Hi there! My name is Jace and welcome to my master list! Please note, these are all 18+ fics. Minors will be blocked!
Here I will post links to all my work!
Below are the characters I write for:
JQ: Michael (Hoard), Tom Grant, Eddie Munson, Emperor Geta, Eric (AQPDO), Johnny Storm, Sam O’Brien (warfare), Ralph (time wasters), Prince Paul (The Great)
Fred Hechinger: Daniel Markowitz, Emperor Caracalla, Simon Kalivoda, Quinn Mossbacher, Jason Hochberg (HOAS), Dimitri Kravinoff
Stranger Things characters
And others, just ask. My requests are almost always open! Feel free to flood the ask box!
NOTE: PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT IT IS YOU’RE REQUESTING. I HAVE A LOT OF THINGS ON HERE. MOODBOARD, FIC, MATCHMAKING, LETTERS, ETC
Hello there! I finally went to see Dracula: A Love Tale, and now I understand the hype.
I would love to find someone to play Vlad against my Elisabeta, perhaps exploring their early years and how they met.
I would love someone 18+, preferably adv lit to novella, writing on discord. If you would be interested, please feel free to like or reblog and I'll message you asap!
All The Sweetest Things | Spencer Reid | Criminal Minds
this is a fic for our secret admirer fic exchange!! never written for spencer before but tbh i love this sweet boy, he deserves the world. I hope you enjoy @romantic-genocide <3
word count: 1,528 of pure fluff!
Spencer Reid noticed patterns for a living.
He noticed the rhythm of speech in interviews, the micro-twitch of a suspect’s eye, the way statistics curved and folded into predictable shapes. He noticed everything.
So he definitely noticed the notes.
The first one appeared on a Monday morning, tucked between the pages of a journal he hadn’t opened since graduate school. A square of pastel paper, folded carefully into thirds.
You forget to eat when you’re thinking.
— A friend
Inside was a granola bar. Homemade, judging by the uneven chocolate drizzle and the faint smell of cinnamon.
Spencer blinked at it for a long time.
Then he ate it.
The second note arrived on Wednesday. It was slipped under his keyboard when he’d stepped away for coffee.
Statistically speaking, you’re running on 3 hours of sleep.
This is an intervention.
— Your admirer
There was a thermos beside it. Chamomile tea, still warm.
Spencer stared at the note. His mind spun through the probabilities. The BAU was small. Someone observant. Someone kind.
Someone who knew him well enough to notice.
He drank the tea.
By Friday, the team had noticed too.
“Pretty Boy’s got a stalker,” Morgan said, leaning against Spencer’s desk with a grin. “You gonna profile ‘em, genius?”
“I’m not being stalked,” Spencer said automatically, though his ears warmed. He turned the third note over in his hands.
You deserve nice things, even when there isn’t a reason.
Especially then.
— Still me
Attached: a tiny box of homemade cookies shaped like books.
Emily leaned over his shoulder. “Okay, but if this is a stalker, they’re the nicest one I’ve ever seen.”
JJ smiled. “Maybe it’s someone who just… likes you.”
Spencer’s brain supplied a dozen statistical breakdowns about workplace romances and anonymity in gift exchanges, but none of them helped with the strange, warm flutter in his chest.
He carefully saved every note.
The fourth note arrived the following week.
Meet me Saturday?
There’s a museum exhibit I think you’ll love.
If you come, wear something with elbow patches.
— Your secret admirer
Spencer stared at it for so long that Garcia eventually spun her chair around and snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“You are going,” she said immediately.
“I don’t even know who it is.”
“That’s the point. It’s romantic. It’s mysterious. It’s extremely Jane Austen of you.”
“It could be a prank.”
Garcia put a hand over her heart. “Spencer Reid, if someone is baking you cookies shaped like books, it is not a prank. It is destiny.”
He flushed. “Statistically speaking—”
“Don’t you dare statistics your way out of this,” Morgan cut in.
Saturday morning found Spencer outside the art museum fifteen minutes early.
He wore elbow patches.
He also brought a book as a conversational fallback, a backup plan, and a coping mechanism. He pretended to read it while scanning every approaching figure with the subtlety of someone absolutely not trained in surveillance.
At exactly 10:00 a.m., someone stepped into his line of sight.
“You came.”
He looked up.
You stood there, a little breathless, hands tucked into the sleeves of your sweater like you weren’t sure what to do with them. Your smile was tentative but bright.
Spencer’s brain went blank for a full three seconds.
“You’re my—” he stopped, flushed, started again. “You’re the… notes.”
You laughed softly. “Yeah. Hi.”
“Hi,” he echoed.
A pause stretched between you. Not awkward, exactly. Just full.
“I hope it wasn’t weird,” you said quickly. “The notes. If it was, I can pretend I never did it and we can just—”
“No,” he said, too fast. Then, more carefully: “No, it wasn’t weird. It was… statistically improbable in the best possible way.”
You blinked. Then you smiled.
“I figured you’d like the museum,” you said, gesturing toward the entrance. “There’s a special exhibit on mathematical patterns in art. And also a café that sells cookies shaped like famous paintings.”
He stared at you. “You planned this.”
“Well,” you admitted. “Yes.”
Something warm unfurled in his chest.
“I’m really glad you came,” you added.
“I’m really glad you asked.”
Inside, the museum was quiet and softly lit. The kind of place where footsteps echoed gently and time felt slower.
You walked beside him, close enough that your shoulders brushed every few steps. Neither of you moved away.
“This piece,” Spencer said, stopping in front of a painting filled with spiraling gold patterns, “uses the Fibonacci sequence in its composition. See how the eye naturally follows the curve?”
You leaned closer. “You’re right.”
He launched into an explanation—ratios, golden spirals, historical context—and then abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
“Sorry,” he said, flushing. “I talk too much when I’m excited.”
“I like it,” you said simply. “Keep going.”
So he did.
You listened like every word mattered. You asked questions. You laughed at his small jokes. At one point, your hand brushed his as you both leaned in to read the same placard, and neither of you moved away for a full five seconds.
By the time you reached the café, Spencer felt… lighter. Like something inside him had shifted.
“You remembered I like baking,” he said, looking at the display of cookies and pastries.
You shrugged, a little shy. “I might have asked Garcia what your favorite comfort activities were.”
“That explains the granola bars.”
“And the tea.”
“And the cookies shaped like books.”
You winced playfully. “Too much?”
“Not enough,” he said quietly.
You looked up at him.
He cleared his throat. “I mean— statistically speaking, they were very effective.”
You laughed, and the sound made his chest ache in the best way.
Later that afternoon, you found yourselves in your kitchen.
“Are you sure?” Spencer asked, standing awkwardly near the counter. “I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing. You’re helping me test a recipe.”
“For…?”
“Valentine’s cookies,” you said. “For someone I like.”
He swallowed. “Oh.”
You handed him an apron. It had tiny hearts on it.
He stared at it.
“You don’t have to wear it,” you said quickly.
He put it on immediately.
Baking with Spencer Reid turned out to be both chaotic and endearing.
He measured everything with scientific precision. He cited baking chemistry facts. He got flour on his sleeve and didn’t notice for ten minutes.
“You have flour,” you said, pointing.
“Where?”
You stepped closer and brushed it off. Your fingers lingered on his arm for half a second too long.
He went very still.
“Sorry,” you said softly.
“It’s okay,” he said, even softer.
At some point, he accidentally smudged frosting on your cheek.
You froze.
He froze.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—”
“It’s fine,” you said, laughing. “Here.”
You dipped your finger into the frosting and tapped a small dot on the end of his nose.
He blinked. “You did not just—”
You grinned. “I did.”
He laughed. Really laughed. Bright and surprised.
For a moment, everything felt simple. Warm. Safe.
When the cookies were in the oven, the kitchen filled with the smell of sugar and vanilla.
You leaned against the counter. He stood beside you, close but not touching.
“I liked the notes,” he said quietly. “They made… things easier. On days that were hard.”
You looked at him. “I’m glad.”
“Why me?” he asked. “I mean— I’m not always… easy to like.”
Your expression softened. “You’re kind. And brilliant. And you care so much it hurts sometimes. You deserve someone who notices that.”
He swallowed.
“I notice you,” you added.
Silence settled between you. Not uncomfortable. Just full of possibility.
“Can I tell you something statistically significant?” he asked.
“Always.”
“My heart rate has increased by approximately 20% since this morning. That’s usually associated with anxiety or attraction. Given the context, I’m fairly certain it’s the latter.”
You smiled. “That’s a very Spencer way of saying you like me.”
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
The timer went off. Neither of you moved.
Then, slowly, you reached for his hand.
He let you.
The cookies came out slightly overbaked and very imperfect.
They were also the best cookies Spencer had ever tasted.
You packed a few into a small box and handed it to him.
“For you,” you said. “No anonymous note this time.”
He took it carefully. “Thank you.”
A pause.
“Would you,” he began, then stopped. Tried again. “Would you maybe want to do this again sometime? Not anonymously. Just… us.”
You smiled, warm and bright. “I’d like that.”
He hesitated. “Can I…?”
You stepped closer before he finished the sentence.
The kiss was soft. Sweet. A little nervous. Perfect.
When you pulled back, he looked dazed in the best way.
“Statistically speaking,” he murmured, “this is the best outcome.”
You laughed. “Good.”
He squeezed your hand. “Thank you for noticing me.”
“Always,” you said.
Outside, the February evening settled in—quiet and soft and full of promise. Inside, the kitchen was warm, the cookies were cooling, and Spencer Reid felt something he didn’t get often enough.
"Look, you shouldn't love me. All I ever do is let down anyone that's ever had faith in me."
With Caracalla???
WHAT THE BODY REMEMBERS | EMPEROR CARACALLA
summary: you heal with your hands and also your heart
You learn the shape of the palace by walking it at night.
In the day, it is all marble arrogance—columns wide as tree trunks, floors polished to a mirror shine, servants scurrying like blood cells through veins of gold. But at night, the palace exhales. Torches gutter lower. Footsteps echo too loudly. Even emperors bleed in the dark.
You are awake because he is.
The summons comes quietly, as it always does now. No trumpet. No guard barking orders. Just a knock—measured, controlled—at the door of your chambers.
Three taps. Pause. Two more.
You do not ask who it is.
You rise, already tying your hair back, fingers moving on instinct. You slip your feet into sandals worn thin from pacing corridors, gather your satchel of tools and tinctures. You hesitate only once, hand hovering over the door, because you know what waits on the other side.
Not the emperor.
The man.
The guard does not meet your eyes as he escorts you. They never do anymore. It is easier to pretend you are furniture. A fixture. Something necessary but unremarkable, like a basin or a brazier.
You pass statues of emperors long dead, their stone gazes stern and untouched by time. You wonder if they, too, once trembled in their hands. If they, too, tasted metal at the back of their tongues and pretended it was nothing.
Caracalla’s chambers are dim when you enter. Lamps burn low, their light soft and amber, casting long shadows that climb the walls like grasping fingers. The air smells faintly of smoke, old wine, and something sharper—bitter, medicinal.
He sits at the edge of the bed, bare feet against the cold marble, elbows braced on his knees. He is not wearing his imperial regalia. No armor. No crown. Just a loose tunic, wrinkled as if he’s been twisting it in his sleep.
His hair is unbound, falling into his eyes.
“Close the door,” he says without looking up.
You do.
The sound echoes too loudly in the quiet.
For a moment, neither of you speaks. You set your satchel down carefully, the leather creaking softly. You wait for him to tell you where it hurts tonight, but he doesn’t. He never does anymore.
Instead, he lifts his head and fixes you with that sharp, assessing stare—the one that has made senators stammer and generals flinch.
Except now it falters.
Just for a heartbeat.
“You were sleeping,” he says. It isn’t a question.
“I was,” you reply, because honesty has become your safest currency with him. “But I am awake now.”
His mouth twitches, something like a smile but not quite. He rubs at his temple with two fingers, slow and deliberate, as though pressing might quiet whatever is raging behind his eyes.
“You always say that.”
You step closer, careful, respectful, stopping just within arm’s reach. “May I?”
He nods.
You take his hands in yours.
They are warm—too warm—and faintly trembling. You have learned the map of them over months: the calluses from sword training he pretends he no longer needs, the slight stiffness in his right hand that worsens when he’s tired, the way his grip tightens unconsciously when his thoughts darken.
You turn his palms upward, examining them in the lamplight. His skin looks sallow tonight, the usual sharp olive dulled, like tarnished bronze. There’s a faint sheen of sweat along his hairline.
“Have you eaten?” you ask.
“Some,” he says. Then, after a pause, “Not much.”
You hum softly, noncommittal. You’ve learned when to push and when not to. Tonight feels like glass—one wrong pressure and everything will shatter.
You guide him gently to sit back against the bed, then kneel in front of him, reaching for the bowl of water a servant has left out. You add a few drops of tincture, the liquid blooming cloudy in the water.
He watches you with unnerving intensity.
“You never flinch,” he says suddenly.
You glance up. “At what?”
“At me.”
Your hands still for just a moment.
“Why would I?”
A laugh escapes him, sharp and humorless. “Everyone else does. They just hide it better than they think.”
You dip the cloth into the bowl and wring it out. “I am not everyone else.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “You’re worse.”
You press the cloth to his forehead before you can think better of it, grounding him—and yourself—in the familiar ritual. He sighs as the coolness touches his skin, his eyes fluttering closed despite himself.
“Worse?” you echo.
“You stay.”
The word hangs between you, heavy.
You wipe gently along his brow, his temples, down the bridge of his nose. His skin is too warm, pulse fluttering fast beneath your fingers. You have felt this before—the restlessness, the agitation, the nights where sleep refuses him like a locked door.
“You are ill,” you say softly. Not accusing. Not frightened. Just stating truth.
His jaw tightens.
“I am emperor,” he corrects.
“And emperors are made of flesh,” you reply. “Like anyone else.”
His eyes snap open, dark and bright with something dangerous. For a moment, you think you’ve gone too far.
Then he exhales, long and shaky.
“Sometimes,” he murmurs, “it feels like my body is rotting from the inside.”
Your chest aches at the confession. You do not say the words you know. You do not name the causes that circle your thoughts like vultures. Naming them would make them real in a way even he cannot outrun.
Instead, you set the cloth aside and take his wrists again, thumbs pressing gently where his pulse thrums erratically.
“I am here,” you say. “That is what matters.”
He studies your face as though searching for something. Approval. Pity. Condemnation.
“Why?” he asks.
You meet his gaze steadily. “Because someone must be.”
Something in him fractures then—not loudly, not all at once, but like stone under constant pressure.
He pulls his hands free and stands abruptly, pacing the length of the room. His movements are sharp, restless, like a caged animal. He drags a hand through his hair, breathing uneven.
“Look at me,” he says, gesturing wildly. “They carve my face into coins and call it strength. They chant my name in the streets and think it means safety. And all the while—”
He stops, back to you, shoulders tense.
“All the while I can’t sleep without tasting copper,” he finishes quietly. “I forget words mid-sentence. I wake shaking, sweating like I’ve been poisoned.”
You rise slowly, approaching him with care. “Ceaser—”
He whirls on you, eyes blazing.
“Don’t,” he snaps. “Don’t say it gently like that. Don’t look at me like I’m something that can be mended.”
You stop a few steps away.
“I am not blind,” he continues, voice cracking despite his attempt to keep it steady. “I see how they look at me. How they whisper. I know what kind of man I am.”
You swallow.
“And yet,” you say softly, “you called for me.”
Silence.
His breath stutters. His shoulders slump, the fight draining out of him all at once.
“Look,” he says, voice low, raw. “You shouldn’t love me.”
Your heart lurches at the word.
“I didn’t say—”
“All I ever do,” he continues, cutting you off, “is let down anyone that’s ever had faith in me.”
The room feels suddenly too small.
You step closer, close enough now that you can see the fine tremor in his hands, the exhaustion etched into the lines of his face. He looks younger like this. Worn. Human.
“You don’t get to decide what I feel,” you say quietly.
A bitter smile twists his mouth. “You say that now.”
“I say it because it’s true.”
He laughs again, but it breaks halfway through, dissolving into something dangerously close to a sob. He turns his face away, jaw clenched.
“Get out,” he whispers.
You don’t.
Instead, you reach out and rest your hand over his heart. It races beneath your palm, erratic and frightened.
“I am a healer,” you say. “And this is where I belong.”
His eyes slide shut.
He leans into your touch like a man starved.
Morning does not come gently.
It never does here.
The palace wakes in fragments—metal striking stone, murmured orders, the distant echo of sandals on marble. Light spills in through narrow windows, pale and unforgiving, cutting the night apart. You have learned to measure time not by bells or sun, but by the way Caracalla breathes beside you when exhaustion finally drags him under.
You did not mean to fall asleep.
You are seated in the chair near his bed, back aching, satchel at your feet, when you realize dawn has found you. Your neck is stiff, your eyes burn, and your hand—
Your hand is still resting on his chest.
He lies sprawled inelegantly atop the bed, tunic twisted, hair fanned across the pillow. One arm has fallen over his eyes, as if even in sleep he is warding something off. His breathing is shallow but steadier than it was hours ago.
For a moment, you let yourself simply exist.
Then he stirs.
It is subtle at first—a shift of muscle, a hitch in his breath. Your hand reflexively stills, heart hammering. You have learned to be careful at the edge of his waking; it is a dangerous threshold, where dreams cling too tightly and reality feels like an insult.
His fingers twitch.
He murmurs something under his breath. A name, maybe. Or a curse.
And then his eyes snap open.
For a terrifying heartbeat, they are not his.
They are wild, unfocused, darting around the room as if he has woken in the midst of an ambush. His body tenses, muscles coiling, and his hand flies to where a blade should be.
It isn’t there.
You speak his name softly, immediately. “Caracalla.”
He freezes.
His gaze locks onto you, sharp and searching, and for a moment you can see the calculation behind his eyes—the emperor measuring threat, weighing risk.
Then recognition dawns.
Slowly, his shoulders sag. His breath rushes out of him in a shaky exhale, and his hand drops uselessly to the bed.
“You,” he mutters.
“Yes,” you say. “Me.”
He scrubs a hand down his face, dragging himself fully awake. When he looks at you again, something brittle and embarrassed flickers across his expression.
“How long?” he asks.
You hesitate. “Most of the night.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
“You should have left.”
“I know.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” you echo quietly.
He sits up too quickly. The color drains from his face in an instant, and he sways, one hand gripping the edge of the bed. You are on your feet before he can wave you away, steadying him with practiced ease.
He laughs weakly. “You hover.”
“I keep you upright.”
“That’s worse.”
His head bows, chin nearly to his chest. When he speaks again, his voice is rough.
“I don’t remember falling asleep.”
Your chest tightens.
“That happens,” you say carefully.
His eyes flick up to yours, sharp with something like fear. “How often?”
You do not answer immediately.
He doesn’t look away this time.
“Tell me.”
You swallow. “More often than you think.”
Silence presses in around you. Somewhere beyond the walls, the city is waking—vendors shouting, carts rattling, life continuing as though emperors do not unravel quietly in their chambers.
“I lose time,” he says slowly. “Thoughts. Faces. Yesterday, I called a man by my father’s name and didn’t realize until everyone went still.”
You close your eyes briefly, steadying yourself.
“It does not mean you are weak,” you say. “The body keeps score of what the mind tries to outrun.”
He scoffs. “That sounds like something you’d say to make it softer.”
“Perhaps,” you admit. “But softness does not make it false.”
He rises, moving away from you, pacing once more. Daylight is cruel to him; it highlights the shadows beneath his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands. He presses his fingers to his temples, as if trying to hold himself together through sheer will.
“They watch me,” he says. “Everyone does. Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For the moment I slip.”
You follow him with your gaze. “You are allowed to be human.”
He stops abruptly, turning on you with something close to desperation.
“I am not,” he snaps. “That is the point.”
The words land heavy.
You take a step closer. “Caracalla—”
“No,” he interrupts. “Don’t soften it. Don’t lie to me.”
He gestures toward the window, the city beyond. “They do not chant my name because they love me. They do it because they fear what happens if they don’t.”
Your voice is quiet but steady. “And what about you?”
His laughter is hollow. “What about me?”
“What do you want?”
He stares at you as though the question itself is foreign.
“I don’t—” He falters. Stops. His brow furrows. “I don’t know.”
The admission looks like it costs him something.
“I used to,” he continues slowly. “I used to know exactly who I was meant to be. I thought if I became sharp enough, ruthless enough, nothing could touch me.”
He looks down at his hands.
“And now my own body betrays me.”
You step into his space without thinking, hands coming up to cup his face. His skin is warm beneath your palms, familiar. He does not pull away.
“Your body is not your enemy,” you say gently. “It is trying to speak to you.”
“It tells me I am failing,” he says bitterly.
“No,” you counter. “It tells you that you cannot do this alone.”
Something breaks then.
Not dramatically. Not loudly.
His breath shudders, shoulders hitching once, twice. He squeezes his eyes shut as if he can will the feeling away, jaw clenched so tightly you fear his teeth might crack.
You do not let go.
“I am not supposed to need anyone,” he whispers. “If they see—if they know—”
“They will know nothing,” you say immediately. “Not from me.”
He opens his eyes, searching your face.
“You swear it.”
“On my life.”
The words spill out before you can weigh them.
His expression goes still.
“Do you understand what you offer?” he asks quietly.
“Yes.”
“And you stay anyway.”
“Yes.”
He exhales, long and unsteady, leaning forward until his forehead rests against yours. The contact is intimate in a way that feels almost dangerous.
“You are going to ruin yourself for me,” he murmurs.
“Maybe,” you reply. “But I choose it.”
His hand comes up hesitantly, hovering near your shoulder, as though unsure he is allowed. When it settles, it is gentle—achingly so.
“I will hurt you,” he says. “Not intentionally. But inevitably.”
Your voice does not waver. “I know.”
“And you love me still.”
It is not a question.
Your heart thunders, but you meet his gaze.
“Yes.”
For a long moment, he does nothing.
Then he pulls back, just enough to look at you properly. There is something raw and naked in his expression now—fear stripped of its armor.
You lift one hand to his chest, fingers splayed over his heart.
He closes his eyes.
He does not kiss you.
That, more than anything, is how you know this will end badly.
You are still close—too close. Your hands remain on him, your forehead nearly brushing his, breath mingling in the thin space between. For one reckless second, you think he might close the distance anyway. That he might choose you, just this once.
Instead, his hands fall from your shoulders.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Like a man laying down a weapon.
He steps back.
The loss of his warmth is immediate, shocking. You sway slightly, as though something essential has been pulled away without warning.
“Don’t,” he says quietly.
Your throat tightens. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” he replies. “Like I’m something you can save.”
You lower your hands, fingers curling in on themselves. “I never said I could.”
“You don’t have to,” he says. “It’s written all over you.”
He turns away, pacing once more, but this time his movements are slower—heavy. Defeated. Sunlight catches the sharp planes of his face, carving him into something statuesque and untouchable again.
“I meant what I said,” he continues. “About disappointing everyone who believes in me.”
You follow him with your eyes. “Then let me believe anyway.”
He stops.
When he looks at you now, his expression is almost gentle. Almost fond.
“That’s exactly why you can’t.”
The words strike deeper than anger ever could.
“You think I don’t know what would happen?” he asks. “To you? To your life? To whatever fragile safety you’ve carved out in this place?”
You open your mouth, but he raises a hand—not commanding, not cruel. Just tired.
“You’d become a weakness,” he says. “And Rome devours weaknesses.”
Silence stretches.
“You’re ill,” you say finally, quietly. “And you are afraid.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “And I am emperor anyway.”
The finality in his voice chills you.
He crosses the room to a small table near the wall, where your satchel still rests. He lifts it, weighing it in his hands, then brings it back to you.
“You will leave,” he says. “At first light.”
Your breath stutters. “Caracalla—”
“No,” he interrupts gently. “This is the mercy.”
He places the satchel into your hands himself, fingers brushing yours for the briefest moment. The contact lingers like a bruise.
“I will assign you elsewhere,” he continues. “A provincial household. Far from here. Somewhere quiet.”
“You don’t get to decide that,” you say, though your voice shakes.
“I do,” he replies. “And I am, for once, deciding correctly.”
Your chest aches, sharp and immediate. “What happens when the nights get bad again? When you forget names? When the pain—”
“I will endure,” he says simply.
You stare at him, incredulous. “That will kill you.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Everything does, eventually.”
You shake your head, tears blurring your vision despite your efforts. “You said you needed me.”
“I did,” he says. “And I still do.”
He takes a step closer, just one, enough that you can see the exhaustion in his eyes, the quiet devastation beneath his control.
“But needing you is a luxury I cannot afford.”
Your hands tighten around the satchel strap.
“So that’s it,” you whisper. “You send me away and pretend this never happened.”
“No,” he says softly. “I remember everything.”
That is what finally breaks you.
You bow your head, pressing your lips together to keep from sobbing. You are painfully aware of how small you are in this room—how easily erased.
When you look up again, he is watching you with an intensity that feels almost unbearable.
“You were kind to me,” he says. “When I did not deserve it.”
“You deserved honesty,” you reply. “And care.”
“Perhaps,” he concedes. “But I will not let you pay the price for it.”
He straightens, the emperor settling back into his bones like a curse.
“Go,” he says.
You hesitate at the door.
Once—just once—you look back.
He is already seated again at the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring down at his hands as though they might tell him something useful if he looks long enough.
For the first time since you met him, he does not look up.
The Order of Things | Chapter 4 | The Shape of Truth
summary: an ordinary moment
There is a particular kind of silence that only exists in rooms where someone feels safe enough to be unguarded.
Dimitri has spent most of his life surrounded by quiet, but never this kind.
In his world, silence is enforced — cultivated through discipline and consequence. It is the absence of dissent, the space where no one dares to speak unless invited. It is heavy with expectation.
Here, in your apartment, silence is something else entirely.
It hums softly beneath the ordinary sounds of living: the refrigerator cycling on and off, the distant noise of traffic through a cracked window, the faint tick of a clock that keeps imperfect time. It is not empty. It is full.
You sit on the floor with your back against the couch, legs stretched out in front of you, papers spread in uneven piles like fallen leaves. You’ve been there for nearly an hour, Dimitri realizes — long enough for him to forget his phone in his hand, long enough for the world outside this room to fade into something distant and unimportant.
You’re frowning at a piece of paper, pen caught between your fingers as you mutter something under your breath.
He doesn’t interrupt.
He should. He came here with a purpose — to take you out, to distract you, to do something active. That’s what he’s good at. Movement. Direction. Control.
Instead, he leans against the doorframe and watches you exist.
The realization doesn’t arrive fully formed. It creeps in, slow and insidious.
You trust him enough not to perform.
You aren’t watching yourself around him. You aren’t careful. You aren’t curated.
You’re just… here.
“That can’t be right,” you murmur, scribbling something out and rewriting it with more pressure than necessary.
Dimitri clears his throat softly. “What can’t be right?”
You glance up, startled, then relax when you see him. “God, how long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you’re losing an argument with paper,” he replies.
You snort, the sound unguarded. “Paper is undefeated.”
He crosses the room and sits beside you, close enough that your shoulder brushes his arm. The contact is casual, unconscious.
“You want help?” he asks.
You hesitate. “With budgeting?”
“I can read numbers,” he says mildly.
“That remains to be seen,” you reply, but you slide a page toward him anyway.
As you explain, Dimitri listens — not politely, not impatiently, but attentively. He asks questions. Clarifying ones. The kind that tell you he’s actually trying to understand rather than waiting for his turn to speak.
You notice.
It softens something in you.
“I don’t know how people do this,” you admit quietly. “Sometimes it feels like I’m constantly one mistake away from everything falling apart.”
Dimitri’s chest tightens.
“You shouldn’t have to do it alone,” he says.
You shrug. “Everyone does.”
The way you say it — not bitter, not self-pitying — unsettles him more than anger would have.
That night, when he leaves, he feels something he can’t immediately name.
It isn’t longing.
It isn’t fear.
It’s… displacement.
Like something important has quietly shifted its center of gravity.
The realization follows him in fragments over the next few weeks.
It shows up in the way he starts checking the time more often, gauging it not by his own schedule but by yours.
In the way he begins remembering small things without effort — the way you wrinkle your nose when you’re concentrating, the exact phrasing you use when you’re overwhelmed, the foods you like that you’ll never buy for yourself because they’re “not necessary.”
He doesn’t announce his presence anymore when he comes over. He knocks once, lightly, then lets himself in when you call out.
You look up from whatever you’re doing and smile, easy and unguarded, like he’s something expected rather than impressive.
That should bother him.
It doesn’t.
One afternoon, he hears someone speak about you dismissively.
It’s casual. Thoughtless. A comment made without malice but heavy with assumption.
“She’s… sweet,” someone says. “But she’s not exactly built for this world.”
Dimitri responds before he thinks.
“That’s not accurate,” he says coolly.
The room goes quiet.
Later, when he’s alone, the realization hits him hard enough to make him stop walking.
He didn’t defend you because he was supposed to.
He defended you because the idea of someone misunderstanding you feels offensive. Personal. Like an insult aimed directly at him.
He tells himself it’s nothing.
He’s wrong.
It becomes undeniable the night something goes wrong.
Not dramatically. Not violently. Just… inevitably.
You call him later than usual. Your voice is steady, but he knows you well enough now to hear the tension beneath it.
“I don’t need anything,” you say quickly, as if anticipating his response. “I just—can I talk for a minute?”
“I’m on my way,” he says without hesitation.
He finds you sitting on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, eyes tired but dry. There’s no mess, no chaos — just quiet defeat.
You explain what happened. An expense you didn’t plan for. A calculation that didn’t work out. You’ve already made peace with it.
That’s what breaks him.
“You shouldn’t have to carry this,” he says quietly.
You smile faintly. “I always have.”
He kneels in front of you, thumb brushing gently under your eye.
“Not alone,” he says.
You lean forward then, resting your forehead against his shoulder.
Just for a moment.
Dimitri freezes.
Then he wraps his arms around you, holding you like something precious and breakable.
The realization lands with terrifying clarity.
This — this — is not something he can lose.
The thought scares him more than any threat ever has.
Later, lying awake beside you, Dimitri stares at the ceiling.
Your breathing is slow and even. One of your hands rests loosely on his chest, fingers curled into his shirt like you belong there.
He thinks about how easily you’ve integrated yourself into his life. How the absence of you would feel like amputation, not loss.
He thinks about his father’s voice — the way affection is described as weakness. As leverage.
He thinks about how much of himself he’s already given you without noticing.
This is dangerous, a voice warns.
And for the first time, Dimitri understands that danger is not always external.
Sometimes it’s a future you want badly enough to betray yourself for.
The morning he realizes he loves you, nothing dramatic happens.
You wake before him, moving quietly through the apartment. You leave a note on the counter — mundane, affectionate, easy.
Dimitri finds it after you’re gone.
He stands there for a long time, staring at your handwriting.
The realization settles fully then.
Not explosive.
Not cinematic.
Just certain.
He loves you.
And loving you has already made him someone else.
After Dimitri realizes he loves you, nothing changes.
That, more than anything else, unsettles him.
He expects something — urgency, fear, the need to confess or retreat — but instead the world continues exactly as it was. You continue to exist beside him, unaware of the shift that has taken place inside his chest.
You text him when you get home safely.
You complain about your neighbor.
You forget to put the cap back on the toothpaste.
Love, it turns out, does not announce itself.
It integrates.
Dimitri finds himself adjusting to the shape of you without noticing when it begins. Your apartment stops feeling temporary. Your routines become reference points. He knows which floorboard creaks near the bathroom. He knows how long the kettle takes to boil. He knows that when you’re quiet for too long, something is wrong.
These are not things he decides to learn.
They happen to him.
One evening, you’re sitting together on the couch, legs tangled, the television murmuring something neither of you is really watching. You’re scrolling through your phone, attention split between the screen and the absent-minded circles you’re tracing on his wrist.
“What are you thinking about?” you ask suddenly.
Dimitri doesn’t answer right away.
The honest answer — you — feels too heavy to say out loud.
“Nothing important,” he replies.
You hum, unconvinced but uninterested in pushing. That trust — the way you accept his silence without suspicion — tightens something in his chest.
Later, when you get up to make tea, he watches you move around the kitchen like you belong there. Like you’ve always belonged there.
The thought startles him.
He’s not used to belonging being something shared.
Time stretches.
Weeks pass.
The realization doesn’t fade. It sharpens.
Dimitri begins to notice the absence of you more than your presence. When you’re not around, the world feels slightly off-kilter, like a room where the furniture has been rearranged just enough to trip you.
He grows impatient with things that pull him away from you. Meetings drag. Obligations irritate. His father’s voice grates more than usual.
That should concern him.
Instead, it feels justified.
One night, you cancel plans.
Not dramatically. Just a text — I’m exhausted. Rain check?
He stares at the message longer than necessary.
You’re allowed to cancel. You always have been. But something sharp and unreasonable twists in his chest at the thought of you choosing rest over him.
The feeling disturbs him.
He doesn’t voice it.
Instead, he shows up at your apartment with takeout and an apology you didn’t ask for.
You laugh when you open the door. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to,” he says.
You let him in.
You always do.
Later, curled together under a blanket, you murmur, “You don’t need to rescue me every time I’m tired.”
Dimitri presses his lips to your hair. “I know.”
But the truth is — he doesn’t.
Not yet.
The love becomes undeniable the night you get sick.
It’s nothing serious. A fever, a cough, exhaustion dragging you down harder than usual. You insist you’re fine, even as your voice wavers.
Dimitri ignores your protests.
He stays.
He brings water. Medicine. Soup you barely touch. He sits beside you through the night, listening to your breathing, adjusting the blanket whenever you shiver.
You drift in and out of sleep, occasionally mumbling apologies.
“Stop,” he murmurs each time. “Just rest.”
At some point, your hand finds his in the dark. Your fingers curl instinctively, like you expect him to be there.
He doesn’t pull away.
Watching you sleep like that — unguarded, vulnerable — something inside him hardens and softens all at once.
This is not infatuation.
This is not desire.
This is responsibility.
And it terrifies him.
The morning after, you wake feeling marginally better and deeply embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” you say, hoarse. “You didn’t need to—”
“Yes,” Dimitri interrupts quietly. “I did.”
You frown at him. “Why?”
The question is simple.
The answer is not.
“Because you matter,” he says instead.
You accept that easily.
Too easily.
Later, when he leaves, he sits in his car for a long time before turning the engine on.
The thought settles into place with quiet certainty:
If something happened to you — if you were taken from him — he would tear the world apart to get you back.
That knowledge scares him.
It also feels… true.
The first time he imagines a future with you, it’s not grand.
It’s not marriage or children or permanence.
It’s mundane.
It’s groceries. Shared space. Your shoes by the door. Your handwriting on notes that clutter the counter.
The image hits him so hard he has to sit down.
Because he can see it.
And once seen, it cannot be unseen.
That night, when his father calls, Dimitri is sharper than usual.
Distracted.
Nikolai notices.
“You’re compromised,” Nikolai says coolly.
“I’m human,” Dimitri replies.
There’s a pause on the line.
“That will pass,” Nikolai says.
Dimitri isn’t so sure.
Back at your apartment, you ask him, half-joking, “Do you ever think about the future?”
He hesitates.
“Sometimes,” he says.
“Does it scare you?”
“Yes,” he admits.
You smile softly. “Good. That means it matters.”
The simplicity of your certainty is devastating.
That night, as you sleep beside him, Dimitri watches the rise and fall of your chest and understands something fundamental:
Loving you will cost him.
Not eventually.
Already.
And instead of walking away — instead of protecting you from the consequences of his world — he stays.
He chooses you.
Even if he doesn’t yet understand what that choice will demand in return.
Not in the dramatic, stomp-your-feet way people expected. Not with shouting matches or slammed doors or declarations about how adulthood was a scam. He just… didn’t want to rush it. Didn’t want to wake up one morning and realize the fun was gone, the noise was gone, the people were gone — and he’d missed it because everyone kept telling him it was time to be serious.
You were the problem.
Or maybe the temptation.
Because you were already moving forward.
Not in a loud way. Not in a look at me, I’m better than you way. Just… naturally. You thought about the future. You planned. You cared about things that existed past next weekend. You talked about college and leaving Shadyside like it was a fact, not a dream.
And Simon—
Simon was still trying to stretch the night as far as it would go.
“You’re doing it again,” you said.
He glanced over at you in the passenger seat, eyebrows raised. “Doing what?”
“Acting like this is a joke.”
He grinned, lazy and bright, one hand draped out the open window as the warm night air rushed in. “Because it is a joke.”
You didn’t laugh.
The car rattled slightly as he drove too fast down a back road, headlights slicing through trees. Music blasted from the speakers — something loud, something indulgent, something that vibrated more than it meant anything.
Simon loved that kind of music. Stuff you could drown in.
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” he added, softer now. “I know this isn’t really your scene anymore.”
Anymore.
That word landed heavier than he meant it to.
You turned toward him. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’ve already left.”
Simon swallowed.
Outside, the road curved. He slowed the car, knuckles tightening on the steering wheel. For once, he didn’t crack a joke. Didn’t change the subject.
“Because you have,” he said finally. “Just… not all the way yet.”
You stared at him. “That’s not fair.”
“Neither is everyone telling me I gotta get my shit together,” he snapped, then immediately sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
You waited.
He always hated when you waited — when you didn’t rescue him from his own words.
“I know I’m a mess,” he said. “I know I’m not… there yet.” He gestured vaguely, like adulthood was a location he’d missed the bus to. “But I still wanna have fun. I still wanna be stupid. I still wanna do whatever and feel like nothing matters.”
“And what do you think I want?” you asked quietly.
He hesitated.
“That’s the scary part,” he admitted. “I think you want more.”
You didn’t deny it.
Simon laughed then — sharp, defensive. “See? That’s what I mean. You’re already doing it, and I’m still stuck trying to figure out how to get with it without losing my mind.”
“You act like growing up means giving everything up,” you said.
“It kind of does,” he shot back. “At least the good parts.”
The car slowed to a stop at a familiar overlook. He cut the engine, and suddenly the night rushed in — crickets, wind, the low hum of the world refusing to stop just because he wanted it to.
Simon leaned back in his seat, hands scrubbing over his face.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I know it’s hard to love me.”
Your chest tightened.
“I’m not saying that,” you started.
“I am,” he interrupted. “I know I’m exhausting. I go round and round, same shit, different night. I know you could do better.” He looked at you then, really looked. “I know you could make me… better.”
The honesty in his voice scared you more than his jokes ever had.
“But?” you asked.
“But I’m late,” he said. “I’m late to the party everyone else already left.”
You climbed out of the car, needing air. Simon followed, shutting the door a little too hard. You stood side by side at the railing, the dark stretching endlessly in front of you.
“I don’t need you to be finished,” you said. “I just need to know you’re trying.”
“I am trying,” he insisted. “Just not… yet.” His voice dropped. “I need time.”
You turned to face him.
“And what happens to us while you take it?”
Simon’s jaw clenched. His bravado slipped, just enough to show the fear underneath.
“I need you to wait,” he said. “I’m not saying forever. I’m saying—” He broke off, frustration bleeding through. “Just don’t move on without me.”
The words came out wrong. Desperate. Bare.
“I know I’ve lost control,” he continued, rushing now. “I know I gotta change eventually. I just— I can’t do it all at once. And I don’t wanna lose you because I’m not ready yet.”
You searched his face, the boy who wanted everything and nothing, who loved too loudly and feared silence more than death.
“Simon,” you said softly. “I can’t promise I’ll stay the same forever.”
“I don’t need you to,” he said quickly. “I just need you to… wait for me. On the other side. When I finally get there.”
The night swallowed the words.
Simon reached for your hand, tentative for once, like he was afraid if he held too tight you’d slip away anyway.
If Simon was good at anything, it was pretending things were fine.
He was especially good at it after nights like that one—after confessions spoken too quietly, after promises that sat between you like glass. By the next afternoon, he was back to being loud again, back to acting like nothing heavy had ever passed between you at a roadside overlook.
He showed up at your place with a crooked grin and a six-pack he absolutely did not need.
“C’mon,” he said, already halfway inside. “Everyone’s going out tonight.”
You folded your arms. “I thought you said you were exhausted.”
“That was, like, emotionally exhausted,” he replied. “Totally different.”
You studied him. He looked the same—same messy hair, same restless energy—but there was something frantic underneath it now. Like he was trying to outrun the conversation you’d never finished.
“Simon,” you said. “We should probably—”
“Later,” he interrupted, too quickly. “Let’s just… have fun tonight, okay?”
That word again. Fun.
It wasn’t that you didn’t want to go. It was that you knew exactly what he meant by it. Loud music. Cheap alcohol. People who didn’t ask questions. A night stretched thin so neither of you had to think about the morning.
But you went anyway.
Because some part of you wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that fun didn’t have to mean avoidance.
The party was already spilling out onto the lawn when you arrived. Music thumped through open windows, bass rattling your ribs. Someone yelled Simon’s name like it was a victory cry.
He lit up instantly.
“There we go,” he said, energized. “That’s the vibe.”
You watched him disappear into the crowd like it was water and he’d been holding his breath all day.
At first, it was fine. You stuck close, laughed when he nudged you, accepted a drink you didn’t really want. Simon hovered near you just enough to check you were still there, but not enough to actually stay.
Every time someone asked him something—every time there was an opportunity to be louder, funnier, more reckless—he took it.
You leaned against the kitchen counter, watching him across the room, his laughter cutting through the noise. He looked untouchable like this. Untethered.
And unbearably young.
Someone bumped into you. Apologized. Asked how you knew Simon.
“Since forever,” you said automatically.
The words felt heavier than they used to.
An hour passed. Maybe two. Simon lost track of time the way he always did, chasing the high of being wanted by everyone at once. You caught glimpses of him—on the stairs, on the porch, surrounded by people hanging on his every word.
But he didn’t look for you.
Not until the song changed.
It cut through the room in a way the others hadn’t—slower, sloppier, indulgent. Simon froze mid-laugh. You saw the exact moment it hit him, like a punch he hadn’t braced for.
His smile faltered.
You felt it too, that lyrics threading itself between you, ugly and honest. Simon turned, scanning the room until his eyes landed on you.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Then he pushed through the crowd, breathless by the time he reached you. “Hey,” he said, too loud. “You good?”
“You tell me,” you replied.
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been running all night,” you said quietly. “I’m just wondering what from.”
His jaw tightened. “Why are we doing this here?”
“Because this is where you live,” you said. “This—” you gestured around “—is where you keep trying to stay.”
Simon laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You sound like my dad.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is you looking at me like I’m already a disappointment,” he snapped.
The words hung there, sharp and exposed.
You softened immediately. “I don’t think that.”
“You don’t have to say it,” he replied. “I can feel it.”
He took a step back, rubbing his hands over his face. “I know I’m not… enough yet. I know I’m still screwing around while you’re thinking about real stuff. But I told you—I’m just late. That doesn’t mean I’m never gonna show up.”
“Simon,” you said, heart pounding. “I can’t keep standing still just so you don’t feel bad.”
That did it.
The defensiveness flared, hot and immediate. “So that’s it?” he said. “You’re just gonna move on?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re thinking it,” he insisted. “I can tell. You’re already halfway gone.”
You opened your mouth to argue—but stopped.
Because part of you was tired. Tired of waiting in rooms that felt too loud, tired of translating your future into language he wouldn’t flinch at.
Simon saw it on your face.
He shook his head, voice dropping. “I told you I’d grow up. I just need time.”
“And what if I don’t have it?” you asked.
He stared at you, panic bleeding through the bravado. “Then wait,” he said. “Please.”
The music swelled around you, bodies moving, laughter echoing. Simon looked painfully out of place all of a sudden, like the party had moved on without him even while he was standing in the middle of it.
“I don’t wanna lose control,” he said, quieter now. “But I already have. And I don’t know how to fix it without wrecking everything first.”
You reached for him instinctively, fingers curling into his sleeve. He clung to the contact like it was a lifeline.
“I’m scared,” he admitted. “I’m scared that by the time I figure it out, you’ll be gone.”
You swallowed hard.
“I can’t promise I’ll wait forever,” you said. “But I’m still here. Right now.”
He nodded, breath shaky. “That’s all I’m asking.”
For now.
Simon pressed his forehead to yours, eyes squeezed shut, like he was bracing himself for a future he wasn’t ready to meet.
“I’m just late to the party,” he whispered. “Don’t leave without me.”
The next morning felt like punishment.
Simon woke up on someone’s couch with a headache splitting his skull and a taste in his mouth that reminded him he’d promised himself—again—that he’d slow down. Light spilled through the blinds in thin, accusing stripes. Somewhere nearby, someone was throwing up quietly, like they were embarrassed to exist.
He checked his phone before he even sat up.
No new messages.
Your last text sat there, unchanged from the night before.
I’m home. Please be safe.
Safe. Like he was a kid crossing the street.
Simon groaned and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. He tried to remember when things had started to feel like this—when every interaction with you carried the weight of an unspoken deadline.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew what it looked like from the outside. Everyone else seemed to know too.
“You’re gonna lose her,” Kate had said a few days later, blunt as ever, passing Simon a cigarette behind the school. “You keep acting like there’s infinite time.”
Simon scoffed. “You sound like her.”
Kate shrugged. “Maybe they’re right.”
Simon lit the cigarette just to have something to do with his hands. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just… living.”
Kate shot him a look. “You’re hiding.”
Simon exhaled smoke and said nothing.
The truth was, you had started pulling away. Not dramatically. Not cruelly. Just enough to notice.
You answered texts slower. You stopped automatically saying yes to last-minute plans. When Simon showed up unannounced, you smiled—but there was a hesitation now, like you were bracing yourself.
It scared him more than yelling ever could.
He told himself it was temporary. That you were just busy. That once things calmed down—once he calmed down—it would snap back into place.
But Simon had never been good at calming down.
Friday night came with another invitation, another party, another chance to drown out the static in his head. He debated texting you. Typed come with me three different times, deleted it every time.
Instead, he went without you.
The music was louder than usual. Someone had brought harder stuff this time, little baggies passed like secrets. Simon didn’t hesitate. He wanted to feel anything that wasn’t the slow panic curling in his chest.
Hours blurred together. He danced until his legs burned, laughed until his throat hurt. For a while, it worked. For a while, he forgot about clocks and futures and the way you’d looked at him like you were already halfway gone.
Then his phone buzzed.
Your name.
His heart slammed into his ribs as he shoved through the crowd, nearly tripping over his own feet as he stumbled outside.
“Hey,” he said, breathless. “What’s up?”
There was a pause on the other end. “Are you okay?”
He smiled even though you couldn’t see it. “Yeah. I’m great.”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“I was just calling to say goodnight,” you said. “I have an early morning.”
“Oh,” Simon said. The word came out stupidly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s—cool.”
“You sound… far away,” you added.
He leaned against the cool brick wall, suddenly dizzy. “I’m just out.”
“I know,” you said softly. “That’s kind of the point.”
The words hit harder than any insult could have.
“You didn’t even ask me to come,” you continued. “And I didn’t ask either. I think… I think we both know why.”
Simon closed his eyes. Music thumped through the wall behind him, muffled and distant. “I didn’t wanna drag you into this.”
“This is your life, Simon.”
“Right now,” he corrected quickly. “Not forever.”
“But I don’t live in ‘right now,’” you said. “I live in what comes next.”
He swallowed. “I told you I’d get there.”
“I believe you,” you replied. “I just don’t know if I can stand still until you do.”
Silence stretched between you, thick and heavy.
“I’m trying,” he said finally, voice cracking despite himself. “I just don’t know how to stop without losing myself.”
“And I don’t know how to stay without losing me,” you said.
That was it. That was the fracture.
Simon slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, phone pressed tight to his ear. “Please,” he said, the word raw now, stripped of bravado. “Just… wait for me. I swear I’ll catch up.”
You didn’t answer right away.
When you did, your voice was gentle—and that somehow made it worse. “I can’t promise that.”
The line went dead.
Simon stayed there long after the call ended, staring at his phone like it might change its mind. Around him, the party kept going. Laughter spilled into the night. Someone opened the door and shouted his name.
He didn’t move.
For the first time, fun felt hollow. The noise felt cruel. Every distraction felt like a reminder of what he was choosing—and what he was risking.
Simon laughed weakly to himself, rubbing his eyes. “Too late,” he muttered.
But even as the thought crossed his mind, another followed close behind—quieter, more terrifying.
What if it’s not?
He stood up slowly, heart pounding, the weight of the future finally settling on his shoulders. Evolution, he realized, wasn’t a promise you made to someone else.
It was a decision.
And he had no idea if he was strong enough to make it before you were gone.
Rock bottom didn’t look like one big dramatic moment.
It looked like a Tuesday.
Simon skipped class. Not because he was partying—because he couldn’t bring himself to go. The hallways felt too narrow, the future too loud. Every locker slam sounded like a countdown. He wandered instead, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, replaying your last conversation on a loop until the words lost their meaning and became pure ache.
I can’t promise that.
He hadn’t seen you in three days.
That was new. Usually, no matter how tense things got, there was always some accidental overlap. A shared lunch table. A glance across the parking lot. Proof that he hadn’t completely fucked things up yet.
Now there was nothing.
The silence pressed in on him until he did the only thing he knew how to do—he filled it.
That night, he drank too much, too fast. Someone handed him something he shouldn’t have taken, and he didn’t even hesitate. He wanted the numbness. Wanted the blur. Wanted to forget that you were learning how to live without him.
By the time the room started spinning, it felt deserved.
“Simon,” someone laughed, catching his shoulder as he stumbled. “You good, man?”
He nodded automatically. “Never better.”
The lie tasted bitter.
He ended up outside again, knees drawn to his chest, head tipped back against the cold metal siding of the house. His phone buzzed in his hand—not a message from you, but from his mom. Missed calls. Voicemails he didn’t have the energy to listen to.
For the first time, the thought crept in uninvited:
This isn’t fun anymore.
It scared him more than anything else had.
The next day, Simon showed up at your place unannounced.
You opened the door slowly, like you already knew it was him. You looked tired. Different. Not broken—steadier.
That hurt the most.
“Hey,” he said, voice rough. “Can we talk?”
You hesitated, then stepped aside. “Okay.”
You didn’t hug him. You didn’t touch him at all.
Your room felt unfamiliar without the ease you used to share. Simon stood there, hands fidgeting, suddenly aware of how young he must look—how small his problems probably sounded now that you were already moving forward.
“I messed up,” he said. No jokes. No deflection.
You crossed your arms. “That’s not new.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “But I think I finally understand how.”
You waited.
“I kept asking you to wait,” he continued. “Like it was free. Like it didn’t cost you anything to stand still while I figured my shit out.”
Your jaw tightened, just slightly.
“I told myself I wasn’t hurting anyone,” he said. “That I was just late. But I wasn’t late—I was scared. And instead of dealing with it, I kept choosing whatever made me feel less afraid for five minutes.”
He looked at you then, really looked.
“I lost control,” he admitted. “And I dragged you along with me.”
The room was quiet. You sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together.
“I didn’t stop loving you,” you said. “But I had to stop abandoning myself.”
The words landed softly—and devastatingly.
Simon nodded. “I know.”
He moved closer, but stopped short, respecting the invisible line between you. “I’m not asking you to come back,” he said. “I’m not even asking you to wait.”
That surprised you.
“I just needed you to know,” he continued, voice trembling now, “that if I grow up—if I actually do the work—it’s not gonna be for a promise you made. It’s gonna be because I can’t live like this anymore.”
Your eyes searched his face, like you were trying to decide if this version of him was real.
“And what if you don’t?” you asked.
“Then I lose you,” he said simply. “And I live with that.”
The honesty burned.
You stood up, closing the distance just enough to rest your hand briefly against his arm. It wasn’t a reconciliation. It wasn’t a goodbye.
It was something in between.
“I hope you grow,” you said quietly. “I really do.”
Simon closed his eyes, letting the weight of that hope settle on him. “Me too.”
When he left, he didn’t feel relieved. He didn’t feel saved.
He felt awake.
For the first time, growing up didn’t sound like a punishment. It sounded like survival.
And somewhere deep in his chest, beneath the regret and fear and love he didn’t know what to do with yet, Simon made a choice—not for you, not for the future, but for himself.
Evolution, he realized, wasn’t about becoming someone else.
It was about finally staying.
Change didn’t announce itself.
There was no dramatic montage, no sudden clarity where everything clicked into place. Simon didn’t wake up one morning transformed. He still wanted the noise sometimes. Still felt the itch to disappear into nights that didn’t ask anything of him.
The difference was that he started saying no.
Not all at once. Not perfectly. But deliberately.
He went back to class. Sat through lectures even when his leg bounced and his brain screamed for escape. He stopped drinking during the week. Then stopped keeping things around “just in case.” He started going home instead of crashing wherever the night ended.
People noticed.
“You’re boring now,” someone joked when he skipped a party.
Simon smiled, tired but steady. “Yeah. I know.”
Weeks passed. Then months.
You didn’t hear from him much at first. That was intentional. He remembered what he’d said—that evolving wasn’t something he got to perform for you. So he kept his distance, even when it hurt. Even when he wanted to text you every half-formed thought, every small victory.
Instead, he let time do its quiet work.
When you did see him again, it was accidental.
A grocery store aisle. Of all places.
You reached for the same carton of eggs at the same time and froze.
“Hey,” Simon said.
He looked different. Not older—just… calmer. Like someone who’d stopped running long enough to catch his breath.
“Hey,” you replied.
There was no rush to fill the silence this time. No nervous jokes. No frantic energy begging for reassurance.
“How’ve you been?” you asked.
He shrugged lightly. “Better. Still figuring it out.”
You nodded. “Me too.”
You talked for a few minutes—about nothing and everything. About work. About plans. About how strange it was to see each other like this, untethered from the past.
When you finally said goodbye, Simon didn’t reach for you. Didn’t ask anything of you.
But as you walked away, you felt it—that familiar pull, softened now by time and space.
A week later, he texted.
No pressure. But if you ever want coffee, I’d like that.
You stared at the message for a long time before replying.
Okay.
Coffee turned into conversation. Conversation turned into walks that stretched longer than intended. Simon didn’t rush it. Didn’t touch you like he was afraid you’d disappear. When he talked about his life now, it wasn’t a performance—it was quiet, ongoing work.
“I’m still late sometimes,” he admitted once, smiling into his cup. “But I show up.”
That mattered more than any promise he’d ever made.
One evening, as the sun dipped low and the world felt briefly gentle, you asked the question you’d been carrying for months.
“Do you still feel like you’re missing out?” you asked. “Like growing up means losing something?”
Simon considered it carefully.
“I think I thought fun was the same thing as freedom,” he said. “But it turns out freedom’s just… choosing what you don’t want anymore.”
You watched him, this version of Simon—still imperfect, still learning, but present.
“And us?” you asked softly.
He met your gaze. “I’m not asking you to wait,” he said. “I’m asking if you want to walk forward with me.”
The words landed differently than please don’t leave ever had.
You reached for his hand.
“I’m already moving,” you said. “If you are too… maybe we meet there.”
Simon squeezed your fingers, reverent, like he understood the weight of what you were offering.
On the other side of all that fear and noise and time wasted, he realized something simple and terrifying:
The Order of Things | Chapter 3 | What Doesn't Belong
summary: Dimitri insists you are wrong to worry
The first thing you learn about Dimitri’s world is that it is very quiet.
Not the comforting kind of quiet — not peace — but the kind that exists because noise has been trained out of it. Doors close without slamming. Footsteps are muted by expensive rugs. Voices never rise unless they are meant to.
It is a world built on control.
You notice this the first time you stay overnight in the Kravinoff house.
You don’t belong here. Not really. You’ve never pretended otherwise. The house is too large, the ceilings too high, the silence too attentive. It feels like the walls themselves are listening, cataloguing every breath you take, every wrong step.
Dimitri, of course, belongs effortlessly.
He moves through the space like it was designed around him — long strides, confident posture, the easy authority of someone who has never had to ask permission to exist. You walk beside him, fingers occasionally brushing, grounding yourself in the familiar warmth of his presence.
“I should warn you,” he says lightly, as he leads you down one of the endless hallways, “my father can be… intense.”
You snort quietly. “That’s one word for it.”
He smiles, glancing down at you. “You’ll be fine. Just be yourself.”
The words are meant to comfort.
They don’t.
Being yourself has never been enough in places like this.
Dinner is announced precisely at seven.
The dining room is cavernous, lit by a chandelier that looks like it belongs in a museum rather than a home. The table is set for more people than are present, silverware aligned with militant precision. Everything gleams.
You sit beside Dimitri, posture straight, hands folded in your lap when you’re not eating. You’ve worn the nicest thing you own — a dress you bought secondhand and altered yourself, seams neat, fabric simple. You’d hoped it would help you disappear.
Instead, it makes you feel more visible.
Nikolai Kravinoff sits at the head of the table.
He does not look like the monster you half-expected. He is composed, immaculately dressed, his presence calm and suffocating all at once. His gaze moves over you briefly — not rudely, not openly — and then moves on.
Dismissed.
Conversation begins without you.
They talk about business you don’t understand and weren’t meant to. Investments, territory, alliances. Dimitri contributes when prompted, his tone respectful but confident. You watch him carefully, this version of him — the son, the heir — and feel a small, unfamiliar ache in your chest.
You love him.
That much is certain.
But loving him doesn’t change the fact that this world was not built for you.
At some point, Nikolai turns his attention toward you.
“You’re very quiet,” he observes.
Every instinct in your body goes on alert.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” you reply evenly.
He hums softly. “A good instinct.”
Not a compliment.
Dimitri stiffens beside you. “She doesn’t need to speak to justify her presence.”
Nikolai regards his son with calm scrutiny. “Everything under this roof has a purpose, Dimitri.”
The words are delivered gently.
They land like a verdict.
The rest of dinner passes in a haze. You eat mechanically, nodding when spoken to, forcing yourself not to shrink inward. You can feel the weight of Dimitri’s tension beside you, coiled and restless, but you say nothing.
You wait.
When you finally excuse yourself, it is with polite smiles and steady hands.
The hallway outside the dining room feels like relief. You exhale slowly, shoulders slumping as soon as you’re alone. Your heart is pounding harder than you want to admit.
You’re halfway to the guest room when Dimitri catches up to you.
“You okay?” he asks.
You nod. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
You stop walking.
“Dimitri,” you say quietly, “your father wasn’t wrong.”
His brow furrows immediately. “Don’t.”
“I mean it,” you continue. “This place runs on usefulness. On power. I don’t have either.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” you insist. “I grew up learning how to stretch a paycheck. How to disappear when people with money looked my way. How to survive without being noticed.”
“That doesn’t make you weak.”
“No,” you agree softly. “But it makes me expendable.”
The word hangs between you.
Dimitri steps closer, lowering his voice. “You don’t need to be anything other than who you are.”
You wish you believed him.
You reach the guest room and step inside, sitting on the edge of the bed. The space is immaculate, untouched. Temporary.
“You don’t see it yet,” you say. “But I do. I see how they look at me. How they’ll always look at me.”
“Who cares what they think?”
“You should,” you say gently. “Because they decide what happens to you.”
He exhales sharply, frustration bleeding through. “You’re overthinking this.”
“I’m thinking realistically,” you reply. “There’s a difference.”
Silence settles.
You look up at him, really look at him, and feel something twist painfully in your chest. “I don’t want to be the thing people use against you.”
“You won’t be.”
“They already are,” you whisper.
That’s when he doesn’t answer.
Later that night, Dimitri lies awake beside you, staring at the ceiling.
He tells himself your fears are exaggerated. That love is enough. That he can shield you from anything this world throws at you.
But somewhere, beneath the certainty, a thought begins to take shape — quiet, dangerous, logical.
If she were stronger… if she were more like us… this wouldn’t be a problem.
The idea unsettles him.
It doesn’t leave.
The next morning only confirms it.
You wake early, restless, slipping quietly from the bed to avoid waking Dimitri. You dress and wander down to the kitchen, drawn by the need for something normal — coffee, noise, anything.
Nikolai is already there.
He stands by the window, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the grounds like a man reviewing territory. He turns as you enter, expression unreadable.
“Good morning,” he says.
“Good morning,” you reply.
He gestures toward the table. “Sit.”
It isn’t a request.
You obey, nerves humming beneath your skin.
“I want to be clear,” Nikolai says calmly. “I do not dislike you.”
You aren’t sure whether that’s meant to reassure you.
“You care for my son,” he continues. “That much is evident.”
You swallow. “Yes.”
“But affection is not the same as suitability,” he says. “And love does not make someone safe.”
The words are precise. Surgical.
“You come from nothing,” he continues, not cruelly, simply factually. “No resources. No leverage. No protection.”
You lift your chin. “I’ve survived worse than disapproval.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he replies. “But survival is not the same as longevity.”
The message is clear.
“You are a vulnerability,” he says. “And vulnerabilities are exploited.”
You stand slowly. “With respect, sir, Dimitri chooses me.”
Nikolai’s gaze sharpens. “For now.”
The implication chills you.
“He doesn’t yet understand what it costs to keep you,” Nikolai continues. “But he will.”
You leave the kitchen with shaking hands.
When Dimitri finds you later, you don’t tell him what his father said.
You don’t need to.
The seed has already been planted.
And it is growing.
You don’t tell Dimitri what his father said to you in the kitchen.
Not because you’re afraid of how he’ll react — though you are — but because you already know. You’ve seen the way Nikolai’s words settle into people, how they don’t bruise so much as rearrange. Saying them out loud would only make them real in a way you’re not ready to survive.
Instead, you pack.
Not fully. Not in a way anyone would notice. You fold your clothes slowly, deliberately, returning them to your bag in a way that looks like tidying rather than preparing to leave. It’s a habit from childhood — the art of quiet exits, of being ready without being obvious.
Dimitri finds you sitting on the bed, staring at nothing.
“Hey,” he says softly. “You disappeared.”
“I needed air.”
He sits beside you, close enough that your shoulders touch. “My father spoke to you.”
It isn’t a question.
You nod.
“What did he say?”
You hesitate, then choose your words carefully. “Nothing you didn’t already know.”
That frustrates him.
“He doesn’t get to intimidate you.”
“He wasn’t intimidating,” you say. “He was honest.”
Dimitri exhales sharply. “About what?”
You turn to face him fully. “About the fact that loving you puts me in danger.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s not—”
“It is,” you interrupt gently. “Not from you. From everything around you.”
Silence stretches between you.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dimitri says finally. “You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” you reply. “I’m trying to survive.”
The word sits heavy in the room.
He looks at you then — really looks — as if seeing you through a lens he’s been avoiding. Not fragile. Not weak. But constantly calculating. Always braced.
“How long have you felt like this?” he asks quietly.
You swallow. “Longer than I want to admit.”
That hurts him more than accusation would have.
You stand, pacing the length of the room. “This place isn’t built for people like me. There’s no safety net here. No forgiveness.”
“I would protect you.”
You stop, turning back to him. “From whom?”
He doesn’t answer.
Because the truth is: he doesn’t know.
The days that follow are… strange.
Outwardly, nothing changes. Meals are still served on time. Staff still move like ghosts through the halls. Dimitri still reaches for your hand automatically, still kisses your temple when he passes behind you.
But something underneath has shifted.
You notice how often Nikolai watches you now — not openly, but attentively. Measuring. Waiting.
You notice how Dimitri grows quieter around his father, how his shoulders tense when Nikolai enters a room. You notice how conversations redirect themselves around you, how doors close just a little too smoothly.
And Dimitri notices you pulling away.
Not dramatically. Just… subtly. You spend more time outside. On the grounds. On the phone with friends from a life that feels increasingly unreal here. You don’t argue — not anymore.
That scares him.
One evening, he corners you on the terrace as the sun bleeds red into the horizon.
“You’re leaving,” he says.
You don’t deny it. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Why?”
You gesture around you. “Because this place is already changing me. And I don’t like who I’m becoming.”
“I love you,” he says, like it should be enough to anchor you.
“I love you too,” you reply. “That’s the problem.”
He stares at you, desperation bleeding through his composure. “Then let me fix this.”
You shake your head. “You can’t fix a system that doesn’t want me in it.”
“But I can change the rules,” he insists.
The words linger.
Change the rules.
Later that night, Dimitri sits alone in his father’s study for the first time without being summoned.
Nikolai does not look surprised to find him there.
“She’s thinking of leaving,” Dimitri says.
Nikolai nods. “That would be wise.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
Nikolai folds his hands calmly. “I decide many things, Dimitri. You know this.”
“She’s not disposable.”
Nikolai’s gaze sharpens. “No. She’s unprotected.”
The distinction matters.
“She could be protected,” Dimitri argues. “If she were stronger. If she had… leverage.”
Nikolai studies him with renewed interest.
“You’re beginning to understand,” he says.
The realization settles like ice in Dimitri’s veins.
“There are ways,” Nikolai continues carefully, “to ensure someone’s survival in our world. Ways that don’t rely on sentiment.”
Dimitri doesn’t ask what he means.
He already knows.
The thought horrifies him.
It also feels inevitable.
When Dimitri returns to you that night, he holds you tighter than usual.
You don’t know that, in his mind, love is already becoming synonymous with alteration.
With control.
With sacrifice that isn’t his to make.
And somewhere between fear and devotion, a decision begins to form — not as cruelty, but as solution.
If the world won’t bend for you…
Then he will remake you strong enough to survive it.
You start noticing the rules once you realize you’re expected to follow them.
They’re never spoken aloud. No one hands you a list. But they exist all the same, etched into the rhythms of the house and the way people move around you.
Don’t wander unescorted after dark.
Don’t ask questions about rooms you aren’t invited into.
Don’t touch anything that looks expensive enough to replace you.
You break none of them.
You don’t have to. Survival has always been about pattern recognition.
You learn when the house sleeps and when it listens. You learn which staff avoid eye contact and which ones watch you too closely. You learn that Nikolai’s presence changes the air pressure in a room, that conversations shift when he enters, that Dimitri straightens instinctively when his father speaks.
And you learn that Dimitri is changing, too.
Not in obvious ways. He still smiles at you. Still laughs when you tease him. Still reaches for you like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t keep contact.
But there’s something underneath now — a current of urgency. A possessiveness he disguises as concern.
“Text me when you get back,” he says when you leave the grounds with the driver.
“I’ve done this before,” you reply gently.
“I know,” he says. “Just—humor me.”
You do.
Because it’s easier than arguing.
Because arguing feels dangerous now.
You start making plans in your head.
Nothing dramatic. No declarations. Just logistics. Where you’d go. Who you’d stay with. How much money you can pull together quietly without drawing attention. You’ve left places before — worse places — with less.
The thought both steadies and devastates you.
One afternoon, Nikolai asks you to walk with him.
The request is delivered by a staff member, polite and impossible to refuse.
You find him on the grounds, standing near the edge of the property where manicured gardens give way to something wilder. He doesn’t look at you when you approach.
“You’re clever,” he says.
You wait.
“Clever people recognize when they are outmatched,” he continues. “And when staying becomes dangerous.”
You fold your hands in front of you. “Is this a warning?”
“It’s advice,” Nikolai replies. “Dimitri is my son. He will always choose this world.”
You swallow. “I’m not asking him to choose.”
“But you are forcing the question,” Nikolai says calmly. “By existing.”
The words are devastating in their simplicity.
“I love him,” you say quietly.
“I don’t doubt that,” Nikolai replies. “But love does not make you durable.”
He finally turns to look at you.
“You will be hurt here,” he says. “Whether by enemies or by devotion. And when that happens, Dimitri will do something unforgivable in the name of keeping you.”
The statement feels less like a threat and more like prophecy.
You leave the conversation shaken.
When Dimitri finds you later, you don’t tell him about it.
But you do ask, carefully, “Would you ever change someone you love… if you thought it would keep them safe?”
He freezes.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A hypothetical,” you say.
His jaw tightens. “I wouldn’t need to.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He looks away. “Why are you thinking like this?”
“Because this world doesn’t let people stay the same,” you reply. “Not if they want to survive it.”
The conversation ends there.
But the silence afterward is louder than any argument.
That night, you dream of locked doors and mirrored hallways, of hands guiding you somewhere you don’t want to go while promising it’s for your own good.
You wake up gasping.
Dimitri is already awake, watching you.
“You were dreaming,” he says softly.
You nod, heart racing. “I want to leave.”
The words fall out before you can stop them.
He stiffens. “What?”
“Not forever,” you rush to clarify. “Just—away. For a while.”
“No,” he says immediately.
The finality of it shocks you.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” Dimitri says, sitting up. “And it’s not happening.”
The room goes cold.
“You don’t get to decide that,” you say, voice shaking despite yourself.
“I do if it keeps you alive,” he replies.
You stare at him.
This is the moment. The one you’ll replay later, again and again.
“You sound like your father,” you whisper.
The words land like a slap.
Dimitri recoils. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s true,” you say. “You’re already choosing this place over me.”
“No,” he insists. “I’m choosing us.”
You shake your head. “You’re choosing who you want me to become.”
He doesn’t deny it.
And that — more than anything Nikolai has said — tells you everything you need to know.
You don’t argue anymore after that.
You become careful.
You smile. You agree. You let Dimitri believe the tension has passed, that love has soothed the fracture.
And in the quiet moments — the ones he doesn’t see — you prepare.
Because you know now, with terrifying clarity:
If you stay, you won’t just lose yourself.
You’ll give him permission to do something he’ll never come back from.
The stench of burnt earth and fear still clung to the air, three days later. It wasn’t just the smoke from the pyres where the village had executed Sarah Fier —a soul unjustly condemned by the hysterical tide of your collective terror. It was a deeper, spiritual ash that had settled over Union, choking the breath and poisoning the well of faith you'd been drinking from my whole life.
You lay rigid in your cot, the scratchy wool blanket failing to provide warmth or comfort. Beside you, your sister’s even breathing was a foreign sound, something normal in a world that had fractured into madness. You kept your eyes clamped shut, trying to banish the images that had burned themselves into your mind: the sight of Sarah’s young, terrified face, the way the flame seemed to lick up the air, hungry and eager, and the terrible, silent accusation in her eyes as she stared back at the very people who had raised her.
If the Devil had truly come to Union, he hadn’t arrived cloaked in horns and fire. He had arrived wearing the faces of your neighbors, hiding in the sermons of the Pastor, and whispering through the nervous, righteous fear of the Elder.
The clock in your mind was a slow, agonizing drip of moments. It was well past midnight. You hadn’t slept properly since the hanging. Every time you drifted close to oblivion, you were jerked back by the phantom scream you'd swallowed in the crowded square, or by the haunting memory of the cold, hard wood of the gibbet standing stark against the pale winter sky.
This place, this faith, your entire existence—it felt like a carefully constructed shelter that had just been ripped apart by a divine, indifferent hand.
“God is just,” the Pastor had thundered, his voice echoing in the rafters of the meeting house. “He protects the righteous, and He exposes the workers of iniquity!”
But where was the justice in Sarah’s suffering? Where was the divine protection when the real horror—the blight, the dying animals, the strange sickness—had only intensified after the executions? If God was just, why did He allow such monstrous cruelty to be done in His name, right under the vast, silent ceiling of His heaven?
You rolled onto your side, facing the dark wall. A fresh wave of doubt, colder and more paralyzing than the midnight air, washed over you. It wasn't just about Sarah or Abigail. It was about the very foundation of your life. You were taught that if you were good, if you prayed hard, if you adhered to the stringent laws of the Holy Book, you would be spared the Devil’s influence. Yet here you were, suffocating under it.
Your heart ached with a deep, existential loneliness. You felt adrift, separated from the comforting certainty of your family and neighbors. They had managed to re-center themselves, to believe the lie that the danger was now gone. But you knew, with the cold clarity of sleepless nights, that the evil wasn't outside you; it was woven into the fabric of your fear.
A soft, almost imperceptible click broke the oppressive silence of the house. It was the low moan of the floorboard outside your door. You froze, your breath catching in your throat. Every creak of wood, every whisper of the wind outside, now sounded like a sign of malevolence. Had someone been driven mad by the fear? Was it truly the Devil?
The floorboard groaned again, closer this time. You wanted to call out, but the sound was trapped, a frightened little bird fluttering against your ribs.
Then, a faint, metallic scratch at your window.
It wasn't a tapping, which would have been loud and startling. It was the quiet, repetitive sound of a fingernail—no, something harder, like a piece of tin or a copper coin—being drawn lightly across the pane. It was a signal, a familiar one that had been traded between yourself and the town’s resident, charmingly awkward, oddity-seeker.
Relief—immediate, overwhelming, and utterly illicit—flooded you. It was Isaac.
You rose slowly, your movements agonizingly quiet, and crept to the window. The moon was only a pale sliver tonight, but the stars were impossibly bright, like diamond dust scattered across black velvet.
You pulled back the rough curtain just enough to peer out. Isaac stood below, cloaked in shadow, looking like a nervous ghost. His hair, usually carefully tied back for decency, was slightly loose, catching the faint moonlight. He held a small, dark bundle under one arm, and his eyes—those large, expressive eyes that always seemed to hold a world of questions—were fixed on your window.
He raised his hand and made a quick, looping gesture, pointing up, then out toward the darkness beyond the edge of the village. The message was clear: Come out. Now. I know you can’t sleep.
The sheer risk of leaving the house after curfew, especially now, was terrifying. If anyone, especially the constable or the Pastor, found you together, you would face severe reprimand. Given the current mood of the village, any suspicious activity could lead to accusations far worse than simple breaking of curfew—or worse, the dreaded implication of witchcraft.
You nodded once, a brief, sharp movement.
Isaac’s face, tense a moment before, relaxed into a fleeting, conspiratorial smile—the kind that only ever belonged to you. He then melted back into the shadows beside the shed, waiting.
You dressed quickly, pulling on the heaviest shift, a thick woolen petticoat, and a dark cloak that blended with the night. Your shoes, which squeaked annoyingly, you left at the door, opting instead for thick, soft socks. The cold floorboards bit at your feet, a sharp reminder that this was real, not a nightmare.
Opening the latch on the back door was the hardest part. The iron was cold beneath your fingertips, and the little snick it made as it disengaged felt as loud as a gunshot in the silent house. You slipped out, pulling the door closed with the utmost care, exhaling only when the latch resettled without a sound.
Isaac was waiting, his presence a quiet, comforting anchor in the suffocating black. He didn’t speak, knowing that walls—even the open air—have ears in Union. He simply took your hand.
His palm was warm, dry, and surprisingly firm. It wasn’t the soft, manicured hand of a scholar, but a hand that had spent time fiddling with lenses, copper wire, and small, clever mechanisms. He gave your fingers a gentle squeeze, a silent acknowledgment of the fear and sadness that weighed on you.
He led you not through the main path, which was guarded, but through the overgrown back paths, past the abandoned chicken coop and the edge of the cornfield. The air here was cleaner, smelling of damp earth, late autumn leaves, and the subtle, earthy scent of the woods.
“We must hurry,” he mouthed, pulling me along. “The Constable is making rounds near the tannery.”
A fresh wave of adrenaline hit you. You could almost hear the heavy, predictable crunch of the Constable’s boots on the frozen mud path. If he were to spot you—Isaac, with you, out alone, late at night—it wouldn't be just a simple fine. It would be a permanent stain on your reputation, a reason for your family to sever ties with him, and a potentially dangerous subject for the fearful gossipers.
You tightened your grip on his hand, the shared danger only deepening the thrill of your secret alliance. Isaac was the one person in this fearful, suffocating place who didn't try to force you into their mold. He loved the quiet, curious part of you that asked why when everyone else was content with because God wills it. You were the one person who saw past his slightly nervous façade and his taste in liquor, recognizing the lonely, brilliant mind that yearned for answers the Bible couldn't provide. You were two lonely satellites, out of orbit with the rest of Union.
You paused briefly behind the Miller’s abandoned barn. The smell of old hay and manure was a welcome distraction from the lingering fear. You leaned your head against the cold wood of the barn.
“Are you certain this is worth the risk?” You whispered, my breath pluming white in the moonlight.
He didn’t hesitate. “If I am to be accused of cavorting with the Devil, it will at least be for something beautiful, not for the sake of petty village gossip. And,” he leaned close, his voice dropping to a low, intimate rumble, “I need to see your face when you look at something that isn’t scared.”
That simple confession—that he needed to see you at peace—unlocked the tight knot in your chest. He wasn't just here to comfort you; he was here because he desperately needed the escape, too.
He led you the final stretch, past the edge of the creek, to a small rise beyond the last fence post, a little knoll overlooking the winding water. Here, the low, claustrophobic structures of the village were mostly obscured by the black silhouette of the trees. Only a few scattered lights—a candle burning late for a sick child, the ever-present lantern at the Constable’s post—betrayed its presence.
This was a good place. It felt remote, isolated, and, most importantly, free.
Isaac finally spoke, his voice barely a breathy whisper. “I knew you’d be awake.”
You didn't try to deny it. “It’s loud in my head.” You looked down at your hands, still intertwined with his. “The silence of the village is… worse than the noise.”
He led you to a smooth, flat rock near the crest of the knoll. He released your hand to spread the bundle he’d brought—a thick, woven wool shawl or blanket he must have smuggled from his own home. He patted the rock, inviting you to sit.
“My mother insists this cures all ailments,” he murmured, pulling the fabric close around your shoulders as I settled. “It generally just makes one sweaty, but tonight, perhaps it will offer something better than heat.”
He sat close beside you, your shoulders touching. The simple physical proximity was a shocking comfort. In a village where even a handshake could be viewed with suspicion if the wrong eyes saw it, this closeness was an act of profound rebellion.
“Did you bring…?” You trailed off, glancing at the small wooden box he set between you.
He nodded, his eyes sparkling with a familiar mischievous light, overcoming the sadness that had shadowed his face since the executions. “I brought something to remind us that there is order in the universe. Something the Pastor hasn’t managed to set fire to yet.”
He carefully opened the box, revealing a small, intricate piece of equipment: a small, brass-rimmed telescope, barely larger than your forearm, that he’d meticulously crafted himself. It was a magnificent piece of forbidden art, an object of science that flew directly in the face of the village's rigid dogma that declared any pursuit of knowledge outside the Scriptures as prideful sin.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said, his voice softer now, entirely devoid of his usual nervous energy, focused instead on the task at hand. “About Sarah, about Abigail, about God. I hear the same silence screaming inside my own head.”
He took a slow, deep breath and tilted the telescope upward, resting the base against the rock for stability. “When they executed her… I looked up. I looked for a sign, any sign that the God they preached about, the one who watches every sparrow fall, would intervene.”
He didn't look at you. He was staring at the sky, his eyes wide and thoughtful. “There was nothing. Just the sky. Just the infinite, beautiful, silent indifference of the universe.”
Your throat tightened. That word—indifference—it felt like the only truth left. It was a cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, compared to the idea of a wrathful, capricious God who demanded such horrifying sacrifice.
“The Pastor said the Devil clouded our eyes,” You whispered, the words catching on the sharp intake of cold air. “He said we must look inward and pray for the light of truth.”
Isaac let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, but the faintest breath of amusement. “I’ve spent the last three nights looking inward. I found mostly despair and fear. So, I decided to look outward instead. Way, way out.”
He gently adjusted the focus of the little spyglass, then leaned back slightly. “Come. Look for yourself. Forget the small, scared village for a moment. Forget the fear, the blood, and the bad men dressed in good cloaks. Look at what they can never touch.”
You leaned in, cold and trembling, and took your turn at the eyepiece. It took a moment for your eye to adjust, but when it did, the sight stole your breath.
It wasn't just a star; it was a perfect, blazing disc of light, an incandescent jewel hanging in the void. Isaac had aimed at one of the closer planets—perhaps Jupiter. The simple fact that a small, clever arrangement of glass and brass could pull a celestial body so impossibly far away right to your eye felt like a miracle more profound than any sermon.
“It is not chaos,” Isaac whispered, as if reading the exact path of your spiraling thoughts. “It is not wrath. It is simply physics. It is order, vast and unstoppable. Every star has a path, every planet orbits with perfect precision. It doesn’t judge us. It doesn’t hate us. It simply is.”
You pulled back, your eyes wide. “It makes everything here seem so small.”
“That is the point,” he agreed, his fingers resting gently on the wooden casing of his box. “The trials. The accusations. The hatred. The fear. They all feel so immense right now, but up there,” he gestured to the sky with a free hand, “the whole of Union is less than a speck of dust that just blew off the lens.”
He moved the telescope slightly, finding a new patch of sky. He didn't offer a ready-made theological answer, nor did he dismiss my faith outright. Isaac knew you needed something to believe in; he was simply offering a different temple.
“See that cluster?” he pointed with the brass tube, his voice low and rich with his characteristic fascination. “We call it the Pleiades. The village calls it the Seven Sisters. The old world called it a sign of sailing weather. I see a beautiful accident—millions of years in the making—where gas and gravity simply decided to make light.”
You looked again. The cluster, fuzzy to the naked eye, resolved into a sprinkling of dazzling, tiny stars. It was breathtaking.
“The vastness is frightening, too,” You confessed, leaning back against the cold stone, your head falling onto his shoulder. His cloak smelled faintly of smoke from his fireplace and ink—the smell of his solitary work.
He wrapped his arm around you, pulling you closer. It was a necessary embrace, a barrier against the cold of the night and the emotional cold of the village.
“It is frightening only because you compare it to a human lifespan,” he reasoned quietly, stroking your arm through the thick wool. “But think of it this way: out there, there is no Devil that cares enough to curse a village. There are no elders who hold dominion. There is only light and time. And for every terrible thing that happens here—every act of malice, every unjust burning—there are a thousand million stars that simply keep shining. They are the constant. We are the fleeting mistake.”
He shifted slightly, turning his body toward you. He didn’t press for physical affection often, knowing the extreme delicacy of your situation, but tonight, the raw emotional intimacy demanded it.
“They say if we are seen together like this, we are courting the Devil ourselves,” You whispered, a fresh ripple of anxiety passing through you.
He tightened his grip slightly. “Then let us court him with knowledge and reason, and watch him flee the light of a thousand distant suns. If I must burn for this, I will burn knowing that I saw something real, something truthful, and shared it with the one person who understands how little sense the world makes right now.”
His words were not just reassurance; they were a declaration of you, of your shared exile from the village's narrow worldview. “I hate that you are here,” You told him, suddenly overcome with emotion. “I hate that they make you feel as alone as I feel.”
He gently brushed a kiss against the top of your head. “I stopped feeling truly alone the day I saw you staring at a beetle instead of listening to the Pastor’s sermon. You were trying to measure the perfect spiral of its shell. I knew then. We are the same kind of troubled.”
We stayed there, cocooned in the thick blanket, passing the telescope back and forth. He showed you the rings of Saturn—or what he believed were the rings; his homemade lenses could only do so much, but the fuzzy oval was enough to ignite the imagination. He spoke of Galileo, of Copernicus—men who dared to look up and question what they were told was true—speaking their forbidden names with reverence.
The more he spoke, the more the fear receded. The memory of the flames and the accusations lost their sharp edge, replaced by the profound, comforting scale of the universe. Your spiritual crisis didn't disappear, but it shifted from an agonizing scream to a quiet, manageable doubt. The silence wasn’t God’s judgment; it was simply silence.
You turned your head to look at him, your cheek resting against the coarse wool of his cloak. His profile was sharp in the starlight, his expression serene, lost in the celestial map above. He was the quiet, constant storm of curiosity in a sea of rigid conformity, and that was why you loved him.
“Isaac,” You murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.
He hummed, not taking his eyes from the sky.
“Thank you. For this. For the quiet.”
He finally turned his head, his face close to yours. His eyes, in the pale glow, were huge, warm pools of soft brown. He reached up, his thumb brushing a stray tear—one you hadn’t even realized you'd cried—from your cheekbone.
“I cannot fix the village,” he whispered, his voice catching slightly, “and I certainly cannot fix the souls of the men who run it. But I can remind you that we are more than their fear. We are a universe unto ourselves, aren’t we?”
He leaned in, his intention clear. You met him halfway, closing the small, necessary gap between you. The kiss was fleeting, chaste, but desperately important—a silent vow exchanged between two people who felt alone in their understanding of the world. His lips were cool from the night air, yet the contact sparked a warmth deep within your chest, a small, stubborn flame of human connection that even the Pastor's fire could not consume.
When you pulled back, he didn’t move away. He rested his forehead against yours, and you stayed that way for a long time, listening to the creek and the distant rustling of the forest, sharing the same air.
“We should return,” You finally whispered, the cold starting to creep back into your feet.
He sighed, a sound of reluctant acceptance. “We should. And we will leave soon. But first, let me show you the small red star near the horizon. It has the color of danger, but the precision of eternity.”
He pulled the blanket down around your shoulders, then settled himself beside you again, pulling you close until you were pressed against his side, his arm around your waist, his chin resting lightly on the top of your head.
“Just another minute,” he murmured into your hair. “I need to map the way back. I wouldn’t want to be caught in the wrong quadrant of the village, would I?”
The stars, the cold, the fear—they were all still there, but now they were secondary to this small, warm pocket of safety you had built for yourselves, miles away from the chaos and confusion of the waking world. You closed your eyes, feeling his steady, solid heart beating against your back, a simple, rhythmic truth you could cling to. He wasn't offering salvation, but he was offering something better: shelter. And tonight, under the watchful, indifferent gaze of the constellations, that was more than enough to finally let you sleep.
You stayed until the sky just began to show the faintest hint of grey on the eastern horizon, the stars dimming their light as the false promise of dawn approached. Isaac packed up his telescope with the care of a man handling precious contraband, which, in your village, it was.
He led you back with the same careful silence, releasing your hand only when you stood at the edge of your back door.
“Sleep now,” he instructed, his eyes still heavy with the night’s peaceful labor. “And remember the stars. They are there. Always. And if anyone asks why you look tired, you tell them it was the angels of the Lord, carrying the righteous to heaven.”
You managed a genuine, weary smile. “I shall. Be careful, Isaac.”
“Always am,” he winked, a brief flash of his usual swagger. “Especially when I have something worth protecting.”
You slipped back into the house, the small snick of the latch this time sounding like a secret being safely tucked away, a promise of light that the approaching, fear-filled day could not break. You were no longer alone in your doubt. You had seen the endless, beautiful order of the universe, and you had a co-conspirator who saw it too.
The Order of Things | Chapter 2 | The Last Time You Asked
summary: the most dangerous assumption Dimitri has ever made.
The night you leave, nothing looks like the end.
That is what makes it unbearable in retrospect.
The house is lit softly, deliberately- low lamps instead of overheads, warm pools of light that make everything feel smaller, safer than it is. Outside, the grounds are silent except for the distant rustle of trees shifting in the wind. Security patrols move like ghosts beyond the windows, present but unobtrusive. Dimitri notices all of it automatically, cataloging, assessing, even as his attention keeps drifting back to you.
You are standing near the window with your arms folded tightly across your chest.
Not cold. Guarded.
Dimitri has learned the difference.
"You're pacing," he says.
You don't turn around. "So are you."
He stops without realizing he's been doing it. The floor beneath his boots is polished stone, cool and unyielding. This room- one of many sitting rooms in the house- has always felt neutral to him. A place where nothing important happens. Tonight, it feels like a narrowing corridor.
"You've been quiet all evening," he adds.
You finally look at him then, and something in your expression makes his stomach tighten. You're not angry. Not yet. You look... resolved. As if you've already made a decision and are just waiting for him to catch up.
"I needed to think," you say.
Dimitri nods. He understands thinking. He understands preparation. What he doesn't understand- what he has never been good at- is waiting.
"About what?" he asks anyway.
You hesitate, then let out a slow breath. "About tomorrow."
There it is.
The word hangs between you, heavier than it should be. Tomorrow. Such a small thing. A single day. Dimitri has lived his life around far more dangerous timelines than that.
“You don’t have to come,” he says immediately. Too quickly. “I told you that already.”
You shake your head. “That’s not what I mean.”
Silence stretches. Dimitri feels it pulling at him, urging him to fill it, to reassure, to explain. He resists, barely. He has learned — through bruises and blood and bitter lessons — that the wrong words can do more damage than none at all.
You step away from the window and closer to him, stopping just out of reach.
“Dimitri,” you say, carefully. “I need you to tell me the truth.”
His jaw tightens.
“You always tell me that,” he replies lightly, attempting a smile that doesn’t quite land.
“And you always tell me something,” you counter. “That’s not the same thing.”
The warmth drains from the room.
Dimitri exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. He has faced interrogations that felt less invasive than the way you’re looking at him now. There is no hostility in your gaze — just an unsettling clarity.
“This is about your father,” you continue when he doesn’t respond. “Isn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer.
You nod, once, as if confirming something for yourself.
“I thought so.”
“That’s not fair,” Dimitri says, heat creeping into his voice despite his effort to stay calm. “You’re making assumptions.”
“I’m connecting patterns,” you correct. “You disappear to meet him. The doctors suddenly become involved. Everything gets… expedited.” You gesture vaguely, encompassing the house, the land, the life that has never quite let you breathe. “You don’t do anything without a reason, Dimitri. Especially not something like this.”
He looks away.
That is answer enough.
Your shoulders sag just slightly, the smallest crack in your composure. Dimitri hates himself for noticing it — for filing it away even as he tells himself this is for the best.
“This isn’t about approval,” he says at last. “Not the way you think.”
“Then explain it to me,” you say softly.
He turns back to you. Sees the way your fingers are curled into the fabric of your sleeves, knuckles pale. Sees the tension in your jaw, the careful control you’re exerting to keep your voice steady.
He loves you.
The thought is immediate, overwhelming, useless.
“You’re not safe,” he says instead. “Not like this.”
You blink. “Not like what?”
“Not… unprotected,” he replies, and even to his own ears the word sounds wrong. Incomplete. “You know what my family is. You know the kind of attention that comes with it. Being near me puts you at risk.”
You study him for a long moment.
“And this,” you say slowly, “fixes that.”
“Yes.”
It’s the truth. Or at least the version of it he believes.
You laugh quietly, incredulously. “By turning me into something else.”
“By giving you a fighting chance,” Dimitri snaps, then reins himself in. “By making sure no one can hurt you just because of who you love.”
Your expression hardens.
“And your father?” you ask. “Does this give me a fighting chance with him too?”
Dimitri’s silence is deafening.
You step back as if struck.
“So that’s it,” you whisper. “This is about making me… acceptable.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t,” you cut in sharply. “Don’t insult me by pretending this isn’t connected. He’s made it very clear how he sees me.”
“He doesn’t decide everything,” Dimitri says.
“He decides enough,” you reply. “Including whether I’m allowed to exist in your life without being treated like a liability.”
The word hits him square in the chest.
Liability.
It is exactly how Nikolai Kravinoff had described you, months ago, with clinical disinterest. Dimitri had bristled then, furious and defensive. Now, hearing it echoed in your voice, it feels like a condemnation.
“You don’t have to do this,” you say quietly. “Not for me.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” Dimitri insists. “I’m doing it because of you.”
You close your eyes.
“That’s worse.”
The distance between you suddenly feels insurmountable.
You take a breath, steadying yourself. When you open your eyes again, something has shifted. The rawness is gone, replaced by a careful calm that makes Dimitri uneasy.
“Promise me something,” you say.
He nods instantly. “Anything.”
The word is out of his mouth before he can stop it.
Your gaze sharpens.
“Don’t do that,” you say. “Don’t agree before you know what I’m asking.”
He swallows. “Okay.”
You step closer again, close enough now that he can feel the heat of you, the familiar pull in his chest. You reach out, hesitating only a moment, before resting your hand lightly against his sternum.
“Tell me the truth,” you say. “If this is about him. If this is about earning his approval. I need to hear it from you.”
This is the moment.
Dimitri feels it with startling clarity — the precise point where the future fractures. He could tell you everything. Could admit the fear that coils in his gut every time Nikolai looks at you like an inconvenience. Could confess that part of him believes, desperately, that power is the only language his father understands.
Instead, he covers your hand with his own and leans in just enough that his forehead rests against yours.
“I love you,” he says.
You pull back.
Slowly. Deliberately.
“That wasn’t what I asked,” you say.
“No,” he agrees. “But it’s the truth.”
Your eyes search his face, looking for something — reassurance, perhaps, or certainty. Whatever it is, you don’t find it.
You step away.
“I need air,” you say. “I need to think.”
Dimitri watches you cross the room, his chest tight with something dangerously close to panic. “We don’t have much time,” he says. “Tomorrow—”
“I know,” you reply, not turning around. “That’s the problem.”
You pause at the door, hand on the handle.
“This doesn’t feel like love,” you add quietly. “It feels like a negotiation.”
Then you’re gone.
You don’t come back to bed that night.
But you don’t leave the house, either.
Dimitri knows this because security reports show your badge still pinging through the east wing long after midnight. He tells himself you’re restless. That you need space. That you’ll cool off by morning, practical as you always are, and this will become just another difficult conversation survived.
He has survived worse.
He sleeps eventually, shallow and uneasy, dreams fractured and unkind.
By the time dawn breaks, pale light bleeding through the curtains, the house is already in motion. Staff move quietly, efficiently. Everything is prepared. Today has been scheduled for weeks — no delays, no uncertainty, no room for sentiment.
When Dimitri sees you again, you are dressed in the clothes the doctors requested. Soft. Neutral. Not yours.
Your face is calm in a way that unsettles him.
“You’re early,” he says.
“So are you,” you reply.
The words are ordinary. Your voice is steady. If he didn’t know you as well as he does, he might believe this is acceptance.
He walks beside you through the corridors, his presence clearing a path automatically. No one looks at you too closely. No one asks if you’re sure.
The hospital wing smells like antiseptic and cold metal. Dimitri has been here before — too many times — but it feels different now, heavier. This time, the weight follows him into every room.
You stop just outside the operating suite.
“This is where I wait,” he says.
You turn to him.
For a moment, neither of you speak. The air hums faintly with electricity, machines working behind the walls, futures being prepared.
“You’ll be here when I wake up,” you say.
It isn’t a question.
Dimitri nods. “Of course.”
You study his face like you’re memorizing it. Like you’re bracing for absence.
“Okay,” you say finally. “Then I’m ready.”
The words should relieve him.
Instead, they feel like a warning he doesn’t understand yet.
A nurse steps forward, gentle but efficient. She touches your elbow, guiding you toward the door. You hesitate, just for a second, then lean in and press your forehead to Dimitri’s chest.
He freezes — then wraps his arms around you, holding on too tightly, too desperately.
“I love you,” he murmurs into your hair.
You close your eyes.
“I know,” you say.
The door closes behind you with a soft, final sound.
Dimitri waits.
Minutes stretch. Then longer. He paces the narrow length of the hall, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He tells himself this feeling — this unease — is just nerves. That once it’s done, once you wake up changed but alive, everything will finally make sense.
Then a man he doesn’t recognize walks past too quickly.
Then another.
Voices rise somewhere down the hall. Sharp. Urgent. Controlled.
Dimitri straightens, instincts flaring.
He steps toward the operating room doors just as alarms cut through the quiet — not blaring, not catastrophic, but deliberate. Contained. Wrong.
A doctor intercepts him, hand raised. “Sir—”
“What’s happening?” Dimitri demands.
“There’s been an issue,” the doctor says, carefully. “A security breach. The patient—”
Dimitri doesn’t wait to hear the rest.
He shoves past, throwing the doors open.
The room is chaos.
Straps hang loose from the operating table. Instruments lie abandoned, sterile fields disturbed. The monitors are still on, lines flat where your vitals should be.
The bed is empty.
“Where is she?” Dimitri asks, the words tearing out of him.
No one answers.
Someone finally mutters something about extraction protocols. About override codes that shouldn’t exist. About orders that came from higher up than anyone in the room.
Dimitri stands in the wreckage of a choice he cannot undo and understands, too late, what it means to trust a system built by his family.
You didn’t run.
You were taken.
And the last thing you saw before the doors closed wasn’t power — it was Dimitri, promising to wait.
This was written for my best friend and love of my life @bumblebeeswrite whom I had for a Secret Santa Event in one of our servers! Smooches, I hope you enjoy it <3 I saw this request, I saw Jace's ideas and well... this came to be! Also I read this over and proofread but if there's any mistakes I'm sorry! I also had a plan to do a first part where reader and Simon got together but alas here we are. I liked this better anyways.
Customer: Anonymous!
Order: pistachio almond ice cream in a cup with crushed nuts and peanut butter cups
Ingredients: Fem!Reader x Simon Kalivoda, Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, Secretly Dating, Some Kissing and slight Making Out, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Drug Use, Mentions of Alcohol Consumption, Kind of Follows the Plot of the Movie but also a little Different, New Years Eve
Total: $34.48 (3448 words)
Order note from the scooper (Simon): "Hi, love! Thank you for your order! Uh, you're really cool, like, wow, uh, but here's your pistachio almond ice cream in a cup with crushed nuts and peanut butter cups! I think this combination is honestly amazing. Please, come back soon and get some more ice cream from us!"
Check out our ice cream parlor here!!
The three taps on the window pane came later than normal but you were still able to decipher them through the blowing wind and echoing thunder in the distance. And decipher just who they were coming from. Because there was really only one person that would be tapping on your window requesting access into your room at a quarter after midnight: Simon. After a long and busy night at the Grab and Bag he would often find himself here at your house. He’d find himself within the walls of your room and most times in your bed tucked away under the covers… his family didn’t really care where he was and your parents never seemed to be home, always working through the night or away on trips.
It brought comfort to the two of you, really, and it made it easier to see each other behind your friend’s backs and keep your relationship a secret from others. It allowed you both to spend more time with each other behind closed doors and allowed your private and intimate lives to remain private. These nights were for you and Simon only—for spending time with each other, for holding each other close as you both just discussed your day, for listening to each other—and that was all something no one could take away from either of you.
The taps grew louder, causing yourself to lift to your feet before crossing the small distance towards the window. With one swift motion, the window was opened and the cold air blew through the crack before your boyfriend tumbled his way into your room.
“Fucking hell it’s cold out there,” Simon complained, landing on the ground with a soft thud. You stood over him, closing the window as quickly as it was opened before you glanced down at him with a smile and a knowing look.
“Almost like I told you to wear a jacket to work tonight, huh? Or at least a hoodie that wasn’t so thin. You know, like your green Shadyside hoodie with the stain in the sleeve… not your zip up that still has that weird black henchmen ghost blood goo stuff stained on it.”
“I forgot it, okay? I had every intention to wear my extra warm hoodie but I left in a hurry because I was running late and didn’t need to get fired today.” Simon stood up quickly, brushing the nonexistent dirt and dust particles from his body as he grinned at you. “Besides, baby doll, this just means I get to cuddle you extra tighter on this fine Friday night.” He winked, toeing off his boots before his arms found your waist, pulling you closer to his body.
You squealed when he lifted your body slightly, swinging you around in a small circle. “Simon!” You giggled, your hands grabbing hold of his biceps carefully. “You’re freezing.”
“Yeah and you’re so hot,” he mumbled, placing you back onto the ground gently. His face moved to your neck, nuzzling it gently as he placed a few sweet kisses on the soft skin. “See, already warming me up.” Simon’s hands moved up your back slowly, sneaking under the fabric of your sweater.
“Simon,” you hissed, his icy hands burning your hot skin.
“Sh, just let me warm up.” He chuckled, his lips kissing up your neck more as his fingers danced up your back.
“That’s what blankets are for, not my skin!” You tried to move away from him again before you accepted your fate and leaned into his touch. “You’re incredibly lucky that you’re cute, you know that?”
“Yeah, you tell me that a lot.” Simon grinned, pulling away from your neck. “And you’re incredibly lucky that you get to call this wonderfully cute and funny and amazing guy yours.” He winked, pulling away from you carefully. He moved towards your bed, pulling back the light blue polka dot bedspread before he unzipped his hoodie and shrugged it off. Tossing it to the ground in a heap, he made himself at home in your bed. Tucking himself beside the wall with your teddy bears and other stuffed animals, he fluffed the pillows behind his head a few times.
“Yeah, no, make yourself at home,” you teased. “You seem to do that a lot.” You smiled, sitting beside him in your bed.
Simon shrugged, wrapping his arm around your waist before tugging your body closer to his. “Can’t help that your bed is comfy and warm.” He placed a small kiss on your temple, resting back against the pillows as his fingers ran up and down your arm. “I missed you.”
“You saw me at school today.” You smirked, resting your chin on his shoulder as you looked at him. “You actually literally saw me less than twelve hours ago.”
“Well, yes. But, unfortunately, some of us have jobs. I had to go to work and deal with the weirdos and jerks of Shadyside and do manual labor when all I wanted to do was sit here in bed with you.” His fingers grazed up your arm, rubbing your shoulder gently. His free hand moved to your face, cupping your cheek softly as he leaned in with a small smile on his face. “And I can’t even spend that much time with you during school since we’re keeping this all to ourselves.” Simon’s calloused fingers pushed your hair back slightly, tucking a loose strand behind your ear as he looked at you.
“You know it’s for the best,” you mumbled, looking back at him. Your fingers danced up his chest, running over the fading scar that was left on his neck from that night.
When your fingers touched his skin he shivered, his hand shifting on your face. He held it a bit more firmly, his thumb grazing over your lips before he pulled you closer to him. “I didn’t say it wasn’t,” he muttered, his breath ghosting over your lips. “I’m just saying, I don’t really get to spend much time with you at school. Just the occasional glances and if we’re lucky we get to sit beside each other at lunch and maybe brush our thighs against each other.” He leaned in closer, his lips finally touching yours. The kiss started out soft and sweet, as it always did with Simon. After a few seconds he got needier and hungrier, pulling your body closer to his. The kiss deepened, his tongue ran across your bottom lip as his fingers tangled through the locks of your hair gently. Your arms found their way around his neck, tugging him closer to your body.
During the heat of the moment, your pager on the bedside table buzzed, drawing you back to reality. You groaned, detangling yourself from Simon’s grasp with a huff. “I swear to god, it’s literally almost one in the morning. Who the fuck needs me right now?” You grabbed the pager, reading the screen as a sigh left your lips.
Kate 911.
“Who is it?” Simon asked, looking over your shoulder. He reached for the pager, trying to read the message on the screen.
“Kate,” you replied, reaching for the phone on your bedside table. “The last time she needed me this late at night I had to help you all kill those ghost killer henchmen things… but, if you’re in my bed I don’t know who would have taken your place in that group.” You dialed the number quickly, placing the phone to your ear as it rang and rang. Finally, after what felt like hours, Kate picked up on the other end of the phone in a panic.
“Hey,” she whispered, a hint of concern in her voice. “Have you seen Simon?”
Your heart stopped at her question, your body going rigid for a second as you leaned back on your bed again. “Have I seen Simon?” You repeated, glancing towards him.
“Yeah, have you seen Simon? He always stops by my house on his way home from his late night shifts to raid my fridge. It’s almost one in the morning and I haven’t seen him yet. Plus, it’s pouring out there and I’m a little worried.”
“You’re worried about Simon? Simon Kalivoda?” You laughed slightly. A small smirk grew on Simon’s face as he moved closer towards you, draping an arm over your waist gently. His head rested on your shoulder, placing some soft kisses on your neck before you bit your lip and sighed, trying to push him away. “The same Simon Kalivoda that dresses up as a witch for our football team and hits Sunnyvale football players with a straw broom during candlelit vigils?”
“That was one time,” Simon muttered under his breath, his lips hovering over your neck. He pressed another soft kiss on your pulse point, relishing in the sound of your breath hitching. You shot him a quick glare, trying to focus on the conversation with Kate.
“Please, we all know he’s not as strong as he looks.” Kate argued. “I’m just worried about him, okay? I have been so fucking paranoid since those weird ghostly murderers chased after us months ago. I thought maybe you had seen him since you live by the Grab and Bag.”
“Nope,” you mumbled, pushing Simon away from your neck once again. He pouted, looking at you with puppy dog eyes before he shifted slightly, resting his head on your chest. “But, I’m pretty sure he’s fine. He probably just had to work late or got stuck stocking something. Or maybe he just didn’t want to deal with your ass so he just went home.”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny. I called his house but I didn't get an answer. It’s not like him to just not show up for free food.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. He might not be as strong as he looks but he is a big boy who can take care of himself.” Your fingers ran through Simon’s messy hair slowly as you replied. Simon sighed softly at the feeling, his hand resting on your hip carefully as his eyes grew heavy. He leaned into your touch like a cat, craving more of your touch and affection. “I’m sure he’ll turn up tomorrow looking for food when you’re babysitting the twins in the afternoon.”
Kate sighed, always hating how you were right. “Fine. But if he doesn’t show up, I’m going to assume that Ruby Lane came back for him and finally did him in with that razor blade of hers.”
You laughed at that, shaking your head. “Doubt it. According to your boyfriend we defeated those… ghost things? At least, for now.”
“Josh is not my boyfriend! He’s just a friend. Who also happens to be a boy.”
“Mhm, sure.” Your fingers kept running through Simon’s hand absentmindedly, bringing him closer and closer to sleep. “That’s not what he seems to be saying to everyone else.” You smirked.
“Whatever, I should go. It’s getting late… I’ll talk to you later. Hopefully we don’t have to go hunting in the woods for Simon’s dead body tomorrow.”
“I really doubt we will have to go hunting for Simon’s dead body,” you mumbled, glancing down at Simon. “But yeah, I’ll talk to you later. See you tomorrow night for movie night?”
“You know it! See you then. Night.”
Simon groaned when you shifted to your side in order to place the phone back down carefully. “Hey, I was trying to sleep. “ He mumbled, grip on your hip tightening slightly as he pulled you back into your bed. He lifted his head slightly, looking up at you as a yawn escaped his lips. “Don’t leave me.” Simon rolled to his side, his head resting in the crook of your neck. His hand moved from your hip to your stomach, slowly moving up your body.
“I’m not leaving you,” you smiled, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “I’m never leaving you.”
“You say that now.” Simon’s hand moved up to your face, tilting it towards him gently. “I’m going to have to hold you to that statement, you know?” He smiled, placing a soft kiss against your lips.
You smiled against his lips, kissing him back before pulling away to look at him. “Hold me to it, I dare you.” Your hand found his, your fingers interlacing with his perfectly. His calloused hands with black nail polish chipping off the nails fit like a missing puzzle piece in your soft hands with meticulously painted pale pink nails.
Simon’s thumb rubbed gentle circles on your palm, a sleepy smile on his face as he yawned slightly. “Oh, I will. I’ll hold you to that and more.” He nuzzled into your neck again, leaving one last soft kiss on the skin before he drifted off to sleep with your fingers still interlocked.
You laughed slightly, placing a soft kiss on the top of his head before mumbling a soft “goodnight, Simon.”
“Look who made it! You look cute.” Kate mused, handing you a red solo cup filled with some sort of suspicious alcoholic mixture. She eyed you up and down, taking in your ruffled black skirt and light blue sweater. “You got your eyes on a midnight kiss tonight?” She asked, sipping on her own drink with a raised eyebrow.
“Nope, can’t say I do,” you replied, taking a small sip of the amber liquid in the cup. It tasted like regret and disappointment. “Just thought ringing in the new year with my friends was a bit better than doing it on my own at home.”
“Parents gone?”
“Yep. For about another week or so.” You nodded, taking another sip of the liquid.
“They’re still gone?” Deena asked, leaning against the wall with her right arm slung around Sam’s shoulder loosely. Her left hand held a red cup, filled with the same disappointing liquid you had.
“Damn, we need to get you a boyfriend or something. You need someone to keep you company.” Sam laughed, finishing off the drink within her cup. “Got your eyes on anyone in particular? New year, new romance?” She wiggled her eyebrow playfully, taking in your reaction.
“I don’t really think I’m cut out for romance. No one in this shitty town is really worth it, you know?” You took another sip of your drink, trying to avoid and further questions from the girls.
“Simon!” Kate shouted out of nowhere. You choked on your drink slightly, trying to recover before anyone noticed. Clearing your throat, you turned slightly to see Simon in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Hello lovely ladies.” Simon smiled, walking towards the group with a huge grin on his face. “What’s up, hotties?” He asked, stopping beside you. “Drinking already?”
“You know it. We needed something to forget this shitty year. Want one?” Kate moved to grab him a drink, handing him the cup as he nodded. “Also, since when do you have nice clothes? Are those khakis? And is that a sweater?”
“What? A guy can’t dress up in hopes of getting lucky on New Year’s Eve?” He smiled, sipping on the alcohol in the cup. “Kate, this sucks ass.” You laughed at his blunt reply, nodding in agreement.
“It is rather… disappointing.” You replied, swirling the liquid around in the cup yet again.
“I know, I know. It was all I could get my hands on at such short notice. There’s snacks in the dining room though, those are definitely better than this disappointment in a cup.”
“Snacks you say?” Simon smiled, taking another sip of the drink. Kate led Deena and Sam towards the dining room, leaving you and Simon alone for a second. “You look really good, by the way,” he mumbled low enough for you to hear. His hand grazed against your lower back, guiding you towards the dining room. “Meet me in the kitchen about ten minutes to midnight. I have a surprise for you.”
You smiled up at him, nodding slightly. “I’ll see you then.”
You met Simon in the kitchen at exactly 11:50, sneaking away for the rest of the group successfully. He was already waiting for you at the back door, sliding his boots on. Taking your hand gently, he opened the back door and slid out with ease.
“Watch your step.” Simon said softly, almost slipping on the ice as he led you into the backyard. He cursed under his breath, quickly regaining his balance before he looked back at you. He guided you towards a large oak tree, the moonlight showing the way and reflecting off the shimmering, freshly fallen snow.
“Simon, it’s freezing out here.” You complained, crossing your arms over your chest in an attempt to stay warm. The snow felt soft beneath your feet, the fresh blanket warping as your footprints went deeper into the backyard. A gust of wind around you blew, switching directions quickly which made the fluffy, white snowflakes pelt your face gently. The soft flakes stuck to your hair and eyelashes, tickling your face like a thousand little kisses from the sky.
“I know, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, wrapping his arms around your waist gently. “I just wanted to be alone with you when the clock hit midnight to share a kiss. Away from everyone else and their eyes.” Simon pulled your body closer to his, holding you flush against him. His hands trailed up and down your sides gently, trying to send some warmth to your body through your knit sweater. “Just you and me.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” You spoke softly, your arms moving to wrap around his neck carefully. “But I appreciate it.” A smile formed across your lips as you looked at him. “You do look really nice tonight, by the way. You clean up nicely,” you giggled, kissing Simon’s cheek gently. Your fingers toyed with the hair on the back of his neck, twirling it between your fingers.
“Yeah?” He chuckled awkwardly, clearing his throat. “Well, to be honest, I wanted to look nice for you. Thought maybe I could impress you if I dressed up a little and looked presentable.”
“For me? You don’t have to do that and you know it. I like you just the way you are.” You smiled, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “You just being you impresses me. You work so hard and do so much for your friends and family and I’m so incredibly lucky to call you mine.”
“You’re just saying that to get into my pants.” Simon smirked softly. A small giggle left your lips at his playful comment, your eyes rolling in reply. “But honestly, thank you. For saving my life that one night and for giving me a chance and for not leaving my side when you saw the real me.”
“Honestly? I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a chance before. You’re a really funny and sweet guy. Not to mention, you are really hot.” You winked, looking at him with a smile.
“Well, you’re incredibly funny and smart and so sexy.” He leaned in, his lips brushing yours gently. “And I’m so lucky to call you mine.”
Simon’s lips met yours in a soft and sweet kiss as fireworks went off in the sky, ringing in the new year in Shadyside. His hands found your hips, holding you as close to him as he could. Your lips moved against his, relishing in the feeling of him against you. Fingers were tangled into his hair, pulling his face closer to yours. The perfect new year’s eve kiss with the perfect person.
The fireworks continued to ring out in the distance, illuminating the sky with pops of color. 1995. A new year, a fresh start and hopefully no more crazy killers coming after you or your friends.
Simon pulled away from the kiss, his forehead resting against yours as he looked into your eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, placing another kiss on your lips.
“I love you too,” you replied softly. You and Simon shared another kiss alone, away from everyone else.
But from within the house Kate, Deena and Sam watched from afar, taking it all in.
“Is that…?” Kate asked, looking you and Simon up and down from inside the warm house.
“With Simon?” Deena asked, leaning over the kitchen counter to get a better look through the frosted window.
“I knew it!” Sam cheered. “I mean, you have to admit, they are kind of cute together.”
“Yeah, I guess they are.” Kate smiled, tilting her head as she watched.
“I’m going to give them hell about this, though,” Deena smirked.
“Oh, absolutely.” Sam nodded, agreeing with Deena. “I mean, look at them.”
Not in anything he says—Jason has always been careful with words—but in what he doesn’t say anymore.
The cabin is quiet when you wake. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that feels intentional, curated. The screen porch door is cracked just enough to let in the smell of pine and lake water, damp and metallic. Sunlight spills in thin, pale bands across the floor, catching dust motes midair like they’ve been frozen there.
Jason is already up.
He sits at the small table with his back half-turned toward you, elbows loose, shoulders relaxed. His coffee has gone untouched long enough for a skin to form on the surface. He’s not scrolling through paperwork or scribbling notes like he usually does. He’s just sitting.
Waiting.
“You sleep?” you ask, voice low, careful not to break whatever fragile stillness has settled over the room.
He turns his head slightly. “Yeah.”
That’s all. No qualifier. No apology for having slept well while the camp buzzes with unanswered questions. He doesn’t ask if you slept.
You sit across from him, watching the way the steam curls up and disappears. Outside, the lake is still—unnaturally so. The air smells wrong again, faint and sharp, like rusted metal left out in the rain. You wonder if he notices. You wonder if he’s always noticed.
“They still haven’t found him,” you say quietly.
Jason hums once, thoughtful. “No?”
“No.”
He nods. Slow. Measured.
“They will,” he says.
It isn’t hope. It isn’t concern.
It’s inevitability.
Something settles between you then, heavy and warm, like a shared understanding finally given a name.
The camp shifts around you over the next few days.
It’s subtle at first. A tightening. A quiet hum of unease beneath the usual summer noise. Counselors speak in lower voices. Campers cluster closer together after dark. Curfews are enforced more strictly, though no one can say exactly why.
Jason moves through it all with a new kind of ease.
You notice the way his eyes track people now—not nervously, not anxiously, but deliberately. He watches who wanders too close to the maintenance road. Who lingers by the storage sheds. Who asks the same question more than once in staff meetings.
He doesn’t bring it up to you right away.
He doesn’t need to.
During free swim, a camper mouths off to one of the assistants. Loud. Performative. Testing boundaries the way teenagers always do when they sense weakness. Jason steps in before you can, posture easy, voice calm. He leans in just enough that the camper has to tilt his head to listen.
You can’t hear what he says.
But you see the change. The boy’s face drains of color. His shoulders stiffen, then slump. He nods. Walks away without another word.
Later, you find the incident logged already.
Minimal detail. Neutral tone.
Handled.
“You didn’t tell me you were taking that one,” you say later, glancing up from the clipboard.
Jason shrugs. “You were busy.”
You weren’t.
But you let it go.
At night, the camp doesn’t sleep the way it used to.
Flashlights flicker through the trees where they shouldn’t be. Someone swears they heard footsteps near the north trail. Another counselor insists they saw movement by the old maintenance shed—too tall to be a camper, too quiet to be an animal.
Jason listens. Says nothing.
When you return to the cabin, he locks the door behind you without comment.
It’s practical. Sensible.
Still, your pulse stutters.
“You okay?” you ask, setting your keys down.
“Yeah,” he says. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
He sits on the couch, leaning forward, forearms on his knees. His hands are steady. When he finally speaks, his voice is calm, almost curious.
“About how people keep getting surprised,” he says. “Like they don’t realize actions stack up.”
You sit beside him, close enough that your shoulders nearly touch.
“Most people don’t think that far ahead,” you say.
He glances at you then. His eyes are clearer than usual. Focused.
“I guess some of us do.”
The real change comes quietly.
Jason starts choosing things.
Which counselors get reassigned. Which campers get warnings and which get written up. Who is redirected away from certain areas, and who is allowed to wander just a little longer than they should.
He doesn’t ask for your approval.
He doesn’t need it.
You watch him step into authority the way someone steps into deep water—not rushing, not flailing, just letting himself sink until the pressure evens out.
One afternoon, he brings you coffee without asking.
Another day, he takes over a meeting you hadn’t planned to skip. You listen from the back as he speaks—measured, confident, unflinching when challenged. The counselors quiet faster than they ever did for you.
You should feel threatened.
You feel proud.
You walk the edge of the archery range together that evening, checking equipment as the sun bleeds out behind the trees. The woods press in close here. Shadows stretch long and indistinct.
Jason stops near the target, nudging a loose arrow with his foot.
“Does it ever bother you,” he asks, casual, “how certain people always seem to end up where they shouldn’t?”
You stop walking. Let the silence stretch.
“Sometimes,” you say. “Why?”
He watches the arrow roll, slow and aimless. “Feels like accidents aren’t really accidents most of the time.”
You study his face.
He isn’t looking at you for permission.
He’s looking to see if you understand.
You do.
That night, you dream of water closing over your head. Of weight pressing in from all sides until breathing becomes optional. When you wake, your sheets are damp with sweat and Jason is already gone.
He’s on the porch when you find him, camera in hand. He doesn’t lift it when you step outside.
“Couldn’t sleep?” you ask.
“Didn’t need to,” he says.
He hands you the camera without explanation.
You take it, surprised by the weight.
“Take a picture,” he says.
“Of what?”
He gestures toward the lake. “Anything.”
You lift the camera, frame the still water, the way the trees reflect too perfectly on the surface. You press the shutter.
Jason watches you do it, eyes intent.
“Feels different,” he says.
“What does?”
“Knowing when to capture something,” he says. “And when to let it disappear.”
The whispers grow louder.
Someone mentions calling in outside help. Another suggests postponing the rest of the summer. Jason shuts it down with a look before words are even needed.
“It’ll cause panic,” he says evenly. “We don’t need that.”
No one argues.
Later, you find him alone in the rec hall, lights off except for one dim bulb over the stage.
“You didn’t hesitate,” you say.
“Didn’t need to,” he replies.
“You’re sure?”
He looks at you, something dark and steady behind his eyes. “Yeah.”
The first time he suggests something outright, it’s almost gentle.
You’re sorting equipment in the storage shed, dust thick in the air. He pauses mid-task, hands resting on a crate.
“Some people ask questions because they want answers,” he says.
“And some?” you prompt.
“And some because they want attention,” he finishes.
You nod.
“Attention can be dangerous,” you say.
His mouth curves into something that isn’t quite a smile.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It can.”
Later, he takes your bow from its hook.
Tests the string. Draws it back slowly.
“You’re always so steady,” he says. “I never asked how you do that.”
“You stop hesitating,” you reply.
The arrow lands dead center.
Jason exhales, something like a laugh slipping out under his breath.
“That makes sense.”
He hands the bow back to you, fingers brushing yours. This time, he doesn’t pull away.
“I don’t think I want to go back,” he says quietly.
“To what?” you ask, even though you already know.
He looks at the target. At the mark he made.
“To pretending,” he says.
You smile.
Outside, the woods hum with life—crickets, shifting leaves, something moving just out of sight.
Beside you, Jason stands calmer than you’ve ever seen him.
Complicit. Capable.
And finally, hungry for it.
The days blur together after that.
Not in the way they used to, where time slipped through your fingers unnoticed. This is different. Sharper. Each hour feels deliberate, like it’s been placed exactly where it belongs.
Jason settles into his role with unnerving ease.
He starts waking earlier than you. You’ll find the cabin already aired out, the coffee brewed, paperwork neatly stacked on the table. He doesn’t announce what he’s done. He doesn’t ask if you noticed.
You do.
The camp responds to him in subtle ways. Counselors hesitate before speaking over him now. Campers straighten when he passes. There’s a new quiet that follows him, not fear exactly, but awareness. Like they can sense something has shifted and don’t know how to name it.
You watch it all from just behind him, just beside him.
Exactly where you belong.
One afternoon, you realize you haven’t seen Mark in two days.
It takes you a moment to place why that matters. He’d been loud. Clumsy. Nervous in that way people get when they know they’re in over their heads. He’d asked too many questions after the hike. Had hovered near the maintenance office more than once.
You mention it casually while sorting paperwork.
“Have you seen Mark around?” you ask.
Jason doesn’t look up from the clipboard he’s reviewing. “No.”
“Oh.” You pause, then add, lightly, “I thought he was supposed to help with evening rounds.”
Jason flips the page. “I reassigned him.”
“To where?”
A beat.
“Off-site.”
You look at him then.
He meets your gaze without flinching.
“Temporary,” he adds. “Seemed like too much for him here.”
Your pulse ticks faster.
“That was your call?” you ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Someone needed to make it.”
You should ask more. Dig. Clarify.
You don’t.
Instead, you nod slowly. “Probably for the best.”
Jason’s mouth curves, just slightly.
The camp directors call twice that week.
You listen from the porch as Jason takes the calls inside. His voice stays even, reassuring. He uses phrases you recognize — under control, no cause for alarm, procedures followed. When he hangs up, he doesn’t look rattled.
“They’re worried,” you say.
“They always are,” he replies. “From a distance.”
“And you?”
“I’m here.”
The finality of it settles into your chest.
That night, the woods are loud.
Not with panic. With life. Crickets scream. Something larger moves through the underbrush near the trail, branches snapping under weight. You and Jason sit on the porch in silence, sharing a bag of pretzels neither of you is particularly hungry for.
“You ever notice,” Jason says after a while, “how everything sounds different after dark?”
“In what way?” you ask.
“More honest,” he says. “Like nothing’s pretending anymore.”
You think of the campers asleep in their bunks. Of the counselors whispering behind closed doors. Of the way secrets feel heavier at night.
“Yeah,” you say. “I’ve noticed.”
He leans back, gaze fixed on the treeline. “It’s easier to make decisions like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like who needs protecting,” he says.
Your breath stills.
“And who doesn’t.”
You don’t respond. You don’t need to.
The first real test comes sooner than you expect.
It’s late afternoon when one of the assistant counselors — Emily, quiet but observant — corners you near the arts and crafts cabin. Her smile is tight, rehearsed.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
“Of course,” you reply.
She hesitates. “Have you noticed… anything strange lately?”
You tilt your head. “Strange how?”
She lowers her voice. “People disappearing. Things being… glossed over.”
You feel it then — the familiar itch beneath your skin. The instinct to redirect. To soothe. To mislead.
Before you can speak, Jason appears behind her.
“Everything okay?” he asks pleasantly.
Emily startles, spinning around. “Oh — yeah. I was just—”
“Checking in,” Jason finishes for her. “We appreciate that.”
She relaxes a fraction. “I just think maybe we should document things more thoroughly.”
Jason nods. “Already on it.”
Her brow furrows. “You are?”
“Yes,” he says easily. “I didn’t want to burden everyone with it.”
She glances between the two of you. “Okay. I just… want to make sure nothing gets missed.”
Jason smiles. Warm. Reassuring.
“Nothing will,” he says.
Emily leaves looking calmer than when she arrived.
You stare at Jason once she’s gone.
“You didn’t tell me,” you say.
“I didn’t want you worrying,” he replies.
Your heart pounds.
“That was risky.”
He shrugs. “So was she.”
You should be unsettled.
You’re impressed.
Later that evening, you bring it up again.
“You handled that well,” you say.
Jason looks up from locking the door. “She won’t bring it up again.”
“How do you know?”
He meets your eyes. “Because she feels taken care of.”
There’s something unsettling in that phrasing. Something intimate.
“You didn’t ask me,” you say quietly.
“I didn’t need to,” he replies. Not defensive. Just factual.
A pause.
“I hope that’s okay.”
You step closer. Close enough to feel his heat.
“It is,” you say.
And you mean it.
The realization hits you slowly, over the next few days.
Jason isn’t following anymore.
He’s leading.
Not recklessly. Not impulsively. But with intent. He’s started anticipating problems before they surface. Redirecting people before suspicion takes shape. Making choices that protect the whole — your whole — without needing your input.
You catch yourself watching him the way you used to watch the camp itself. Assessing. Admiring. Adjusting.
It thrills you.
One night, as you’re brushing your teeth, he leans against the bathroom doorway.
“I think we should move the night patrols,” he says.
“Why?”
“Too predictable.”
You rinse, wipe your mouth. “Where instead?”
He names the trail near the old shed.
Your stomach flips.
“That’s dangerous,” you say carefully.
He watches your reflection. “Only if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
You turn to face him.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
You study his face. No hesitation. No fear.
“Okay,” you say.
That night, you lie awake listening to the sounds of the camp breathing around you.
Jason sleeps beside you on the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising steady and even. He looks peaceful. Earned.
You realize something then.
You didn’t create this alone.
You opened the door.
He walked through it.
And now, he knows the way better than you ever expected.
The thought sends a slow, delicious shiver down your spine.
Outside, something moves through the trees.
Jason doesn’t stir.
He doesn’t need to.
Morning comes slower than it should.
The air is heavy, pressing in through the screens like it doesn’t want to be kept out. You wake before Jason this time, your body alert before your mind fully catches up. For a moment, you just lie there, listening.
The camp sounds wrong.
Not quiet. Just… rearranged. Birds calling from different places than usual. The hum of insects pitched slightly higher, as if something has disturbed their rhythm.
Jason sleeps deeply beside you, one arm tucked under his head, mouth parted just enough to suggest ease. He doesn’t look like someone carrying secrets. He looks like someone who knows exactly where they belong.
You let yourself watch him longer than necessary.
When he wakes, it’s without the jolt you’d come to expect. No startled inhale. No searching glance.
“Morning,” he murmurs.
“Morning.”
He stretches, unhurried. “I already checked the patrol log.”
Your pulse flickers. “You went out?”
“Early,” he says. “Didn’t want to wake you.”
You sit up slowly. “Everything okay?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
You wait.
Jason notices, eventually. He always does.
“There was someone near the shed,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
Your breath stills. “A camper?”
“No.”
The word lands softly. Decisively.
“Who?” you ask.
He shrugs, rolling his shoulders. “Someone who shouldn’t have been there.”
“And?”
“And they won’t be again.”
You study his face for cracks. There are none.
“What did you do?” you ask.
Jason considers the question carefully.
“I talked to them,” he says. “Then I made sure they understood.”
Understood what?
You don’t ask.
The day unfolds with unnerving normalcy.
Breakfast is served. Activities run on schedule. Campers complain about the heat and counselors joke too loudly at lunch. Whatever Jason encountered near the shed has already been absorbed into the earth, folded neatly into the background noise.
No one asks questions.
No one goes looking.
You watch Jason throughout the day, expecting something—tension, pride, nerves. Instead, he moves through the hours with steady efficiency. He reminds a counselor about a misplaced key. He helps a camper retie a loose shoe. He laughs at the right moments.
He is seamless.
At one point, you realize you haven’t checked the patrol logs yourself.
The thought surprises you.
You don’t correct it.
In the afternoon, Emily doesn’t show up to her assigned activity.
It’s subtle. Easy to dismiss. Counselors swap shifts all the time. Still, you notice. You always notice.
You find Jason by the supply shed, inventory clipboard tucked under his arm.
“Have you seen Emily today?” you ask.
He doesn’t hesitate. “She took the afternoon off.”
“That’s new.”
“She needed it.”
Your gaze sharpens. “Did she say why?”
Jason finally looks at you then. Really looks.
“She asked me a lot of questions,” he says calmly. “I answered them.”
“And?”
“And I think she realized she doesn’t actually want the answers.”
A shiver runs through you.
“You sent her home?” you ask.
“For the day,” he says. “She’ll be fine.”
You search his face for uncertainty. There is none.
“You didn’t tell me,” you say.
“I didn’t want you feeling like you had to fix it.”
Fix it.
The word settles somewhere uncomfortable.
“You’re taking on a lot,” you say carefully.
He smiles at you then. Soft. Earnest.
“So are you,” he replies.
That evening, the lake smells stronger.
You notice it as soon as the sun dips low enough to change the light. The metallic tang is unmistakable now, sharp at the back of your throat. You find yourself breathing through your mouth as you walk the shoreline.
Jason joins you without speaking.
“Do you smell that?” you ask.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“You know what it is?”
“I have a guess.”
“And?”
He shrugs. “Does it matter?”
You stop walking.
Jason takes one more step before realizing you’re not beside him anymore. He turns back, eyebrow raised.
“Say that again,” you say.
He watches you carefully. “I said—does it matter?”
Something twists in your chest. Not fear. Recognition.
“It used to,” you say.
Jason considers that. “Does it still?”
You open your mouth to answer.
Nothing comes out.
He steps closer, close enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, grounding and solid.
“You taught me something,” he says quietly. “About not asking questions that don’t change anything.”
Your throat tightens.
“And?” you prompt.
“And this doesn’t change anything,” he finishes.
That night, the power goes out.
Not completely—just enough to unsettle. Emergency lights flicker on in the main buildings. Radios crackle with confused chatter. Someone mentions a blown fuse near the old maintenance area.
Jason is already moving before anyone finishes the sentence.
“I’ll check it,” he says.
“You should take someone,” you reply.
“I will,” he says, already grabbing a flashlight.
He pauses at the door, glancing back at you.
“Stay here.”
It isn’t a request.
You watch him disappear into the dark, the beam of his flashlight cutting briefly through the trees before vanishing entirely.
Minutes pass.
Then more.
The camp holds its breath.
When Jason returns, it’s with dirt on his hands and a tear in the knee of his jeans.
“You okay?” you ask immediately.
“Yeah,” he says. “Just tripped.”
“And the power?”
“Fixed.”
True to his word, the lights hum back to life moments later.
No one asks why it took so long.
No one asks why Jason’s voice sounds steadier than ever.
Later, alone in the cabin, you finally press.
“What happened out there?” you ask.
Jason sits across from you, elbows on his knees, mirroring the posture he used to take when he was uncertain. The difference now is striking.
“There was someone there,” he says.
Your heart pounds. “The same as this morning?”
“No,” he says. “Different.”
“And?”
“And they didn’t listen as well.”
The room feels smaller.
“You handled it?” you ask.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Jason looks up at you, eyes dark, unwavering.
“The way you showed me.”
Something inside you fractures.
You should be proud.
You are.
But threaded through it is something colder. Something like awe.
“You didn’t need me,” you say softly.
“No,” he agrees. “I didn’t.”
A beat.
“But I wanted you to know.”
Sleep doesn’t come easily after that.
You lie awake listening to Jason’s breathing, steady and untroubled. Outside, the woods settle back into their rhythm, whatever disturbance has passed already forgotten by the trees.
You think about the first time you realized what you were capable of. How sharp it felt. How electric.
This feels different.
This feels… sustainable.
In the dark, Jason shifts, rolling toward you.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking,” he says.
You wait.
“I don’t think this is something you stop wanting.”
Your breath catches.
“No,” you agree. “It isn’t.”
He nods, satisfied, and drifts back to sleep.
You stare up at the ceiling long after, the truth settling into place.
Jason doesn’t crave the rush.
He craves the order.
The quiet that comes after.
The world makes sense to him now.
And for the first time since this all began, you realize something with absolute clarity:
The first thing that Dimitri notices was the quiet.
Not the peaceful kind. Not the kind that settles gently over a room when everyone has gone to sleep. This quiet is sharp edged, hollowed out, like something that has been forcibly removed and left a vacuum behind. The kind that makes your ears ring, that presses in until breathing feels too loud.
The building is still warm from violence. Smoke lingers in the corners of the ceiling, thin and acrid, clinging to the exposed beams like it’s afraid to leave. Somewhere down the corridor, something drips steadily- water, maybe blood, Dimitri didn’t look long enough to be sure. He stands in the center of it all with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, knuckles raw, sleeves stained dark nearly to the elbow.
None of it matters.
Because you are not here.
That is the absence he can’t work around. The one thing his mind keeps circling, like a tongue worrying at a broken tooth. He turns slowly, scanning the room as if you might materialize if he just looks hard enough. As if this is all some elaborate misunderstanding, as if he’ll hear your voice any second now- sharp, breathless, furious- asking him what the hell he’s done this time.
Nothing.
Dimitri swallows. His throat burns. He tastes iron.
A man clears his throat behind him. “It’s finished,” he says, tentative. Careful. Everyone is careful around Dimitri now. “Your father-”
Dimitri raises one hand without looking back. The man stops speaking immediately.
Finished.
That word means something very different to Dimitri than it does to everyone else in the room.
He moves at last, boots crunching softly over shattered glass and debris. The lights overhead flicker, one by one, as emergency power hums uncertainly through the building. It had been a laboratory once- sterile, controlled, designed for miracles masquerading as science. Now it looks like a battlefield, stripped down to its bones.
He passes a gurney overturned near the far wall. The sheets are soaked through, dark and stiffening. Dimitri does not stop. He already knows it isn’t yours.
That knowledge offers no relief.
His chest aches in a way that feels structural, like something essential has shifted out of place. He presses two fingers briefly to his sternum, grounding himself, then lets his hand fall again. Weakness is not tolerated here. It never has been.
A door hangs half open at the end of the corridor- the private office. The one with the reinforced walls, the soundproofing, the biometric locks. The place where decisions were made. Dimitri slows as he approaches, each step heavier than the last.
He already knows what he will find.
The chair behind the desk is empty.
Your coat is still draped over the back of it.
It hits him then, all at once. Not like a wave- like collapse. Like the moment after a bone breaks and your body finally registered what’s happened. Dimitri’s breath stutters, sharp and shallow, before he can stop it. His hand comes up to grip the edge of the desk, fingers digging into the polished surface hard enough that the wood creaks faintly in protest.
You left in a hurry.
That’s what your coat tells him. You didn’t take it with you. You didn’t pause to grab it, didn’t think about the cold outside or the long drive or anything beyond the immediate need to be gone. Dimitri stares at it as if it might accuse him out loud.
You always hated this place.
He knew that. He had known it from the beginning. The way your shoulders tensed the moment you stepped inside, the way your gaze flicked constantly to the exits. The way your voice flattened whenever you spoke to his father or the doctors or anyone who wore authority like a second skin.
You had never belonged here.
And yet.
Dimitri had brought you anyway.
He sinks slowly into the chair opposite the desk, the one you used to sit in when you were waiting for him. Waiting while men twice his age and ten times as cruel discussed bloodlines and legacy and the price of power like it was a ledger to be balanced. You used to sit there with your hands folded in your lap, spine straight, chin lifted, daring them to dismiss you outright.
He had admired that. God help him, he had loved you for it.
Outside the office, voices murmur again. Low. Urgent. Afraid.
Someone knocks, tentative. “Dimitri?”
He does not answer.
The silence stretched until the knock fades away. He is alone again, finally, and the truth settles into him with final clarity.
This is what it costs.
Not power. Not blood. Not obedience.
This.
It had been so easy, once, to pretend you could exist outside his world.
He’d told himself that lie early on, when you were still new enough that the future felt abstract. When the stakes hadn’t fully revealed themselves. You had come into his life like a quiet disruption- not explosive, not dramatic, just persistent. You took up space without apology. You asked questions no one else dared to ask. You laughed at things that were not meant to be funny.
You didn’t know how to be afraid of him.
That alone had set you apart.
Dimitri remembers the first time his father saw you properly- not as a passing detail, not as a name attached to Dimitri’s schedule, but as a person who might matter. It had been at dinner, in the main house, under the chandeliers that had never once been cleaned by the hands that ate beneath them.
You’d worn the nicest thing you owned. Dimitri had known it even then- known by the careful way you’d smoothed the fabric, by the way you’d stood a little straighter than usual. You’d met his father’s gaze without flinching, polite but unyielding.
Nikolai Kravinoff had smiled thinly and asked where you were from. You told him.
He’d asked what your parents did. You told him that too.
Each answer had landed like a verdict.
Dimitri had felt the shift immediately- the way his father’s interest cooled, the way his attention slid away from you as if you were already irrelevant. Disposable. Something temporary his son would grow out of.
Later that night, Nikolai had pulled Dimitri aside and spoke quietly, efficiently, as if discussing a failed investment.
“She is not built for this life,” he’d said. “And neither are you, if you insist on dragging her into it.”
Dimitri had bristled, anger flaring sharp and instinctive. He’d argued. He always argued at first.
“She doesn’t need to be,” he’d said. “She’s not part of-”
“She already is,” Nikolai had cut in. “Whether you acknowledge it or not.”
His father had been right about that, at least.
You’d known it too.
That was the cruelest part- that you had never been naive about what loving Dimitri meant. You’d seen the guards, the weapons, the blood on his knuckles when he came home too late at night. You’d noticed the way conversations stopped when you entered a room, the way people assessed you in quick, ruthless glances.
You hadn’t asked him to choose.
You had simply asked him to be honest.
Dimitri closes his eyes now, head tipping back against the chair. The memory presses in unbidden, vivid and relentless. Your voice, steady but night, the night you’d finally said it out loud.
“I don’t fit. And you know it.”
He had told you it didn’t matter.
That had been his first mistake.
There is blood on the floor of the office.
Not much. Just a smear near the threshold, half cleaned by someone who didn’t know- or didn’t care- that Dimitri would want to see it. He stares at it until the shape blurs, until it might be anything at all.
The door opens again, more firm this time.
“Dimitri.”
This voice he recognizes immediately.
He opens his eyes.
Nikolai stands in the doorway, immaculate as ever. Not a hair out of place. Not a speck of dust on his coat. He looks at the wreckage of the building with something like mild irritation, as if the mess is the greatest offence of the night.
“Where is she?” Nikolai asks.
Dimitri’s fingers curl slowly against the armrests.
“You know where she is,” he says.
Nikolai’s gaze flicks to the empty chair. To the abandoned coat. His mouth tightens, just slightly.
“She ran,” he says. “That was always a possibility.”
Dimitri laughs then- a short, broken sound that surprises even him. He pushes to his feet, turning to face his father fully. They stand a few feet apart, mirror images in posture if nothing else.
“You think this is about running?” Dimitri asks quietly. “You think she left because she was afraid?”
Nikolai regards him coolly. “Fear is a powerful motivator.”
“So is betrayal.”
The word lands between them, heavy and irrevocable.
For the first time that night, Nikolai hesitates. Just a fraction. It’s enough.
“You approved this.” Dimitri says, voice low and dangerous. “You told me it would be safe. You told me it was the only way.”
“I told you it would make her worthy,” Nikolai corrects. “If it succeeded.”
“And if it didn’t?”
Nikolai does not answer.
Dimitri feels something inside him fracture completely.
“You knew,” he says. “You knew what could happen, and you let me bring her here anyway.”
“She was already in danger.” Nikolai replies. “Because of you.”
That, too, is true.
Truth has teeth. Dimitri bares his in response.
“She trusted me,” he says. “That was my responsibility.”
Nikolai studies him for a long moment, then sighs, as if weary. “If she survives, we can discuss next steps.”
“If,” Dimitri echoes.
He steps past his father without another word, brushing his shoulder hard enough that Sergei stumbles slightly. Guards move instinctively, then stop at Nikolai’s sharp gesture.
Dimitri does not look back.
Outside, night has fallen hard and fast.
Cold air hits Dimitri like a slap as he exits the building, clearing the smoke from his lungs but doing nothing to ease the pressure in his chest. The sky is a deep, indifferent black, stars obscured by clouds and city glow. Somewhere beyond the perimeter, engines start up- cleanup crews, transport, damage control.
Life goes on.
He walks without direction, boots carrying him along familiar paths on autopilot. His phone feels heavy in his pocket. He pulls it out, stares at the dark screen.
No messages.
He knows there won’t be.
The last time you spoke, really spoke, had been hours before everything went wrong. You’d stood in front of him in the hallway outside the operating room, arms crossed tightly over your chest. The doctors had been waiting. His father had been watching from the observation deck above.
You had looked at Dimitri like you were trying to memorize him.
“Promise me something,” you’d said.
He had nodded immediately. Too quickly.
“Tell me the truth,” you’d continued. “If this is about him. If this is about making him accept me.”
Dimitri had hesitated.
Just a second too long.
You’d seen it. You always did.
“I love you,” he’d said instead, like it was an answer.
It hadn’t been.
Now the memory claws at him, merciless.
Dimitri stops walking.
His hands shake suddenly, violently, as the adrenaline finally drains away. He leans forward, bracing himself against a low concrete wall, breath coming harsh and uneven. For a moment- just one- he lets himself feel it fully.
The fear.
The guilt.
The understanding that love, unchecked, can be just as destructive as hate.
He presses his forehead to the cold stone and closes his eyes.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he murmurs into the night, as if the darkness might listen. As if you might hear him, wherever you are.
Somewhere far away, a siren wails.
Dimitri straightens slowly, wiping his hands on his trousers as if that might cleanse them. He looks once more towards the looming shade of the building behind him- the place where he crossed a line he can never uncross.
This is where the story ends.
He knows that now
And somewhere, impossibly, painfully, he also knows:
Its silence pressed down on you like a judgment, heavy and unmoving, the kind that did not merely observe but remembered. The shelves loomed higher than you’d ever noticed before, their spines cracked and faded, filled with the remnants of voices long dead. Dust hung thick in the air, illuminated by the slanted afternoon light pouring through narrow windows — motes drifting like ash after a fire.
No one spoke.
Cael stood rigid at the edge of the table, his hands curled into fists so tight his knuckles had gone white. He stared at them as though expecting them to betray him further — to drip blood, to tremble, to reveal something monstrous carved into his skin.
“I was the one holding the blade,” he said again.
This time, there was no shock in his voice. No disbelief.
Only certainty.
Leo’s hand remained on Cael’s shoulder, a grounding weight that seemed more instinctive than conscious. He did not look at his brother. His eyes were fixed somewhere far beyond the walls of the library, dark and distant, as if he were watching something replay itself endlessly behind his eyes.
“It wasn’t you,” Leo said quietly.
Cael barked out a hollow laugh. “Don’t do that.”
Leo finally looked at him then, pain flickering openly across his face. “It wasn’t this you.”
“But it was me,” Cael snapped. His voice cracked, fury and horror twisting together until neither was distinguishable. “Same soul. Same rage. Same jealousy. I can feel it — it’s not a dream, Leo. It’s memory.”
Your chest felt tight, constricted, as though something inside you had curled in on itself and refused to breathe.
You had known this moment would come. Somewhere deep inside, you had always known. The dreams had been too vivid, too intimate, too personal to be coincidence. History did not reach out and grab people like this unless it intended to claim them.
“We can’t stop here,” you said.
Both brothers turned toward you.
Your voice surprised you with its steadiness. It felt like it was coming from somewhere older than your body — somewhere that had spoken these words before, perhaps in another language, in another century, when the stakes had been even higher.
“We can’t let the story end with murder,” you continued. “That’s the version history chose because it was convenient. Clean. Easy to record. But people don’t live clean stories.”
Cael dragged a hand down his face. “You’re saying there’s more.”
“I’m saying,” you replied, “that if this was only a curse, it wouldn’t feel like this.”
Leo’s eyes flicked to you sharply.
“Like what?” he asked.
You swallowed. “Like being pulled forward.”
The search did not become easier.
If anything, the more you committed yourselves to it, the more the past seemed to resist you. The university library transformed into a labyrinth — aisles blurring together, shelves repeating themselves like a cruel joke. You learned which desks creaked, which lamps flickered, which librarians would tolerate your presence long after closing.
Days bled into nights.
You chased references that led nowhere. You found half-translations that contradicted each other. Scholars dismissed myths as metaphor, cult practices as hysteria, divine intervention as political allegory.
Cael grew impatient.
“This is bullshit,” he muttered one night, slamming a scroll shut hard enough to earn a sharp look from across the room. “Every culture has a rebirth myth. Fire cleanses. Death renews. That doesn’t mean it’s us.”
Leo didn’t look up from the book he was reading. “You’re looking for certainty. You won’t find it.”
Cael scoffed. “Then what are we doing here?”
You answered without looking up. “Listening.”
They both went quiet.
You weren’t sure when it happened — the moment the dreams stopped being confined to sleep. Sometimes, you would be reading and suddenly smell incense, thick and cloying. Sometimes the scrape of a chair across the floor sounded too much like steel on stone. Once, you swore you heard your name spoken softly behind you — not in English, but in something older.
The dreams, when they came, were relentless.
One night, you dreamed you were walking through a palace at dusk.
The marble floors were cool beneath your bare feet, the columns towering and endless. Torches flickered along the walls, casting shadows that stretched too far, lingered too long. You wore silk that whispered with every step, the fabric heavy with gold thread.
Geta walked beside you.
He was younger here, his expression unburdened, his eyes warm and thoughtful as they lingered on you. He spoke softly, telling you about reforms he hoped to make, about a Rome that could be ruled without fear. He listened when you spoke — truly listened — as though your words mattered as much as his own.
“I would have shared power with him,” he said quietly.
You knew who he meant.
“He never believed that,” you replied.
Geta smiled sadly. “No. He never did.”
Caracalla appeared like a storm.
He did not walk — he entered, his presence bending the space around him. His laughter rang sharp and bright, filling the hall, but his eyes never left you. He pulled you close without asking, his grip firm, possessive, his touch burning.
“You should be with me,” he said. “You always should have been.”
The tension between them crackled like lightning. You felt it in your bones, the terrible inevitability of it — two forces orbiting the same center until collision was unavoidable.
Then the dream shifted.
You stood in a chamber stained with blood.
Julia Domna screamed.
Steel flashed.
And this time, you were not a ghost.
This time, you tried to intervene — stepping forward, reaching out, screaming until your throat burned. But the moment you touched Caracalla’s arm, the world fractured.
You woke gasping, heart racing, the echo of laughter — not Caracalla’s — ringing in your ears.
It sounded amused.
The turning point came on the seventh night.
You were alone.
Leo and Cael had gone back to the apartment to sleep — or at least, to try. You stayed behind, stubborn and wired, chasing a reference that refused to resolve itself. The library was nearly empty, the lights dimmed to their nighttime setting.
That was when you found the codex.
It was misfiled, wedged between funerary rites and early Christian condemnations of pagan practice. Its pages were scorched, edges blackened as though someone had tried — and failed — to burn it out of existence.
Your hands trembled as you opened it.
The text was not Roman.
It predated Rome.
You read slowly, heart pounding.
The Phoenix is not born alone.
It is fractured into flame and shadow, bound by love, rivalry, and memory.
When the fire remembers only rage, it destroys itself.
When it remembers love, it rises.
Your breath caught.
Footsteps echoed behind you.
You turned — but no one was there.
Still, the air felt… occupied.
Watching.
You closed the book slowly, dread curling in your stomach.
Somewhere beyond the shelves, beyond the walls, beyond time itself, something ancient had felt your attention shift.
And it did not like what you were learning.
You did not leave the library that night.
You should have. Every rational part of your mind screamed that you should have closed the book, packed your things, gone somewhere warm and well-lit and modern. But rationality had long since abandoned you, retreating quietly when history first reached out and touched you.
You sat there instead, fingers resting on the scorched edges of the codex, heart pounding as though it recognized something your mind had not yet fully grasped.
The text burned beneath your skin.
Not physically — though for a fleeting moment, you wondered if it might — but in the way certain truths did. The kind that rewrote something fundamental inside you simply by being known.
You read on.
The Triune Flame was never worshipped openly.
Its followers were lovers, rivals, and witnesses.
Three souls bound not by law or blood alone, but by devotion chosen again and again across lifetimes.
When one fell to hatred, the flame fractured.
When all three remembered love, the flame endured.
Your throat tightened.
Footsteps echoed again — closer this time.
“Tell me you feel that too.”
Leo’s voice broke the silence, soft but urgent. You were startled, spinning in your chair as he and Cael emerged from between the shelves. They looked exhausted — hollow-eyed, hair rumpled, tension clinging to them like a second skin.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” Cael said, though his usual bite was missing.
“I think this was meant to be found alone,” you replied quietly. “At least… at first.”
You slid the book toward them.
Leo read first. His breath hitched almost immediately, his fingers tightening on the page as though he feared it might disappear if he loosened his grip.
Cael leaned over his shoulder, jaw clenched.
“This is insane,” he muttered.
“And yet,” Leo said, voice barely audible, “it explains everything.”
The lights flickered.
Just once.
But it was enough.
The shadows between the shelves stretched unnaturally long, bending toward you like grasping fingers. Cael stiffened, instincts flaring sharp and sudden.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
“I felt it,” you whispered.
Something ancient shifted, displeased.
You closed the book.
“Let’s go,” Leo said immediately. “Now.”
The dreams that night were not fragmented.
They were whole.
You were awake — or so it felt — standing in a vast ceremonial chamber lit entirely by fire. Thousands of candles burned along the walls, their flames unnaturally still, frozen in perfect vertical lines. The air shimmered with heat and incense, heavy with myrrh and blood.
You stood at the center.
Geta knelt before you.
His hands rested open on his knees, his posture reverent, unguarded. He looked at you not as an emperor, not as a ruler, but as a man who had given his heart fully and without condition.
“I chose peace,” he said softly. “For you.”
Behind him, Caracalla paced.
His armor gleamed, bronze catching the firelight, eyes bright with barely restrained fury. His presence radiated heat — not just metaphorically, but physically. You felt it against your skin like standing too close to a blaze.
“And I chose you,” he snapped. “Above everything.”
You turned slowly, the weight of them pressing in from both sides.
“This was never meant to be a choice,” you said.
A ripple passed through the chamber.
The candles flared.
From the shadows stepped a figure cloaked in darkness, face obscured, voice smooth and cold as polished stone.
“Every choice has a consequence.”
The figure circled you, unseen eyes tracing every weakness, every fear. When it spoke again, the sound echoed too deeply — as though the chamber itself were speaking.
“Love that challenges order must be broken.”
You recognized it then.
Not a god.
Not a man.
An idea.
An embodiment of Rome’s cruelty, of conquest and hierarchy and domination. The thing that had whispered into Caracalla’s ear, that had sharpened his jealousy into madness.
“You remember me,” it purred.
Caracalla faltered.
Just for a moment.
And that moment was enough.
The chamber shattered.
You were dragged through memory after memory — stolen kisses in gardens, whispered vows beneath stars, hands entwined in the dark. Geta’s steady devotion. Caracalla’s consuming passion. Your laughter. Your tears. Your love, stretched thin between them but never broken.
Until it was.
The murder replayed in excruciating detail.
This time, you felt everything.
The cold terror as steel flashed.
The wet heat of blood.
The sound Geta made when the blade struck — shocked more than pained.
Caracalla’s scream followed — raw, animal, unhinged.
You woke sobbing.
You were not alone.
Leo sat on the floor beside the couch, his back against it, head bowed. Cael knelt in front of you, hands gripping yours so tightly it almost hurt.
“You saw it,” Cael said hoarsely.
“Yes,” you whispered.
“So did we.”
The air between you felt charged, alive. The room smelled faintly of smoke — not real smoke, you realized, but remembered.
Leo looked up then, eyes shining. “It wasn’t just a curse,” he said. “It was interference.”
Cael nodded slowly. “Something wanted us divided.”
You squeezed their hands. “And it still does.”
The realization settled heavy and inevitable.
You were not just remembering.
You were being watched.
The Phoenix had not risen quietly last time — and it would not be allowed to rise easily now.
As dawn crept through the windows, warmth slowly returning to the world, you leaned into them — into Leo’s steady presence, into Cael’s fierce protectiveness.
This time, you would not be torn apart.
This time, you would burn together.
And somewhere in the dark spaces between history and now, something ancient smiled — not with joy, but with anticipation.
The war for your love had never truly ended.
It had only been waiting.
Sleep stopped being a refuge.
It became a threshold.
Each night, you lay awake for hours before exhaustion finally claimed you, your body heavy while your mind remained sharp and restless, caught between fear and longing. When the dreams came now, they no longer yanked you violently from the present into the past. Instead, they bled in — subtle at first, almost gentle, as though something were coaxing you rather than dragging you.
You began to notice the transition.
The way the hum of traffic outside your window softened into distant chanting.
The way the glow of your phone screen dimmed into torchlight.
The way Leo’s steady breathing beside you became the rhythmic hush of silk and sandals moving across stone.
This night, the dream did not begin in the palace.
It began in a bath.
Steam curled through the air, thick with the scent of lavender and crushed rosemary. You were submerged to your shoulders in warm water, your skin slick with oil, your hair pinned up in an intricate style you had never worn — and yet your hands knew exactly how to adjust it.
Geta knelt beside the bath.
He was unarmed, unguarded, sleeves rolled up as he poured warm water over your shoulders with a gentleness that made your chest ache. His touch lingered, reverent, fingers tracing the line of your collarbone as though committing you to memory.
“You are tired,” he murmured.
“I am always tired,” you replied, smiling faintly.
He smiled back — soft, private. “Then let me carry some of it.”
Behind him, reflected in polished bronze, Caracalla watched.
He did not approach at first. He leaned against a pillar, arms crossed, expression unreadable. The firelight painted him in gold and shadow, every sharp edge softened and sharpened at once.
“You spoil her,” Caracalla said lightly.
Geta did not turn. “I cherish her.”
Something flickered across Caracalla’s face — not anger, not yet. Something more fragile.
When he finally stepped forward, the air shifted. The steam parted around him as if recognizing heat greater than its own. He crouched in front of you, eyes level with yours, gaze intense and searching.
“And does he cherish you like this?” he asked.
His thumb brushed your lower lip.
The contact sent a shiver through you, sharp and electric, utterly different from Geta’s warmth. You caught Caracalla’s wrist, holding it there, grounding him — grounding yourself.
“He loves me without trying to own me.”
Caracalla’s jaw tightened. “And you think I don’t?”
“I think,” you said softly, “that you are afraid I will leave.”
The truth landed like a blow.
Caracalla recoiled, rising abruptly, laughter barking out of him — brittle, false. “I am emperor,” he scoffed. “I do not fear abandonment.”
But the dream fractured around the edges.
The bathwater darkened.
The steam thickened into smoke.
And you knew — with devastating clarity — that this moment had happened before. That tenderness and jealousy had shared the same space, and that one had not survived the other.
You woke with your heart racing, the phantom feel of warm water still clinging to your skin.
The days that followed were worse.
Research turned combative.
Cael argued fiercely against anything that sounded like destiny, like inevitability. He rejected the idea of divine design with the same ferocity he once rejected his own capacity for cruelty.
“So what,” he snapped one afternoon, pacing between tables, “we’re just pawns in some cosmic love story? That’s supposed to make it better?”
Leo didn’t look up. “It doesn’t make it easier. It makes it possible.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” Leo agreed quietly. “It’s harder.”
You watched them from across the table, heart twisting. Their dynamic had shifted — the easy barbs sharpened into something rawer, more dangerous. Not hatred, not yet, but fear disguised as anger.
Cael slammed his palms onto the table. “I don’t want to be him again.”
“You’re not,” you said immediately.
“But I could be,” he shot back, eyes blazing. “That’s the point. If this is real — if souls remember — then so does the rage. So does the madness.”
Leo finally looked at him then, eyes dark and steady. “And so does the love.”
Silence fell.
It stretched long and thin, taut as a wire.
“You didn’t kill him because you were born a monster,” Leo continued. “You killed him because you were taught that love was something you had to conquer.”
Cael’s breath hitched.
“And that,” Leo said, voice breaking just slightly, “is not a lesson we have to repeat.”
Something shifted then — not resolved, not healed, but acknowledged.
That night, the dreams returned with violence.
You stood in a temple unlike any you had seen before.
It was not Roman.
Its columns were older, carved with symbols that hurt your eyes to look at too long — spirals, wings, flames entwined with thorns. At the center burned a massive brazier, its fire white-hot, soundless.
You were dressed in red.
Not silk. Not linen.
Something ceremonial.
Geta stood to your left. Caracalla to your right. Both wore armor stripped of insignia, as if rank and title had been deliberately removed.
A woman approached from the shadows.
She was veiled, her presence heavy with authority, with age and inevitability. When she spoke, her voice echoed like stone grinding against stone.
“The flame fractures when one love outweighs another,” she said. “Balance must be chosen.”
Caracalla scoffed. “Chosen how?”
The woman lifted her veil.
Her eyes burned like embers.
“By sacrifice.”
The word sent a chill through you.
“No,” you said immediately. “That’s not balance. That’s punishment.”
The woman tilted her head. “All order is built on sacrifice.”
You stepped forward, placing yourself between the brothers. The fire flared, reacting to the movement.
“You want us divided,” you said. “Because division is easier to control.”
The woman smiled.
“You are perceptive,” she said. “And dangerous.”
The temple shook.
Cracks raced up the walls as the fire roared higher, heat pressing in from all sides. Caracalla reached for his sword — Geta caught his arm.
“Not this time,” Geta said firmly.
You reached for both of them.
The fire surged — and instead of burning, it wrapped around you, warm and alive, like wings unfurling.
The woman screamed.
You woke screaming too.
Reality was worse.
You smelled smoke before you opened your eyes.
Not dream-smoke.
Real smoke.
Your heart slammed into your ribs as you bolted upright, panic clawing through you. The room was hazy, the air thick and acrid. Somewhere nearby, something crackled.
“Leo!” you shouted.
He was already moving, alert and sharp, dragging you from the bed as Cael burst in from the hallway, fury blazing across his face.
“It’s the kitchen,” he said. “Small fire. It’s out.”
The three of you stood there, hearts racing, smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling as if mocking you.
No faulty wiring.
No forgotten stove.
Just scorched counter space and the lingering sense that something had reached out.
Cael’s hands shook.
“It followed us,” he said.
Leo met your gaze. “It never left.”
You wrapped your arms around them both, pressing your forehead to Leo’s shoulder, your hand fisting in Cael’s shirt. For the first time, neither of them pulled away.
Whatever was coming had crossed the threshold.
The Phoenix had been noticed.
And somewhere, something ancient and patient was already planning how to tear you apart again — not with blades this time, but with fear, manipulation, and fire.
hello there! this is 1/2 posts for a secret santa event. My lovely lovely recipient is none other than my best friend, my favorite person in all of the tumblr verse, @punkrockmlchael . I have never written for Michael before, but I couldn't resist doing something special for you. Merry Christmas Roz <3 (Also stay tuned for your danny fic, i couldn't help myself)
Christmas had always made you stupid.
Not egg-nog-spiked, wearing a santa hat at noon stupid- just emotionally reckless in a way you can never quite prepare for. Christmas makes you nostalgic. It makes you sentimental. It makes you think about the past and the future and all the people who sit somewhere in between.
Which is exactly how you ended up here.
In Michael Clifford's kitchen. At eleven thirty at night. Wearing one of his hoodies. Again.
The hoodie is red, which feel on-brand for the season. It's too big on you, sleeves swallowing your hands, hem brushing your thighs. You've worn it so many times it smells like him permanently now- warm laundry detergent, faint cologne, something unmistakably Michael that makes your chest ache if you think about it too hard.
So you don't.
You're busy stirring hot chocolate on the stove, wooden spoon clinking gently against the pot, steam fogging up the window above the sink. Outside, Los Angeles pretends it knows what winter is. There are string lights on the palm trees across the street. Someone's playing a muffled version of All I Want For Christmas Is You somewhere in the distance.
Behind you, Michael is aggressively losing a fight with wrapping paper.
"Who invented this shit," He mutters, voice rising in pitch as the tape sticks to itself instead of the paper. "This isn't even paper. It's betrayal."
You snort before you can stop yourself. "You volunteered."
"I was lied to." He argues. "You said it was easy,"
"I said it was easy if you had opposable thumbs and basic patience."
He gasps dramatically. "Wow. So mean. On Christmas Eve."
You glance over your shoulder. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by crumpled paper and half-wrapped boxes. There's tape stuck to his sock. Another piece is somehow in his hair.
Your heart does that thing it always does around him- tightens, then softens, then settles somewhere uncomfortable but familiar.
"Do you want help?" You ask, turning back to the stove before he can see your face.
"No." He says immediately. "I'm a grown man. I can do this."
There's a loud ripping sound.
"I think." He adds.
You bite your lip to keep from smiling too hard.
You've known Michael for years. Long enough that the lines between friend, best friend, emotional support human, and something else entirely have blurred into something undefinable.
Long enough that spending Christmas together feels inevitable.
It started innocently. A few years back, you didn't have plans. Michael didn't either. Someone suggested Chinese takeaway and a move marathon. Someone else brought matching pajamas. Michael fell asleep halfway through Elg with his head on your shoulder, and you stayed perfectly still for an hour because you didn't want to wake him.
You told yourself it didn't mean anything.
You tell yourself that alot.
Now it's a Christmas tradition. Christmas Eve at Michael's place. Baking that goes slightly wrong. Gift exchanges that are too thoughtful to be casual but too careful to be confessions. Lingering glances. Almost.
You are very good at almosts.
The hot chocolate is done. You pour it into two mugs—his favorite one with the chipped rim and the dumb cartoon character on it, and yours that lives here more than at your own apartment. You top them both with marshmallows, then grab the whipped cream from the fridge.
“Michael,” you say, already knowing the answer. “Do you want—”
“Yes.”
You laugh, adding a generous swirl to his mug. “You didn’t even let me finish.”
“I know what I want,” he says confidently.
You hand him the mug and sit on the floor across from him, knees brushing. The contact is brief, accidental, but it sends a quiet jolt through you anyway.
You hate how aware you are of him. Always.
“So,” you say, trying for casual. “How’s wrapping going?”
He lifts the present he’s been working on. It’s… misshapen. Lumpy. The tape situation is dire.
You tilt your head. “It’s very… abstract.”
“It’s rustic,” he corrects. “Handcrafted.”
“By a raccoon?”
He grins at you, wide and familiar and devastating. “You love me.”
Your mouth opens.
Closes.
“Yeah,” you say, too quickly. “As a friend.”
Something flickers in his expression—so fast you almost miss it. His smile softens, edges blunting just a little.
“Right,” he says. “Obviously.”
You look down at your mug, suddenly very invested in the marshmallows melting into the chocolate.
Idiot, you think. Absolute idiot.
Later, you end up on the couch, legs tucked under you, a blanket draped over both of you because Michael insists he’s “fine” but is also very clearly cold. The TV plays some random Christmas movie neither of you is really watching.
Michael’s shoulder is warm against yours. His arm is stretched along the back of the couch, not quite touching you, but close enough that you’re hyper-aware of every inch of space between you.
You could lean into him.
You don’t.
“Can I ask you something?” he says suddenly.
Your stomach flips. “Sure.”
He hesitates, jaw tensing, then relaxes again like he’s made a decision. “Do you ever… like. Feel weird about Christmas?”
You blink. “Weird how?”
“Like,” he shrugs. “It makes everything louder. Feelings and stuff. Makes you think about what you have. And what you don’t.”
Oh.
You swallow. “Yeah. I get that.”
“Yeah?” he asks, glancing at you.
You nod. “Yeah.”
There’s a pause. The movie continues on without you.
Michael shifts slightly, fingers fidgeting with the edge of the blanket. “Sometimes I worry I’m going to mess everything up. You know?”
Your heart stutters. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says softly. “Just… if I say the wrong thing. Or want the wrong thing.”
You turn to look at him fully now. His gaze is fixed on the TV, but his attention is clearly elsewhere. There’s something vulnerable in the way he’s sitting, shoulders a little hunched, like he’s bracing himself.
“You’re not really the type to mess things up,” you say.
He laughs quietly. “You say that, but you haven’t seen my life inside my head.”
You want to tell him so many things.
You want to tell him that he’s safe. That he’s wanted. That whatever he’s afraid of saying, you’ve probably already thought it too.
Instead, you say, “I think wanting things is human.”
He finally looks at you then. Really looks.
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
Something hangs between you. Unspoken. Electric.
Michael opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else—but then his phone buzzes on the coffee table, shattering the moment. He groans, dropping his head back against the couch.
“Saved by the bell,” he mutters.
You’re not sure whether you’re relieved or disappointed.
Probably both.
You exchange gifts at midnight, because that’s what you always do.
Michael insists you go first. You hand him a small box, neatly wrapped, a bow tied just right. He takes it carefully, like it might break if he’s not gentle.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” he says.
“You say that every year,” you reply. “And every year you get me something anyway.”
He smiles and opens the box.
Inside is a silver necklace. Simple. Subtle. The pendant is small, etched with a tiny star.
His breath catches.
“Oh,” he says softly.
You fidget. “I know it’s not, like—if you don’t like it, that’s totally fine, I can—”
“No,” he interrupts quickly. “No, I love it. It’s… I love it.”
He takes it out, fingers brushing over the metal like he’s committing it to memory. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
There’s a beat.
“Do you want me to put it on?” you ask, heart in your throat.
He nods.
You move closer, hands trembling slightly as you clasp the necklace around his neck. Your fingers brush the back of his skin, warm and familiar and too much. You linger a second longer than necessary.
When you pull back, he’s looking at you like you’ve hung the moon.
He clears his throat. “Okay. My turn.”
His gift to you is… a hoodie.
You laugh when you open it. “Michael.”
“Hey,” he says defensively. “It’s a good hoodie.”
“It is,” you admit. It’s green this time, soft and oversized, undeniably his. “But you know I steal yours anyway.”
“Yeah,” he says, quieter. “That’s kind of the point.”
You look up at him, confused.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I just thought… this way, you don’t have to give it back.”
Your chest aches.
“Oh,” you say.
“Yeah.”
You sit there, holding the hoodie, suddenly aware of how many things in your life already feel like him. How natural it feels to be here. How terrifying it is to name it.
“You okay?” he asks gently.
You nod. “Yeah. I just—thank you.”
“Anytime.”
You both smile, but it feels fragile. Like you’re standing on the edge of something, unsure whether to step forward or back away.
You end up falling asleep on the couch.
It’s not planned. One minute you’re watching the movie, the next your eyes are heavy and the world is soft and warm. Michael notices before you do, shifting carefully so you can rest your head against his shoulder.
He doesn’t move after that.
When you wake up, it’s early morning. The sky outside is pale and quiet. The room smells like hot chocolate and pine.
And Michael’s arm is wrapped around you.
Not accidentally. Not loosely.
Intentionally.
Your breath catches.
He’s still asleep, face relaxed, hair falling into his eyes. He looks younger like this. Softer. Safe.
You stay still, afraid that if you move, this will disappear.
But Michael stirs anyway, blinking awake, eyes unfocused for a moment before they land on you.
“Oh,” he says softly.
“Hey,” you whisper.
There’s a long pause.
He doesn’t move his arm.
You don’t pull away.
“Merry Christmas,” he says.
“Merry Christmas.”
Your hearts are beating too loud. Too close.
Michael swallows. “Can I tell you something?”
Your voice shakes. “Yeah.”
“I think,” he says slowly, carefully, “I might be really bad at pretending I don’t feel things.”
Your chest tightens. “Michael—”
“I mean,” he rushes on, “I’ve been pretending for a long time. And I’m tired. And if I don’t say this now, I think I’m going to explode.”
You laugh weakly. “Okay.”
He takes a breath. “I’m in love with you.”
The world goes very, very quiet.
“Oh,” you say, because you’re eloquent like that.
He winces. “You don’t have to—”
“I love you too,” you blurt out.
He freezes.
“…What?”
“I love you,” you repeat, laughing and crying all at once. “I’ve loved you for years. We’re idiots.”
A smile breaks across his face—slow, disbelieving, radiant.
“We’re such idiots,” he agrees.
He leans in, giving you time to pull away.
You don’t.
The kiss is soft. Careful. Like a promise.
When you pull back, his forehead rests against yours.
“So,” he murmurs. “Boyfriend?”
You grin. “Yeah. Boyfriend.”
He laughs, pulling you closer. “Best Christmas ever.”
You curl into him, warm and certain and finally, finally home.
And for the first time, Christmas doesn’t make you stupid.
Hello roleplay community, I would like to put out a feeler for a historical plot i’ve been craving.
I am an 18+ literate/novella writer looking for a historical plot set during the American Revolution. I am happy to set the timeline before, during, or after the war.
Preferably, I would like us to play two couples. I would like to play a female OC on the rebel side, and a male OC for the loyalists.
I am a history major, and this is my area of expertise, so I would like to keep it as accurate as possible while focusing on themes of romance, war, and hardship. If you would be interested in plotting, feel free to add me on Discord @knightofaslan
Hi Jace! I’d love to request a matchup, if you’re still doing them! :3
I’m a smol enby with glasses, short hair, and freckles. I went to college for art, despite knowing I didn’t want to make it my career, because I knew it would only burn me out.
I enjoy various arts/crafts (sketching, digital art, resin art, bracelet making), writing, reading (though much less than when I was younger), playing video games and watching horror movies. I get distracted easily and jump around between different projects and hobbies, usually without finishing most of them. I studied dance/ballet all throughout my youth and into college, and I miss it very much.
I’m known as the therapist friend amongst my coworkers, I collect antique cameras and crystals, cats and alligators are my favourite animals, coral and teal are my favourite colours, I prefer rainy days to sunny ones, autumn is my favourite season and Halloween my favourite holiday, and most days I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. But in the meantime I’m striving to enjoy the little things and making each day special even in small ways. 💚
Hi!! Thanks for your patience I've been lowwwkeeeyyy putting these off but I'm here now!!
anndddd *drum roll please*
I see you with
Jason!! I mean come on, arts and crafts cabin date after curfew? He's (badly) making you so many bracelets until you have to start using them as keychains because you can't actually wear anymore.
He doesn't love horror movies, but he's going to put on a brave face to spend time with you.
He doesn't know much about crystals, but if you give him one he'll carry it around in his shorts pockets, he likes to think it will give him good luck, all thanks of your fancy powers of course.
