the first period.

The Academy was in shambles.

Centuries of magical history. Thousands of successfully summoned fire spirits, storm wolves, mildly angry raccoons. And you—a botany major with a dead cactus on your record—had gone and summoned a person.

Not a ghost.

Not an illusion.

Not even a creepy guy pretending to be summonable.

No. A fully functional person.

“Technically,” the Dean said, staring at the magical contract hovering over your heads, “you… own him now.”

You almost threw up on the ornate rug.

Jade Leech, the man in question, just smiled—sharp, calm, entirely too pleased.

“This is so cursed,” you whispered.

“Oh no,” he replied sweetly. “This is fate.”

And that was only the beginning of your descent into contractual hell.

Because Jade? Oh, he thrived under magical servitude. Took to it like a duck to water. Like an eel to crime.

He started calling you Master.

In public. Loudly. With emphasis.

“Good morning, Master,” he purred on the way to breakfast, gliding past stunned first-years who immediately assumed you were either very powerful or very into some stuff they weren’t ready to Google.

“Jade. Stop.”

“As you command, Master.”

You tried reasoning with him. You begged. You threatened to cry in front of the Headmistress.

Didn’t matter.

In fact, the more embarrassed you got, the worse it became.

“Master, shall I carry your books?”

“No.”

“Your lunch?”

“No.”

“Your emotional baggage?”

“Jade—”

“Ah, but you summoned me, Master. Now we’re bonded.”

You looked around, desperate for help, but every professor just kind of shrugged. Magical contracts were sacred. Breakable only through death, divine intervention, or, apparently, a system of interpretive dances before the moon goddess during a blood eclipse. None of which were happening before finals.

So now this was your life.

You were the “owner” of a smug eel man in a waistcoat who made you do your homework, made better tea than your own grandmother, and insisted on calling you Master while looking like a very polite threat.

You used to be a normal student with no future in botany.

You should've just failed your exams like a normal student.

Jade settled into your dorm room like he’d been planning it for years. Which was frankly insane, considering you’d only accidentally summoned him a day ago.

You woke up the morning after signing the magically binding familiar contract to find your room… different. Not horrifyingly so, just enough to make your eye twitch. Your desk had moved three inches to the left. Your bookshelf now had labels. Your cactus—previously deceased—was somehow thriving in a suspiciously fancy ceramic pot.

And then there were the jars. Oh gods, the jars. They lined the shelves now in neat, alphabetized rows. Some were normal—“Chamomile,” “Sea Salt,” “Lavender Sprigs.” Others were less so. “Tooth Collection (Domestic)” sat right next to “Rainwater (For Legal Use Only).” You wanted to ask, but Jade had a look in his eye that said whatever answer you get, you won’t like it.

He also brewed tea every morning. Not the relaxing kind. The existential crisis in a cup kind. You drank one (1) polite sip and suddenly understood what “the color eleven” looked like. Your body remained seated but your soul went on a brief vacation.

You had no idea how, but you were scoring higher in Botany. You still couldn’t identify a single plant, but Jade kept slipping you notes mid-lab with things like “This one bites. Do not sniff.” or “Lick at your own risk.”

So yes, your GPA was rising. Unfortunately, so was your blood pressure. And your heart rate. And your sense that you were, somehow, very much in danger.

Jade simply smiled every time you panicked. “You’re thriving, Master,” he’d say, and sip his tea like he wasn’t actively reorganizing your entire life.

You were not thriving. You were surviving. Barely.

The assignment was simple on paper: identify twenty local plants, label their genus, and list their magical and medicinal properties.

Which was all fine and dandy if you weren’t a person who had accidentally killed a cactus by underwatering it because you “didn’t want to overwhelm it.”

You’d gotten through most of your academic career via a potent combination of vibes, frantic late-night study sessions, and an almost supernatural level of spite. But this—this was science. With labels. And botanical terminology. And leaves that all looked the same.

So, you did what any sane, desperate mage-in-training with poor decision-making skills and a total lack of botanical knowledge would do.

You brewed a bathtub-sized cauldron of universal poison antidote and decided you’d taste-test each plant to figure out which one was lethal and, by process of elimination, identify the rest.

Jade found you leaning over the cauldron, mumbling something about statistical mortality rates and chewing on a leaf like a feral squirrel trying to beat natural selection.

“I thought you were joking,” he said, in that same unsettlingly pleasant tone he always used when you were actively concerning him.

“I wasn’t!” you declared. “This is science, Jade. And survival. I’ve made enough antidote to survive an assassination attempt—”

“You made it in your bathtub.”

“—and I’m going to lick nature into submission.”

Jade sat you down at the table, folded his hands neatly, and asked you—politely but with the weight of an ancient curse behind it—to repeat your plan.

You did.

He stared at you.

You shifted in your seat.

He continued to stare, like a disappointed headmaster.

“...Okay fine,” you finally muttered. “It is a bad plan.”

“Thank you,” he said calmly. “Would you like to identify your plants using logic, reference books, and assistance from your familiar, or would you prefer a slow and humiliating descent into gastrointestinal regret?”

“I mean, when you say it like that—”

“Wonderful. I’ll prepare the tea.”

You hated how soothing (mostly) his tea was.

You found out purely by accident.

Your friend sat down at lunch with a heavy sigh and a tear-streaked face, muttering something about how their fox familiar had gone limp and glassy-eyed after being ignored for two days straight in favor of midterms. Apparently, he needed “emotional engagement” and “frequent pets.”

You had not known this. You had not known any of this.

You returned to your dorm in a panic.

Jade, as always, was seated like an eerie portrait come to life, sipping tea and reading a book that looked suspiciously bound in scales. He raised one eyebrow as you burst through the door carrying three different types of fruits and a hand-sewn blanket you’d made in Home Ec two years ago.

“I heard that familiars need enrichment,” you blurted. “Do you—are you enriched? Are you feeling under-enriched? What’s your favorite snack enrichment type? Is it eels? Oh no wait, is that cannibalism? I don’t know your rules!”

Jade blinked slowly. “You believe I am in poor health?”

“I don’t know!” you wailed, thrusting the blanket at him. “I don’t know the maintenance routine for familiars! You could be dying from sadness and I wouldn’t know!”

He looked down at the blanket. It had uneven edges and a sewn-on mushroom that looked like it had witnessed terrible things. Slowly, he took it. Draped it over his lap. Sipped his tea again.

“You are a very considerate Master,” he said with a pleased little smile that absolutely shouldn’t have made you feel like you’d just earned an A+ in Familiar Wellness. “I feel much better already.”

You weren’t sure if he was messing with you or not. But then he let you tuck the blanket around his shoulders like a shawl, and even let you hand-feed him a strawberry.

You decided you didn’t care if he was messing with you. His ears were flushed. That was a win.

You needed Nightshade. Not the safe kind either—the real, reactive stuff that tended to hiss if the humidity wasn’t just right and once exploded in someone's bag for being stared at wrong.

Unfortunately, your professors had firmly, repeatedly, and increasingly frantically refused to let you anywhere near it. Something about “prior incidents,” “a trail of fire ants through the dorm hallway,” and “we are begging you to stop licking mystery leaves.”

But you had an experiment to finish, and a lack of official approval had never stopped a single mage in history. Which was how you found yourself sneaking into the restricted greenhouse under cover of darkness, with your overly smug eel-familiar following like he was on a stroll and not a felonious B&E.

“This is clearly illegal,” Jade said cheerfully, as he helped you pick the lock.

“You’re a summoned being. Laws don’t apply to you,” you muttered, shoving the door open.

“That’s speciesist,” he said mildly, and you ignored him on purpose.

The two of you tiptoed through rows of glowing plants, whisper-bickering the whole way.

“Don’t touch that. It screams.”

“You scream.”

“Yes, and I have a great voice.”

He huffed a laugh. You tried not to grin. You failed.

Honestly, it would’ve been a perfectly stupid and smooth heist—until the Shrike Vine noticed you. Apparently it was pollination season and it was feeling bitey. You froze as a thick green tendril snapped toward you like a whip.

Except it never hit.

Jade moved faster than you thought was possible. One hand caught the vine mid-strike, the other calmly flicked a tiny blade across it like he was trimming hedges instead of saving your life.

And then, because he was a menace, he leaned in close—just enough for you to catch the sharp gleam in his mismatched eyes—and murmured:

“I’m very good at protecting what’s mine.”

You were not about to combust in a greenhouse. You were not. Absolutely not.

Still. Your face was hot. You blamed the bioluminescent plants.

“Wh—That’s not—you can’t just say things like that,” you hissed.

He tilted his head, looking unbothered and devastatingly pleased. “Why not?”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Pointed at the vine. “Is that one safe to lick?”

“Absolutely not.”

“…Cool, cool, just checking.”

The incident itself wasn’t even your fault this time, which was frankly insulting, considering you usually caused at least 70% of the department's arcane emergencies.

No, this time it was Jeremy from Spell Calculus who accidentally overcharged a fire enhancement glyph and sent a wayward jet of magic careening through the lab like a feral gremlin. It ping-ponged off three protective wards, vaporized a desk plant, and promptly singed your familiar.

Specifically: Jade’s sleeve caught a little fire. For exactly three seconds.

The sleeve was barely charred. His skin wasn’t even red. He smirked.

You, however, reacted like you’d just watched him be stabbed in the heart by a divine lance.

“OH MY GOD YOU’RE BURNING—ARE YOU OKAY?! Is it fatal? It’s fatal, isn’t it?! What’s the protocol for familiar injury?! Do you need a resurrection spell?? Should I call the nurse or the exorcist—?!”

Jade, blinked once. Then calmly patted the faintest whiff of smoke from his robe and said, “I believe I’ll live.”

But the glint in his eyes said he smelled weakness. And he would absolutely exploit it.

The next morning, you showed up with a full care basket: enchanted cooling balm, a wonky scarf you’d panic-crocheted in the night, a potion for nerve regeneration (completely unnecessary), and a whole assortment of healing snacks from the infirmary vending machine.

You even hand-fed him a soothing honey drop.

That was your next mistake.

Because the very next day, Jade reclined across your bed like a drama major rehearsing for a role in “The Dying Swan: A Magical Tragedy.” He had a lukewarm towel across his forehead, your blanket wrapped dramatically around his shoulders like a cape, and a very deliberate look of fragile suffering.

“Alas,” he whispered, placing the back of his hand to his (completely fine) forehead, “I fear the lingering effects of the trauma are… worsening. There’s a tightness in my chest. I may never wield a kettle again. My tea senses are dulled.”

You squinted at him, deadpan. “You brewed two pots this morning.”

“For you, dearest Master,” he said, with an exaggerated wince. “But at what cost?”

You refused to indulge him. For about ten minutes.

Then he started coughing. Badly. Into a silk handkerchief. That you were pretty sure he’d dabbed with food coloring beforehand to resemble blood.

“Do you think you can bring… strawberry lollipops?” he asked, voice trembling. “Before I pass on to the next world.”

You shoved five into his mouth. “You’re not dying. But you are insufferable.”

He sucked dramatically on the sweets, sighing. “I find this treatment emotionally compromising.”

You fed him another one.

And started plotting your revenge with a very bitter herbal “recovery” tea. It smelled like wet moss and tasted like betrayal.

He drank it all. Smiled. Said it “added intrigue to the healing experience.”

You were no longer sure who was winning this war. But you were definitely losing your mind.

It started subtly. Jade would casually set a teacup in front of you in the mornings, unprompted. You’d ignore it. He’d raise an eyebrow. You’d argue that caffeine was a food group and you didn’t need anything else, thank you very much.

He’d say something cryptic like “I’d rather not have to explain malnutrition-related hallucinations to the administration,” and then slide you a plate of suspiciously elegant finger sandwiches.

Somehow, you’d end up eating them.

A week later, you found yourself sitting down for actual breakfast—tea, toast, even fruit—without remembering how it happened. He’d simply adjusted your routine. Quietly. Steadily. Like a moss infestation with an agenda.

He began packing you lunch. Bento-style. With little hand-drawn labels.

You didn’t even know when he started doing it. You just opened your bag one day, reached for your emergency gummy stash, and pulled out a thermos of miso soup and a side of rice balls shaped like sea creatures.

He started accompanying you to the dining hall under the excuse of "needing seaweed access." He monitored your meals. Commented on vitamin intake. Replaced your sugar gummies with dried fruit. Told you that if he caught you drinking energy drinks for dinner again, he’d report you to botanical safety for trying to poison a living plant (Vermin had still not recovered from the one time you tried to share a Monster with it).

Eventually, your friend—sweet, concerned, possibly one skipped breakfast away from passing out—cornered you between lectures.

"Hey," she said, tugging your sleeve with wide eyes. “I need to ask you something and I don’t want you to freak out.”

You, holding a bento box labeled ‘Don’t Forget to Finish Your Spinach, Master’ with a small smiling mushroom drawn on it, tilted your head. “Okay?”

She glanced around, lowered her voice, and whispered, “Who’s the familiar here?”

You stared at her.

She stared back.

In the distance, Jade waved at you politely while handing a professor a jar of suspicious glowing jam.

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Thought about how he’d reorganized your pantry by nutritional pyramid. Thought about how your life had improved and yet somehow spiraled out of your control in the exact same breath.

“I… don’t know anymore,” you whispered back.

And that was the beginning of your existential crisis about power dynamics, dietary fiber, and eel-based emotional manipulation.

The more you thought about it, the more the terrible, horrifying truth settled in: Jade had been slowly taming you.

Not in a leash-and-collar kind of way (though you weren’t entirely convinced he wouldn’t enjoy that visual), but in the slow, methodical way one might tame a particularly wild housecat. One that hissed at vegetables and believed microwaved instant noodles were the pinnacle of culinary achievement.

When you’d first summoned him—on accident, via unagi-induced chaos and a summoning circle that was technically illegal in five countries—you’d been expecting a fae general. A terrifying beast of war. A dragon, maybe.

What you got was a polite, well-dressed man with a smile that could curdle milk and the calm demeanor of someone who’d enjoy watching your academic career spontaneously combust.

You were sure he would spend his time reclining in your dorm like some cryptid, sipping tea while you panicked over assignments and singlehandedly ruined your chances at survival in botany.

That had been your first impression.

But it wasn’t what happened.

Instead, Jade made it his mission to ruin you in the most terrifying way imaginable: through care.

He made sure you ate. He brewed tea tailored to your stress levels. He reorganized your notebooks by topic and color-coded them while claiming he was “bored.” He calmly extracted you from five different poison ivy incidents. He taught you how to pronounce “photosynthesis” correctly after you spent an entire presentation calling it “plant vibes.”

And you hated to admit it—but it worked.

You stopped waking up in a panic. You stopped considering glitter glue a legitimate potion ingredient. You even passed a midterm without attempting to bribe a forest fairy.

It was subtle. Devious. Soft.

And worst of all, it was making you feel warm. Cared for. Grounded.

You used to dream of summoning a dragon—a grand, legendary familiar that would impress the entire academy and maybe light your homework on fire for dramatic effect. But now?

Now you watched Jade hum to himself in your kitchen, cooking something that smelled like lemon and dreams, and you didn’t care about dragons. Or status. Or changing streams.

You just wanted to figure out if there was a spell that could describe the exact way your heart skipped when he smiled at you and called you “Master” with that infuriating glint in his eye.

And if not… well. Maybe you’d make one.

From Jade’s point of view, your summoning had all the signs of an impending disaster—and thus, a highly enjoyable evening.

The circle was sloppy, the candles were the wrong color, and the ambient magical pressure was off by several kilopascals. The unagi that had plummeted into the center as a last-minute offering had been particularly concerning. Jade had arrived in a flash of light and fish-scented smoke, bracing for either mortal peril or at least a good laugh.

And then he saw you.

Wide-eyed. Covered in ink. Mumbling about “hoping for a dragon or something.” The perfect storm of magical desperation and zero planning skills. He had thought you’d be amusing. A novelty. A fun little side project to pass the time while bound by contract for a year.

And at first, that was exactly what you were. You were so spectacularly bad at botany that Jade was convinced you were a social experiment.

You called mushrooms “leaf meat.” You once referred to an entire genus of plants as “the crunchy ones.” And your plan to identify herbs by tasting them like a medieval poison tester had nearly given him a stroke. (Emotionally. He’s far too composed for physical symptoms.)

But somewhere between force-feeding you actual meals and dragging you out of exploding greenhouses, Jade started feeling… something. Not just amusement. Not just secondhand horror.

Affection.

It was awful.

So naturally, he did what any emotionally stunted eel-man would do—he ramped up the teasing. Called you “Master” in public. Smiled just a little too sharply. Hovered with a quiet attentiveness he pretended wasn’t genuine.

But when he thought back to that summoning—your hopeful eyes, the half-charred fish, the complete magical disaster—Jade realized something horrifying.

He owed his current happiness to a piece of grilled eel.

The next time he saw unagi on a menu, he gave it a respectful nod. After all, not every familiar bond is forged through fate, fire, and ancient prophecy.

Some are forged through sheer dumb luck and seafood.

You had always believed, deep in your feral little heart, that if you ever fell in love, it would be with the intensity of a meteor crashing into the earth. There would be pyrotechnics. An orchestra. Maybe a cursed bouquet of sentient mushrooms arranged in the shape of your initials. Something properly dramatic.

You were prepared for a sweeping romance. A declaration shouted from a balcony. A confession under a blood moon. At the very least, a sword fight followed by heavy breathing and an emotionally repressed kiss.

What you were not prepared for was... a random morning.

More specifically: today morning at 6:42 a.m., in your tragically unventilated dorm kitchen, where you shuffled in half-awake, wearing a blanket like a disgruntled ghost. Your hair looked like it had seen war. Your socks didn’t match. You were only conscious due to residual academic panic and caffeine withdrawal.

And there Jade was. Crisp and awake and annoyingly gorgeous, as usual, humming some eerie little tune while cooking god-knows-what on your stove. The sunlight framed him like he was in a toothpaste commercial. There were suspicious jars open on the counter labeled things like “Fenugreek??? (Maybe)” and “Do Not Inhale.”

He glanced at you over his shoulder, amused. “Good morning, Master.”

You grunted. It was too early for sarcasm or formal titles.

So, with the sleep-deprived logic of a creature who had survived exclusively on coffee and academic desperation, you trudged over to him, latched onto his waist like a needy koala, and rested your cheek against his back.

You did not plan this. Your body moved on its own, possessed by the Spirit of Affection.

To his credit, he didn’t question it. Jade simply chuckled, adjusted his stance, and offered you a spoonful of something suspiciously green and steaming.

You tasted it. Your neurons barely fired. It was delicious and probably illegal.

And then, without thought, without warning, still pressed against him and one brain cell away from sleep, you mumbled, “I love you.”

There was a beat of silence.

You blinked.

Wait.

Wait—

What the hell did you just say—

YOU SAID THAT OUT LOUD—

Jade paused with the spoon still in his hand, his entire body going still like a predator that just heard something interesting. Then—slowly, like he was savoring it—he turned.

He looked at you. He really looked at you. And then, in true chaos spirit fashion, he grinned.

Not his usual polite smile. No. This was different. This one had teeth.

“Oh?” he said, softly. “Oh?”

And that was the moment you realized: you had said those three words to a man who considered emotional vulnerability an invitation to hunt.

You tried to backtrack. Tried to say you meant “I love you—r soup.”

Or “I love you as a friend. A colleague. A sentient eel.”

But before you could decide on your lie of choice, he leaned down and kissed you.

It started sweet. Gentle. Thoughtful, like maybe he was giving you time to flee.

You didn’t. That was your mistake.

Because then his hand slid around your waist, and the kiss deepened, and suddenly your kitchen felt too small, and too warm, and definitely not rated for public indecency. Your legs threatened to give out. Your brain flatlined.

When he pulled away, you were breathless and dazed. You looked at him, heart hammering, pupils blown wide.

He tilted his head, still grinning, and said, “You taste like honesty. How rare.”

You briefly considered combusting on the spot.

And as he turned back to the stove like nothing had happened, humming again, you realized something terrifying:

You were in love.

And you were the prey.

And you were kind of okay with that.

When familiar contract renewal season arrived—accompanied by the usual administrative chaos, enchanted paperwork that bit fingers, and panicked first-years realizing their mushroom toadlings had exploded again—you were… calm.

Weirdly, suspiciously calm.

You should have been stressed. You were, after all, still a mage in training with a botany grade being held together by duct tape, blind luck, and the sheer force of your familiar’s passive-aggressive hovering.

But no. You weren’t worried. Because somehow, over the past year of accidental poisonings, illegal greenhouse heists, and near-romantic tea-induced hallucinations, you and Jade had fallen into something far more dangerous than summoning magic: mutual affection. Possibly even love. Terrifying.

And yet, when the day came, you expected a conversation. A little back and forth. Maybe some dramatic flourish on his part—Jade had a flair for drama and mild emotional terrorism, after all. At the very least, you thought he’d present a contract with a smirk and some cryptic line about “servitude never being quite so delightful.”

But he didn’t.

You woke up one morning to find him already seated at your desk, as if he’d been waiting all night. The early sun filtered through your window, highlighting the soft teal of his hair and the amused glint in his eyes. You were still blinking the sleep out of yours, shuffling over in your raccoon-print pajamas with all the grace of a zombie when he slid the document toward you.

A thick, arcane-heavy contract. One that glowed softly at the edges. Titled:

“PERMANENT FAMILIAR CONTRACT — LIFELONG BOND”

Your eyes snagged on the signature line.

His name was already there.

Signed in an elegant, curling script with a wax seal that looked like an eel tail. No jokes. No teasing. No loopholes.

You stared at the paper. Then at him.

“…You want to be stuck with me forever?” you asked, because your brain short-circuited and apparently decided that was the most romantic response it could muster.

Jade raised a brow. “You make life—interesting,” he said, voice inflected with all the warmth and amusement of someone who once watched you attempt to eat a venomous berry “for science.”

You blinked again. “That’s not a no.”

“It’s a yes,” he said easily, his smile softening. “I’d like to be yours. If you’ll have me.”

You didn’t even hesitate.

You picked up the pen and signed your name beneath his. The moment the ink dried, the paper vanished in a swirl of moss-green smoke, the pact sealed with a pleasant little magical ding.

“So,” you said, heart thudding in your chest as you looked up at him, “we’re really doing this.”

“We are,” he said.

“Forever is a long time.”

“Not nearly long enough.”

And you had to kiss him after that, because what else do you do when your familiar—not-quite-boyfriend-but-very-possibly-soulmate says something like that?

He kissed you back like he’d been waiting years. And you let him, sinking into his arms like it was the only place you’d ever belonged.

You, a chaotic disaster of a botany student. Him, a merman familiar who brewed tea that could bend time.

A perfect, absurd, slightly terrifying match.

Later that evening, when you sat together on the windowsill, legs tangled and laughter echoing, you realized something else: you'd meant to find a way out of the botany stream. A bigger future. A stronger school of magic.

But with Jade by your side, maybe botany wasn’t a prison—it was just where you bloomed.

It started, as most disasters in your life did, with you tripping over your own feet. Specifically, you’d tripped face-first into a rare carnivorous plant while trying to impress your professor with your “innovative approach to hands-on learning.” (Your professor had screamed. The plant had screamed louder. You still didn’t know plants could do that.)

And while you were nursing your slightly-bitten pride and applying salve to your dignity, some golden-haired, obnoxiously perfect fourth-year had wandered over, all pristine robes and condescending smiles.

“You know,” he said to Jade, completely ignoring you like you were a decorative shrub, “it’s a shame. A familiar with your magical potential? Tied to someone who’s clearly... not invested in their future.”

You scoffed. Loudly. “Excuse you. I am very invested in my future. I just think the universe should meet me halfway and stop putting venomous moss in my study patch.”

The student didn’t even blink. “You deserve a master who challenges you. Who brings out your best.”

Jade tilted his head, politely smiling the way a shark might if it had impeccable manners and was about to swallow a surfer whole.

“I see,” he said, sipping his tea. “And that would be… you?”

“Why not?” the student said, and you hated how confident he sounded. “They're wasting you.”

You froze.

You knew it wasn’t true. Jade had chosen you. Signed a lifelong contract. Literally brewed you soup after you set your eyebrows on fire.

But the words stung in a way you hadn’t expected.

You tried to play it cool. Shrugged. “If he wants to leave, he can. No one’s stopping him.”

Jade’s eyes flicked toward you, a tiny crease between his brows. “Is that what you think?”

You shrugged again. Forced a smile. “Why wouldn’t it be? Go ahead. Take your tea. Find a master who challenges you.”

And with that, you walked away, head high, hands clenched so tight your knuckles cracked.

You spent the rest of the night trying not to cry into your pillow.

The next morning, your pillow was suspiciously warm. And breathing.

You cracked open one eye to find Jade wrapped around you like a clingy snake with boundary issues and an attitude problem.

“What—Jade—get off—!”

“I’m sleeping,” he said.

“You are not! You’re emotionally ambushing me!”

He didn’t move. Just curled tighter.

You squirmed, shoved, flailed. Nothing worked. The man had the tensile strength of a vine and the stubbornness of ten toddlers.

Eventually, you gave up and pouted at him. “You were mean yesterday.”

“I wasn’t trying to be,” he admitted cheerfully, his tone dangerously close to smug. “But in my defense, I expected my master to realize I have taste.”

You sulked harder. “You owe me.”

“Oh?”

“And I’m cashing it in later.”

“Of course, Master.”

“…Stop calling me that in the dorm.”

“No.”

You didn’t bring it up again. But the next day, as you passed that fourth-year in the hallway, he looked pale, shaken, and was clutching a charm pouch so tightly it might’ve become a fossil.

You glanced at Jade. He looked serene. Suspiciously serene.

“…What did you do?” you whispered.

“Me?” he smiled. “Nothing serious.”

You stared at him. He sipped his tea.

You decided you definitely weren’t asking.

But later, when he draped himself across your bed again and offered you a cup of calming lavender-citrus tea with a wink, you realized one thing:

You may be a borderline disaster of a mage, but Jade Leech was yours. And gods help anyone who forgot it.

You'd been holding back.

It wasn't that you were scared. Okay, no—you were absolutely terrified. Because the “what are we” question carried the weight of galaxies, of shifting dynamics and possible heartbreak, and you weren’t emotionally prepared to deal with that when you were already behind on your fungal studies and had just accidentally set your robe on fire trying to dry herbs.

Still, it was getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that Jade Leech, your familiar, your chaos partner, your maybe-something-more, had kissed you good morning again that day. Just a soft brush of lips while you were half-asleep, before you could even form coherent thought. And you’d just blinked at him, dazed and blushing and maybe a little dead inside.

And then that horrible, arrogant, no-chin-having senior from the advanced familiar studies track said—loudly—that if someone like Jade were his familiar, he’d “treat him properly” and “not waste potential on a person who still mistakes fertilizer for potion ingredients.”

You saw red. Possibly green. Maybe fuchsia, depending on how much of Jade’s tea was still in your system. But whatever the color, something snapped in your soul.

Because no one was taking Jade from you.

Not when he brewed you anti-headache tea with honey because he knew you hated bitter things. Not when he cleaned your desk with the gentleness of a man legally married to your organization system. Not when he smiled at you like you were a curious algae bloom he couldn't stop poking at. Not when he kissed your forehead, your temple, your nose, your cheek—like loving you was as natural as breathing.

So.

You marched.

You stormed into your dorm room where he was casually rearranging his jar collection (you didn’t ask, you'd learned not to the hard way.) and pointed an aggressively trembling finger at him.

“Be mine!” you shouted.

Jade blinked once. Then tilted his head, that infuriatingly pretty smile already forming. “I thought I already was, Master.”

Your brain combusted. You flailed. “Huh?!”

“I assumed the constant kissing and emotional intimacy might have been a clue.” His eyes sparkled. “Should I have drawn a diagram? I could make a chart—”

You launched yourself at him in mortified fury. “No charts!”

He caught you with practiced ease, laughed that horrible, lovely laugh of his, and kissed you again—this time slower, deeper, like he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

You melted. Fully collapsed like overwatered moss in his arms.

When you finally came up for air, dizzy and giddy and mildly offended at how good he was at this, he tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear and murmured, “Now that we’ve established that… shall we discuss what we’re calling the wedding mushrooms?”

You screamed into his shoulder.

He laughed again.

And that night, you dreamed of rings made of sea glass and mushrooms that glowed softly in the dark.

Masterlist

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twisted wonderland #jade leech x reader #jade x reader #jade leech #jade leech x you #twst jade

1K notes · View notes

brookghaib-blog · 27 days ago

Text

The quiet things that remain

pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: Bob and Y/N used to be the best of friends, he went to Malaysia to be better, only to leave her just with a ghost in the past and unresponded messages and calls. And return, but never to her. Never to the love she didn't had the courage to announce.

Word count: 12,1k

warning: very angst, depression, self-esteem issues, extreme loniless, mysoginistic remarks

note: don't hate me

chapter II

The rain tapped against the bookstore windows like a soft, persistent knocking — steady, but unwelcome. Outside, the gray New York afternoon bled into the kind of evening that came too early and stayed too long. Inside, the warmth of yellow lamplight spilled over rows of untouched shelves and dust-flecked hardcovers, curling over the edges of a place that time had gently forgotten.

Y/N sat behind the counter, elbows on the worn wood, phone resting in her trembling hands. She hadn't noticed when the tea beside her had gone cold. She hadn’t noticed much lately.

The video played quietly, but every word rang louder than it should.

“...the New Avengers were spotted again today leaving the UN compound, raising more questions than answers. Who are they? What do they stand for? And more importantly… who are they when the cameras are off?”

A sleek montage of clips rolled across the screen. There they were — the so-called “New Avengers.”

There he was. Bob Reynolds. The man she hadn’t seen in eight months.

Golden-haired, cleaner than she’d ever known him, standing straight and still beside a team of killers and misfits. No twitching hands. No darting eyes. No shadow of withdrawal in his pupils. Just… peace. Control. Power.

It was like looking at a stranger. A beautiful, impossible stranger with his face.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat, but the video kept playing.

“Among the many questions surrounding Sentry — the golden god at the center of the team — is one persistent theory: is there something romantic between him and his fellow operative, Yelena Belova?”

Her fingers curled around the phone. No. Please.

Footage rolled. Grainy at first — taken by paparazzi, blurred by distance.

Bob and Yelena. Walking side by side. Her arm brushing his. Another clip: her tugging him away from the crowd, laughing. A third: a hug. Not quick. Not distant. Her arms around his waist. His chin in her hair. The kind of embrace that says I know what you’ve been through, and I’m not afraid of it.

“She’s the reason I’m here,” Bob’s voice said, an old interview clip playing now. “Yelena… she didn’t give up on me, even when I did. She reminded me there was still something worth saving.”

Y/N didn’t realize she’d started crying until her vision blurred and the soft hum of her own breath broke into a quiet, gasping sob. She paused the video with shaking hands, freezing the frame on a still of Bob looking sideways at Yelena during the interview — something gentle, something fragile behind his eyes.

That was the look she used to dream about. That was the look he never gave her.

She’d held his hair back while he threw up in gas station parking lots. Bailed him out of jail with money she didn’t have. Let him crash on her couch when he was too high to remember his name. He used to call her his “safe place.” Said she was the only thing in his life that wasn’t broken.

But she’d always known. Deep down, she’d always known she wasn’t enough to fix him.

But now? Now he had Yelena.

And the world. And peace.

Y/N set her phone down face-first on the counter and covered her face with both hands, her shoulders trembling with the kind of grief that makes no sound. The kind that lives in the chest like a second heartbeat, one made of rust and regret.

No customers. No noise but the rain and the old jazz record she’d forgotten to flip. Just her and the ghosts of what they could’ve been.

In the next room, a little bell above the door chimed softly — a delivery maybe, or just the wind. She didn’t even lift her head.

Somewhere, Bob Reynolds was flying.

And she was still here, crying in a bookstore he’d once said felt like home. He wasn’t coming back. Not to her.

And still, she whispered his name. Quiet, like a prayer.

The bookstore no longer hurt.

Not in the way it used to — with that sharp, stabbing grief that made her chest cave in every time the bell above the door chimed. Back then, she'd look up, half-hoping it was him. A flash of gold hair. That awkward, tired smile. His hoodie too big, his eyes too empty.

But now, months later, there was just quiet. Not peace — never peace — but quiet.

The kind that comes after acceptance. The kind that grows like moss over memories.

Y/N didn’t talk about Bob anymore. Not to coworkers, not to old friends who still asked, “Have you seen what he’s doing now?” Not even to herself, in those late hours when the ache beneath her ribs swelled like a wound reopening.

But she felt him. In the silence between customers. In the space beside her when she locked the door and walked home. In the way she looked at the world now — all those colors, all that beauty — and felt like a glass wall stood between her and everything she used to want.

She’d loved him. Of course she had.

She had loved Bob Reynolds since the ninth grade, when he punched a teacher’s car and got suspended for protecting a kid he didn’t even know. She loved him when he borrowed her notes, when he cried on her fire escape high out of his mind, when he disappeared for three weeks and came back thirty pounds thinner, shivering and hollow-eyed.

She loved him when he couldn’t love himself.

She never said it. Not really. Maybe in the way she bandaged his hands. Or made excuses to his parole officer. Or brought him dinner and sat three feet away like she didn’t want to reach out and pull him into her chest.

And when he left for Malaysia — a “spiritual retreat” — she smiled. She smiled like she believed it, even though everything in her screamed.

Still, she let him go. She let him go because she thought he’d come back. For her.

And then came the message. Just six words.

I love you. I’m sorry.

She’d stared at those words for hours. Days. Her fingers trembling over the keys, unsent replies collecting like ghosts in her drafts folder.

“Why are you sorry?” “Where are you?” “I love you, too.” “Please come home.” “Was it ever real?”

But she never sent anything. Because part of her already knew.

It wasn’t romantic love. Not for him. She was comfort. She was safety. She was the place you go when everything else falls apart — not the place you stay when you’re finally whole again.

Yelena got that part. Yelena got all of him.

And Y/N… Y/N got to survive it.

So she started going to the park.

At first, just to breathe. Just to sit on a bench with a thermos of tea and pretend she was somewhere else. Then, one day, she brought a sketchbook. She wasn’t an artist, not really. But she remembered telling Bob once that she wanted to draw people in love. “Like those old French films,” she’d said. “Where they just sit at cafés and smoke and kiss.” He laughed and said she was corny.

She went back the next day. And the next.

She sketched mothers holding babies. Old couples feeding pigeons. Young people tangled together in the grass, drunk on love and sunshine.

They didn’t know she was drawing them. They didn’t know her heart was breaking with every line.

She packed little picnics, too. Cheese and grapes and crackers in a paper box. A single folded napkin. She ate them cross-legged on a blanket alone — the same dates she used to dream of sharing with him. Her fantasies made real, only stripped of the one person they were for.

She bought herself ballet tickets. Front row. Twice.

She cried through Swan Lake because it was beautiful. And because Bob never cared about ballet. But she’d once imagined holding his hand in that velvet-dark theater, leaning on his shoulder, whispering about the dancers under the dim light of intermission.

She went to museums with an audio guide in her ears and a silent ache in her chest. They’d planned to go once, years ago. He bailed. Got arrested that night. She remembered bailing him out, hair still curled from the night she’d spent getting ready, tickets still in her purse.

Now she went alone. She stood in front of paintings for too long. Tried to feel the meaning in each one. Tried to understand why love, for her, always felt just out of reach — like art behind glass.

Bob had loved her, she truly believed that. But now she knew it had been platonic. Or nostalgic. Or guilty. Or desperate. Not the way she had loved him. Not the kind that cracked bone and rearranged the shape of her soul.

She had been there for decades. Through every overdose. Every apology. Every relapse and redemption. And in the end, Yelena — sharp, beautiful, new — walked in and took the title Y/N had spent her whole life earning.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Not really.

But it still felt like theft.

And so, every day, Y/N practiced the quiet art of living. Not thriving. Not healing. Just… surviving.

And when she walked home past flickering streetlights, past posters of the New Avengers, past Bob’s face painted in gold and shadow, she looked away.

Not because she didn’t love him anymore. But because she still did.

The sound of her shoes echoed softly against the sidewalk as Y/N walked home from the museum, arms crossed tightly over her chest. It had rained earlier. The air still smelled like wet pavement and the petals of bruised flowers that had fallen from the trees lining the Upper West Side.

She didn’t know why she kept doing this — walking home instead of taking the bus. Maybe she was punishing herself. Or maybe it was the only time she could cry without worrying anyone would see.

The tear tracks on her cheeks had dried by the time she got to her building.

She lived on the second floor. A narrow walk-up above a tailor shop, with faded red carpeting and one window that opened if you jiggled it the right way. It was small, cramped, imperfect. But it was hers.

The moment the door clicked shut behind her, the weight of the day sank into her shoulders. She kicked off her shoes — too comfortable, too wide, orthopedic even. She used to laugh at herself for that, back when she imagined someone would find her quirks charming. Now they just made her feel… old.

Plain.

Forgettable.

Y/N tossed her bag on the couch and went straight to the mirror near the kitchen. She didn’t know why. She just stood there and looked.

And the more she looked, the more she unraveled.

The dark circles beneath her eyes weren’t poetic, like in the movies. They were just… tired. Her skin was dull, pale in places, red in others. Her cheeks had lost their softness from stress. Her lips were cracked.

She tucked her hair behind one ear. Then the other. Then back again.

Too flat. Too thin. Too dry.

She didn’t look like someone you’d love at first sight. She didn’t look like someone who could fly beside gods or run across rooftops or save the world.

She looked like someone who bagged your books and forgot to put on mascara.

And the image of Yelena — always there, always shimmering just under her eyelids — rose to the front of her mind.

Yelena Belova, with her radiant, smug grin and her bite-sharp wit. Yelena, who had cheekbones like a model and eyes that seemed to challenge the whole world. Yelena, who had scars and stories and strength in the kind of way that made men look and women wish.

She was everything Y/N wasn’t.

And worse… she was the kind of woman Bob could fall in love with.

Y/N’s voice cracked in the silence of the room. A whisper against the mirror.

“Of course he loves her.”

She dragged her fingers down her face, pressing against her cheekbones, her temples, like she could reshape what was there. But no matter how she adjusted the angle, no matter how she forced a smile — she still looked like the woman he left behind.

A memory. A placeholder. Never the prize.

She slumped to the floor, back against the kitchen cabinets, knees pulled to her chest.

Her breath hitched once. Twice. And then the tears came again, full and warm, slipping down her cheeks and into the collar of her cardigan.

Why did I think I ever had a chance?

The thought hissed in her mind, cruel and sharp. She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t someone the world noticed, or photographed, or followed online. She wore second-hand sweaters and cheap lip balm. She read fantasy books instead of manifesting a future. She planned picnics and movie nights for a man who never once saw her as the main character in his life.

Her hands had held his when they trembled. Her voice had soothed him when he couldn’t breathe. Her love had stitched him back together when he was in pieces.

But Yelena got his smile. Yelena got the storybook ending.

And all Y/N got was this tiny apartment, this quiet heartbreak, and the knowledge that she had always, always been too soft in a world that rewarded teeth.

She reached for her sketchbook on the table, flipped to a new page, and tried to draw.

Anything. Something. A line. A shape.

But all that came out were shaky outlines of a woman with her head in her hands.

She didn’t even need to look in the mirror to know it was her.

A little while later, she made herself tea. She added honey even though she didn’t want it. Her mother once told her honey was for healing. She didn’t believe that anymore, but the ritual made her feel like someone else might believe it for her.

She drank it slowly, eyes still swollen, heart still aching.

It had taken everything in her — every fragile, trembling piece of courage — to agree to the date.

She didn’t want to. Not really. Not when her heart still ached every time she saw a golden blur on a news broadcast, not when Bob’s voice still played like a lullaby in her most tired moments. But she told herself she had to try. That maybe the only way out of love was through something new. Something safe. Someone... nice.

His name was Daniel. They had matched on an app after she spent thirty-two minutes rewriting and rereading her bio before finally deciding on something honest but light: “Bookstore girl. Lover of iced tea, Van Gogh, and stories that hurt.”

Daniel had a nice smile in his pictures. Warm. Casual. His messages were funny, thoughtful — nothing like the catcalls or shallow conversations she was used to getting from strangers online. He liked foreign films, jazz, and pretended to know more about literature than he did, which made her smile. He wasn’t Bob. But that was the point, wasn’t it?

Their dinner was at a little bistro tucked into a quiet Brooklyn street, lit by the kind of dim, cozy lighting that made everyone look softer. Y/N had spent two hours getting ready. She curled her hair, put on eyeliner she hadn’t touched in months, and slipped into a pale blue dress that clung just enough to remind her that her body was still hers — even if no one had touched it in years.

She smiled when she saw Daniel waiting outside, leaning against the brick wall with his hands in his coat pockets. He greeted her with a compliment — “You look great” — and she had smiled too brightly in return, unsure of how to absorb kindness that didn’t come wrapped in years of shared trauma.

The conversation was easy, light. He asked about her job, her favorite books, her dream vacation. She let herself laugh, even told a few stories about her childhood that she hadn’t spoken aloud in a long time. They shared dessert. He paid. He walked her outside, his coat brushing her arm.

Then he said it.

“So… want to come back to mine for a nightcap?” He grinned. That kind of grin.

It hit her like a slap. The spell — fragile and delicate — shattered.

Her breath caught, but she smiled politely. “No, thank you. I should probably get home.”

He blinked once. Twice. Then his face changed.

“Oh. One of those girls.”

She paused, caught off guard. “What?”

“You led me on the whole night just for a free meal?”

“What? No, I didn’t—”

He laughed — a cruel, sharp sound that made her skin crawl. “Jesus. I should’ve known. I mean, you're not even that hot.”

Her lips parted, a protest caught in her throat. But he was already turning away.

“You act like you're this mysterious, deep girl, but you're just another average chick playing hard to get. It’s pathetic.”

The words hit like fists. Not even that hot. Just average.

She stood there, stunned, as he walked off into the night without another word.

By the time she got home, the tears had already started. Silent. Humiliating. Hot with shame.

She locked the door behind her and sank to the floor, still in her dress, her heels digging into her calves. She didn’t move for a long time. Just sat there, back against the wall, clutching her purse to her chest like it could hold her together.

“I’m not even pretty enough to turn someone down,” she whispered into the quiet.

The words echoed in her head, crueler every time they came back around.

Because it wasn’t just about Daniel.

It was every moment she’d spent wondering why Bob never looked at her that way. Every time she imagined what it might be like if he kissed her, only to watch him kiss someone else in her dreams. It was every second she stood in front of the mirror, wishing to be someone — anyone — worth choosing.

Yelena would never be called average.

Yelena had fire in her veins and a thousand stories in her scars. Men looked at her like she was art. Women wanted to be her. She could command a room with a glance, slay monsters with a flick of her wrist. Even in the mess, she was magic.

And what was Y/N?

Just… there.

The girl at the register who knew your favorite author. The girl who waited. Who stayed. Who believed in things long after they’d stopped being true.

The girl who had to beg the universe just to be noticed — only to be told she wasn’t even good enough to reject.

That night, she deleted the dating app.

She folded the blue dress and put it at the bottom of her drawer. She brushed her teeth without looking in the mirror. She made tea and didn’t drink it.

She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling until the sun came up, one thought pulsing behind her tired eyes:

Even if Bob had never loved her… she used to believe she was the kind of person worth loving.

Now, she wasn’t so sure.

The air was crisp — not cold, not yet. Just enough of a bite to make the tips of her fingers shiver in her sleeves, and for the wind to carry the kind of scent that only ever belonged to October: dried leaves, earth, the distant memory of rain. Y/N had always loved this kind of weather. She used to joke that it was "main character" weather. The kind you walk through slowly, headphones in, pretending the world is some quiet, tragic film and you’re the girl who hasn’t healed yet — but might.

Only now, she wasn’t pretending.

She walked with her hands in her pockets, her scarf wrapped twice around her neck and tugged tight. Her hair was tied back loosely, pieces falling into her face with every gust of wind. Her eyes were a little tired, but soft. Distant. As if they were searching for something they didn’t expect to find.

The park wasn’t crowded. A few dog walkers. A couple of college students with coffees. Two kids kicking a soccer ball back and forth. She passed them all without really seeing them. Her boots crunched gently over leaves as she found her usual bench — the one facing the little lake with the willow trees bending low over the edge. She sat slowly, with the weight of someone who was carrying more than her coat.

She didn’t notice the old woman at the other end of the bench until several minutes had passed.

The woman was crocheting. Her fingers moved rhythmically, precisely, as if they knew this pattern by heart. A ball of pale lavender yarn sat tucked neatly in her lap, and her eyes — pale blue and clouded slightly with age — flicked up occasionally to watch the people go by.

Y/N watched the ducks. The trees. Nothing in particular. Her body was still, but her mind wasn’t.

She didn’t cry. Not this time. The tears had dried up days ago. Now it was just… stillness. Not peace. Not quite sadness. Just the absence of something she didn’t know how to name.

“Are you looking for someone, dear?”

The voice startled her — soft but sudden. Y/N turned slightly, surprised to see the old woman watching her with a small, knowing smile.

“I—sorry?” Y/N blinked.

“You’ve got that look,” the woman said, setting her crochet down gently in her lap. “The kind people wear when they’re waiting for someone they know won’t come. I used to know that look very well.”

Y/N swallowed. Her throat felt tight.

“I’m not,” she said too quickly. “Just… enjoying the park.”

The woman hummed, unconvinced but kind. “Well, if you’re going to keep me company, at least pretend to be interested in what I’m making.”

Y/N smiled faintly — barely there — and looked down at the yarn. “What are you making?”

“Scarf. For my granddaughter. She wants it to match her dog’s sweater,” the woman said with a fond roll of her eyes. “I told her that was ridiculous. Then I started it anyway.”

Y/N let out a small breath. A ghost of a laugh. “It’s a beautiful color.”

“Thank you.” The woman paused, then looked at her with a soft, mischievous glint. “You ever crochet?”

Y/N shook her head. “No… But I’ve always wanted to learn.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” The woman pulled a second hook from her bag and another ball of yarn — soft blue, a little faded. “Sit up. I’ll teach you.”

Y/N hesitated. “I… really?”

“Why not? You look like you need something to do with those restless hands. Something that doesn’t involve checking your phone every two minutes.”

She flushed. Guilty. She had been checking. Just in case there was something about him. A new sighting. A news update. A miracle.

She took the yarn.

The first few loops were awkward. Clumsy. But the rhythm settled quickly. The woman’s voice guided her gently through the pattern, her hands warm with time and patience. Y/N’s hands trembled once — not from the cold.

“What’s your name, dear?” the woman asked after a while.

“Y/N.”

“Lovely name. I’m June.”

They sat for a long moment in silence, the soft clicking of hooks the only sound between them.

Then June asked, “Was it your lover?”

Y/N blinked, the question catching her off guard. “What?”

“The one you’re looking for. The one you lost.”

Y/N stared at the yarn in her hands, her fingers frozen mid-loop. She could feel the ache creep up again, slow and sharp, like it always did when someone touched that place inside her she thought she’d hidden well.

“I… I didn’t have a lover,” she said softly.

June watched her for a moment, then nodded. “But you loved him.”

Y/N’s throat tightened.

“Yes.”

June didn’t pry. She just nodded again, returning to her stitching. It was quiet for another few minutes before Y/N found her voice again.

“What about you?” she asked. “You said you used to know that look.”

June smiled gently, the kind of smile that knew grief well. “I lost my husband five years ago. Charles. We were married forty-seven years. I still look for him sometimes in the park. It’s silly, I know.”

“It’s not silly,” Y/N said quickly, her voice breaking just slightly.

June looked at her kindly. “No… I suppose it’s not.”

Y/N looked down at her yarn, then up at the trees swaying slowly in the breeze.

“He used to walk with me,” June said, voice distant. “Every Sunday. He’d always pick up the fallen leaves and tell me which ones were the prettiest. I used to think he was silly for it. Now I wish I’d pressed them all into books.”

Y/N’s chest hurt. “I used to plan dates for him,” she said suddenly, voice quiet. “Picnics. Ballet tickets. Museum exhibits. I’d write the ideas down in a little notebook. I never asked him out. Never told him. But I had it all planned… just in case he ever looked at me like I wasn’t invisible.”

June’s eyes were wet.

“Did he ever know?” she asked gently.

Y/N shook her head.

“I think he loved me,” she said. “But not the way I needed.”

June reached over, placed her hand softly over Y/N’s.

“Sometimes,” she said, “we love the right person in the wrong way. And sometimes… we’re just too late.”

Y/N let the words settle in her chest, the truth of them ringing hollow and loud all at once.

They sat there until the sun began to sink beneath the trees, painting the lake gold. A still, shared silence. No pressure. No expectations. Just two women — one in the dusk of her life, the other trying desperately to find her dawn again — crocheting side by side on a bench in the middle of a world that kept moving forward.

Y/N didn’t find Bob that day.

But she found something else.

A moment of peace.

After that day in the park, something in Y/N shifted. Not drastically. There was no revelation. No thunderous change. Just… a quiet pivot. A small crack that let something new inside.

She began crocheting like her life depended on it.

At first, she was terrible. Her stitches were too tight. Then too loose. Then tangled. She dropped the hook more times than she could count. But she kept at it with the fervor of someone clinging to a lifeline. Her apartment — once tidy, minimalist — soon became littered with yarn. Pale blues, deep burgundies, soft browns. She never made anything useful. Her scarves were too short, her hats too lumpy, her attempts at socks made her laugh through tears.

But the point wasn’t to finish. The point was that it occupied her hands. It kept her from refreshing news sites. Kept her from scrolling past video edits of Bob — or Sentry now — lifting cars, flying above cities, standing beside Yelena like they were sculpted from the same stone. It kept her from reliving every memory with him, over and over, until her mind bled from it.

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she met June in the park. Rain or shine. They’d sit on the bench, often in silence, crocheting while the world passed them by. Sometimes June talked about Charles. Sometimes about her grandchildren. Sometimes they sat in companionable stillness, the weight of their grief stitching them into the same quiet rhythm.

June started calling her “kiddo,” and Y/N didn’t have the heart to admit it made her cry once she got home.

She started dressing differently too — without realizing it. Her clothes became… comfortable. Long skirts, oversized cardigans. Scarves that didn’t match and boots with scuffed toes. She looked like the kind of woman you’d see sipping tea alone in an empty café window, with a novel clutched tightly in her fingers and a look in her eyes that said she once believed in love like fire — and got burned.

She began frequenting thrift shops, telling herself it was for the coziness. The earth tones. The way old clothes felt like they had stories. But deep down, she knew it was because she didn’t feel beautiful anymore — so why bother trying?

Gone were the days of her cute lipstick, her floral dresses, her perfectly winged eyeliner that she wore just in case Bob stopped by the shop. Gone were the silly hopes that he'd see her in some new outfit and forget Yelena’s warrior smile.

Now, she was the soft ghost behind the register at the bookstore — the one who remembered every customer’s favorite genre, who stacked romance novels with tender reverence even though she didn’t read them anymore, who crocheted during lunch breaks and smelled like old paper and lavender.

Customers called her “lovely.” Never beautiful. Never striking. Just lovely.

A kind way to say forgettable.

To fill the quiet, she started a book club. Thursday nights. She pinned up a flier at the front counter and expected no one to come. But a few people did. A teacher, an elderly man with too many opinions on Hemingway, a lonely college student who needed an excuse to leave the dorms. They talked about stories, argued about endings, brought snacks. And for one night a week, Y/N had plans. A reason to change her clothes. A reason to stay awake past ten.

They all liked her. They said she had a soothing voice. That she picked good books. That she made the bookstore feel like home.

None of them knew her favorite book was the one Bob borrowed and never returned — spine cracked, margin scribbled with his half-legible notes. She kept it on the shelf behind the counter. Just in case.

Sometimes she wondered if Bob would even recognize her now. If he passed her on the street ?

Would he see the girl who held his head in her lap during withdrawal? Who bailed him out of jail with the last of her student loan money? Who made mix CDs and planned imaginary dates and waited three years for him to say I love you in a way that wasn’t a goodbye?

Or would he just see what everyone else saw now?

A sweet, quiet, unremarkable woman who smiled too politely and went home alone.

She never told June about him. Not really. She never said the name. She just said, “There was someone. And I wasn’t enough.”

June had squeezed her hand. “He wasn’t ready, love. There’s a difference.”

Y/N smiled at that.

But she didn’t believe it.

Not anymore.

Some people are stars, destined for legend, brilliance, and heroes who fall from the sky. And some people are just… soft spaces. To be landed on. To be left behind.

Y/N had accepted that she was the latter.

And so, she crocheted. She read. She sipped lukewarm tea in the evenings and wrote little notes in the margins of her books just to feel like someone might find them one day and know she existed.

She was no one’s great love story.

The loneliness had begun to settle like dust — fine, weightless, but everywhere. In the corners of her apartment. In the extra teacup she always poured and never used. In the quiet moments between sleep and waking, when the stillness felt too heavy and too permanent to bear.

Y/N had always loved silence. But now, it gnawed at her.

Her routine no longer offered comfort — only proof of how much space one person could take up when no one else was there to see it. She could go days without speaking to anyone outside of work. Her coworkers were kind. Customers smiled. Book club was a nice reprieve. But when the door shut at night behind her, the echo always sounded like grief.

It had been weeks since she’d cried. Not because she was healing — she’d simply dried out. The tears had gone somewhere deep inside, too tired to keep trying.

That Sunday, she woke up to an apartment that felt too quiet. Too cold. The kind of cold that seeps through your skin and rests in your chest. She sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, watching the morning light slide across the floor. The feeling was familiar. A soft, aching hollowness. The same she’d felt after Bob left. After she realized he wasn't coming back. After she watched a video of him calling Yelena his reason.

She wasn't trying to fill that hole anymore.

She just wanted… something warm.

So, she walked to the animal shelter.

It was a rainy morning, one of those gray, drizzling days where the whole world looked washed out and blurry. Her umbrella was cheap and kept folding inward, so by the time she got to the shelter, her coat was soaked through and her fingers were stiff.

Inside, the building smelled like wet fur and pine-scented cleaner. The fluorescent lights hummed faintly overhead, casting everything in a sterile yellow tone. A volunteer greeted her with a practiced smile and showed her to the cat room, explaining the basics — litter habits, vaccinations, temperament ratings. Y/N nodded politely but didn't really listen. Her eyes were already scanning the room.

Dozens of cats.

Some curled up in boxes. Others pacing. A few meowing with hopeful desperation.

But none looked at her.

She crouched near one particularly vocal tabby, only for it to hiss and turn its back. Another cat batted lazily at a toy when she approached but ignored her hand when she reached to pet it. A long-haired Persian stared right through her, regal and unimpressed.

Y/N stood there awkwardly, hands in her coat pockets, heart sinking.

She knew it was silly — anthropomorphizing rejection — but it still stung. She wasn’t even appealing to cats.

She turned to leave. Quietly. Without causing a scene. It would be just another thing she tried and failed at. Another reminder that even animals knew she wasn’t the one you picked.

And then — soft movement.

From the far corner, behind a scratching post and a tattered old tunnel toy, came the slow stretch of a lanky gray cat. He blinked at her, one eye slightly squinty from an old injury, and stood up.

He didn’t meow. Didn’t purr. Just padded over, tail upright like a little question mark.

Y/N froze.

He was all bones under his fur — lean and elegant in a scrappy kind of way. He looked like he’d lived a hard life. Scars on his ears. A slight limp. But his eyes… they were soft. Curious.

She crouched slowly and extended her hand.

The cat hesitated. Sniffed. And then, with a small sigh, leaned into her fingers.

Her throat tightened.

She scratched gently under his chin, and he tilted his head, pressing closer. As if to say, Oh. There you are.

Her vision blurred.

And just like that — she’d been chosen.

His name at the shelter was “Dusty.” She didn't change it. It suited him. He wasn’t glamorous. He didn’t leap into her lap or sleep curled against her cheek. But he followed her from room to room, curling up near her feet, always watching.

When she crocheted, he’d bat gently at the ends of yarn. When she cried quietly at night — not often, but sometimes still — he’d jump onto the couch and sit beside her. Never touching. Just near.

Like he knew that’s all she could handle.

She whispered to him often. About her day. About books. About the lives she imagined while shelving romance novels with happy endings. About the man she loved who forgot her.

Sometimes, she whispered his name.

Dusty never answered, of course. But he blinked at her slowly, and it felt like the closest thing to understanding she’d had in months.

She bought him a little blue collar with a bell. Crocheted him a lopsided bed. Let him sleep on the couch, even though she told herself she wouldn’t.

Her apartment didn’t feel empty anymore.

Not quite full, either.

But it felt alive.

And on some nights — when she boiled tea and read by the window, and Dusty curled beside her with one paw stretched across her foot — she allowed herself to pretend.

That maybe this was enough.

It had been raining the first day Y/N brought Dusty to the park.

Not pouring — just that kind of shy drizzle that left the leaves glistening and the air smelling of wet soil and faraway smoke. She hadn't intended to bring him. The thought itself had made her laugh, once. Walking a cat? That was a thing quirky people did in cartoons. Not quiet women with half-healed hearts and sensible shoes.

But Dusty had sat by the door that morning, tail flicking, eyes fixed on her like he knew she needed something.

She clipped on the little harness she'd bought on a whim — blue, to match his collar — and, to her surprise, he hadn’t fought her. He just blinked, stretched, and followed as she opened the door.

Y/N wasn’t used to being looked at. Not anymore. But she felt it that morning — soft, amused glances from strangers as she walked through the wet grass, the leash loose in her hand as Dusty padded carefully beside her. She adjusted her scarf higher on her neck and kept her eyes down. It felt ridiculous. Endearing. Exposed. Like she was baring too much of herself — saying, look how lonely I am that I walk a cat now.

But when she saw June already seated on their usual bench, bundled in a thick cardigan, her yarn dancing between delicate fingers — the tightness in her chest eased.

June looked up. Her eyes twinkled. “Well, well,” she grinned. “If it isn’t the neighborhood menace, dragging her tiger around.”

Y/N let out a breathy laugh and sat beside her. Dusty hopped onto the bench without invitation, curling beside her thigh like he owned it. His tail flicked with quiet pride.

“You brought the beast,” June said, amused. “I’m honored.”

“He needed fresh air,” Y/N murmured, brushing a raindrop from her cheek. “He gets restless when I work too long. I think he resents my job.”

June chuckled and leaned down to pet Dusty, who allowed it with his usual regal detachment. “He’s handsome,” she said thoughtfully. “Got that look of someone who’s seen things.”

Y/N smiled. “Like us.”

“Exactly.” June’s fingers scratched gently behind his ear. “You gave him a home?”

“He gave me one,” she whispered before she realized she’d said it aloud.

June looked at her.

Y/N swallowed. The wind brushed cold against her cheeks. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. “I have pictures,” she said, her voice too soft. “Do you want to see?”

“I was waiting for that,” June said, settling in like it was a grand event.

Y/N flipped through photos with careful fingers. One of Dusty sleeping on a pile of books. One of him in a crooked little sweater she’d crocheted — his expression pure betrayal. One where he stood on the windowsill with sunlight gilding his fur, the city behind him like a world she didn’t belong to anymore.

June smiled at every one. “He looks like he trusts you.”

“I hope so.”

“You saved him?”

“No. I think I just… showed up. And he let me stay.”

The words felt too honest. But June never mocked honesty. She only nodded, like she knew what it meant to find shelter in something that couldn’t leave.

They sat in silence for a long time after that.

June crocheted a square for her blanket — lilac and navy, the colors of twilight. Y/N worked on a tiny blue hat, not sure who it was for. Dusty rested between them, tail curled like a comma, as if he were pausing a sentence neither of them wanted to end.

Then, softly, June asked, “Do you talk to him?”

Y/N blinked. “What?”

“Your cat. Do you talk to him?”

Y/N’s lips parted, then closed again. Her eyes dropped to the yarn in her lap. “Yes,” she said. “I think… I tell him the things I can’t say out loud.”

June nodded slowly. “We all need someone who listens. Even if it’s just ears and whiskers.”

Y/N looked at her hands, at the tiny trembling loop she was forming. “I told him I wasn’t waiting anymore.”

“Are you?”

“I think I’m trying not to.”

June set her needles down and took one of Y/N’s hands, her grip warm and soft and full of unspoken knowing. “He’s missing out, whoever he is.”

Y/N tried to smile. It wobbled. “He loved someone else.”

“Then he never really looked at you.”

“I think… I think I spent so long being someone who waited for him… I don’t know how to be anything else.”

“You’re not just someone’s memory, sweetheart,” June said gently. “You’re here. You’re warm hands and kind eyes and messy yarn and a cat who chose you. That’s a lot.”

Dusty let out a soft chirp then, as if in agreement.

Y/N sniffed and nodded, tears pricking the corners of her eyes but refusing to fall. Not today.

“I never thought I’d be the woman who walked her cat in the park,” she said with a broken laugh.

“You’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“No,” June said, eyes twinkling. “You’re the woman who brought her whole heart back to life… with a leash and some yarn. That’s something else entirely.”

There were things Y/N never spoke aloud — not to June, not to Dusty, not even to the ceiling fan above her bed that sometimes spun slow enough to listen.

She carried some stories like bruises beneath long sleeves. Quiet things that pulsed when touched, but stayed hidden because to reveal them would be to admit she was still clinging to shadows.

One of those bruises was Mondays.

Every Monday, without fail, Y/N sat in a small corner booth at Solstice Café — a quiet, sun-drenched spot with old wood chairs and that smell of cinnamon baked into its walls. She always brought a book. Sometimes a notebook. Sometimes just Dusty’s latest pictures on her phone to scroll through. But none of that was the reason she was there.

It had started years ago, in a different life. A warmer, louder one — where laughter was careless and hope didn’t feel like something foolish.

Bob had gotten a summer job spinning a ridiculous sign for a fried chicken place two blocks away. He had to wear a full chicken costume — yellow feathers, orange tights, a beak that flopped when he moved too quickly. He’d hated it. Said he looked like someone’s acid trip. He’d tried to quit after day two.

But she hadn’t let him. She’d shown up with lunch.

“Let the world see the bird,” she’d said, grinning.

He’d groaned. But when she pulled out his favorite sandwich and a milkshake — the one with caramel drizzle on top — he’d slumped beside her on the curb, feathers and all, and eaten in silence until he finally cracked a smile.

“Only you could make this less humiliating.”

“Maybe I just like chickens.”

“You like me in tights, admit it.”

She’d laughed. He’d turned red. And after that, every Monday for the rest of that summer — and the summers that followed, even after he quit — they had lunch together at Solstice. It became sacred. A ritual. Mondays were theirs.

Even after everything else in his life fell apart, Mondays stayed. She made sure of it.

She was the one constant. The lighthouse. The one who always showed up.

And now, all these years later, she still did.

Every Monday at noon, she left work exactly on time, tucked her cardigan tighter around her, and walked the six blocks to Solstice Café. Her booth was usually open. The staff didn’t know her name, but they knew her order. Grilled cheese. Tomato soup. And a lavender lemonade, just because Bob once said it reminded him of summer.

She never told June about it. She couldn’t. It felt too desperate. Too much like a woman who was still waiting for a boy who wore a chicken suit and laughed like he didn’t know how to stop.

Dusty would never understand either. He was loyal, yes, but cats didn’t know the ache of time or the illusion of memory that played like a movie behind your eyes.

She would sit in the booth with her book open but unread, eyes fixed on the seat across from her, and she would pretend — just for a moment — that he might walk through the door.

That maybe this Monday would be the one where time rewound and gave her a do-over. A world where Bob never left. Where Malaysia was just a made-up excuse, and he came home with feathered stories and a milkshake in hand. Where Yelena was nobody. Where his hand reached across the table and found hers because maybe — just maybe — he’d finally seen her the way she’d always seen him.

But it never happened.

The booth stayed empty. The soup got cold. And she walked home alone, every time, biting the inside of her cheek to keep the tears from falling in public.

Sometimes she hated herself for it — for being so loyal to a memory. For loving someone who’d never really been hers.

He had said “I love you, I’m sorry” before disappearing. And she'd let that echo destroy her. She'd built fantasies from it, believing for a moment that maybe — maybe — the love had been real. But now, after everything she’d seen, it felt more like a goodbye born from guilt than love.

Yelena had arrived with her sharp edges and hero’s smile, and whatever mess of a man Bob had returned as — the Sentry, the god, the weapon — he’d looked at her like salvation. Not at Y/N. Not once.

And still, every Monday, Y/N showed up like a woman stuck in time. Haunted by a love no one else had witnessed. By inside jokes that only she remembered.

The staff never asked why she dined alone.

Maybe they thought she was a widow. Maybe a creature of habit. Maybe just lonely.

But to Y/N, it was a quiet act of rebellion. Of memory. Of refusing to forget the version of Bob who once danced badly to ‘80s songs in her kitchen, wearing mismatched socks and her apron.

The boy who said she was his only real friend.

She didn’t believe in ghosts, not really. But if she did — if she let herself — she’d admit that Mondays were when she summoned one.

And she never told anyone.

Because some heartbreaks were too precious to share. Some wounds felt sacred.

Weekends used to be the hardest.

There was a stretch of time—long and hollow—where Saturday mornings arrived with too much silence, and Sunday nights ended with nothing but the weight of a week repeating itself. No plans, no messages, no one waiting. She had stopped checking her phone long ago for texts that would never come. The kind that once started with “you up?” or “I need you.”

But she had to fill the time with something. The ache of idleness was too loud.

So, one Sunday afternoon after wandering aimlessly downtown, she saw a flier posted crookedly on a corkboard at a bus stop: “Looking for weekend volunteers. All heart, no experience necessary. Shelter & Hope, 17th Ave.”

It was handwritten, the ink a little smudged, the edges curling like it had been forgotten. But something about it pulled her in. Maybe it was the “all heart” part. Or maybe it was just the idea that, somewhere in the city, someone needed something—even if it wasn’t her.

That next Saturday, she showed up. She wore a plain sweater, jeans that didn’t quite fit right anymore, and a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She was met by a man named Greg, who smelled faintly of coffee and wore a name tag that read, “One Day At A Time.”

“You here to save the world?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “Just trying not to drown in it.”

He didn’t press further. Just nodded and handed her a pair of gloves.

That first weekend, she washed dishes. Lots of them. In water that was too hot and filled with bubbles that clung to her wrists. Her knuckles turned red and raw, but the rhythm of it—the simple, repetitive motion—soothed something inside her.

She went back the next weekend.

And the one after that.

Soon, she wasn’t just washing dishes. She was making coffee. Folding donated clothes. Listening.

The people who came through Shelter & Hope weren’t statistics to her. They were names. Stories. Laughter that broke mid-sentence. Eyes that saw too much. Hands that trembled when offered kindness.

She met Eddie, a Vietnam vet who spoke like his voice had been lost in smoke. He told her about a girl named Luanne who once made peach cobbler every Sunday, and how the world stopped being sweet after she died.

She met Sherry, who carried her childhood in a plastic grocery bag, and showed Y/N how to mend socks with a needle as tiny as her hope.

She met Miles, a boy barely twenty with teeth too white for someone who never smiled. He liked fantasy books—especially ones with dragons. Y/N started bringing him paperbacks from her store’s discard bin. They’d read aloud together in the corner, where the flickering light made it hard to tell when he was crying.

She brought Dusty one day, on a whim, tucked into a soft sling like a baby. The shelter had no policy against pets, and he was clean, calm, the kind of cat who seemed to know when someone needed a weight on their lap and nothing more.

The residents adored him. Even the toughest of them softened at the sight of that quiet grey tabby with big amber eyes. Dusty never hissed. Never clawed. He simply sat. As if to say, I know. I understand. And somehow, that was enough.

One woman, Clarice, who hadn’t spoken in weeks, finally did—just to say, “He reminds me of a cat I had when my son was little.”

Y/N crocheted hats in the evenings. Scarves. Ugly mittens in colors no one requested. She gave them out anyway, stuffing them into drawers and offering them with a shrug. Sometimes she stitched their initials in the yarn when she knew them well enough. Her fingers worked fast now, always busy, like if she stopped, her thoughts would unravel.

She never told anyone why she was there. Not really.

They assumed kindness. A gentle soul. And she let them.

But in truth, it was selfish. It wasn't just that she wanted to help.

It was that, in their sadness, she could bury her own.

Their heartbreaks were worse. Louder. They made hers feel manageable. Bearable.

She wasn’t the only one with a ghost trailing behind her. She wasn’t the only one who’d been left behind.

And she wasn’t even the most broken. That realization brought shame and comfort in equal measure.

One Saturday, as she read quietly with Miles, he asked without lifting his head:

“Who hurt you?”

She froze.

“What?”

“You got that... look. Like you’re still waiting for someone who left.”

She smiled tightly. Closed the book.

“I’m just trying to give something good to the world.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But the world broke you first.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

She went home that night and cried into Dusty’s fur until his little paws batted her cheeks in confusion.

But she still returned the next weekend.

Because the pain didn’t go away. But at least there, in that place of tattered blankets and borrowed names, she could pretend her sorrow was part of something bigger. Something useful.

And when she handed someone a scarf or a book or just sat beside them as they spoke of lost fathers, vanished sisters, or lovers who disappeared into the fog, she didn’t feel invisible anymore.

She felt needed.

Even if she was still heartbroken. Even if no one ever came back for her.

The afternoon sun poured through the tall front windows of the bookstore in long slanted beams, lighting up the dust in the air like suspended stars. Outside, it was early spring, the kind that still had a winter sting in its wind, but inside the shop, it was warm, quiet, and smelled like old paper and brewed coffee from the little machine behind the counter that had been sputtering since morning.

Y/N was kneeling by a stack of unopened boxes near the fantasy section. New inventory had just come in—paperbacks smelling of fresh ink, tight spines begging to be cracked open. She loved this part of her job. The methodical repetition of slicing through tape, peeling back cardboard, stacking new titles alphabetically. It required no smiles, no explanations. Just her and the books.

Dusty sat curled like a grey loaf behind the register, blissfully asleep, his ears flicking only when the bell above the door jingled.

She didn’t look up. Customers came in all the time. Browsers. Readers. Parents searching for a birthday present they wouldn’t understand.

But then, a low voice, gravelly like it had been dragged across asphalt, broke the soft quiet of the store.

“Any good fantasy books? Not lookin’ for anything fancy. Just... a good one.”

Y/N turned, slightly startled. The man who stood at the entrance of the aisle was older, maybe in his late fifties or sixties. His beard was thick and streaked with silver, wild but trimmed like he tried, sometimes. His jacket was old leather, the kind that didn’t just hang on your body but had a history. He wore sunglasses despite being indoors, which she found odd—and oddly funny.

She gave him a polite nod. “Sure. Do you want a classic or something newer?”

He shrugged. “Something I can disappear into.”

She tilted her head. She knew that feeling.

After a few seconds of scanning the shelf, she handed him a copy of “The Last Binding.” It was new. A hidden gem. A rich story with quiet grief buried in its fantasy. She had liked it.

He took the book from her hands, brushing her fingers with a calloused thumb as he did. “You read this?”

She nodded. “It’s about a boy who forgets everything he loves to protect it. And the people who try to remind him.”

He didn’t say anything, just held the book and stared at the cover like it might give him an answer.

They stood there for a beat, the soft music overhead almost too gentle to hear.

“You always this quiet?” he asked, voice low again, not mocking, just curious.

“I talk more when I know someone better,” she replied, organizing the rest of the books without looking up.

“Well, then I guess I’ll have to read this quick and come back.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips.

He didn’t offer a name. Didn’t ask for hers. Just stood there, flipping through the first few pages with long fingers.

For the next ten minutes, he asked her a few things—what made her love books, if this was what she always wanted to do, if she believed in happy endings. Nothing deep, nothing strange. The kind of conversation people forgot five minutes after they walked away.

But she didn’t forget.

Because just before he left, as he approached the counter with the book and stood across from her, sunglasses still hiding his eyes, he tilted his head like he was studying her for the first time. And in the smallest voice, like it didn’t belong to someone who looked like him, he said:

“You seem sad.”

The words landed like glass on hardwood. Sharp. Unwelcome.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t repeat it. Just offered a small, almost apologetic nod, left cash on the counter—exact change—and turned without another word.

The bell rang again as he left, his boots heavy and uneven on the wooden floor.

She stood there for a long time after he was gone, staring at the closed door.

“You seem sad.”

She was sad. But no one ever said it out loud. People said she was quiet. Or shy. Or kind. But not sad. Not like that.

Not like they could see it.

Y/N sat down on the little stool behind the register. Dusty jumped into her lap, purring instantly, like he knew.

Her hands shook slightly as she pet him.

Why did it matter what some stranger said? Why did those three words hurt more than the years of silence Bob had left behind?

Maybe because it meant it was still written all over her.

Maybe because no matter how many scarves she crocheted or how many fantasy books she pushed into lonely hands, it didn’t change the way her grief still bled through the cracks.

She opened the store notebook and scribbled in the margins like she sometimes did.

He didn’t ask my name. But he knew my sadness.

Then she crossed it out. Tucked the receipt from the man’s purchase into the back of the notebook like a keepsake. Just the date. The time. Nothing else.

It wasn’t a moment worth remembering, and yet—she would.

The tattoo shop sat at the edge of the avenue, tucked between a pawn shop and a boarded-up bakery. The neon sign in the window blinked lazily in red and blue—“Electric Rose Tattoo”—flickering just enough to make her hesitate.

Y/N stood outside, wrapped in her oversized cardigan, her hands buried in the long sleeves like a child trying to disappear. She had been standing there for five minutes. Ten. Maybe more. The sun was low and golden behind her, casting her shadow long across the sidewalk. People passed, barely glancing. A woman holding flowers. A man with headphones. A teenager laughing into his phone. Everyone had a destination. Everyone had somewhere to be.

Except her.

The idea of a tattoo hadn’t come from a bucket list or a sudden surge of rebellion. It had arrived quietly, like most of her thoughts did these days—born in the middle of an overcast morning, while folding laundry in silence, her heart heavy with the weight of being forgotten.

She had caught her reflection in the mirror and thought, I don’t even recognize her anymore.

Same eyes. Same face. Same tired hands and polite smile. She wasn’t beautiful. She had made peace with that—or told herself she had. She wasn’t anything. Not someone people remembered. Not someone who turned heads. Not someone Bob had ever seen as more than... dependable.

So what could she change?

Her face? No. Her body? She didn’t have the energy. Her soul? Too far gone.

But her skin? That, at least, was a canvas. And for once, maybe—just maybe—she could paint something of her own.

She looked down at the piece of folded notebook paper in her hand. The design she had drawn late one night. It was simple: a tiny open book, and out of the pages, a delicate stem of lavender reaching upward—her favorite flower. Her comfort. Her scent. Her solitude. The one thing she always bought fresh every week, even if she didn’t eat three meals a day.

The tattoo wasn’t big. It would sit on the inside of her left arm, just above the elbow crease, where her sleeves usually covered. Where she could see it, but others might not. It wasn’t for anyone else.

Just her.

The bell above the door jingled faintly as she finally stepped in, the soft scent of antiseptic and ink blooming around her.

The artist, a woman named Mel, looked up from her sketchpad. “Y/N?”

She nodded, voice barely above a whisper. “Hi. Sorry I’m late.”

Mel smiled gently. She had full sleeves of tattoos, pink buzzed hair, and a nose ring that caught the light. She was effortlessly cool, the kind of person Y/N would have admired from afar, thinking, She knows who she is.

“Don��t worry. You ready?”

Y/N hesitated.

Ready? Was she ever ready for anything? Ready to love Bob, to lose him, to grieve him while he lived a public life as someone else’s hero? Ready to become a ghost in her own skin? Ready to crochet her heartbreak into scarves no one wore?

But she was here. She had made it here.

So she nodded again, swallowing down the lump in her throat. “Yeah.”

She handed over the drawing with slightly trembling hands.

Mel looked at it, and something in her expression softened. “It’s really beautiful. You draw this?”

“Yeah.”

“Got a story behind it?”

Y/N opened her mouth. Closed it. Then shook her head. “No. I just… like books.”

It was a lie. But it was the kind of lie that kept her from unraveling in front of strangers.

They prepped the chair, the stencil, the tools. It all moved so quickly, like life always did now—just motion and murmurs, and time folding into itself.

When the needle first touched her skin, it stung—but not in the way she feared. It was grounding. Like she could finally feel something. Like her body remembered it was hers, not just a shell moving through book aisles and charity kitchens and empty park benches.

Halfway through, she felt tears on her cheeks.

Mel paused. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t. She was crying for every Monday lunch where she sat alone. For every time she saw Yelena’s name paired with Bob’s. For every cruel whisper in her head calling her plain. For every man who saw her as less-than. For Dusty and June and the silence in her apartment after lights out. For being invisible for so long, even to the man who once told her, I love you, I’m sorry.

For still not knowing which part of that sentence he meant.

By the time the tattoo was finished, her sleeve was damp at the wrist from wiping her face too many times.

Ten minutes being obligated to lay down and wait was all she needed to spiral.

Mel wrapped her arm gently, like she was swaddling something precious.

“You did great,” she said kindly. “You okay?”

Y/N nodded again. But her voice cracked when she whispered, “Thank you.”

It wasn’t just for the tattoo.

It was for not asking more questions. For not pitying her. For helping her leave something permanent behind—something she had chosen.

She left the shop just as the sun was disappearing behind the buildings, sky bruised with color. Her arm stung, wrapped in sterile gauze, and the weight of the ink felt heavier than she expected.

But it was hers. For once in her life, something was only hers.

And as she walked down the sidewalk in her too-comfortable shoes, cardigan sleeves flapping in the wind, she felt something shift.

Not healing tho, maybe... refreshing feeling.

The next morning was one of those early spring days that still carried the ache of winter in its bones. Pale light stretched thin over the clouds, and the air held that soft chill that nipped at the fingers just enough to make you grateful for hot coffee. The park was quiet—the kind of quiet that settled not just around you, but in you.

Y/N walked slowly, Dusty tucked into the canvas tote at her side, only his little gray head poking out, eyes scanning the world like he was guarding it just for her. She had bundled herself in a wool coat and her usual fingerless gloves, but today she wore the new tattoo openly. The gauze was gone, replaced with healing balm and a slight sting every time her sleeve brushed it.

The tiny open book, delicate and lavender-laced, peeked out from under her coat sleeve like a secret she’d finally allowed herself to tell.

Her coffee was still warm when she reached the bench.

June was already there, of course—her skeletal fingers looping and pulling bright red yarn into rows, a soft crochet rhythm that looked more like a heartbeat than a hobby. Her white curls peeked from under a knitted hat, and beside her rested a small paper bag of crackers she always insisted on sharing with Dusty, whether he wanted them or not.

“You’re late, sweetheart,” June said without looking up, but the smile on her face said she didn’t mind.

Y/N smiled weakly and sat beside her, placing her coffee carefully on the bench’s edge and unbuttoning her coat. Dusty crawled out of the tote and leapt into June’s lap with practiced elegance, already nuzzling her side like he belonged there.

“Well, I brought peace offerings,” Y/N said softly.

“Oh? Do tell.”

Wordlessly, Y/N reached into her bag and pulled out a small bundle, carefully folded and tied with twine. It wasn’t much—just a hand-crocheted scarf in soft, dusky plum, the kind of purple that looked rich in any light. The pattern was imperfect. The stitches wobbled here and there, uneven tension in some rows. But the warmth it carried was unmistakable.

“For you,” she whispered.

June stopped mid-stitch, looking at the bundle like it was a relic.

“For me?” she asked, startled. “What’s the occasion?”

Y/N shrugged, eyes glistening. “No occasion. I just… wanted to.”

June took it gently, unwrapping the twine with a care usually reserved for something far more fragile.

“Oh,” she whispered, fingers trembling as she touched the scarf, dragging them slowly across each loop like she was reading braille. “Oh, my dear girl…”

Her voice caught.

“I didn’t think anyone made things for me anymore.”

Y/N looked down quickly, embarrassed by the tears threatening to spill again. She hadn’t expected this reaction—just a small smile maybe, a thank you. Not the way June pressed the scarf to her chest like it was a bouquet of wildflowers from someone long gone.

“I just thought it might keep you warm when it gets windy,” Y/N mumbled. “It’s nothing special. I know it’s not perfect—”

June turned to her, eyes watery but warm, her voice low. “It’s the most special thing I’ve received in years.”

Y/N looked at her. For a moment, they just sat there in silence, Dusty purring between them, the breeze tugging gently at their coats.

Then June glanced down at Y/N’s arm and narrowed her eyes.

“Now what’s this?” she said, voice lifting slightly. “Is that a tattoo?”

Y/N blushed and nodded. “Yeah. I… got it yesterday.”

June took her wrist gently, the same way a mother might hold a child’s hand, and studied the ink.

“A book and lavender,” she murmured. “You. That’s you right there.”

Y/N’s voice cracked. “I needed something that was just mine.”

June said nothing for a moment. Then, she let go of her wrist and leaned back on the bench, pulling the scarf loosely around her shoulders.

“You’ve been hurting for a long time, haven’t you?”

Y/N swallowed. Her chest ached. “Yeah.”

“I know,” June whispered. “You don’t have to say more.”

The park hummed around them—birds chirping in soft question marks, the crunch of leaves under joggers’ feet, the distant bark of a dog. And yet, this little space between them felt like a separate world entirely. A place where Y/N wasn’t invisible. Where someone noticed the cracks.

June took her hand again, this time to hold it.

“I don’t know who broke your heart, sweetheart,” she said softly. “But you’re still here. You keep showing up. You bring light. And let me tell you something—someone who shows up every day, even when it hurts, even when they feel like nothing… That’s the kind of person who carries real love.”

Y/N couldn’t respond. Her throat was too tight. She looked down at her lap, blinking furiously, willing herself not to fall apart in the park like she always did at home.

But June didn’t need her to speak. She just held her hand, the way old women do when they know silence is the only comfort words can’t touch.

Dusty nudged his head against Y/N’s leg and meowed, as if to say, You’re not alone, even if it feels like it.

It had been three weeks since he last appeared.

And yet, Y/N had begun to expect him.

The mysterious old man—leather jacket always zipped, sunglasses always on no matter the weather, a neat but wiry beard that made him look like he could be anywhere from fifty to ninety—had drifted in and out of the bookstore like a half-remembered dream. Never quite real. Never quite gone.

He came during the slow hours, never in a hurry. Sometimes midday. Sometimes close to closing. He’d ask for a recommendation—“Nothing fancy, just good. Something real.” Always those same words. And she always gave him something she loved or had just read, or sometimes a brand-new title no one had touched yet. And every time, when she asked if he’d liked the last one, his answer was vague.

“Yeah,” he’d shrug. “Beautiful book.”

But it was the kind of answer people gave when they weren’t really listening, or weren’t really reading. Still, he always bought the next book. Without question. No bargaining. No hesitation.

That afternoon, the bell above the door jingled, and she didn’t even have to look up to know it was him.

Same jacket. Same slow steps. The scent of cold wind and dust trailing behind him like the past.

Dusty, curled up in a sun patch near the register, lifted his head curiously. Y/N reached down to pet him, as the man approached with that familiar unspoken gravity.

“Back again?” she asked with a lightness she didn’t quite feel.

He gave a short nod. “Books are addictive. You’ve made me a junkie.”

That made her laugh—quiet, restrained, but real. The kind of laugh she only had left these days. “Well, there are worse things to be addicted to.”

He didn’t answer that.

Instead, he reached for one of the newer fantasy novels near the display. “This one good?”

She nodded. “Not bad. More whimsical than most. Dreamy prose. A bit sad.”

“Sad’s good,” he said. “Sad makes sense.”

She blinked at that, not sure why the words echoed in her chest the way they did. Maybe because they sounded like her own thoughts—things she’d never said aloud. But she smiled, quietly nodding again as she rang it up.

The silence stretched between them like it always did—comfortable, but strange. Then he glanced down, pointing at the little patch of gray fluff sprawled lazily on a cushion.

“How’s your little bodyguard?”

She followed his gaze and grinned. “Dusty’s fine. Still thinks he owns the bookstore.”

“He does,” the man said. “And probably your apartment.”

Y/N laughed, her fingers unconsciously smoothing over Dusty’s fur. “Yeah, that too.”

The man tilted his head slightly, looking at the chalkboard behind her. A few words were scrawled there in messy, cheerful handwriting:

Book Club – Thursdays at 9PM – Bring your favorite book! Open to everyone. Coffee and cookies provided.

He read it for a moment, then turned back to her. “That still happening?”

“Every week,” she said. “It’s free. You just show up and bring a book you want to talk about.”

His lips tugged upward. “Any book?”

She nodded.

He tapped his fingers against the counter thoughtfully. “Well, I happen to be an authority on Russian literature. The rest of your guests would be humbled by my knowledge.”

It was such a strange, out-of-place joke that she couldn’t help but burst into a real laugh.

He smiled at her reaction, brief but genuine, and tucked the book under his arm.

“Well, I’ll think about it. Maybe I’ll come and teach you Dostoevsky through interpretive dance.”

“You’d fit right in,” she said softly. “Most of them are walking therapy sessions with page numbers.”

He paused then, head tilting slightly, like he saw something she didn’t know she was showing.

His voice, when he spoke again, had softened.

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

She looked up, confused, mouth opening—but the words stuck in her throat. “Wait… I—I never told you my name.”

He had already turned toward the door, hand on the knob, pausing just long enough to look back over his shoulder.

“Didn’t you?” he asked, almost kindly. “I must’ve just known.”

Y/N leaned to the door. "Wait what's your name?"

"Alexei." Then he was gone. The bell jingled faintly behind him like a wind chime.

And just like that, she was alone again.

Y/N crouched, hand gently stroking the cat’s fur, eyes still locked on the door.

"He's little weird right? But he seems nice."

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