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The plan is simple. Andrew knows it by heart: rise before the others (not that complex when sleep isn’t common behavior), check the exits in his head, count the seconds between the entrance and the vault. No deviation is permitted. Check in, check out.
And yet, none of it is what causes him to drip with sweat and quiver at six in the morning, no, both are due to a persistent heat beneath his collarbone where the words he knows better than his own name lie:
oh my god it’s you.
They have been there as long as he can recall, inked into him before he had vocabulary to understand them, to gather what they meant. He presses two fingers against it, like his denial could erase them from his existence. Rubbing them off, burning the skin, cutting it…he has been contemplating doing it for ages. But there is always that split inside him, this fracture.
On one hand, there is this ancient, willful and unburnable idea that somewhere out there exists a person who will look at him and not perceive what everybody else sees: not a weapon, nor a problem…not even the cursed name of Pope. Just recognition, maybe even affection. But on the other hand, much louder and shaped by Smurf’s thoughts, Andrew knows better. Cause whoever she is…she got him. And that’s not a reward, it’s a sentence.
That’s why he never looked for her, never entertained the idea of following the instinctive pull that others chase without thinking. Searching would mean wanting, and desiring anything in this family perpetually comes with a cost that someone else collects.
And Smurf always collects.
He learned that early as a kid through what she permitted and what she cut off before it could grow.
Deran didn’t get freedom, there is none in this family, but enough space to construct the illusion of it: a business, a life that could pass for conventional, a soulmate to have for the rest of his time on Earth.
Deran was born with his words on his hipbone, want to play with me. Simple and harmless, they were almost laughable in how ordinary they sounded. And when his five-year-old brother came back from his first day in kindergarten, quieter than usual, Andrew knew. Adrian was his name. Smurf noticed but didn’t crush it instantly, she let it breathe, just to see what it would become, to observe its usefulness and threat in equal measure…it lasted for a while before she tightened her grip once again to suffocate any rebellious seeds in the fertile soil of Deran’s mind.
And Craig…Craig never cared. On his ribs, visible whenever he feels like it, Craig wears his mark with no sort of shame or hesitation. He lets people see and laugh. sorry I was checking your ass. “Means she’s got good taste,” he’d joked, grinning, the entire concept amusing him, and that had been it. No wondering, no small moments consumed in tracing the letters. Maybe it truly does mean nothing to him, or perhaps he just refuses to let anything hold weight long enough to matter. Drugs blur his thoughts, so do jokes. And Andrew never questioned which one it was, maybe that’s what saved Craig: you can’t weaponize what someone refuses to take seriously.
Andrew discovered a different lesson from his brothers, learned that Smurf doesn’t regard their marks the same: ruling which ones can be tolerated and which ones must be ignored until they vanish into the void. Which means she will never permit him to hear those words.
oh my god it’s you.
There is conviction in them, an inevitability that sits under each syllable and that’s what unsettles him more than anything else.
It hints that whoever speaks will not question or doubt who stands in front of her. And if she says it with hope, then…does it mean she is waiting for him? That somewhere out there exists a woman who has lived with his words onto her skin since birth, outlining them and wondering what kind of man would be facing her when they were ultimately spoken? Has she envisioned him? Hoped that whoever he is, he will be worth the wait?
Andrew’s jaw tightens as he forces the thought back and attempts to fold it into nothing before it can take shape, the heat under his collarbone pulsing as a counteract reaction.
Because if she is waiting, building a person in her mind around those words, then fate has dealt her cruel cards.
But for a moment longer, the idea of her doesn’t end, slipping past the barriers he has spent years shaping. If she were to look at him with no fear and uttering those words like he is not a bad deed but a destination, then he knows with clarity that he would drop everything: weapon, defense, every piece of himself that has been turned into usefulness and cruelty…he would let it all fall to the ground without looking back.
Being seen like that, chosen, would demand a different version of him, one that doesn’t exist yet but that he would mold for the right hands.
The gravity of the thought makes him nip it in the bud.
Men like him are not remade simply because a person is willing to see beyond it.
“You don’t get to have that,” he chastises himself under his breath, voice low and trying to strip it of all emotions as he slaps the marks with his palm, sending a sharp sting across his skin to silence whatever softness had tried to take root. And that’s what’s good with pain: it’s simple, immediate. “No one wants you.” The words are quieter, practically absorbed by the air but reinforced by his thumbnail digging into the skin beneath the mark until a deep crescent forms. The sting lingers, dulling into a manageable pain before he releases the pressure.
Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, his feet meet the floor with determination as all other thoughts are buried back where they belong for the routine to take over.
He dresses without thought, fabric covering his words so no one peers at them, so that they remain his only, the secret he never intends to act on because kismet rarely favors people like him for pleasant endings, and by the time he steps into the kitchen, there is not a single thing left but the plan.
Entrance, teller, vault. Three cameras, no security.
The plan hasn’t altered, the variables are the same, so…why does it feel off?
The question remains during his coffee, bitterness granting him to focus on his surroundings: Craig is already moving, too rowdy and eager for the hour – probably due to a line of coke, which he was not supposed to take before the bank - rifling through the drawers to find a bar blade for his beer.
“Man, I’m sure that if we do this clean, we’re under five,” Craig smiles, opening the bottle.
“Not if you play reckless,” Deran corrects, gaze flicking outside to the still pool.
Craig takes a big swing before replying, “Fine, you’ve got a deal.”
J, hands holding onto the marbled kitchen island, taps his fingers once against it, thinking. “Depends how fast the teller moves and if Pope was right about her.”
Andrew takes a few seconds before responding, trying to maintain his voice calm and flat as his eyes drops, unbidden, to where the fabric of his shirt rests against his collarbone. “I told you,” he ends up declaring with certainty, “she won’t say anything. She’ll follow the instructions.”
He knows, but not in the manner they think of: not from the usual reading pre-job he has been trained to rely on, not from an assessment made by Pope, the guard dog of the family, no, he had observed you through the eyes of Andrew, the man he keeps concealed deep and who had no business noticing you beyond the scope of a job and yet did, again and again, until it became something he still refuses to label.
He had sat in the car across the street, engine off, tracking movement through the glass without dragging his eyes long enough to be noticed: the faces, the timing, who moved fast, who hesitated…that’s when he saw you.
Behind the counter, you had been nothing but patient with a couple of elderly customers who took too long for the rest of the queue and still, your posture never shifted into irritation, your voice – though unheard – was undoubtedly soft, paired by the gentleness of your hand motions.
At first, you had been just a part of the plan: closest to the vault, predictable in your time…or that’s what he told himself.
Except he came back the next day. And the one after.
He started noticing details that didn’t fit to the job: the way you stepped in the bank at the same time each morning but not without a coffee and a blueberry muffin from a small place two blocks down, the barista already preparing your drink before you spoke. The way you held it close when you strode, cautious not to spill and handing a ten plus the muffin to the man who slept along the path to work.
There was also the grocery store, once a week, same day, same hour, a small basket instead of a cart, contents minimal but consistent: ramen (which made him wonder and still does to this day, if you’re paid enough to live on that or if it’s for some rapid practical reasons) and cat food, an invariable brand, twenty cans for the whole week.
A cat. The detail had lodged within him longer than it should have but still, he had found himself pondering, beside all logic, what kind and whether it waited by the door when you came back, if it slept on your bed or kept its distance. If you talked to it. What was its name.
And twice a week, you went to the theatre: always at the 7pm screening and, Andrew’s favorite part, always alone. Never a second silhouette joining yours in line or a glance over your shoulder as if expecting someone late, no, alone. Which meant that whoever was supposed to say the words that adorned your skin, hadn’t yet met you.
Elated. That had been the best term to define Andrew that day, one that he had never used before. He even rewarded himself by going in the theatre once, just once. Ticket in hand, he had sat one row behind you. Far enough not to be noticed, close enough that he could perceive the smell of your sweet perfume through his nostrils. The screen had lit your profile, a kaleidoscope of colors painting your features. Your attention fixed forward, you had been too absorbed in the film – an old one with songs, full of yellow raincoats and umbrellas – while he had been caught in the fragile, suspended moment of witnessing you.
You and your small box of sour skittles, that he remembers with an irritating accuracy even now. The way you tilted it until two slid into your palm, a gesture you probably had done a thousand times prior to that instant. Oh, and your laugh. The sound had been lost in the room and to his ears, but it had been visible in your shoulders and in your hand, who quickly came up to your mouth.
Andrew had never felt so alive, a deep surge of energy coiling through his veins and screaming for him to speak, speak, speak.
But what was there to say? What could make him less of a creep? Nothing.
So, he had remained where he was. Silent, still. Just a stranger in the row behind you, a stranger who, when the lights came back on, left before you even rose, avoiding the probability for your paths to cross and for you to notice him.
He hadn’t gone back after that. One was more than it should have been.
Andrew exhales slowly, the memory dissolving as quickly as it surfaced, his jaw clenching for a fraction of a second before he forces it to release.
This is not relevant, none of it is, he repeats to himself, the plan is what matters. The job. And everything else should be treated as noise.
He shakes his head once, dislodging a thought that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, then reaches for his coffee, finishing it quickly before walking up to the door with his brothers where Smurf is waiting.
There’s something ceremonial about the way she rests there, the house and the four men holding their breath before proceeding.
Craig goes first, leaning in with no hesitation as she cups his face and kisses him on the mouth, brief, familiar. He grins like it’s nothing, like it’s forever been nothing. Deran follows, more restrained but no less automatic: a similar gesture, a similar contact with the flicker of some unreadable feeling passing through his expression before hastily vanishing. J hesitates, not enough for anyone else but Andrew to note, before he steps forward and accepts it like the rest.
Andrew enters into her space without thinking – he has learned in the past forty-one years of his life that thinking would end up in questioning, and questions had never, never, been a thing that ends well here.
Her hands come up, framing his face with a gentleness that doesn’t match the steel underneath them, eyes holding his for a moment longer before leaning in.
The kiss is short. There are days where he registers it as triviality, just a part of the structure, of what this family is. And then there are days like this one, where it feels like receiving the cold touch of death, an implicit ‘go do what you were made to do baby’.
Instead, she speaks evenly, “Be smart.”
Not ‘be safe’. Smart is all she demands from her favored chess pieces.
The drive goes well and, in the bank, everything continues going to plan: the doors open, a soft chime announcing their arrival like any other customer stepping in. For a few seconds, the illusion holds – even for himself, Andrew, the everyday man walking into a bank, ready to ask the beautiful woman behind the counter out on a date – before it shatters as J clears briefly his throat and drifts to the right of the room with Craig, hands loose, unremarkable, while Deran angles to the left, another presence among many.
Andrew moves forward to where are you are with no spare glance, and during a fleeting moment… everything narrows down to your figure.
You’re wearing an outfit he hasn’t seen before, or maybe he has, and never allowed himself to register it, but it stands out now with a clarity that feels cruel and, pinned near the collar of your outfit, an albatross. He identifies it with all the nights spent watching documentaries and absorbing details, filing away images of wings stretched impossibly wide, of birds that cross entire oceans without ever landing, belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.
It unsettles him more than it should. Not the object itself, but what it signifies. An albatross falls in love only once in its life, the pair only being broken by death itself. (Is it a message in a bottle for the one you’re anticipating for?)
The question is gone as quickly as it formed because nothing about this instant permits to dwell on soulmates, and yet it lingers just beneath the surface of his thoughts as he closes the distance, each step measured. You haven’t noticed Andrew – no, Pope – yet, too focused onto a receipt until your gaze lifts, landing on him with that same polite attentiveness he has observed before and a smile.
It’s a professional one, instinctive, but enough to throw everything off balance in his head. He knows that smile: he has caught sight of it from his car every single day for the past seven weeks, directed at strangers who never realized how fortunate they were for having you near, but right here, right now, this smile is for him and him only.
And he is about to break it.
The realization lands heavy in the pit of his stomach, intertwined with guilt. Guilt for what he is about to do, guilt for never speaking to you before. He could have, no, should have done so. And one word, any word would have been enough for him. Because with a weapon hidden beneath his jacket, he knows now that he is about to become the worst part of your day, maybe of your life.
His hand moves minimally, shifting the jacket just enough for you to see without alerting anyone else, keeping it contained between the two of you in a silent, irreversible exchange.
The gun rests there, cold.
Your breath catches, eyes dropping before snapping back to his, wider now, the recognition settling in fully, the understanding immediate and absolute. You don’t scream, don’t budge. And that…that confirms everything he told them: you will follow, you will endure, more importantly you will survive this moment.
Andrew leans in, lowering the space between you, voice contained and controlled, meant only for you and no one else.
But just before he speaks, his gaze flickers back to the albatross at your collar, wondering if you’re like them. That despite the distance and the motions, you’d return to the same point, the same partner, giving meaning to every mile flown.
He tears his gaze away to meet yours, whispering.
“It’s okay, just do as I say.”
──────────
All in all, it had felt like a regular morning.
You had been pulled from sleep by the persistent weight of Willow, stepping onto your chest with all the grace of an adorable being who believed himself entitled to your entire attention, his paws pressing into you as he sniffed your face before letting out a sharp, indignant cry that made it very clear that your sluggish state was a personal offense.
You had groaned, eyes still shut, one hand coming up blindly to rest on his dark fur as he shifted his weight once more, tail flicking against your belly and whiskers brushing your cheek.
“Okay, fine, fine,” you had grumbled, voice thick with tiredness but already surrendering, lips curving despite yourself as you cracked one eye open to meet his unblinking stare, “Hello to you too, little gremlin.” Another sound, louder this time, answered you, like your acknowledgment alone was not sufficient. “God, you’re so dramatic, you know that?” you had added under your breath, though you were pushing yourself up, Willow hopping down instantly, his task accomplished.
Trotting ahead of you toward the kitchen, he waited with barely contained impatience for you to fill his bowl, circling your legs as you did, weaving in and out while snagging your pajamas with his claws just to remind you of his presence.
“Hey, gentleman! There you go, no need to make new holes in my clothes,” you had laughed, setting the bowl down, before he dived in in a split second, unfocused on you now that his needs had been met. “Right…cause you’re undoubtedly a starving cat.”
You had remained a few more seconds, observing him in that small ritual established seven years ago when you had retrieved him from the trash, just a baby crying for help, all ribs and oversized ears. He had fit in your hands then, a trembling cat covered in dirt, choosing you at first sight, and that you had chosen back.
Now, he ate like he had never known hunger, certain that his whole world would continue to provide. “My little Willow,” you had murmured, petting his head before letting him continue, “we’ve come a long way you and I, haven’t we?” He didn’t answer, but his tail flicked once, content, and that was more than enough.
You rinsed your hands for the tuna liquid running along your palm, drying them absentmindedly against a towel before reaching for the newspaper that you had left on the table the previous night, only to pause when you noticed the pen no longer resting where it should have been, your gaze dropping to the floor where it lay just beneath the other chair. You glanced back at Willow.
“Well, well, well,” you said, bending to pick the pen up and turning it between your fingers, “seems like this family’s small criminal has reoffended.”
You shook your head at his refusal to even turn his head despite his ears pointing to you, a grin blooming on your face as you smoothed the newspaper open with one hand while the other tapped the pen against the margin, looking at the movie screenings on Thursday, the quiet promise of a few hours somewhere else.
Your eyes traced the column, pausing at the familiar title Now, Voyager.
A pleased hum left you, head tilting. “Well…” you had muttered, circling the time as a reminder, “at least I know I can always count on you, Bette.”
There was something comforting about it: knowing precisely what you would find waiting in that darkened room, selecting a film that, in the past, had proven itself capable of uplifting your mood for a while.
You set the paper aside, rising from your chair with an exhale, your movements unhurried as you crossed back into the bedroom, reaching for your clothes. The mirror caught you as you adjusted the fabric, reflecting all you hated and loved about each and every inch of you.
You pondered a few instants before reaching into your grandmother’s jewelry box, fingers closing around the brooch’s cool metal of the albatross mid-flight, wings outstretched.
It had been hers before it became yours, an inheritance you had accepted with devotion after her passing due to the story it had held, one that she told you in pieces when you were a little girl intrigued by the idea of soulmates. She had spoken of the words engraved on her ankle – it’s cold today right – and how, as a child, she had clung to them, convinced that somewhere out there existed a man who would say them and would recognize her as she would recognize him.
She had waited. Years. Decades. Long enough for hope to thin until one day, she no longer dared to, preferring another life instead.
She had married a man who, like her, had never found the person tied to his skin, “A good man,” she always smiled, and together they had built a life that worked, giving them your father.
It hadn’t been a heartbreak. But it hadn’t not been that either.
It was much later, when her hair had turned silver and her hands had begun to show the traces of everything she had lived through, that it happened. This part had been told in a different kind of voice, softer, almost disbelieving. How one day, in her seventies, those words had finally been spoken to her by a woman whose laugh matched the rapid beating of her heart, loving her until the very end.
Oh, and how you had held onto that story. It meant that love, real love, the kind that recognized and chose and settled, didn’t always arrive on time or follow the path people expected. But it arrived.
Your thumb brushed over the edge of the albatross as you pinned it, praying for fate to be a little speedier with you.
Slipping your bag over your shoulder, you cast one last glance toward Willow, who had abandoned his bowl in favor of a sunlit patch on the floor, completely at peace and asleep.
“See you tonight,” you murmured before stepping out in the warm weather of Oceanside.
-
The café greeted you with its familiar scent of coffee and baked croissants, Sofia welcoming you with that half knowing smile and asking, “Coffee, no cream, one sugar?”
“You know me,” you smiled, reaching into your bag.
She paused just long enough for her eyebrow to lift, gaze traveling from you to the sunlit street. “Actually…” you amended with a laugh and stepping closer to the counter, “make it iced. I’ll pass out before nine otherwise.”
“That’s more like it,” Sofia replied with a wink, the drink quickly ending up in your hands, along with the blueberry muffin added without question.
“Thanks a lot Sofia.”
“You’re welcome, querida mia. And be careful, they’re saying we might hit 100° today.”
“Yeah, be careful too,” you replied, lifting the drink as a cheer, “wouldn’t want to tell Shani that her wife melted behind the counter.”
Sofia laughed, waving you off. “Don’t you dare. Now go!”
Outside, the temperature was getting more and more hellish, the kind that clung and made your pits sweaty. Cursing against the sun and summer, you took a sip while walking, the cold welcomed to cut through the heat.
Jerry was there, sat at his usual spot along the way between the café and the bank, blankets folded with care, his presence as constant as your own routine.
“Morning, Jerry,” you greeted, crouching and balancing your drink in one hand as the other extended, the muffin and what remained of your money there.
He looked up, his smile lines visible in the light. “Well, if it’s not my favorite lady,” he greeted you, taking the muffin.
“Hey, Jerry,” you added gently, nudging your head toward the end of the street, “it’s supposed to get really hot today, so if it’s too much, you can come by the bank for a bit, okay? It will be nice and cold inside, and there’s a water dispenser near the back.”
He paused for a second before nodding, softness passing through his expression.
“Yeah…yeah, I might do that,” he replied, voice quieter now, before looking back up at you. “Have a sweet day, sweetheart.”
Your smile lingered. “Have a sweet day too, Jerry.”
-
Stepping into the bank at the exact same time as every day, the cool air wrapped around you, a relief from outside as the doors closed behind with a sound that barely registered in your mind now, too used to it.
Everything was where it should be, to your great joy.
You slipped behind the counter, setting your bag down and tucking your things away with efficiency, movements quick and falling into their daily sequence.
Shani, leaning against her station, was already observing you with that look that indicated she had something to say – which was, quite honestly, a little frightening even when you were used to her schemes.
“So…” she started, dragging the word enough to make it extremely suspicious, “how was Sofia?”
You didn’t even look up at first, finishing what you were doing before glancing at her with a small, amused smile. “I’m sure you’re well aware that your wife is very much okay.”
“Good, good, good,” she nodded before straightening a little, her expression shifting into a more deliberate and calculated expression – which you enjoyed to describe as the ‘Shani-way’.
You narrowed your eyes. “What?”
She waved a hand, playing casual but you definitely knew better. “Nothing. Just- Well, Sofia and I were talking last night, and we thought maybe…” she trailed off long enough to make it worse, “we could…you know. Set you up. Double date. My cousin’s in town.”
You sighed, shaking your head before she could finish. “Shani-”
“Hey, who knows,” she cut in, grin widening, “he could be the one!”
The words landed in the space between her and you. The one. You stilled for a brief instant, a quiet sentiment moving beneath the surface of your soul, a sentiment older than this conversation, older than Shani, the bank and any version of you that had ever tried to make sense of it. Of this word. The one.
Your gaze dropped to your forearm, where the words had lived your entire life, etched into your skin before you grasped anything at all, including what they signified.
it’s okay just do as I say.
Those words…were not romantic, nor light. Not anything like what people expected when they spoke about soulmates with soft voices and hopeful smile. But hey, at least you were not one of those who had just a simple ‘hey’ or ‘sorry’.
You had spent years trying to get them. As a teenager, you had thought maybe it meant danger or urgency, that something would happen and they would be the one to steady you through it, to guide you and keep you safe, that idea rooting itself deeply enough that you had chased it for years: climbing too high without any protective harness, swimming too far from the coast, riding a motorcycle with no helmet…Taking risks that sat just on the edge of recklessness had been your motto, as if you could have forced the meeting into existence, stumbling into it hard enough that fate would have had no choice but to intervene.
You had fractured your wrist. Twice.
Both times alone, without any soulmate to help you up and dry your tears. Both times without those words to comfort you.
You had ceased after that, slowly considering that you had, perhaps, thought about those words from the wrong angle. So, if not danger, then circumstance: maybe your soulmate lived in a world that didn’t intersect with yours easily, a world shaped by less…legality.
You had followed that thread: night shifts in a 24/7 grocery store, late hours as a waitress in a diner where people were awfully silent, coming and going without questions, up until you ended up here, in a bank, working as a teller.
Banks get robbed. And tellers are, more often than not, the first ones involved when it happens.
And this bank – oh, this bank that you applied for without reading it twice – was not just any bank: it was the one with the highest robbery rate in Oceanside. Checkmate, soulmate. Wherever he is, you’ll find him. No, scratch that…he’ll find you. You know it.
You lifted your gaze back to Shani, the faintest smile returning. “I’m okay Ni,” you ended up saying, certain. “Really.”
She studied you for a second, like she might push a little more and try again, but she simply sighed, letting it go with a small shake of her head. “One day, huh?”
“One day,” you echoed.
Time, in places like this, was measured in the transactions and exchanges, passed with the sound of shuffling papers, the muted hum of people moving in and out, and just like that, an hour slipped by without you noticing, hands working on their own and your smile appearing and fading in the practiced manner you had perfected over the years, attempting to not let your mind drift too far.
You didn’t look up immediately after hearing the doors opening for what seemed like the hundredth time today. Probably just another client, another small interaction that would dissolve the moment it ended.
No.
Your thoughts cut abruptly, like a thread had been pulled tighter around your neck to force you to lift your head, attention shifting before you could place why and landing on a person who stood out from the others…him.
Your body reacted before your mind, heat coiling low in your belly, unfamiliar in its intensity and enough to steal your breath as he stepped further toward you, gorgeous auburn curls catching the light and freckles scattered across a face set in a stern, immovable expression, frame tense.
You watched him come directly to your counter. There was a brief moment where you knew you should have been afraid, the awareness that a man like this, carrying that kind of presence and approaching with such focus, should trigger your primal instinct or at least set something off inside you that told you to brace or pull back.
No.
Again, that voice inside. You had spent your entire existence leaning into danger, pushing your own limits in search of a moment that had never come, not until now and that stranger.
He halted in front of you, close enough to perceive the stubble on his face.
Your smile came automatically like the one you had given dozens of times that morning, voice ready to follow and ask, as if nothing had happened but his hand shifted a little, just enough for you to take a peek at the gun inside his jacket.
His voice was low, meant for you only. “It’s okay, just do as I say.”
Yes, all in all, it had felt like a regular morning. Up until now.
The words – those precious, bizarre words – are no longer just inked onto your skin, they are alive, burning under your skin, pulsing, rising, demanding, every nerve in your body tightening around them as if every second that came prior to this had only occurred to lead to this exact point and this exact man.
Your breath catches, likely making him think that it’s about the weapon, when in reality, it’s about him and his proximity, about the overwhelming clarity that crashed into you all at once, leaving no room for doubt or hesitation.
You don’t know how long you stay there, silent. A second? A century?
Time seems to dissolve and fold in on itself until it no longer matters, because there is him, only him and the undeniable, irreversible truth standing in front of you.
Your lips part before you can think or stop it, your voice slipping out softer than you expected.
“Oh my god…it’s you.”
──────────
“Oh my god…it’s you.”
The words don’t quite land or settle into meaning the way language is supposed to. They don’t register as sound shaped into sense or even feel like they belong to the scene unfolding in front of him, and for a brief moment that stretches too wide to measure, everything in Andrew goes violently motionless.
There is a merciless ringing in his ears that swallows the room entirely, drowning out people’s voices someplace in the distance, erasing his movements, the job, the plan: everything reduced now to a piercing frequency that leaves him unmoored inside his own body, like he has been pulled out of himself and left suspended in a space where nothing quite connects anymore.
He doesn’t even breathe. Or maybe he does, but it doesn’t reach him.
Fingers still curled against the edge of his jacket, the gun remains half-hidden, the action unfinished and abandoned halfway through for the reason that there is absolutely no part of him that recalls how to carry on.
This…This is not supposed to happen. Not like this. Not there. Not now.
Not in the middle of a job with his brothers spread across the room, J surveying the room and the exit mapped in his head, Smurf’s voice still echoing behind his thoughts, commands carved into his bones. No, not after all she has done to make sure it wouldn’t occur – worse, not after what he has done to make sure it couldn’t.
And yet, you are here. In front of him. Staring with none of the fear that should currently be spreading in your body after sighting the weapon he had just shown you, but with eyes full of recognition. One that is so clear, it strips him of whatever control he thought he still possessed.
And the worst thing about this whole situation, is that it’s you.
The woman he knows without ever having spoken to, the one he has watched through glass and distance until her habits became familiar and her presence lodged in a room of his mind he refused to acknowledge, up until avoiding her became a discipline he couldn’t master. The one person he should never have allowed himself to notice.
Yes, this woman is you, breathing and alive, saying the words that have resided under his skin his entire life, the oath he had refused to have faith in.
His mark burns, not in the dull, persistent heat he has learned to disregard and bury under discipline, but a pulsing fire that spreads beneath his collarbone, radiating outward in aching waves, relief and agony intertwined so tightly he can’t pinpoint which one is which.
It hums in a vibration that moves through him like a melody finding its proper tune, a song that has been anticipating for its first note and has just been unleashed without restraint. And it cries too in the solemn sentiment of home, every nerve in his body squeezing around it, responding and begging for contact. The mark wants to close the distance between you until there is none left, for him to fold himself into your ribcage so that the world stops spinning off its axis.
His hand twitches toward your arm, where he can tell – without even checking, just his soul recognizing yours – that his words have inhabited there and expected him. Expect for him to trace them and press his mouth against your pulse to sense its response.
He attempts to shut his thoughts, his jaw clenching so hard it aches, teeth grinding together as he forces his body back into control despite the animal instinct clawing forward, only to be shoved down, leaving him shaking. Entry, vault, exit, he must think about the job, entry, vault, exit, car, timing.
He clings to it like a lifeline, dragging the steps of his consciousness back one by one, compelling them into place over the chaos unraveling inward, because if he lets go for even a second, if he gives in to what his body is craving, then everything falls apart. And no, he can’t do that. Not when Craig is still in the room, and Deran, and J. This moment is not supposed to be his.
He swallows hard to set himself back into motion, pulling his jacket back into place and hiding the gun fully. He can’t stand the distance it creates between you nor the way it frames him as a threat when all inside him is tearing itself apart trying to be anything but.
“I…” His voice catches. He closes his eyes momentarily, recalibrating and pushing the word back out even as it scrapes against his throat. “I was supposed to ask you to lead me to the vault.”
The sentence feels almost foreign, detached. Like it belongs to someone else.
You blink. “Oh. Sure.”
The ease of your reply hits him, head tilting in confusion, breaking through the overwhelming tide of all other emotions, his gaze locking onto yours. Searching for hesitation, or question. But no, you don’t even seem surprised.
“I was expecting that, you know.”
He frowns, almost imperceptibly. “What?”
Your gaze drops to your forearm. “The mark. I was expecting you to do something like that.”
And that…that breaks Andrew for that it means you didn’t just wait for him in an abstract universe or pictured a voice, no, that indicates you had thought about the circumstances that would shape your meeting.
“I’m sorry.” What else could he express when the first thing he gives you is this version of himself, the one forged by everything he has done and the weight of choices that never really were, shaped by years spent becoming what was required of him. Yes, he is sorry. Sorry that he is this and just this: a man who does jobs to live, who has been to prison, who has taken more than he has ever given, standing in front of you – in front of his own soulmate – with violence tucked neatly beneath his jacket.
You tilt your head, studying him with intensity, as if you could reach past all he has built and read what lies beneath. He hopes you can’t, for your sake as much as his. “It’s okay, uhm-”
“Andrew.” It leaves him quietly, but it lands heavier than anything he has ever said, his own name foreign in his mouth.
Your lips part as you take it in, like you’re repeating it over in your mind or placing it somewhere that matters. “Well, it’s okay…Andrew.”
The way you say it… he knows, with an irreversible certainty, that he will carry the sound of every vowels and consonants in your voice for the rest of his existence.
His gaze flickers over his shoulder, scanning the room to find his brothers pretending to read brochures about insurances while J positioned himself near a water dispenser, and Andrew feels a sudden, irrational need for time and space, just a few more seconds that could be devoted only to this moment prior to reality catching up.
“So…” your voice cut short his pleading, “the vault, right?”
“Yeah,” he despises doing this, and hates himself even more, “Please.”
Nodding once before turning and walking, he follows barely a step behind - of course he does, there is no version of him that wouldn’t pursue you anywhere from heaven to hell now that he has found his soulmate.
You lead him through the bank with precision, one that doesn’t escape him: your path cautious, avoiding angles that would expose him and making turns just out of reach of the cameras. He has mapped and memorized where they are the past weeks, but he still feels relief that you are the one guiding this and holding control in a moment where he threatens to collide under the weight of everything pressing in on him.
He sees it now that he is closer, no longer separated by a glass or distance, the manner that your fingers have of flexing at your side three times before falling, or how your hair carries the faint scent of your shampoo, something clean and sweet like apples, threaded with another note he can’t place that makes your hair sparkly and drawing him further in.
The feeling that he can’t put his finger on is not quite like danger or adrenaline. It’s more insidious, making him want to lean closer just to confirm and commit to memory: what you use, where you buy it, whether you would laugh if he got it wrong, whether he would ever get the chance to share that with you.
It feels a little malicious from fate to do this: to let him locate you, let him recognize without reservation that you are the one person in the world predestined to meet him at this exact intersection of time and existence and still deny him the simplest thing…touch. Like being handed providence only to be told he cannot reach for it, shown a life he has no right to claim.
Yes, fate has dealt him strange cards. Cards he has known all too well.
He was raised in a house where everything was a game long before he grasped the rules, where nothing was ever left to chance no matter how much it pretended to be, hands distributed by design. He and his brothers had always been given the same kind: low numbers, useful only when played in sequence or sacrificed at the right moment to serve a strategy that was never theirs to understand. They were never meant to win.
Because to hold the deck, there was Smurf. King when she required authority, queen when she needed charm, switching between the two without effort and controlling each and every round and outcome.
Andrew had learned to play his part in that, to accept the hand he was given and never question the structure of the game. Nothing but a low reliable card.
But now…now he is in this hallway, close enough to feel your breath and realize that his soulmate is not the kind of card that can be discarded nor replaced. His soulmate is an ace: the card that can turn a losing hand into a winning one, the card that overturns a game.
And for the first time in his life, Andrew realizes that he has been holding it all along, hidden under his skin, forbade and hidden until this morning and finally, the game can change. Because Smurf doesn’t control this hand and never will.
It takes everything in him not to reach for you and close the distance completely until you are pressed against the nearest wall so you can both forget about this stupid plan and this stupid job. And the problem is that the more he walks, the less the urge attempts to flee, slowly transmuting into a pull that tightens with every step and shift of your body, begging for him to kiss you, to leave – oh yes, god, to leave – taking your hand and walking out of the bank as if his family wouldn’t drag him back into the role he has never been allowed to abandon.
He can picture it in flashes: the door opening, the heat outside, your hand in his with the distance growing between you and the only life he has ever known.
For a second…it feels doable.
The muscle of his jaw ticks as he forces the image away to go back to the path you are leading him through, aware that his family is still near, trailing with a plan that has not stopped simply because his whole universe has.
So, Andrew keeps moving, the noise of the main room dulling behind them, replaced and amplified by the ones of your steps, in addition to those of his brothers and J, that he can overhear closely behind.
Deran emerges first by his side, gaze sweeping on the area before settling on Andrew. “Everything good, Pope?”
Andrew doesn’t look at him for long, an automatic “Yeah,” pulled out of his lips, flat because inside, the name of Pope grates – the label that no longer fits him, the version of him that exists in conflict with the one near you and that has your words etched on his skin. He prays, absurdly, that you don’t register it. That Andrew can exist, even for a moment without being dragged back into the shape that the name Pope forces onto him.
Craig joins them with an energy barely contained for the tight space, his grin toned down but still present at the corners of his expression as he reaches under his jacket, fingers hooking into the hidden seam where the duffel is concealed.
“So,” he murmurs, eyes flicking up and down your body before returning to Andrew, “you were right about the girl.” Andrew’s hands curl at his sides as Craig doesn’t stop his lewd eyes. “And she’s quite pretty too.”
Violence rises in Andrew’s chest, a flash of heat shaped by Craig’s looks and words about you, reducing your person to a pretty jewel that he could rob along with the money when Andrew want nothing more than to scream what you are and what you mean to him. He wants to punch his brother, just enough to shut him up and make it clear that his soulmate is not just some-
“Hey, Point Break,” your voice cuts through, “you know I can hear you, right?”
Craig blinks, caught off guard for half a second before having the decency to at least look a bit sheepish. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Andrew exhales, reminding him that you are not fragile like he had feared his soulmate might be, that you are here, capable of holding your own even in this.
The five of you reach the vault door, the air altering as your hand lifts, thumb trembling over the keypad before pushing the first number. It takes this moment for Andrew to realize that the change is not in the air but in you – it’s like a direct transmission of everything stirring through you: the adrenaline, his family so close, the pressure of the moment, all of it carried in the current running between the two of you.
But this emotion isn’t yours alone, it echoes inside him like a mirror. And, for the first time in his life, Andrew is not alone inside himself, grasping that what he has always been when he had assumed he was whole, had only ever been a piece of something larger and waiting.
You. His missing piece. His ace.
Craig shifts beside them, impatience creeping in as you press another number. “Uhm, sorry to say miss,” he mutters, “but we don’t exactly have all the time in the world, ‘kay?”
Andrew’s head snaps toward him, the protective reaction immediate.
“Shut up,” he cuts in, voice and unblinking eyes carrying enough weight to land where it needs to. “She’s trying her best.”
Craig raises his hands in mock surrender, stepping back just enough to signal he’s dropping it, though the amusement still lingers in his expression – that Andrew wants to punch away.
You inhale, your fingers hovering again before pressing the next number. “I’m…I’m really sorry,” you murmur, free hand gesturing toward everything around you, especially the situation that doesn’t need naming. “It’s just the whole…”
Deran speaks before you can finish, his tone even in the manner his younger brother has acquired with the years to cut through the tension. “No worries. Ignore Craig,” he casts a brief glance toward his brother. “That’s what we all do usually.”
J lets out a chuckle at that, earning him a quick nudge to the ribs from Craig, who curses his whole family under his breath but doesn’t push further.
But Andrew…he doesn’t look at any at them, attention locked on you and your hands. On the way your fingers press each number. He feels it once more: the connection, the fragile space calling each of his instincts to fulfill one singular need – reach, touch, help, protect. He shouldn’t, but his voice slips out anyway, stripped down to something that belongs only to the two of you.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs within the narrow space where no one else exists. “I trust you.”
──────────
In the midst of your chaotic thoughts, you can acutely hear him. “It’s okay. I trust you.”
The words reach you in two distinct ways: one, shaped by his voice near your ear and the second, threading directly beneath the skin of your forearm where the mark rests, a tingling fire that spreads outward like a pulse answering another pulse. Alive and communicating like you had only ever heard in rare stories.
Your fingers keep hovering over the keypad, the numbers a little blurry and each digit feeling heavy to push on despite the countless times you have entered them. You know that it’s not really about the situation (how many times have you been robbed in that grocery store only to be disappointed that the person didn’t turn out to be your soulmate?) and it’s not about the presence of his family behind you either (even if their silence is quite stressful). It’s him and this bond that has turned from theory and hopes into the tangible.
You inhale slowly, stunned as you perceive his voice once more.
Only this time, it doesn’t process through your ears, but the I’m with you, is unmistakable, forming in your mind with clarity, your heartbeat syncing with a rhythm that seems shared rather than the usual solitary one.
Your thumb presses the next number, each movement guided by his unwavering presence at your side, each You’ve got it and You’re doing great keeping your hands from slipping into panic and swallowing you whole. So, you focus on that as you push on the final digit - the way the connection tingles and sings, finally discovering the other end of the transmission.
There is a momentary, noiseless pause before you identify the familiar click of the vault unlocking.
Your shoulders drop as the movement behind you resumes, relief mixing with the tension that hasn’t yet fully released, a loud exhale leaving you, incapable of containing it in.
The tall one – Point Break…what was his name again…ah, yes, Craig – steps forward. “Good job, princess.”
His hand lands against your back in a rough pat that jolts you forward a step, breaking the fragile bubble you had been standing in, the connection pulling taut in a surge of rage (that most definitely isn’t yours but Andrew’s) as the others move past you minus him, breaking into the vault.
You stand there for a good thirty seconds, up until your mind catches up and switches from looking to observing the way they are moving and more notably, their selection: bills taken in a pattern that avoids drawing instant attention, skipping sequences and leaving enough behind to maintain the illusion until the next full count – fuck, they were good at that.
The thought lingers only briefly, overridden by a louder sentiment that begins in your forearm, spreading in threads that travel through you like a map being drawn in real time, each line connecting to another until your entire body feels nothing else but him into the smallest places of your body, from the pace of your heartbeat to each capillary and follicle. It’s both overwhelming and steadying – to know his restraint and suppressed intentions.
You slowly breathe in.
One.
Your index finger shifts, drifting to where his hand rests beside yours, the space between you narrowing by increments so slight they would go unnoticed by anyone else.
Two.
He responds, finger moving in tandem and mirroring the motion with a reverent care, like this contact matters more than anything else happening around you, like the entire world has been reduced to this singular, fragile approach.
Three.
Finger hooking around yours, the first touch is barely there. Just a brush along the side of your finger that sends an electrostatic discharge, traveling up your hand and arm.
Four.
Your thumb moves in tentative glide over his pointer, tracing the line of contact and committing the warmth of his skin to memory until the starving pit in your stomach gets replenished.
Five.
A consuming wish for more comes uninvited. For his hand to turn, to open and to slip fully into yours, holding instead of hovering. Your fingers twitch, betraying the impulse while the bond of your marks vibrates in response.
Si-
“Hey, Pope,” the voice of Craig cuts through cleanly, one eyebrow lifting as his gaze flicks between the two of you, thoroughly amused and making Andrew break the contact abruptly, “gonna help us tomorrow or what?”
A sharp sound follows, the hand of the blond man connecting with the back of Craig’s head. “Shut up,” he mutters under his breath, controlled but with a warning laced through that certainly doesn’t need to be emphasized.
Craig huffs, rubbing the back of his head with a half-laugh before his attention swings back to the task at hand and the timing that keeps ticking against all of them.
Three minutes. That’s all it takes.
Just three minutes for them to empty what they came for without excess or error or greed, three minutes without drawing attention to anything that would betray the absence of the money before it’s too late to matter – a pure work of art that should deserve applauds.
They step out one by one: Craig first, duffel slung over his shoulder and expression light as if this had been nothing more than another job checked off, glancing toward you with a wink, then next comes the two other men, a lot quieter, eyes still tracking for a variable that could shift.
“You’re gonna have a cut of this,” the blond man speaks, direct and procedural. “For your help here. It will be at your place in two weeks.”
You blink.
“Oh…thanks,” you start, the response automatic, polite even in a situation that has stripped your emotions down in their rawest form, but the rest of the sentence doesn’t come as easily, your gaze falling on Andrew, searching for what to respond, only to be met by a shrug – a movement that gives nothing and everything all at once: a choice. No, your choice. “I’m good though,” you finish, “No need for that.”
Craig lets out a short, amused breath.
“Fuck yeah! Thank you, pretty girl.”
You tilt your head, a hint of dryness slipping into your expression despite the stress and the absurdity of the moment. “Oh, you’re very welcome…guy who just robbed my place of work.”
It earns you a grin before they depart toward the exit, bags slung into place and steps aligning with the blind spots of the cameras, each minute precisely timed. But you don’t care about that. No, because Andrew is still here for a reason that doesn’t require explanation. One seconds. Two. Then he turns to trail after them and step back into the version of his life that exists beyond this bank and beyond you.
“Wait!”
Your body reacts before your mind does, hand gripping tightly to his arm mid-step to make him stop and turn back toward you.
There is something in his expression – held together tight in a way that suggests too many things happening at once beneath his surface, and you can’t tell if it’s that every second here worsens the risk further, or if the cause is you and the fact that you spoke, asking him to stay. Or…perhaps it’s both.
Your heart picks up yet again. “There’s a camera,” you speak hurriedly, stepping closer as your voice drops. “Right outside. It’s not on any registered map.”
The information transfers between you in a second, a detail that could make the difference between jail and liberty. He recognizes the gravity of what you’ve just said, nodding before stepping toward you and closing the gap in one swift movement, his hand finding your waist as his mouth meets yours.
It crashes into you like a storm breaking, lips parting on instinct as he deepens it, the contact intense and consuming. There’s no grace to it, nor careful exploration. It’s too rapid for that, too charged, the kind of kiss outside of time and reason, where everything confines to the undeniable pull that has been building between you from the moment your words collided.
It lasts seconds. Minutes. Hours. You can’t tell.
He pulls back, his forehead resting against yours, breath uneven and the space between you electric with the unsaid.
“Thank you.”
The words are rough, low, carrying the force of his gratitude to what you provided him before he disappears, his absence jarring.
The door opens, closes, footsteps fading and the world suddenly snaps back into what it had been previously, like he had never happened. And for ten seconds – or what seems like ten – you are alone, the silent pressing in.
Your chest rises and falls, lips still tingling and mind struggling to catch up with what just transpired, what it means and more significantly…what comes next.
Turning your head toward the hallway leading back to the main room, you reflect on the life you had this morning, on the people surrounding you. Shani, Sofia…you think of them first. Of what they would say and how they would look at you, and somehow, you know that they would understand. Your grandmother would have understood too.
That love, when it attains its destination, doesn’t ask for permission or convenience, doesn’t arrange itself neatly into a life already built, no, it simply happens. And you either step toward it or-
The only things you need to go back for are Willow and a few cans of his food, that’s your main thought as you run past the threshold out into the heat where the sunlight hits you hard, bright and abrupt, the air even heavier than before, but you don’t slow until you reach a car being loaded hurriedly with bags.
He doesn’t expect you, murmuring in disbelief. “What are you do-”
You don’t let him finish. Closing the distance in a heartbeat, your hand catches his to pull him toward you as your mouth finds his again, the kiss colliding into him with the same inevitability, breath mixing and bodies aligning in a suspended moment.
You pull back just enough to look at him, your faces still close, close enough that your breaths overlap, that you can witness the change in his eyes as he tries to absorb what you’ve just done and what you’re offering. For a second, neither of you budges, a small smile blooming on his face.
“Hey,” Deran’s voice cuts in, amused but crept with a sense of insistence as he leans out his head from the driver’s side, eyes flicking between the two of you, reading the situation his brother is in, “it’s a five-seat car.” A beat. “You in?”
You don’t look at him. Don’t look at the car.
Your gaze remains on Andrew, certain.
“Yeah…I’m in.”