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I’ve been wishing about you
Darling, I’ve been wishing my hardest
Some dreams never do come true
Some love doesn’t hit the target
But my dreams are reality now, and you’re the one I’ve been dreaming about
You’ve got me seeing stars brighter than ever
Shining just like diamonds do
I know that in time it could be all ours, brighter than ever
Your love is such a dream come true
I know, I know, I know
I need you
seeing stars
2024
Xavier is a frustrating enigma.
He’s impossible to gauge, aloof and standoffish in most interactions. Other times, he would smile, and his sapphire eyes would sparkle with light and life, looking at her like she was the most marvelous, wondrous thing. He would hold her hand or touch the small of her back, but it was always fleeting, as though he was afraid. She isn’t sure of what.
He tries to suppress how happy he is to see her whenever they bump into each other. After so many years of searching, waiting, and hoping, he’d finally found her. He wants so badly to hold her, to feel her solid and warm at his side. To cherish her in all the ways he could imagine.
He never does.
“So how is being partners with Xavier?"
He ducks into a nearby cubicle at the sound of Tara’s teasing voice, freezing when he hears her reply.
“He’s reliable,” she answers thoughtfully. “And he’s strong. I feel safe around him.”
“He’s so handsome,” Tara sighs, and both girls giggle.
“I just wish I knew him better. He’s so … distant. Like a star in the night sky. So close, yet so far away.”
“He looks at you a lot,” Tara says, and Xavier closes his eyes and cringes. “Like a lot.”
He’s debating using his Evol to teleport away, but the girls round a corner, and the reply is too distant.
He doesn’t see her before she leaves for the N109 zone, but he does call, against his better judgment.
“The other day at Philo, you said we weren’t exactly close,” he says softly. “But we could be. If you wanted.”
“Okay. Good,” she pauses. “I’m glad, but Xavier, are you feeling all right?”
“Yes. Of course. Gotta go.”
She stares at her mobile as he disconnects the call and sighs.
He walks her home, waiting patiently until her tasks are done for the day, helping her file her reports. He’s kind and steadfast both in combat and out. He tells horrible, scary stories and plays pranks, and is an awful cook. He likes to make her laugh, even if it means letting her squish his cheeks a few too many times. And she does laugh, infectious and melodious. A siren song he will never escape.
“Do you think I’m never going to retaliate?” He asks her once, but she only giggles lightly. He pins her beneath him with a little smirk, predatory and cunning, and her heart trips over itself.
He always withdraws before any real damage can be done.
She frequently catches him staring, and it’s always with the same look of wonder. Like he can’t quite believe she’s there. He always looks away first, his expression almost guilty.
He’s gentle and comforting as they combat their combined loneliness at the Lantern Gala, empathetic while she vents her grief.
But he’s also frustratingly evasive whenever she inquires about his home or family. She asks how long he’d been friends with Jeremiah.
“A very long time,” he says, scratching his nose, and she comes remarkably close to throwing her study book at his head.
Deflection doesn’t always work, he finds. She’s just so maddeningly persistent that his nonanswers are sometimes disturbingly close to real answers.
She admits to missing him after his unexpected, 10-day disappearance, her cheeks flushing and her ears tinged scarlet.
“And I missed you too,” he confesses earnestly. A risky response, but he says it anyway. Her confession makes him impulsive and reckless. “Unbearably so.”
Another barrier down, another line crossed. Another rule broken.
Really, he should have known how this would go from the start. He’d always been defenseless against her.
She’d gone and worked her way into his heart and into his life in a dangerous way and he’d let her because he’d forever be a fool over her.
But there is still a line he will not cross, no matter how many rules he breaks. He tries to keep one solid wall between them, even if she is soft and warm and kind, and he’d missed her so much.
How tempting it was.
But the mistake of his presence, Jeremiah’s haunting reminder (mistakes are bound to be corrected sooner or later), tugs at the back of his mind incessantly. He tells himself it’s enough to have even this much of her in his life. He shouldn’t ask for more. It would be cruel to take her love and then leave her.
And yet.
And yet.
It’s so exhausting.
He’s well acquainted with possessiveness when it involves her. That familiar streak of bitter, envious fury strikes him like a lash when he catches someone looking at her a little too fondly.
“So, I’m also capable of treating insomnia.” He says stiffly, eyeing the Snoozer plushie in her hand a little disdainfully after she mentions cuddling with it to help her sleep.
And he hadn’t exactly been subtle in Jeremiah’s flower shop, shooing his friend away with the spritzer. He also can’t seem to help himself watching her and that coworker talk outside for so long under the street light.
It’s ridiculous, he knows. She’s the sun itself, a brilliant, blazing star he could never hope to keep for himself. She’s kind and funny and brave. He couldn’t really blame anyone for falling in love with her, to be caught up in the radiance of her light.
She’s always mildly amused at his actions, even as she tells herself he’s just joking and not that he means anything else by it.
Xavier accompanies her to a doctor’s appointment one day because she told him once the appointments made her nervous. And watching the way that doctor, that Zayne, watched her is what ruins the very last of his resolve.
Xavier is polite but cold in a way she’s never seen before as they leave the hospital. She’s seen displays of his jealousy before, but something about the rigid set of his jaw as they walk home together in silence stuns her. She only presses the button for his floor as they enter the elevator together. She knows he notices, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he leans quietly against the railing. She waits for the doors to close before she rounds on him. He’s watching her, an eyebrow raised patiently.
“Are you angry with me?” she demands, and the surprise that splashes across his face is almost comical.
“Who says I’m angry?"
Oh.
The elevator doors swing open, and he exits quickly without looking at her. But he holds the door open, waiting for her to trail behind him. She does, and neither speaks as he searches his pockets for his apartment key.
She enters the kitchen ahead of him to grab a bottle of water she’d left behind a few days ago. Xavier follows her without meaning to.
“That doctor. You said you knew him as a child?”
His voice is nonchalant as he flicks on the overhead light, but she catches the undercurrent of tension he cannot entirely suppress.
“I knew it! You are jealous!” she exclaims, slamming the refrigerator door as she spins around to face him. She pokes him teasingly in the chest with the bottle.
His thoughts are swirling, and he can’t entirely focus as he balls his hands into his fists. Of course, he’s jealous. Jealous and wretched and selfish. He doesn’t notice the sting of his nails as they cut crescents into his palms. The humor fades from her expression as she watches him wrestle with himself until finally, he sighs, both resigned and relieved.
“Yeah. I am,” Xavier breathes as he reaches for her, tenderly cupping her face and pulling her into him. She goes readily, even as the plastic bottle falls from her hand, forgotten. His kiss is fierce and devastatingly thorough. All his hopes, his regret, his longing, and absolute, unwavering adoration. She collapses against him, reaching to touch his face with one hand while the other steadies herself by grasping his waist. A little moan escapes her, soft as a whisper. But it’s enough and the sound causes him to come crashing back to himself. He breaks the kiss, holding her by the shoulders, his eyes wild with alarm.
Oh, he had been much too forward. Presumed too much.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He swallows hard, avoiding her gaze, and begins to back away.
Frustration simmers low in her belly, watching him retreat. And she’s so tired of being kept at arm’s length, tired of this dance, tired of being too afraid to admit what she wants.
She should have said so many things to her grandmother, to Caleb.
And now they were gone, and it was too late, but Xavier is still here, so she set the words free from their cage.
“But I want you to.”
Xavier freezes when she speaks; his blue eyes widen with disbelief and a hint of desperation.
“You are a riddle.” Her tone is flat, scolding but not angry. “Sometimes I feel like there’s something between us, and you want more, while other times …”
She folds her arms across her chest, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice. A pained expression dances across Xavier’s face, and his lips turn downward.
“I didn’t… I just never dared to hope,” he finally whispers, looking down at his hands. “But I have always wanted to be by your side. As a partner, a neighbor, a friend. More than that, if that’s what you truly want.”
He raises his head, and she’s startled by the raw devotion in his depthless blue eyes. She thinks about all the weekends they’d spent together, quietly reading or playing games. Running errands and peacefully enjoying each other’s existence. By her side, steady and calm.
It’s effortless, loving him, she thinks. Even as frustrating as he could be, it was like something engrained into her core. Like it was always meant to be.
“Xavier,” She leans forward now, taking his hand in hers. “How could it be anyone but you?”
Her words flip a switch within Xavier, whose luminous eyes and timid smile ripple, shifting down into something heavier, something surprisingly dark and absolutely teeming with want. He cups her cheek in his palm with a gentle hand, slowly pushing his fingers back until the tips thread into her hair, catching her lips again.
It’s the sweetest way anyone ever kissed her, gentle and unhurried. Tender and, soft and honest. His every neuron is alive, eager with desire. He presses into her, urging her lips apart and mapping her body with his hands; the previously forbidden borderland of soft slopes and peaks she promised him waiting. It’s almost painful, this visceral need for her, and it sends his head whirling again; it makes him want to ravish her, to destroy her, but it also makes him want to drop to his knees and worship her thoroughly, presenting a polished, glowing relic of her ethereal form. She is heaven and perfection, and the all-pervading death of him all wrapped into one exquisite package.
He lifts her quickly, and she wraps her legs around him, still locked together. Neither breaks apart as he kicks open his bedroom door, unwilling to separate even for a moment.
He finally does when he decides they both need considerably less clothing. He places her gently on the mattress, and she lays back, propping herself onto her elbows and watching as he tugs his hoodie over his head
She’s here, absolutely lust-addled and in his bed, everything careening toward an obvious outcome. Xavier hesitates.
“I’m not … really sure what I’m doing,” he says quietly.
“Undressing, by the looks of things.” Her voice is lightly teasing, but her smile is reassuring.
“Should I continue?” he tilts his head. He locks into her stare; his brilliant gaze is vivid. Exposed. Entirely vulnerable. Concepts she didn’t generally associate with Xavier, and yet here he was, radiating them like a spotlight.
“Yes,” she says firmly.
She likes the way his eyes widen before he pulls off his jeans, tossing them somewhere behind him.
“Understood, my lady.”
He’s left only in his boxers; the sweetly vulnerable expression he’d been wearing starts to change again, his breezy smile taking on an almost wicked little grin. Gone is the gentleman as he stalks closer before he leans over her, caging her body with his arms. There’s a practically predatory edge to him as he hovers over her.
He kisses her as though he aches for her, moving his lips with the brimming, burning urgency of a man whose usual composure bangs a heavy fist against death’s door. It’s hungry, messy, and a bit frenzied; the sheer desperation sends tantalizing waves of heat surging through her, feeling gentle, restrained Xavier break down and relinquish control for her.
She feels powerful.
“Shall I touch you, my dear?” he murmurs. His voice is like silk, smooth and inky dark and devastatingly sensuous.
“Yes,” she whispers, whimpering as his calloused fingers lightly caress her body.
“But where?” he asks, eyes wide in feigned confusion as he trails his hand almost absently over her breast. She lets out a half-broken sob, trying to arch her back into his touch.
“Oh, I just don’t know,” he tuts, shaking his head. She’s never been more annoyed and aroused by the devious twist of his lips.
Then his eyes were on hers again, timeless and deep and extraordinary. Blackened by desire, softened by benevolence.
“Please,” she manages. Xavier relents because, stars above, he needs to feel her on his fingers. She lifts her hips, allowing him to slide her pants and underwear down smoothly. He decides her shirt also needs to go, almost ripping the fabric in his impatience.
He kisses her again, simply because he can, one hand sliding down her body, right between her thighs.
He adores the way she catches her breath as his thumb brushes her clit. His fingers slip through her folds without resistance, and he takes immense satisfaction at how wet she is already. He slides a finger inside; a high-pitched keen escapes her that has him biting down into the flesh of her shoulder. There’s a fire that ignites in his blood, pervasive and all-consuming. He adds another finger, moving them slowly in and out while he leaves a trail of bruising nips along her neck and collar. He carefully registers her every response, reveling in the sweet noises that escape her until she’s finally overwhelmed and dragged down the primrose path. Neither notice her hand on his chest nor that it begins to glow.
There’s a shattering of gold above them.
Xavier blinks sleepily as he watches the light float around them.
“Has that happened before?” she asks, watching as he lifts his hand. The light shimmers around his outstretched fingers.
“No,” he says softly, smiling fondly. He runs a finger under her chin, tilting her face and kissing the underside of her jaw. He feels her shudder, hears her murmur his name.
“I love you,” she whispers dreamily.
Xavier closes his eyes.
Oh, how he had longed for this, selfishly wanting this moment. How many minutes, hours, hundreds of years had he waited?
Too many.
Her words are salve to a wound festering underneath years of regret and grief and longing. There’s an almost primal part of him that ignites within him, needing to hold her, kiss her, claim her as his and his alone. Something in the deep dark of his soul wants to mark her, now and forever. No matter where, no matter the life.
He thinks of those endless, lonely days aboard Traceback II. All those nights he spent mourning his time with her, wishing he would have told her the truth, at least once. It was so long overdue.
Why had he insisted on always being so distant?
“I –” He pauses before lacing his fingers through hers. She uses her free hand to cradle his cheek, and he leans into her touch.
Loving her is as natural to him as breathing and nothing is holding him back from admitting it anymore.
“My guiding starlight, I love you too,” he professes with raw, bleeding reverence, letting his guard down and pulling her in. His heart throbs at the admission. He’s unsure what he expected, finally releasing the words into the open from where he’s been turning them round and round, wearing them thin with worry and ache. For the world to end? For the stars to dim? For one of them to blink out of existence, which neither does. Instead, she’s giving him the sweetest smile, shining and beautiful and perfect.
She laughs happily, the sound easing so many of his burdens, and he laughs too, touching his lips to the dip of her neck. She hums with pleasure before tugging his face back to hers.
“I want to kiss you,” she murmurs, and he grins against her lips.
“I am a gentleman, and you are my lady,” he says in a dark and dizzying murmur, the cantor of it striking like lighting to her very core.
“I will serve your every whim,” he continues before sealing the promise with a smoldering kiss. He swallows the sweet moan she lets out; the sound goes straight to his core, making his cock throb.
“Take these off,” she commands, hooking her fingers into the waistband of his underwear and tugging. “I want you.”
“You’ve always had me,” he assures her, sliding the boxers off his hips and pressing a kiss to the top of her knee. There’s a fluttering feeling in her heart and stomach as she processes his words.
He lines himself up, the tip of him at her entrance, and she’s so ready for him to slide into her. But then he stops, and her impatient whine dies when she sees the pensive expression on his face.
“Are you sure?” He asks softly. Her heart swells at his consideration, and she wonders why the heavens thought to bless her so. Her very own star. He’s perfect, and he’s hers, here and now and always. His free hand is idly running along her thigh as he waits patiently for her.
The words catch around the lump in her throat, and she can only nod.
She unfolds like a flower as he pushes into her, tight and wet and hot. He hilts himself inside, his breathing unsteady as he bottoms out. Oh, isn’t she just a perfect fit. She feels like silk, like sunshine.
If he died a thousand deaths and saw a thousand heavens, it would never be enough because he had been buried inside this goddess and burned at her altar.
He takes several long moments to regain control of his breathing, allowing her to adjust to him.
“You’re a gift from the universe.,” he murmurs, shakily. “You must be.”
The gift is him, she thinks. This handsome, gentle soul who cherished her so completely without expecting anything in return. He’d give the very whole of himself for her if he could.
“And you’re mine,” he purrs in a voice so low and gravelly and ruined that he almost doesn’t recognize it as his own.
There are many sides to Xavier, but this one is delightfully unexpected. Xavier, always so calm and collected, his eyes now wide and wild, clouded with lust; so dark and, so dangerously, intensely blue. He whimpers faintly as he begins to thrust, and the stretch of him is divine. She can feel his pulse rippling through the length of him, and the way he looks at her while he moves inside of her makes her feel like she is the most quintessential thing in the universe.
“I am,” she hums in agreement, tugging him down to her. His lips are firm and demanding, and he’s not quite as gentle anymore as he roughly grips the plush of her thigh, guiding her leg up onto his shoulder; the fat head of his cock brushes the spongy front of her with quick, heavy strokes.
His expression is tender, but his thoughts are viciously and triumphantly greedy. Because no one else will ever know her like this. No one will have this privilege, will get to see her like this, feel her like this. Needy and desperate, and his.
She’s almost there, can feel the pressure building, the precursor to an intense orgasm so white-hot it burns. She moves to slip her hand between them, but Xavier catches her wrist.
“Please. Let me,” he groans out.
She makes a sound close to a whine and allows her hand to fall to her side.
“Good girl,” he breathes, sliding his thumb over her still-singing little pearl. The bed is shaking under the force of his thrusts, but she’s well past the point of caring. All that matters is his skin on hers, the harsh sounds he pants in her ear, and the way his fingers feel on her as they tease her with disconcerting precision.
His breath scorches the shell of her ear as his heady voice coaxes her higher, praise and encouragement falling from his lips in low, loving tones.
She cries his name as her climax finally rips through her, careening over the edge. Xavier follows a moment later, the most delectably primal groan pouring out of him, and his face contorts magnificently. She wraps her arms around his broad shoulders, hugging him to her. He chuckles, kissing just below her earlobe.
“You don’t have to worry. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I … just like hugging you,” she says, almost shyly. “You are really heavy, though.”
Xavier rolls onto his side, tugging her along with him. She snuggles into the pillow, and the way she’s looking at him like he’s her favorite thing in the entire universe makes him feel extraordinarily smug.
She’d never look at that doctor like this.
This might be the best part of the whole night, she thinks. Everything seems peaceful and serene as they grin at each other while they catch their breaths. The bright azure of his eyes catches the glow of the moonlight, glittering in the depthless blue and his silvery hair hopelessly mused beyond repair. She loves him so much it hurts.
She loves this moment when everything feels good and right with the world. This shining, perfect moment. She’s confused when Xavier suddenly blinks, and he springs away from her, darting into the bathroom. There’s the sound of a faucet, and then he returns with a damp washcloth. The furrow of his brow eases, but his pillowy lips are tilted downward, and his tone is apologetic.
“I’ve neglected you,” he whispers. He brings the cool cloth down between her legs, cleaning her carefully. He’s gentle. Reverent and kind and utterly devoted.
Her breath catches in her throat, and she can’t speak for a very long time. She smiles at him, though, and he breathes shakily at the sight of it as he drops the washcloth somewhere behind him. He’s back on her in a second, catching her mouth with his.
Once was not enough. He needs -wants- more.
“Can I-“
But she doesn’t let him ask because he doesn’t need to, cutting him off as she continues their kiss. She reaches between them to grasp his quickly hardening cock. The sound she draws from him, desperate and pleading, is intoxicating, eliciting a heady rush that simmers in her core. She’s graceful as she twists him into his back, straddling him.
He is a work of art beneath her, ageless and precious and so achingly, resplendently beautiful. He would never be alone or lonely again. She would keep him safe, always. She would love him. She would forever share this with him, her body, life, and anything else he wanted.
Xavier steadies her as she sinks down, wrapping him again in her warm, wet heat.
It’s an exquisite ache as she accommodates him, one she welcomes eagerly.
His presence is heavy in her body, but it’s lovely, and he feels so good— so right—tucked inside of her like this, all slow plunges and sliding skin. They fit so well together.
“I love you,” he rasps. His grip on her waist is bruising. “I love you, I’ve always loved you-fuck.”
The wet slap of their skin echoes obscenely through the room; he buries his thick cock to the hilt over and over as his name repeatedly breaks through her stuttering cries, and she looks marvelous, wild, and wanting.
She’s perfectly content to let him use her for his own pleasure; she’s not even sure if she can come again. A quiet sob escapes her when his fingers brush her overstimulated clit.
“One more for me,” Xavier pleads. “I know you can.”
She tries to protest, but she can feel that spark, that coil tightening as he continues delicately stroking her. So she relents, overwhelmed with sensation, until she finally snaps, a cry so loud and long erupting from the depths of her soul that she’s sure the neighbors will leave a rude note on his door after this. He finishes at the same time, painting the inside of her body with white, sticky ropes.
They’re both sweating and panting uncontrollably. He can’t remember the last time his heart beat so hard.
“Oh dear,” Xavier says after a long while, lifting her gently, watching himself slip out of her. “We’ve made another mess.”
His tone is flippant and he smirks up at her. She’s mesmerizing, with her skin flushed and her kiss-swollen lips. Marks blossom along her throat, and he frowns at them, reaching up to cup her cheek.
“Did I hurt you?”
She turns her face into his touch, kissing his palm.
“No,” she says softly, and he nods solemnly. She pokes the corner of his mouth, and he grins at her.
“You are perfect,” he tells her. She leans down, peppering his face with light kisses.
She excuses herself, ducking quickly into the adjoined bathroom. She’s exhausted, utterly spent; she fully expects Xavier to be deep asleep when she returns, but his arms are folded under his head, and the most dazzling, enraptured grin spreads across his face, melting her heart into warm liquid.
He was hers, and she was his. All of him, any him. Any her. No matter when or where, he would always find her, would love her in every life.
She’s quick to cuddle beside him, wiggling to rest her head on his chest. He wraps his arms around her tightly, touching his lips to the top of her head when she settles, and they both yawn.
She doesn’t know the last time she was this happy.
“I will never let go of you,” he promises as they drift off together.
“Not now, not ever.”