#Damaged Goods

[winchestress]

[arcanespillo]

“Damaged Goods”

SPN S14E11

[brienneoftarth1989]

Sharing is Caring NSFW

Brienne of Tarth x Fem Reader - Smut

Summary: - After a long journey you and Brienne arrive at Harrenhal. Brienne heads straight to the communal baths as you stay behind in your room. However you both end up in there making it a lot steamier than it already was.

Warnings: cunnilingus, fingering, thigh riding

Requests open

———————————

You and Brienne have been on the road for months. Since she was knighted you had been appointed as her squire. To say you were kind of scared of the knight was an understatement but you also had a secret crush on the tall blonde knight.

“Y/n will you hurry up” she moaned at you as you kept dropping your stuff on the floor. It had been a long journey and all you both wanted to do was rest. “Well you could help” you protested as you walked up towards the castle of Harrenhal. Brienne immediately stopped in her tracks turning to face you with a stern look on her face. “You y/n are my squire therefore you should be doing this for me” she said sternly before turning back on her heels and continuing her journey to the castle.

“I understand that Brienne but it might be quicker if you helped plus I won’t be dropping everything” you said kindly trying not to annoy your crush even more than you already have. “I shouldn’t need to help you. Now come on and hurry up I just need to rest” she shouted entering the castle with you following at least 100 yards behind her due to struggling with all your belongings.

When you finally entered the castle you could see Brienne standing there waiting for you considering you had all her stuff. You rolled your eyes slightly annoyed. “Seriously if you were just gonna stand and wait you could have at least helped giving me a hand taking these to your room” you say dropping your stuff on the floor. She rolls her eyes before walking over and grabbing her stuff before walking back off to find her room.

You rolled your eyes. You did wonder how you put up with that woman some times. It still didn’t change how you felt about her. You admired the tall beauty and although you knew she could be stubborn and tough she did have a soft side to her. You gathered the rest of your belongings before being shown to your room.

Once safely in your room you placed your belongings down on the floor before throwing yourself onto the nice soft bed. You could stay there forever but you started to feel cold. You looked up and could see that the fire was starting to die. You pulled yourself out of bed and went to throw some food on the fire to keep it alive. You sat beside the fire waiting for the logs to catch alight.

Meanwhile Brienne had gone straight to her room to dump her belongings there before heading to the communal baths. She sighed in relief to see she was the only one there. She stripped herself of her clothing before stepping into the nice warm bath. This was long overdue. She let her mind wander and all she could think about was you. Over the last couple months she kept noticing that you kept glancing over at her and every time she caught you in the act you would immediately avert your gaze somewhere else. Brienne thought you were fucking with her. There is no way someone like you would be interested in her at all. That is why she has been avoiding you and brushing you off all the time. She hoped that you would get the message and finally stop trying to hurt her. But you didn’t stop because what you didn’t know is that you didn’t realise that Brienne felt this way. Your feelings for Brienne were real and your plan was never to hurt her.

Sighing, Brienne relaxed deeper into the water before eventually going under the water. It was peaceful. She planned to stay like this for the rest of her time in the communal baths only coming up every so often for air.

After your fire had finally come back to life you decided it was time for a nice relaxing bath. It was something that is well overdue. Unfortunately on the road there are not many places you can just stop to freshen yourself up. You add some additional logs to the fire before leaving your room to find the communal baths.

After about five minutes of roaming the castles you finally found the communal bath. You open the door stepping into the steamy room. You looked around and saw no one. Absolutely perfect you thought. You stripped yourself of your clothes, placing them in a neat pile out the way before stepping into the nearest bath. You moaned slightly as your body came in contact with the hot water. This was perfect. You felt yourself relax instantly.

Your mind immediately went straight to Brienne. After months on the road and not being able to release the ache between your legs you finally decided enough was enough. You let you hand travel down your body before finding its way to your sensitive clit. You rubbed small circles on the bundle of nerves thinking of all the things the knight could do to you. The thought of her tongue between your folds, her fingers deep inside you curling to hit that sensitive spot that always sent you over the edge, the thought of…

“Y/N what are you doing in here?” Brienne asked, raising her voice slightly wondering when the hell you got there. Your eyes opened instantly and your hand pulled away from your core. Your face was red instantly “bri..Brienne I uhh didn’t know where you were. Where were you?” You asked confused as to where the hell she was and why you didn’t hear her come in.

Brienne looked you up and down confused as to why you were red as a tomato “I was under the water” she stated plain as day. “So are you going to get out then?” She asked bluntly. You immediately rolled your eyes “I don’t see why you are getting annoyed at me. I didn’t even know you were here. I’m not getting out, I want to relax. I don’t see why you have such a problem with me Brienne. I have been nothing but nice to you and I get treated like shit” you said raising your voice while sitting up so your breasts were now exposed.

Brienne took a look down at your chest before making eye contact with you again. “You’re my problem y/n. You’ve been taking the piss out of me since we have been on the road together. Always giving me these looks and then looking away and not talking to me. It annoys me. You annoy me”

“I’m not taking the piss out of you Brienne. I look at you because I like you. I look away because I get embarrassed because you have caught me looking and then I go shy. That’s why I don’t talk. I don’t do this because I don’t like you. It’s the complete opposite to be honest” you sighed looking up to meet Brienne’s gaze trying to read her face. “You’re bullshitting” she protested trying to protect herself from getting hurt.

You stand up fully exposed to the knight opposite you. You walk over to Brienne before perching yourself down next to her. “Brienne, I'm not bullshitting. I’ve had this massive crush on you for ages. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want things to get awkward between us considering I believed that you didn’t feel the same way” you sighed hoping that maybe she would believe you. “I don’t believe you y/n” she started turning her head away.

Before you had even had the opportunity to process what happened your hand had landed just under her chin pulling her to look back at you. “Then let me show you” you whisper before looking down at her lips and leaning in. Your movements slow so that if she wanted to pull away she could. However you were surprised to find that her lips made contact with you first. The kiss was long, deep and passionate before eventually becoming desperate for more. Your hands in her hair and her hands in yours the kiss became more erratic.

You pulled away for air. You rested your forehead on hers. You watched as her eyes fluttered open. “Brienne” you whispered. You felt her shiver “yes y/n” she whispered back. “I need you Brienne. I need to feel you. I need your touch. Please Brienne. Please fuck me!” You begged her. She moaned into your ear “my pleasure” she whispered into your ears before diving back into the kiss. You moaned into the kiss, swiping your tongue across her bottom lip asking for entrance which she granted. You both fought for dominance before submitting to the blonde beauty. She explored your mouth with her tongue before pulling away and trailing kisses down to your neck sucking on your pulse point.

“Mmm fuck Brienne” you moaned as she pulled away leaving a delicate kiss on the now very prominent hickey. You continued trailing kisses down your body finally reaching your hardened nipples. Kissing the sensitive bud before gently sucking and swirling her tongue causes you to release a moan. Her other hand palmed your other breast before starting to travel down your body landing on your hips. She pulled away before placing her other hand on the other side of your hip lifting you up and placing you on the cold concrete floor. You shivered at the sudden coolness. Brienne placed her hands on your thighs spreading your legs. She looks into your eyes silently asking for your consent. “Please Brienne. I need to feel you” moaning into the crook of her neck. That was all confirmation she needed before lowering herself so she was level with your soaking wet core.

She trailed kisses up the inside of your thigh before finally making contact with your clit leaving a single kiss before swiping her tongue from your clit to your entrance before going straight back to your clit making small circular motions with her tongue. You moan at her touch, throwing your head back as you buck your hips into her mouth to get some more friction.

Brienne grabs your hips keeping you in place as she works magic with her tongue on your clit. “I..I’m close” you moaned trying to grind your hips “cum for me baby girl. I need to taste your cum” she whispers against your clit. With that single command you felt your release instantly coming as Brienne continued to lap up your cum. She helped you come down from your high but before you could flip her around to give her the same pleasure she gave you she decided to plunge two of her fingers into your soaking wet cunt while playing with your clit with her thumb.

“Ahh fuck Brienne! Fuck me harder” you moaned spreading your legs wider giving her more room to work with. At your command she picks up her pace working overtime on your overly sensitive clit. “Are you going to come for me again you dirty little whore?” She smirked as she gazed up into your eyes, not stopping what she was doing to you. You felt the build up again but this time slightly different. You came closer and closer to your orgasm as you then covered Brienne in your squirt. You rode out your orgasm as Brienne moaned into your cunt.

“Fuck baby girl that was so fucking hot” she moaned pulling away and sucking her fingers clean. She didn’t even have time to think as you pulled Brienne out of the water and had her straddle your thigh. “I want you to come for me. Use me for your pleasure” you moaned into her ear grabbing her hips motioning for her to start grinding on your tensed thigh. You could feel her slick spread over your thighs as she started to grind against you.

You knew she was getting close when her pace quickened and you could feel her soft moans in your ear getting louder and louder. “Cum for me brienne” you moaned before sucking on her pulse point leaving a number of hickeys behind. You felt her whole body shake as she came, having to then put a hand over her mouth to muffle her moans. After her orgasm you felt her body collapse on top of you.

Come on darling, let's get you cleaned up. You both got back into the bath bathing one another. “My room is going to be freezing” Brienne chuckled as she rested her head on your shoulder. “Did you forget to fuel the fire?” You asked, wrapping your arm around her shoulders keeping her close. “Yh I did because I’m an idiot” she sighed.

“You’re not an idiot Brienne. I tell you what, let's get dressed and go back to my room. I put some logs on the fire before I came down so it should be nice and toasty. You can stay the night if you want” you suggested hoping the tall beauty wouldn’t deny your request.

She kissed you deeply “I would love too” pulling you back into another kiss.

[natss-blog]

“Say the word, Granger. For you, I’ll break every f*ck!ng rule there is.”

-D

Slytherin_after_dark

[franklespine]

The way Dean said he was thinking of going on a drive "just me and baby" and Sam was like alright, let me pack my stuff :))))) Like... girl.... Dean literally had to be like erm.... no I was actually thinking more.... one on one time with mum... before Sam got the picture and was like alright now I know something is REALLY wrong. And he was right. He called Mary few hours later and was like idk maybe I should come over too and Mary was like yeah something's wrong but just let me talk to him dont come out just yet. Cut to Sam putting the phone down, already in the car, starts driving faster.

[yourbiggestfan2020]

This is accurate.

[theangelshavethephonebox]

Is this anything

Image description: a screenshot of a poorly edited meme. It's Captain Holt from Brooklyn 99 with the subtitles "they think I made Kevin gay with my magic genitalia", except an image of a drawing of Chris Cwej's head has been pasted over Holt's, and the words have been crossed out and written over to read "I cured AIDS with my magic genitalia". End ID.

[winchestress]

for those interested: the recipe from the official cookbook

[minimindi]

I just finished Damaged Goods by @slytherin_after_dark and it’s amazing!! Totally recommend it 🖤

If you want to listen to an audio version, the podcast “The Dramione Archives” is currently recording it, so you probably only have to wait a week or two until the full thing is done. I think they have the first 18 episodes posted so far?..

[procrastiel]

A few naughty thoughts about Aziraphale /Crowley under the cut, if you please

It’s their game now, Aziraphale calling him ‘nice’. Crowley hears him utter another four letter word into his ear quite often, and smiles to himself every time he thinks about it.

His angel knows all the hidden and forbidden places in his heart, he can pull all the levers at once. And when he does, Crowley can barely manage to keep his corporation together.

His angel, so hot under the covers, so wanting in a long-forgotten Maltese cave, their echoes uniting like their bodies. Him moaning softly in Crowley’s ears near a monastery in the Indian jungle in the depths of night when all God’s creatures are asleep.

His angel, so naughty and sinful. So desperate to please him. And Crowley, just as desperate to please in return, in all the ways the angel can come up with, and more.

He smiles to himself as he watches Aziraphale open his mouth to say the word again. “Nice”. And then, his face changes, he plays angry, and throws him against the wall. But he makes sure their hips touch, to send another message.

[theknightofsolitude]

The most fucked up feeling, is wanting to let someone in, right? But knowing that you can’t. You CRAVE the opportunity to want to allow yourself to be vulnerable, to reach out to them, to feel something with someone else.. EVEN IF FOR JUST A SECOND…. but you know deep down that it won’t happen.. call it what you will, cowardice, self preservation, being smart.. whatever…. It fucking sucks sometimes.

[the-liminal-place]

[lisamarie-vee]

[notforanyone-jpg]

damaged goods / la dispute

[indelibleevidence]

Broken Wings, chapter 1 (Reller, M-rated)

Author's Note: Also on FanFiction.Net and AO3! Updating on Saturdays, because I made sure to actually finish the fic before I started posting it, to ensure I didn't consign it to WIP hell like my other WIPs. XD

Wow, this is going to be a lot of explaining, but here we go! First off, if you haven't read Strikethrough, Crossroads, and the Damaged Goods summaries for the rest of the fics that I haven't written in between Crossroads and this one, go do that first. There's also a one-shot called Stalling that's set a month or two before this fic, but it's not necessary reading to get what's going on here.

This fic contains suicidal ideation, suicidal distress, and a depiction of Remi at rock bottom. If you're in a bad place, it might be better if you don't read this right now. (And I hope you feel less terrible soon.)

Remi is a lot different from the Remi in Crossroads. She's got pretty much all of her memories from her Jane years back now, and is a little bit softer and less sweary, until she's provoked, and then she reverts to 'fuck you' mode. Much like Jane's 4x15/4x16 self in canon, she's overwhelmed by the weight of her past mistakes, as Remi and as Jane. She's definitely not on the 'yay, law enforcement' train, and is still mostly ACAB in nature, but she knows that at least Kurt and his team are well-intentioned, and their eyes are open to the corruption within the system (mainly because of the first set of tattoos). By this point in my timeline, she also has accepted the fact that she's in love with Kurt, but she'd die before she'd ever admit it to him.

Jane is referred to as a third person throughout this fic, because neither Remi nor Kurt are at the 'Jane and Remi are just two time periods sans memories for one person' stage of acceptance. Also because it's easier for me, as a writer, to differentiate between those different time periods and mindsets by just using the names she was going by at the time. I do think that in another year down the Damaged Goods timeline, both Remi and Kurt will stop referring to Jane as a separate entity, but Remi kind of needs it right now, and though Kurt is further down the line as seeing Jane as a part of Remi, he's still getting there too. So things might seem a little bit disassociative identity disordery, and I apologise to anyone who might stumble upon this who actually lives with DID and hates what I did with this. But Remi is compartmentalising a LOT, though interestingly enough, now she's seeing Jane as the better person, whereas before, she loathed Jane with the fire of a thousand suns. The difference a few memories can make...

This fic is complete, so I'll post updates on Saturdays, I guess. This is my first time actually finishing a multi-chaptered fic before starting to post, but I really didn't want to start posting another WIP that was going to hang around in limbo (I'm sorry, Remember to Forgive and Taken for Granted fans! I will get there, I hope!).

Lastly, I really have to thank nachosandcheeze for her enthusiasm for this AU, and her encouragement for me to keep writing for it. She's not the only one who's been lovely about it (and thank you to everyone who cares about my weird little enemies to lovers universe where Jane never quite made it back to her brain - really, you guys are fantastic!), but she's been pretty consistently poking me with metaphorical sticks, and making Remi gifsets, and squeeing over Reller, etc. - to the point where I showed her the half-scene I had written from a fic several fics away from where I'd left off with Crossroads, just to get it out of my brain. And she loved it so much that I wrote a bit more, and a bit more, until over 16k later, I ended up with this. So thank you again, nachos. You're proof that nagging a fic author for more story does actually work, sometimes! :D

*

Absently tracing the carving on the stone with her finger, Remi glanced over to the small vial of clear liquid on her nightstand. It sat on top of a small, leatherbound booklet—El Libro de la Eternidad—which she’d smuggled out of Peru, along with the stone brick from Machu Picchu. Maybe she should feel guilty that she’d stolen a couple of pieces of Peruvian history from its citizens, even if one of them was a loose brick, but after all the things she’d done in her short fuck-up of a life, her conscience was way past that. And the brick contained a carved message for her: RB 4 RB, Roman Briggs for Remi Briggs, along with binary code that pointed to Roman’s data caches, and a message that had made tears sting her eyes.

Hey, sis.

I got you something. I never solved this one.

 I hope you can. I did my best.

May you outlive this… for both of us.

Your brother, always,

Roman

Even during his bitter feud with Jane—Remi still flinched to think of him ZIPped and claustrophobic in his FBI cell, even though she now remembered Jane’s reasons, and her anguish at her brother’s state—Roman had still been looking for a cure for her. He’d had his own, the one she’d stolen from Dr. Roga and used to cure herself—after all, Roman had died before he’d had the chance to benefit from it. But still, he’d hunted down more Stanton cells, which meant that now, Remi had a cure for ZIP poisoning all lined up.

She had everything she needed. If Roman’s cache intel was right, New York billionaire hypochondriac Ken Lee would trade El Libro de la Eternidad for the Stanton cells. Dr. Roga could synthesise a new cure, if Kurt approached her. And Remi would need that cure, because the ZIP on the nightstand would be going into her body, as soon as she laid the plan out for Kurt.

There was just one more thing left to do.

Setting aside Roman’s carving, she accessed the video recording setting on her phone, and held it up so that her face was visible. She’d made a video for her future self once before, to further Phase One of her grand plan by introducing Jane to Oscar, and verifying his trustworthiness.

And you know how that turned out, her internal critic whispered.

Swallowing hard, Remi made herself focus on the task at hand, ignoring the guilt gnawing on the synapses at the back of her mind. How was she going to start this thing? Saying hello seemed redundant.

“I know you’re suffering right now, and I’m sorry for that. You don’t remember your old life, and that’s intentional. Please, trust me when I say you shouldn’t go hunting for the finer details. I’m sparing you a lifetime of pain and futility by taking the ZIP, even though you might not be able to appreciate that.”

She sounded whiny as hell, but how else could she put it? She had to make future Jane understand that this was for the best.

“The only options, as I see them, are suicide or ZIP. I’ve got enough here that I should be able to wipe out any trace of my old memories. You might get a few flashes, but I hope you don’t. You don’t need to go through this again.”

If you weren’t such a coward, you’d just put a shotgun barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. Maybe Jane would think she was cowardly. But she wasn’t afraid to die. She just didn’t want Kurt to have to suffer, knowing his wife was dead along with Remi.

“I’m doing this, instead of killing myself, because you have good people around you, people I’ve already hurt enough, and don’t want to hurt any more by making them lose you. You have loyal friends. A husband who loves you very much. Things will be hard for you at first, but you’ll build a life again, like you did before. And this time, you’ll know who did this to you, and why, and you won’t have me telling you to disregard your instincts and undermine the people you care about. I was misled, and betrayed, but I made bad choices, too. I was too stubborn to see it for so long, but the first time we were ZIPped, Jane found happiness, and a new purpose, and even though I still don’t think law enforcement is the shining star of morality… If you’re working with Kurt and his team, you’ll be working towards good things. Hold onto that.”

She took a breath, picking up the ancient Peruvian brick again.

“The one thing I want to tell you about is my—our—brother, Roman. Or Ian. That was his birth name, just like yours was Alice. Ian Kruger. Later, Roman Briggs. He wasn’t perfect, as I’m sure Kurt will tell you. But he was a follower his whole life, not a leader. He followed me, and our adopted mother, because he loved us, and didn’t want to be rejected. Jane hurt him too much, and he turned on her, and on Kurt, but deep down, he was a good man. He just wanted a loving family, to belong somewhere.”

She held the brick up in the camera’s sight. “I want you to keep this. Take care of it. This points to his last message from him to me, on his data caches. To Remi, I mean. Not the old version of Jane.” How did things get so confusing? “I have the actual message saved on my phone, so you should be able to see the message itself there. As for the brick, I took it from Peru, along with something to bargain with for a cure for your ZIP poisoning. Roman was looking for a cure for me, even while he knew I—the old Jane—was working to bring him down. He just wanted his sister back, I guess.”

If she kept this up for much longer, she was going to get too damn emotional, and there was no way she was willing to break down and cry on video. She had to cut this short. “Roman and I went through hell together, and that’s one of the things I don’t want you to remember anything about, so I won’t go into it. But we survived our childhood by relying on each other, and then our teenage years were the same, in a different way. We used to pass a South African rand coin our parents gave us back and forth, giving it to each other as a gift. It wasn’t worth much back then—and it’d buy even less now—but its symbolic value for us was priceless. For Roman, it was a comfort object. Jane buried him with it, so I don’t have it now, but I wanted you to know about it.”

She dug her fingernails into her palm, a technique she’d first used at the orphanage to keep outwardly calm, while a torrent of emotions churned within her. The pain centred her, making the grief easier to bear.

“Things went so wrong, but I never stopped loving Roman, even as Jane. And he never stopped loving me.”

She sighed, knowing she should say more, should give Jane more closure, but knowing she’d never be able to get through it on camera. Maybe she’d write Jane a letter, before Kurt ZIPped her.

“I hope you can build a life again, and find happiness. You sure as hell couldn’t do worse than I did. Please, look forward, not back. There’s nothing here but pain. Good luck.”

She threw down the phone and buried her face in her hands, breathing deeply, striving for the numbness that could get her through the final days of this life. Soon she’d fly to New York, and wipe the slate clean.

The end of my memories can’t come soon enough. I can’t do this anymore.

*

Three days later…

Kurt stared from the vial and hypodermic needle to his wife, a rapidly growing pit in his stomach. What…is happening here? What the hell, Remi?

“It’s okay,” she said, shrugging as though this was a foregone conclusion, a logical end to everything they’d battled through on their way to this moment. “I’ve made my peace with it. There’s nothing left here for me now. This is Jane’s world, and I don’t belong in it. At least…at least this way, you can get her back. Or as close to it as it’s possible to get.”

“It’s okay?” he finally managed to say, his throat choked with an intense mass of emotions that he couldn’t even begin to analyse right now. “Your identity is what makes you you, Remi. You’ve fought to defend it so damn hard, it nearly drove us apart for good. You’ve spent over a year getting so many of your memories back, and now you want a clean slate again? I know you remember how hard it was for you after Times Square, and after Cape Town.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, still not meeting his eyes. “The first time, you didn’t know who Jane was. Nobody knew. This time, everyone will. And she’ll have you, and your friends. It’s…easier that way. Even though I hated you when I found out what had happened to Sandstorm, at least I had…” She shook her head. “Anyway—Jane will adjust quickly. You can get the woman you married back, as she was.”

The words shook him, in so many different ways. He rubbed a hand over his face, floundering to make sense of everything.

To get his Jane back…it was everything he’d dreamed of for so long. During those ten months that Remi had gone off the radar, he’d been desperate to find a way to bring Jane back to the forefront of her mind. Aside from Bethany and work, it had been all he’d thought about, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel a spark of hope for that outcome now.

But it was all wrong. It was a fairytale. Jane had been a product of the situation she’d been in, from the bag in Times Square to not knowing who she was, to thinking she was Taylor Shaw and then discovering she wasn’t, to being tortured by the CIA—and then discovering she used to be Remi Briggs, daughter of the leader of a terrorist organisation. She’d become who she was because of the way things had been back then, the way her new life had unfolded, and there was no way to know how much of that would be replicated in a newly ZIPped Remi.

Remi. God… I… He swallowed hard, something akin to grief seeping into his bones.

“What about you? This is like…like mental suicide for a huge part of you. You really want to kill yourself that badly? Why not shoot yourself in the head? Jump off a building? Overdose on pills?” His voice was harsher than he meant it to come out—demanding, angry.

Terrified. He was goddamn terrified.

Remi flinched at his tone, finally looking into his eyes. “Because you don’t want to live without her. And if I did one of those things, you’d have to face that she’d never come back.”

He rose from the couch abruptly, the twister of conflicted emotions within him too much to handle if he stayed still. Tears filled his eyes as he stalked over to the kitchen, and he rested his palms on the worktop, his back to Remi, as he tried to breathe.

“So you really want to die?” he managed to ask.

“There’s nothing left for me. My mother, my brother, my friends, my cause, my convictions… Everything is gone, Weller. There’s no point in trying to rebuild. I’ve spent the past year not knowing what to do with myself, fucking things up…”

He turned on her, snarling, “There’s nothing left for you? Then what the hell am I? Why do you keep coming back? After everything that’s happened, you don’t care enough to stick around?”

She got to her feet, crossed the room, her eyes sad. “The only thing I care about in this life is you, and I hurt you constantly, just by not being Jane. This way, it kills two birds with one stone. My empty life goes away, and you get Jane back. You get to be happy, and I get to…forget.”

A tear slid down his cheek, and he dashed it away impatiently. “Remi…”

She reached up to brush another tear from the corner of his eye, her fingers gentle. “I don’t want either of us to hurt anymore. We’ve suffered enough.”

Staring down at her, he finally put names to the emotions within him. Fear and pain had been easy to identify on their own, but they were joined by a surge of something else, so strong and fierce and breathtakingly real that he could hardly bear it.

Remi… Fuck, I can’t lose you. I need you.

I love you.

Despite everything she’d done to him, all the mental torment she’d put him through, the bitter arguments they’d had, the misunderstandings and deceit that had shredded their trust in each other…he’d fallen for the whole of her, just as hard as he had for the Jane part of her. Remi was Jane, intensified. She’d called herself damaged goods, and he couldn’t disagree, but so was he. Remi understood him in a way Jane never could have on her own.

And he was suddenly, powerfully certain that she loved him just as much.

Unable to control himself, he pulled her into his arms, giving her a crushing kiss that seemed to shock the breath from her, even as she returned it just as ardently. Part of him wanted to reject this whole conversation, carry her to bed, fuck her until they were both too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep in each other’s arms.

But this was too serious to hide from, even temporarily. He had to make his position clear.

Wrenching away from her, he stalked over to the table, picked up the small bottle of ZIP and brought it to the kitchen sink. Unscrewing the lid, he poured the contents down the drain, then dropped the bottle and turned to Remi, who was staring at him as though he’d gone mad.

“What the hell?” she demanded.

“Listen to me,” he told her, his eyes locked on hers. “I will never use that stuff on you. Ever. It doesn’t matter to me that there’s a cure for ZIP poisoning all lined up. There’s no going back for us. I can’t just inject you and turn you back into the Jane you used to be. It wouldn’t work like that.”

She sighed, looking down at the splashes of ZIP remaining in the sink. “Better the devil you know than the angel you don’t?”

He cupped her face in both hands, making sure she couldn’t look away from his face. “You’re my devil, and my angel, and everything in between. Remi, the thought of losing you scares the hell out of me. You’re my wife, and you may not be the way you were when we got married, but you’re still the woman I fell in love with, deep down.”

She was frowning, shaking her head, and he rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes as she drew in a shaky breath.

“I love you, just as much as I did when you were Jane. You didn’t make it easy to get to know you, but every time you let me in a little more, I fell for you even further. I need you to stay you.”

“What?” She breathed the word, and he opened his eyes to find her visibly trembling. Her expression was a study in contradictions. Fear. Hope. Anger. Longing.

Kurt smiled sadly. “It’s too late. I already know you love me, too.”

She tore herself out of his arms, stepped out of his reach. “Stop it. This has gone far enough, Weller.”

“No. It hasn’t gone anywhere near far enough. You’re so scared of making yourself vulnerable, of being hurt again, that you’re hurting yourself so that I’ll never have that power over you.” He took a step closer, and she backed into the living room immediately.

He’d once mentally compared her to a trapped animal, defensively clawing and snarling out of fear. He saw that same distress in her now, and ached to hold her, even though it would only make the situation worse.

“I thought we were over this,” she said, her voice brittle. “I’m not Jane.”

“No, you’re not Jane. You’re Remi. I see you, the whole of you. I know exactly who you are, and I love you.”

She eyed the apartment door, her fists bunched at her sides and her jaw set.

“Don’t run from this. Please.” He took another slow, careful step, and though she backed up again, her eyes were on him once more.

“You never took off your wedding ring, even when you were telling me you hated me. You’ve opened up to me more than once. You’ve trusted me to keep you safe, and you’ve forgiven me for mistakes I’ve made, and I’ve done the same for you.”

She pulled at the ring on her finger, trying to remove it. “You can believe what you want to believe, but it’s not true. It was just about sex and anger, and then we became friends with benefits. That’s it.”

He caught hold of her left hand and held it between his, before she could take off the wedding band. “You didn’t even want to admit you wanted me, back when we first realised we still needed each other. Even when you were halfway to coming. Is it gonna be the same now?”

She snorted, but didn’t try to yank her hand free from his. “What, you think you’re gonna fuck a confession of love out of me? It’s not the same thing, Weller.”

“Is that what it’s gonna take?” He couldn’t pretend he was surprised. They’d resolved so many of their other issues through arguing their way into sex. Why would this be any different?

Her jaw trembled before she firmed it, glaring at him. “No, because it won’t work. It’s not true.”

With anyone else, he’d take that as their final answer. A rejection that he’d have to accept and move on from. But with Remi, things had never been straightforward and simple.

She tested him at every turn, refusing to take anything he said at face value, and this thing with the ZIP was likely a part of it. He wanted to believe that was all it was—a manipulation, a shock tactic designed to scare him into laying all his cards on the table—but his gut told him otherwise.

She would never have risked him saying yes to her offer to ‘become Jane again’ if she hadn’t been prepared to accept the consequences. She was too proud to back down from something she’d said she’d do. And that meant that she really was at a desperate end point, unable to find a way to move forward from the ruins they’d left of her pre-ZIP life.

Kurt needed her to see that he could help her find the path, if she’d only trust herself to walk it. But first, she had to know he wasn’t going anywhere, that he wasn’t just settling for a doppelgänger until he decided to stop clinging to Jane’s memory.

And they both had to be clear where they stood with each other.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.”

Remi stared at him, for a moment seeming completely taken aback. Then her protective bravado and anger kicked in. “You say ‘jump’, I say ‘how high’? No!”

Even as he understood her reasons for refusing—knew she was just trying to protect herself—her words still stung.

“I love you, Remi.” He shrugged, standing straighter as he laid out his challenge. “If you don’t feel the same way, I need to know. So come on—break my heart.”

God, this is going to hurt.

He believed that she loved him. But whether she’d ever admit it to herself, let alone to him, was another story entirely.