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You haven't seen Zeno in weeks. It's not unusual for him not to visit in person for that long, what with his fancy mysterious job he still won't tell you about even these many years later, but it is concerning when he doesn't even answer your texts. You're not one to push him – if he's busy or in a mood, you'd rather he ignore you than get pissy with you and ruin your mood. But usually those moods last a day or two at most. Usually he makes time to at least send you a ‘busy, can't talk now’ text. Usually he doesn't go AWOL for an entire week.
Frustration bubbles to the surface the longer he goes without a sign of life. You have no way of knowing if he's okay – what if he got in a car accident and is lying in a hospital bed halfway across the country right now? What if the plane he was on crashed and killed him on the way down? You don't know anyone from Zeno's life either, have no one to contact to find out; no parents, no siblings, not even coworkers. You don't even know if he has any family, always so tight-lipped about his life outside of the bubble he's created for you and him in your apartment that you feel as if he randomly spawns into being only when he visits you.
The thought that he might have gotten fed up with you and is just ghosting you doesn't even cross your mind. You know Zeno better than that. You've been doing this, whatever the hell it is between you two, for too long to think that Zeno is the kind of man who'd just up and cut off all contact out of nowhere one day with no explanation and no word of goodbye.
But that doesn't make the agonising wait and frustrating lack of ability to get your answers elsewhere any easier to bear.
You're worried. And perhaps worse than that… You miss him. It's been happening more and more lately – this visceral need to have him close, to spend time with him, to hold him and kiss him and just… be with him. Not even fucking or doing anything important; just him and you and the quiet contentment of sharing a space with another person. Dangerous territory to tread, you very well know, but you can't help how you feel.
Your association with Zeno has been going on for years now – years of having no partner but him, of always being available when he calls, of losing yourself in his touch and presence and feeling like you're teetering on the edge of something monumental. Is it really any wonder that you're falling in love? That you perhaps fell in love a long time ago and have just been ignoring the writing on the wall for fear of spooking Zeno and sending him running the entire time?
Fuck… You really hope he's alright.
After yet another unanswered text that you stared at for entirely too long, your mind is drifting in that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness, body fitfully tossing and turning as you try to slip into unconsciousness and stop stressing, when you hear keys jingling in the lock and the front door opening then closing heavily. You snap awake in an instant, heart beating in your throat, and scramble out of bed to reach the entrance and see who you know is in your house but still can't bring yourself to hope for.
The noise that escapes you when you see Zeno's heavy shoulders facing you as he hangs up his coat by the door and begins pulling his shoes off one by one is not one you recognise; it's pain and longing and relief. It only takes one look at him to know that something's wrong, that something happened while he was gone – something bad.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Zeno greets wearily as he turns to face you but a surprised, pained huff gets wrenched out of him when you barrel into his chest and cling to him like your life depends on it. “Hey, hey. It's okay. I'm fine.”
“You're not,” you protest, your voice muffled by his vest. You know him better than this, he can't fool you. “But you're here.”
Zeno sighs and wraps his arms around you, holding you just as tightly as you're holding him. His lips find the crown of your head without hesitation.
“Yes, I am.”
You linger in that embrace for long minutes. Zeno rubs his hand up and down your back, breathing you in, while you try to convince yourself that nothing too terrible happened to keep him away from you for so long, that he's clearly just fine, standing right here in your arms. But when you pull away and glance up at him, you see it: the beautiful black marks you once traced reverently with your fingertips on your first night together – gone. Only scars remain now.
“Zeno, what…”
“It is nothing,” he rebuffs, as he always does, and lifts his right hand to take yours away from his face, already reaching for his cheek as it was, but that has the opposite effect of deterring you.
“Is that… blood? Zeno, what the hell happened?” you gasp, looking at the usually pristine, white suit jacket sleeve now stained with blood that has long since dried into the fabric beyond any hope of salvation. If you squint, you think you can even make out where the fabric is only held together by the caked up blood, the sleeve having been severed by some kind of blade.
“I said it's nothing. Leave it.”
Zeno's voice is gruff and low, clearly upset and exhausted and in no mood to hash this out, but you know that if you don't push now, he'll never tell you. He'll just bury it all under distractions and sweet talk and banter, like he always does. Like he has been doing for the past four years.
“No.” Your voice is pure steel and when you step away from Zeno firmly, wrenching your wrist out of his hold, you can tell that his eyes widen behind his lenses at your attitude even if you can't see that yellow glow you know so well tracking your body. “You don't get to keep doing this. Not anymore. Not after going MIA for an entire week with no explanation only to show up in the middle of the night covered in blood and looking different! I can't do this anymore, Zeno! I can't!”
“What exactly are you saying?” Zeno questions, sounding agitated and looking almost frantic when he pulls his glasses away from his face and lets them drop to the floor with a careless clatter.
“I'm saying that I've been patient, Zeno. For years. I've held you through your darkest times and never once pushed to know the reason behind your tears, just did what felt right and comforted you. Because I fucking love you! I care so damn much about you and it hurts to see you keep pushing me away after all this time! I don't want to pretend anymore, to act like it doesn't kill me to wake up to an empty bed every time you stop by, that I don't miss you when you're gone, that I don't worry when you don't answer a text!
“Do you know how agonising it was to sit here and wonder if you were dead and I just didn't know it? How would I ever know, huh? Nobody knows about me, I don't know anyone in your life! Who could let me know that I need to stop waiting?!”
You don't realise you're yelling and crying until the silence rings loudly in the wake of your final scream as your voice breaks on a sob. Your chest shakes with anger and grief, with terror and love, and when Zeno pulls you back into his arms and threads a gloved hand through your hair and tucks you under his chin, you only thump an angry fist against his chest once before you sink into him and grab fistfuls of his clothes instead.
“I can't do this, Zeno,” you sob, holding onto him like he's your lifeline, like if you loosen your hold just a smidgen then he'll slip through your fingers like sand. You don't want to lose him, you can't. But you'll let him go if he can't bring himself to let you in for even an inch after all these years. “I understand if you don't love me like I love you. I'm not asking you for that. But you can't keep coming here and taking from me if you can't give me even an inch of yourself in return.”
“I'm sorry,” he murmurs, carding his fingers through your hair and not letting you move an inch. “I thought… I thought I was doing you a favour, sweetheart. Protecting you. Sparing you. Take your pick.” Zeno's voice chokes up the more he speaks and it breaks your heart into a million little pieces to hear it, to hear his pain, but you know that you need to let him get it out now, that he needs this just as much as you do. “I've been hating myself for the past four years. Every time I came here and disrupted your life. Every time I got dressed quietly and left your warm embrace. Every time you welcomed me back as if I had done nothing wrong.”
“Because you didn't,” you protest immediately, unable to let him talk so badly about himself in spite of your resolution to stay quiet. “I knew from the start that what we had wasn't serious, Zeno. I knew what I was getting into. It just… stopped being that simple after a while. And maybe I should have said something then before it escalated into this, but I'm selfish too, Z. I preferred to have you emotionally unavailable than not at all.”
Zeno huffs at your words and his hands are gentle when they grasp your face and pull you away from his chest just far enough to look him in the eye. It's weird to see him with regular eyes but the pale blue, almost grey of his irises pulls you in like a siren's song. He's still so fucking beautiful it leaves you speechless – you doubt he'd ever look anything less than perfect in your eyes.
“Oh, I've been available. From that first night.”
“Really?” you ask, genuinely surprised. Sure, you felt a connection then, something that pushed you to try to keep him in your life instead of getting your fun for the night and moving on like you usually did, but your feelings didn't start growing until much later.
Zeno hums and moves his hand so that it's cupping your face right under your jaw and he can trace your lips with a gentle thumb while he gazes down at you with so much feeling it makes your heart squeeze in your chest.
“You were the first person I ever shared a bed with. The first person I ever slept next to. The first person I ever wanted to keep,” he confesses quietly, with a simplicity in his tone that baffles you – as if he's not giving you earth-shattering news, as if he isn't revealing something horrifying and deeply concerning. But before you can express your horror at this revelation, Zeno bends down and plants a quick peck on your lips before he pulls away. “I'm sorry I've been keeping myself so distant. I should have realised I can't keep you out for long and still get to have you.”
“You don't need to apologise for the past, Zeno. Just… tell me now,” you beseech, your voice thick with emotion.
Zeno closes his eyes and sighs heavily, as if coming to terms with something or trying to finally let go of something that has been holding him back for years. Then, as his eyes open back up and look down at you with fear and something else you can't quite parse out, his shoulders slump as he nods.
“Very well. I will. But not… not tonight, sweetheart. Can you do that? Can you let me have one more night before I tell you everything? Before I flay myself open and let you judge my insides?”
You smile at his dramatics, wet and tremulous, and give your own nod in return as you cup his clear-skinned, lightly scarred cheek in your palm and trace the patterns you could draw from memory with your thumb even now in their absence.
“I could never judge you,” you say instead of making fun of him for being so extra about everything like you really want to. “I meant it, Zeno. I love you. That will never change.”
His smile is weak under your palm when his lips stretch to accommodate it, but it's real and that's all that matters.
“I love you too,” he murmurs the confession and accepts your lips on his when you lift up on your toes and kiss him deeply. You pour every ounce of feeling you have into it, every bit of comfort and safety you are capable of, hoping that this stupidly gorgeous man in front of you will understand that he has a home in you – that he always has and always will.
When you pull away from the kiss, still lightly chasing his lips because you can't get enough and delighting in the breathless chuckle that escapes Zeno, you grasp his hand gently in your own, ignoring the blood stains on his suit, and tug on it to get him to follow you. Zeno lets you guide him, stepping out of his soiled clothes when instructed, getting into the shower stall when you gently push him towards it – big enough to fit three people easily, much more spacious than that pathetic little thing you had when you first showered with Zeno in your old apartment – and letting you clean his hair and his body with methodical but gentle hands that map his body like they're memorising its shape or checking that everything is still there.
It doesn't surprise you when Zeno discards the towel you draped over his shoulders as soon as you retreat to the bedroom, nor when he herds you towards the bed and climbs on top of you until he's burying his face in your chest with a contented sigh. You hold him like you always have and ignore the silent tears dampening your shirt as you shush him quietly and dry his white strands by carding your fingers through them.
You don't push. Not tonight. You can grant him that much even if your heart breaks at the proof of his misery, even if you yearn to know what has hurt him so deeply. But when he finally lifts his head and starts kissing you intently, pressing his lips against your mouth like he needs you to survive, you open for him without a fuss and accept him into your mouth and into your soul like he's always belonged there. Because he has.
“I need you,” Zeno murmurs desperately between kisses, nipping at your throat one moment and invading your mouth with his hot, insistent tongue the next. It's like even he can't figure out what he wants to do more – keep kissing you or explore the rest of your body?
“You have me,” you tell him, sighing when you feel his erection poking into your thigh while his left hand squeezes your butt and pulls you against him. “I'm yours, Zeno. No one else's.”
He makes a sound like a wounded animal as he goes down your body, mouthing at your throat and collarbones desperately, right hand bunching up your shirt so he can grope your chest hungrily. You thread your fingers through his hair with an adoring expression, lips parting on a sighed moan, and encourage him to go lower. You lift your arms and let Zeno pull your shirt off entirely then massage his scalp while he suckles on your nipples, laving his tongue over the hardening buds and moaning around his mouthful while he looks up at you with so much emotion in those gorgeous eyes it makes you want to cradle him in your arms and never let him go.
He moves on further down your body eventually, pulling everything off until you're entirely naked under him, then attaches his mouth to your pussy that's been craving his touch for weeks now.
“Ah, Zeno, babe, yes! Right there. Fuck that's good!”
His tongue is perfectly warm and wet as it swipes through your folds, flicking your clit and flattening against it before he sucks just right. You open your legs even wider to give him more space to work with and it doesn't surprise you when his fingers find your opening and wiggle inside two at a time. You moan at the wonderful feeling of being filled, squealing when Zeno crooks those fingers inside in the exact spot he knows makes you go crazy, and smirks against your cunt while never stopping making out with your clit.
The squelching of your pussy around Zeno's fingers and his messy eating of your cunt makes your head spin. But you don't want to come like this – you want to do it on his cock.
“Ah, gonna come too soon if you– fuck!– if you keep that up,” you warn, gently pushing Zeno's head away from your legs.
He lets himself be moved with a raised eyebrow while his fingers go still in your pussy.
“Got other plans, sweetheart?”
You huff and roll your eyes.
“I wanna come on your cock, stupid. So how about you come up here and fuck me instead?”
Zeno's eyes dilate at your words and it's such a fascinating thing to observe when his eyes no longer glow, when his sclera is no longer pitch black. He looks normal now but in no way ordinary – he's still the devastatingly handsome man who charmed you before he even met you, even if he looks younger and more vulnerable without the black marks and dark eyes giving him that severe look you know was mostly a facade.
You welcome him into your arms as Zeno settles between your open legs, arms slipping under you to hold you close, his lips sealing over yours without pause while his cock slowly sinks into you. You moan and sigh and relax into the mattress as he sets a slow, intimate pace that feels so deliciously agonising it makes your toes curl. You wrap your legs around his waist and hold him close.
“You feel so good, sweetheart,” Zeno murmurs when he pulls away, lips seeking your jaw and neck, peppering kisses and biting down occasionally just enough to make you hiss and tighten around his shaft. “Always so good for me. I don't deserve you.”
“You do, you do,” you rebuff sternly and moan even louder, breath hitching and quickening rapidly, when Zeno's fingers seek out your clit and rub it almost desperately as he clearly intends to make you come as soon as possible. “You're the only one who deserves me, Zeno. The only one I want.”
Zeno whimpers in response to that and his hips jerk as he fills you up suddenly, cum spilling into your cunt without warning just as your back arches off the bed with your own orgasm. You whine at the feeling of your pussy milking Zeno's twitching cock, knowing how messy it is when he comes inside but loving every single second of it nonetheless, and when you open your eyes to look up at him, you find him looking at you as if he's seeing you for the first time – vulnerable and awed and grateful all in one.
This is the fastest he's ever come since you've known him. It pulls a fond smile out of you as you lift up a hand and cradle his cheek, rubbing under his eye for a moment while you bask in the feeling of him still hard inside you, plugging you up nicely while you come down from your orgasm.
“Didn't know I was that good, rich boy,” you tease but it's light-hearted and harmless and not meant to embarrass him.
The tips of Zeno's ears redden instantly, which you find so unbearably endearing, and it makes your smile widen as he buries his face in the crook of your neck to hide his embarrassment.
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be,” you reassure as you card your fingers through his hair and tighten your legs around his waist. “Do you wanna keep going? You're still hard.”
“Yes, please,” Zeno mutters and pulls out of you after one last peck on your lips before he flips you on your stomach and slides right back in without missing a beat.
“Oh, fuck! That feels good!”
You groan when you feel your pussy squelching from Zeno's cum and your own release, gasping when he bottoms out deep into your cunt, all the way up to your cervix. You've never considered yourself a size queen until you met Zeno and realised that yes, actually, size really did matter sometimes and you had a thing for Zeno's big dick bruising your insides on every thrust.
The mattress groans under you while Zeno snaps his hips against your ass over and over again. He pants and moans above you, worked up and clearly enjoying how wet and tight your pussy is, and you claw at the sheets and bite the inside of your cheek as a way to release some of the tension in your body. It feels so good to be fucked like this – deep and powerful but unhurried, as if you have all the time in the world, as if Zeno isn't going anywhere any time soon.
It surprises you when Zeno's hand slides over the back of yours and intertwines your fingers together as he keeps fucking you into the mattress, but the tender, intimate gesture coupled with his harsh breathing in your ear, occasionally interrupted by his own overwhelmed whimpers at how good it feels, makes you moan and tighten around his cock even more. The sight of the veins in his hand standing out as he grips your hand while yours grips the sheets is so incredibly arousing.
“C-can you say it ag-again, sweetheart?” Zeno stutters in your ear, his rhythm faltering slightly at your stimulation. “What you said– ah, shit!– earlier?”
Immediately, you know exactly what he means. A smile blooms on your lips even as they part to let a groan escape your mouth at the way he hits your g spot perfectly. You're more than happy to oblige.
“I love you, Zeno,” you moan, feeling him twitch inside you and his hips falter again as soon as the words are out of your mouth.
“Again,” Zeno begs, fucking into you harder now, more hurried, as his desperation mounts.
“I love you!”
“Again.”
His hand slips under you, fingers finding your clit like a heat seeking missile, and his cock spears you so completely that you feel delirious from it. Your stomach tightens and your legs twitch under Zeno but you push the words out through the continuous moans that won't stop spilling from your lips.
“I love you more than anything, Zeno!” you scream, body locking up as another orgasm hits you, and that must trigger his own because he follows you not long after, stilling above you and coming inside once again. You whine quietly, overwhelmed but feeling so happy and content you could fly, and you wish you could purr in satisfaction when Zeno doesn't pull out – just maneuvers you so you're lying on your side, him spooning you with a hand on your stomach while the other cushions your head.
His arm slides up your body until he has you in a lock, trapped against his front and caged perfectly in his arms. You sigh contentedly and let him trap you – Zeno's arms are the only prison you'd gladly surrender yourself to.
“Thank you,” he whispers, voice thick and heavy with emotion, as he plants a featherlight kiss on your shoulder.
You lay a hand over his much broader one and squeeze tightly at his fingers in reply.
“Don't ever scare me like that again, Zeno.”
“I won't. I promise.”
You hum, happy with that for now, then let yourself drift off in the warmth of Zeno's arms, feeling full not only with him but also with happiness. Whatever tomorrow brings, you know you'll still have this at the end of the day – Zeno's love and devotion and his body next to yours in bed. Things may change but it will always be just this: you and him and the safe haven of your apartment. And that is more than enough.