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Chapter Text

His calves wobble as he squats against the bars. The cosmos brings the blessed sight of the beginning of an autumn evening, bright blue filling the room with dim light. It's not raining today. Thank God, it's not raining today. His fingers wander happily through the plants on his balcony. The cool breeze makes him sigh, the socks look comfortable after a fresh shower, dark hair tousled against the wind. And everything here is comfortable. Complete. Without the need for a single addition. It's great. Everything is great. 

Sometimes he ends the day like this. Looking at life to stop himself from thinking. Sometimes Briar ends the day like this. Lounging on his balcony, watching the busy boulevard of the great Berlint, and tirelessly counting how many cars will pass before the traffic lights close again. A silly competition to keep him from turning back. Sometimes Yuri Briar ends the day like this, turning her into anything he wants. And suddenly what used to be the street becomes a suffocating blackness commanded by her, with her deep-set eyes, her well-drawn mouth, her collarbones that he'd like to beg to leave a mark on. He returns to the feel of her fingers on his, recaptures her scent. When she pronounces his name so well that it seems right only when it comes from her lips.

Sometimes... Yuri hates that his heart loves to suffer for her. No, not Yuri Briar, but his core, secretly addicted to and shaken by Fiona Frost. The real Yuri, the one who supports himself with logic, convinces himself that... — sometimes he ends the day like this — It's nothing. It's just an impression.

And, — it takes time, but doesn't hesitate to arrive — there comes a day when he can't tell what an impression is anymore. The sensation of a simple dress filling her curves to the point of making him as soft as jelly? The cold stupidity of her words to him? The way she so cruelly, so cruelly, makes him wait for unreal truths while she uses him so well as a fake lover he could believe in? 

Maybe it's her way of making him hate her until he understands her, and turning all that into feelings that he doesn't know if they'll end up. Maybe they will. If he forgets the feel of her lips on his neck earlier today — it didn't last more than two seconds. It was meant to look vulgar, and that's what makes his core rebel. People already know about them, they don't need any more actions like that to confirm that something is going on. It's weird. It's... just fucking weird.

If even Loid and Yor no longer doubt their romance, who would Yuri Briar be to doubt it? 

[...] 

He agrees when she says her brother-in-law can't be with his sister. And he gets caught, more easily than he thought, in a web of lies that makes others believe what they both want. And it goes beyond making jealous. 

Keeping Forger late at the hospital, deleting Yor's messages asking what time he'll be home, and ending up, mysteriously, with no answer from her husband and a call from her brother implanting bullshit on her head to make her believe that Loid is no different from all the men with wives who cheat on them at the end of the day is just one of the things they've put in place. An almost perfect plan. 

And therein lies the problem of words and mutual feelings of a newly married couple. If only they didn't talk too much, if only they weren't too healthy. If only they weren't the main cause of Yuri's reckless circumstances.

On a cold Friday night, Frost uses her frustration as a trigger to say that "It's only a matter of time". She stares at him for a while in the yellowish light and empty silence. And she doesn't wait to drown her sorrows in a fervent kiss on Yuri's lips, in the darkness of the car, hovering over his lap as if that's what she's always wanted.

This time, he ends the day like that.

[...]

They are almost always disinterested, with a poisonous glow encompassing them, compressing them when they are about to attack someone. When she's about to throw all her stress at him. The glow is most fleeting when they begin to fight. But she seems to enjoy it so much that he doesn't hesitate to hit back. They're like that. Her eyes. In shades of gray from a rainy afternoon, like black holes, spinning him, spinning him, spinning him before he falls into the event horizon, gravity so strong it distorts space. And the further he fall through it, the closer it seems, but he never reach the end. 

Today they're escaping their usual role. Pulling him down as usual, but there's a different kind of poisonous luminosity imprinted on them. A sadistic glare after causing a fight between Loid and Yor. A lipstick stain. 

Briar remembers that shine from just over two weeks ago, when he invited her to his apartment — when they kissed so hard their lips tingled. It took him a while to process what was happening as he entered the house and felt the cold of a single room. There was only one light on and he was quick to offer her whiskey, a smile almost escaping her lips at the thought.

In silence, they shared a drink — nothing agreed, a mutual desire realized against the darkness — leaning against the kitchen sink, watching the movement through the window that pointed to the world beyond. It didn't take long for Yuri to speak again, a little dizzy from the third glass, both hands resting around her, his desire to kiss her again growing. Until I've had enough. Until i've marked every inch of her body.

He can't forget what involuntarily came out of his cheesy, drunken lips: "I'm addicted to you, Frosty," whispered against her ear, breathing in alcohol, and she loves to hear it, getting lost in trying to figure out when she got to like the smell of alcohol and mint so much, in a place of her ridiculous consciousness that makes her wonder what kind of toothpaste he uses, and why does he smell so deliciously good, why does he look so deliciously good? — maybe it's a bad night and she needs someone to massage her ego — but she laughs, almost as if to humiliate him, as she draws her gaze to him. Her thumb traces patterns on the mouth she so desperately wants to drown in, close enough to see every detail. "Addictions are bad, aren't they?"; His right hand moves up and down her neck as he gets closer, urging her to look up, no need to insist because maybe she likes to aim for his globes, — Fiona doesn't know when magenta became such a dark shade — the firm caress holding her in place and his hair suddenly sticking out to the side, her fingers lost there for some time. The seconds pass slowly without an answer, her fingers tracing a straight line down his handsome neck, but she doesn't show that she's going to steal a kiss from him. 

Briar is restless, he knows she's playing — not satisfied with a guaranteed win — and it's so hard to let himself breathe when he can so easily lose the line with her, forget that he can't want her any more than a fake girlfriend. He spins around as he gives up: "They are. Fuck, Frosty, how addictions are so fucking bad." He doesn't need to guarantee resistance when he can kiss her so well, when he can kiss her right now, in the good heat, her legs trapping him, lilac hair fluttering against the kitchen cabinet and the noise of the city complementing the immersion of the moment. He's lucky. How Yuri Briar is so fucking lucky not to be fighting in traffic.

It's the first time Yuri can't focus on what he's doing and how he's hurting his sister. Because he never knew that all these years of life, oscillating in the reason for living, were waiting for him in his mid-twenties. Here, leaning on her teeth. His whole life to see a smile on Fiona's face. Even a smile encouraged and congratulated by mischief. Surely he should thank some deity for this sudden ecstasy. With her chatter, Briar loves being alive.

"I'm in such a good mood that I'd let you steal a ki..." he doesn't wait for her to finish. It's the only sign he needs to start thanking. Buying time by kissing her. Groping her, holding her against his lap until the car is so hot they can't breathe. 

Yuri wonders what's so passionate about ending up with his hands down her pants and nothing but sighs covering her from head to toe. 

Maybe he'll find out tomorrow.

[...]

Until he hates to think that Loid could touch her if he wanted to. Until he hates to think that she could be his. And he even wonders if it's all based on waking up to an empty bed two mornings in a row, and there's that voice telling him that he's not going the right way, that maybe what he feels could be... 

Yuri is a little dizzy as he stops at the bedroom door, looking for the t-shirt that was on his body the night before, images lingering a little as they try to fit into the rhythm of his thoughts. His right hand rests on the door frame as he steadies his vision. Fiona is on the other side, her legs almost fully exposed and the garment Briar was looking for just below her hips. Her hair is a little disheveled, and though she doesn't look ready to leave, her movements betray her haste as she sips coffee from his mug, in the same spot where he drank whisky with her for the first time. Briar wants it to be permanent. When he watches her claim every corner of his house without even moving things. It's the arrogant way she doesn't care about him. 

She doesn't do the dishes. She notices his eyes fall on her as she finishes her coffee, a low sigh escaping her, as if she had to deal with someone she didn't like early in the morning. Her feet feel heavy as she sets them on the icy floor, and the reproach that she should have left as soon as he had brought her to the end of her vertigo in the early hours of the morning. He shouldn't be so comfortable and so damn hot. Frost doesn't react by implicitly demanding explanations. And he babbles, trying to understand what's going on: 

"Fiona..." Briar almost starts, needing a break to breathe and doesn't find himself willing to move the body that still stands inert in the bedroom doorway. "I... yesterday..." 

"Forget about yesterday. And that day in the kitchen. Forget it. Forget it, Briar." She doesn't face him. He doesn't ask for more. Because he can't. He can't ask for an explanation from someone he doesn't even know if is a friend. He doesn't even know her house number, for Christ's sake. He doesn't know why she loves his brother-in-law so much.

Frost walks across the room, not casting a single glance at him, bending down quickly — it's barely noticeable that she's completely naked underneath his clothes —, she tries to unravel her knickers between her fingers until she desperately runs her legs through the garment, the fabric of the waistband bunching over her hipbones, lilac hair trailing behind her as she adjusts her posture as if searching for the rest of her clothes. Eventually, Fiona is behind the sofa, his gray t-shirt slipping off her body in a matter of seconds, breasts so perfect they could be sculpted, the sun's rays coming in through the window with the cold air, brushing over the curves and bruises of yesterday — there's a perfect mark of his teeth on her shoulder blades, an almost imperceptible purplish-red on the back of her neck, as well as her hips and thighs. When Frost suggests putting on the bra, which is a different color than the one underneath, his eyes wander so far over her that Briar wonders if she really is like a painting. If what he sees is just madness because he wants her sexually. 

Then, quietly and majestically, she puts on the dark pants, the long-sleeved blouse — which makes a difference when it comes to covering the marks — and the dark blue coat. Her bangs are back in their usual place after she puts her white socks. Yuri watches her every step as she sinks into the floor, torn between asking for something, perhaps going over there and delaying her for whatever appointment she has, or letting her go. His phalanges crack as she pauses in the hallway to pull on her boots, a singularly quiet sound that echoes only in his mind. Briar makes a decision: 

"Fiona," her name lingers so well on his tongue that he wants to repeat it for hours. And he chooses to look like a needy man. Is looking needy for her really that bad? "What happened yesterday?" He doesn't know when the air got so thin and why his breath is so thick. Frost is still on her back, her hands zipping up her left boot. When she stops thinking, Briar catches a glimpse of what he's been longing for: more time with her. 

"Stay here. Spend the whole sunrise with me." would be more annoying than "Explain yourself to me."

She picks up her bag, both shoes firmly on the ground. She doesn't even think about turning around as she says it: "I fucked you because I wanted to celebrate. Because you're as easy as... as a fucking street cat, Briar. That's all." 

The automatic lock beeps when her fingers touch it, and it's a second and a half before she walks out of the door with him staring at her. Without saying goodbye, without saying good morning. 

An haughty motherfucker. That's all that gets him hooked on her.

[...]

Suddenly, he is faced with deep irises once again. The closed windows still bring the cold inside, still with the heater on, still with the blankets and coats around his body. Snow drips on the glass and the dryness is ridiculously unbearable. It dawns so late that it's hard to enjoy the days. She doesn't seem to mind the cold, the scarves, the dryness — and even less the late dawn. Because it's five o'clock in the morning on a Friday. And Fiona is standing on his doorstep as if she'd been left in the street.

Her strands are wet and her bangs are a pile of hair sticking out to the sides with obvious drips running down them. The perfect image he had of her is falling apart. And his heart is open to any false crumb Frost has to offer. And Yuri will love to cover her bruises with contingency, hoping that she will see him as more than a second option. 

There's a strange need in his brain to want Loid to disappoint her. So that she can come to me. So that she can impose her false ideals on me and use me as she pleases. He doesn't know why he insists on her vulnerability, but Fiona is there, and Yuri can do nothing but offer her a clean towel and his own clothes. 

Briar loses himself in the events as he finds himself drying the thick, lilac strands. It's strange to believe that Fiona would let him touch her so casually. Sitting at the end of his bed, Yuri runs the blue towel over her hair, dressed in the robes that fit him, marking the sweatshirts with her own scent, as well as the thin blanket she has wrapped herself in. 

"What are you doing here?" Briar keeps his voice low as he asks, glancing away for a moment at the alarm clock by the bedside. "It's five thirteen in the morning, Frosty." He has no idea why he shouldn't be angry, why he should answer her so early, why he should let her wear her favorite cold sweater on a random Friday morning. I know I'm like a street cat to her. 

"It was a fluke." 

I wanted to see you so badly. I suddenly thought of you so much that I ended up here. She doesn't say it. Instead, she throws her body back far enough that they both fall onto the mattress. Yuri is so disoriented that he stops breathing. She snuggles up between his legs, wriggling a bit until she decides that his chest is a great place to make a pillow. Briar watches the blanket question itself until he sees that it has completely covered her feet.

"Fiona?" is a complete question with a single call, putting all the whys so implicitly into something so small that it seems like a code all its own.

"It doesn't hurt to pretend, does it? Let's pretend. Like every day. For fifteen minutes. Just for fifteen minutes." Her sudden change brings up so many questions that his brain starts to burn. But it's a lie. Everything with her is a big lie. 

After that, Yuri won't be her permanent option. But rather the reception of the frustration that surrounds her. Because it's easy to come to him late at night, to get a hug and a cuddle, to rebuild her arrogance, her ego. 

To pretend that everything is fine. To pretend he doesn't know she's making a fool of him.

Pretend, pretend.

[...] 

"Yuri." It's the first time she's called him that. He sees her diaphragm rise and fall a little desperately; they've been standing in the same place for a while now, and the intention of moving away doesn't seem like a good idea when she's whispering his own name so sweetly. It's not a plea or a lisp, but a warning. And he responds with a long 'hm', like an obedient little animal, closing his eyes to immerse himself in her complaints. When she crawls a little further on top of him, the sweat is so obvious that it makes her too cold, his fingers crawl over her curves, the sticky sensation far from weird. "I told him."

He doesn't understand, the sentence taking many turns as if repeated at full throttle. Fiona is still one step away from fitting in with him, and it's so comfortable that it hurts try hard not to have a second erection. The bluish light of night covers her back, bare and glistening with sweat. Briar opens his eyes, her hair messy, no surprise after it was strewn across his mattress, crumpled when she was on her back, and thrown everywhere less than ten minutes ago. Frost has eyes as mesmerizing as lunar eclipses, blinding and totally plump. She sparkles like an expensive diamond kept in a high-security museum. Briar would steal her if he could, break all the laws that keep him employed, just to make sure he's got her, that she's his.

"You said what?" he no longer listens to her breathing, concentrating instead on staring at her, tracing disjointed drawings on her thighs. Fiona is expressionless as she goes back to the beginning: 

"I told Loid. I revealed my feelings." Something inside Yuri flinches so much he's sure he might throw up on her the next minute. He finds himself getting up in a huff, hunting for his clothes on the floor, and walking down the street at dawn. Jesus, he's never wanted to be mugged to death more. It never happens, his forefinger still circles her right thigh, he can still feel her warmth, and he can see her shapely breasts when Fiona is right on top of him. Her eyes are lost, and he searches for a way to find them again. "'I'm going to make a family with Yor. She's the one I love.'" It's the first time Briar has seen someone say a sentence without feeling it — Fiona has that gift. "He answered me that." 

"There was a vase on his desk, and the flowers were... beautiful. White violets. I knew they had come from Yor. I imagined throwing the vase on the floor and making a fuss. I wanted to force Loid to love me, after all I'd done for him. I don't know why he can't... Like me. Just like me." The tone is so dense it's suffocating. Yuri is holding her face, his warm fingers almost giving her a fever — she likes this unfamiliar warmth. Fiona leans forward, lying on his chest to escape the cold, and Briar doesn't hesitate to hold her. "Give me twenty minutes." It comes out so softly that his heart falters. She doesn't cry. She doesn't complain. She holds his hand so tight it feels like it's going to break. Ten, fifteen minutes pass and her warmth makes him relax. He doesn't say another word, just rubs her back from top to bottom to encourage her. 

It doesn't take long before Frost decides to lie down next to him, and Yuri doesn't think to pick up the heavy blanket. She practically sinks into the mattress when she feels the soft fabric against her skin, the smell of his fabric softener immediately comforting her. Briar slides his hand around her waist, pulling her closer until they are locked together. He slips his face into the curve between her neck and shoulder, trailing small kisses through the air down her cold cheeks, covering her in kisses until she feels less crazy. "You don't have to leave today," is his way of saying that he's here, with her, for her. 

Frost shouldn't take that seriously. Because that's what real boyfriends are for, right? Comfort. She knows it's false affection, but it's impossible to deny the confusion. 

Confusion, confusion.

[...]

The cold air pulls her to her feet, but he's there to solve the problem. With determined effort, he pulls her into his arms until she can't move. Her eyelids are confused by her attempt to wake up in the darkness, closing a little as she tries to keep them open. It's seven in the morning and the twilight is still visible outside, the only crack that brings the slightest bit of light marking the tumultuous presence of the snow. She clings to him a little tighter, just to keep the cold from seeping into her skin. His face falls a little to the side as he snuggles in, sinking into the nape of her neck, his icy nose sending shivers down her spine. They're so close they could suffocate.

"What time is it?" Yuri asks, his voice almost completely muffled against her collarbone. Fiona takes a moment to think, the warmth overtaking her as she almost falls back asleep. She sighs, opens her eyes a little to look for her cell phone, and is frustrated to find it next to him. 

Yuri, reluctantly, doesn't insist on releasing her when he sees her trying to get up. Frost stretches her arm over the top to reach the electronic, the cold not reaching her because of the shirt she doesn't know when it got on her body. She frowns, ready to ask questions as she looks at the dark fabric she's wearing, but Briar has her between his arms before she can form a sentence. Fiona clutches her cell phone to keep it from dropping and notices his eyes sparkle as he watches her with his chin tipped up. He has his dark curls scattered on the mattress and a cute little smile on his white teeth as he stands with both hands on her waist, his right hand resting on the side of the pillow so he doesn't drop all his weight on it. She wants, really wants, to get out of here without explanations and go back to him next week, but staying a little longer makes her pretense more real. Deciphering what his irises mean makes everything more real. 

And good morning kisses are the right way to make sure that no one suspects that Fiona is in love with  another someone else. That they only got involved because Yuri doesn't want his own sister to forget him. 

Now it's easy to fake the sighs when he puts his hands in her hair and kisses her so deliciously in a lie that she loves it all in a lie. Fiona appreciates his feigned passion when his fingers map her hips and stomach so attentively, wrapping the middle of her back in a delicious warmth that makes her want to claim for more. Yuri has his right hand on her thighs as he deepens the kiss, pulling her knees apart for just the right amount of teasing. She moans into his lips at the unexpected friction. She only needs falsehood to forget all the truths. Yuri does it to her. He does it so well, so well. 

"Hm... The time, Briar." is another gasp lost on his lips, with a quick glance at the screen. Fiona drops the object to the floor, not caring if the screen shatters as she clutches his cheeks. "Seven-eight in the morning," she hisses, her mouth red and slightly swollen. Briar smiles, pushing himself forward until they're almost at the edge of the mattress, and he knows Fiona is about to complain because everything's always fine until she's underneath him. He doesn't allow her to move, pinning her hands to the sheets as he kisses her again. But somehow, with a sudden movement, she's on top of him again, her hands pressing him against the fabric harder than they need to. "Don't do…”

"It?" Yuri mocks as he manages to overcome her strength to pin her between his legs, the t-shirt rising rapidly — the urge to kiss her body unfolding inside him. And he does. He presses his nose against the fabric until it sinks to her breasts, the icy air that mixes with his mouth leaving marks on her skin. She wants to argue with him, but she's too busy when Briar is about to put his mouth on her. On the other hand, he leaves contrary whiffs of her need that make her want to beg for more. Fiona almost twitches into a sullen expression, but keeps looking at him as if she doesn't have to. And she's about to end their fun by trying to drag herself out of bed. Briar interrupts, "Tell me what you want." She'd never admit how sticky her thighs are at that sentence alone. Magenta glows just for her and Fiona forgets how to breathe. 

"No," she insists, her voice slipping as if it had melted. Her eyes are lost in his neck and she can't say when she started to like that part of his body so much. You. I want you so much.

But she's already pulling him down, his hair tangled in her fingers as she mounts him. Briar has a mischievous grin on his face as he gives up fighting her.

"God, you're so stubborn, babe" she sinks the back of her hand into his mouth to shut him up, the other slipping between them to fit in effortlessly, she's dizzy from the intrusion for a few seconds, Yuri about to ask about her condition until Frost rolls his hips against him. Briar thinks this might be his last glimpse of air as he presses his own hands on her hips, grunting as he pushes in a little further. They sigh together, Fiona giving up trying to shutting him up to rest both hands on his chest. She pushes forward, loving the way he makes sounds and throws his head back for her. Frost spreads gasping kisses down his neck. He pulls her knees apart, sinking deeper into her cavity, and she can't help but kiss him to keep still. Her teeth are against his lower lips as he mumbles: 

"What would you do if I bought you every white violet in existence?" it's a question with more air than words. Fiona stares at him, the idiocy of the phrase making him so unserious that she wants to punch him. She's sure that in some distant reality she would have laughed at it at some point. But she clings to what he expressively offers her, a real question. Frost doesn't know if it's something with an answer or not. And she digs her nails into his bare shoulders to see if Briar exhales with any effect, comes back to consciousness. "You're such an idiot," she mutters, the rhythm almost stopping as she remembers:

"And stop calling me that," the whisper comes out sweeter than it should. 

"Or what?" 

I'll stop loving Loid. 

[...]

"Work?" he asks vaguely. She shakes her head and decides not to go to work on a Saturday morning at eight o'clock. Yuri leans towards as if to tell her a secret, a little passionately — maybe. He places kisses on her jaw, doesn't close his eyes, and catches a glimpse of her lips opening and closing at the sensation. Fiona swayed as he murmured, "Stay here. With me. Just for sixty minutes. Just sixty minutes. Until sunrise."

Her organs quiver. A red light jolts her awake. Just sixty minutes. She drinks in his expression, trying and refusing to give up the illusory aura that holds them together. Yuri sinks into rejection as her eyes take on a frightened shade. Frost untangles her legs, removing his hands from her waist so slowly that he almost apologizes. She crumble her face into the mattress as if to think and lets out a sigh caught between her teeth and tongue, trying for a moment to forget how perfect his eyes are for her. And she moves away from him, from the blankets, from the warmth. Dragging herself up, Fiona sits on the edge of the bed, her feet almost touching the floor, her straight back betraying usual personality. 

"No." Briar doesn't think the word through as a whole, he puts the letters together several times until he comes face to face with his own conscience. She stands, pulling on her socks so quickly that the movement goes unnoticed. "I can't."

Then Yuri realizes. Right there. In front of him. Around him. The echo of last night's conversation.

"When are you going to give up?" comes out more hyperventilating than expected, heart sinking and desperation running through his speech like some kind of plea that's been held in longer than he'd like. Frost stands still for a moment, projecting what he's just said, the pain in his voice igniting something in her chest she can't explain. A feeling so hateful that she could just…

"I won't give up." There is so much determination that Fiona seems certain of the outcome. There are two, twenty-five seconds of silence that make him want to walk up to her and shake her by the shoulders until she sees him. Why don't you stay with me? "Why would I give up, Briar?" is rhetorical. Totally obsessive and insistent on getting answers out of him so she can go back to repeating that she would never fall in love with him. And it's this unknown anger that surprises him that keeps him going:

"Because he rejected you, Fiona! He said he didn't want you because..." 

"He's so hopelessly in love with your worthless sister," she interrupts, his sentence sounding loud and stupid compared to her quiet tone. Frost decides to start pulling on her pants, her eyes never returning to Yuri, and even then, the look that falls upon her is too hateful. 

"You're so fucking petty, Fiona Frost," her last name slips off his tongue like sandpaper. "You don't know my sister. And that doesn't give you the right to talk about her like that." He reaches for his sweatshirt to face her, pulls it on without blinking, and within seconds is facing her deeply enigmatic eyes. "You've never talked to her for more than ten minutes. You're pathetic."

"Of course. You have to defend your innocent, poor little sister too, don't you?" Frost deliberately tosses his t-shirt to the floor as she removes it from her body, her feet wandering back and forth in search of the tops of the clothes she wore yesterday. Yuri doesn't hesitate to chase her down the hall until they stop at the sofa. He snorts as she puts on her bra. 

"Do you really want to know why Loid loves her so much?" this interrupts her movements, a touch to the wounds. Fiona stares at him without moving a muscle, but Briar knows how angry he's making her. "Why won't he love you even if you beg on your knees?”

"Stop. Just fucking stop." is low, but shouted in thought, secretly desperate and hurt. Yuri can hurt her as much as he wants, to let her know that he doesn't care about her any more than she cares about him. So he approaches as she pulls on her cold sweater: 

"Yor is radiant." His speech is driving her to run and put on her scarf so fast that she almost hangs herself to avoid hearing him. "She's honest." Frost scrambles across the floor to put on her shoes. "Caring. She's not a liar." She does mental exercises to pretend she doesn't hear him. "She's not cruel. She gets love wherever she goes because she has the best personality in the world. She won't end up alone because she knows how to love, because she doesn't..." It takes Yuri a while to realize that his tongue tastes like iron, and then his face starts to burn, and Fiona is hovering in front of him, her palm hot from the slap on the right side of his face. The dark eyes widen, he knows she wants to cry and doesn't mind continuing: "Yor don't go for a second option to fill her ego like you do."

Oh. Yuri managed to hurt her. 

Fiona sighs heavily, her chest aching as her eyes sting. She turns, remembering her cell phone. She crosses the corridors in search of his room, Yuri trailing behind as if watching her. Her shoes tap slowly on the floor, her face hot with irritation and sadness. There's an itch in her chest that spreads to her stomach and neck. And she wants so much to throw the facts in his face. But Yuri wasn't lying twenty seconds ago, and that makes her crumble inside. 

"Frost," he calls. She doesn't bother turning around. "Get..." 

"I get it!" Fiona shouts, ducking so fast her hair flutters. She searches for the object, her face streaked with ridiculous, merciless tears as she stares at it. "I'm leaving. And I don't want to hear your impressions of me as if I didn't know." She wipes her runny nose on the sleeve of her sweater and shoves her cell phone into her pocket as she passes him standing in the doorway. Frost glances at his face a few times, from side to side, from side to side. Her arms hang from her hips, her breath rising and falling with her crying, which is wiped away every three seconds. She avoids sobbing, so she stands still and sighs in chunks that could make her lose her breath.

"You're not even close to being an option, Briar." Yor won't be alone because she knows how to love. She doesn't know why her heart is so heavy when she opens the door, or why she lets the tears flow right there, wondering why hearing something so obvious makes her waver. 

"To hell with what you think of me," even though she's out of breath from sobbing as she gets into the elevator.

[...]

Fiona is like a boulevard in the rain, causing accidents without blinking an eye. If he wants to be childish, she can be childish with him too. And she makes him lose control of the steering wheel in a complex curve, trapping him in that trauma for longer than he would like. Lingers like a poison waiting to kill him by surprise, eating away at his insides, driving him mad until consciousness is just a goal to be reached in the midst of it all. 

She stops responding, says she hates how sentimental he can be, that he's no good at anything. 

And it's with a great deal of rage-fueled pleasure that he tells Yor everything — he doesn't think twice about omitting his own guilt, since it's so easy to lie as a policeman in Ostania.

Fiona is the one who makes him a terrible person.

Chapter Text

When the tracks come loose, when their souls break free from the ties that held them in a bond— viscous, strange, inexplicably sentimental— and fight each other with their wild natures, it takes less than forty-eight hours for her to knock on his door—knock, no, punch the wood and dip her finger against the bell at the same time, as if there were something urgent at two in the morning. Yuri doesn't quite know what's happening as he stumbles across the slippery floor, the fluffy socks on his feet not fitting his personality, scratching his eyes so that when he looks around he sees stars dancing next to the furniture and thinks he's in a deep sleep. Like a zombie, Briar is almost incapable of opening the door like a normal person, searching from time to time for a non-existent key that should fill the space in the cursed automatic lock. It beeps as if relieved when he manages to pull the handle, and it erupts in a bloated scream that ends up lost in the unholy chaos of darkness when it's pushed far enough for him to step back and hear it slam against the wall more aggressively than it should.

Some people say that their guardian angels go with them wherever they walk. Yuri believes that all of his angels are fallen because they attract demons as disgusting as her.

And the moment he feels her fist suddenly sink into his face, the moment his movements begin to spin from the, almost, knockout pound that leaves him as awake as a cup of coffee at three in the morning, Yuri begins to retrace all the small steps he has taken in his life and how they might have influenced this moment, before he lets the words slip from his bones in a rage:

"Have you gone crazy?!" he soon shouts, knowing who is the only wacky, inconvenient woman is who would show up at dawn just to hit him. In consecutive seconds, he opens his eyes wide to scrutinize her in a ridiculous way that he knows won't even tickle her reactions or heartbeat, because Fiona is insane, a determined lunatic he can't even reach with a simple threat.

She is and isn't close. He can and can't take two steps to grab her hair and use this stupid fight as an excuse to drown in her until his alarm clock goes off. And then, with her lilac hair a little tousled, her chest rising and falling with her ragged breathing, with a real growl, Frost quickly uses that voice he thinks is so hopelessly sweet it shouldn't belong to her:

"You're a son of a bitch, Yuri Briar!" echoes from all four sides. It penetrates his bones until he feels as if layers of ice could cover him from his fingertips to his vital organs. A death sentence. Zero concern for his neighbors. Their pause doesn't last two full seconds either: "You daft twat!"

You can never expect little surprises from Fiona. Just innocent visits in the early hours of the morning. Because of course she'll find a way to stab him even harder. When the nonchalant kicks come towards him, Briar turns away, his mind racing, and ends up getting kicked in the same way. She doesn't seem ashamed to attack a policeman, an authority greater than herself. In fact, he blames himself more for giving her all that comfort, because he was starting to feel sticky things for her.

"Who gave you the right to interfere in my life?" she digs her nails into the fabric of his collar, pulling him close so that her cold, desperate breath plants kisses on his hot cheeks as if she's about to give herself to him. It doesn't really happen. On the other hand, her eyes so vehemently steal his breath and tear his heart away from where it should belong, and for some reason he finds it sweet how she looks like a panther with those irises that almost border on the darkest shade of black, but which hang down to the most divine power of a beautiful silver that makes his insides shudder.

He wants to answer that he did what he did only for the sake of his sister, because Fiona is selfish, spiteful, throws him off track every time she appears in front of him, is devastating, has terrible individualistic habits that don't fit well with the desire he has to have, perhaps casually, two children with her and give her all the final documents she needs to finance a house in his heart. But even the most lovable idiots don't give in so easily. So as soon as a little smile appears on his face, which he knows makes her want to pull out every strand of hair and stab him, she recoils with a twist of the face that shows that the most effective remedy for someone like her is a third of Yuri's irritating personality.

"You know it's a crime to incite someone to commit adultery, don't you, Frosty?" he rolls off the tongue like a know-it-all, the kind of college student always ready to interrupt conversations with quotes from laws that no one really wants to know. It's enough to make the panther approach again, its sharp little claws ready to crawl up his jugular and finally reach its most peaceful spot in Eden the moment it sees him succumb in its arms.

"Screw. You." she whispers, her eyes blazing, but seeing her now, Frost looks like just a little thing with dangerous curves and a determination he tells himself he shouldn't be afraid of, even though he knows he definitely should be. "You're an accomplice, you fucking asshole."

He hides these episodes, dodges the truth like a wasp flying toward him, and reaches for the poison he keeps between his teeth, a self-defense, an anti-compassion against her charms. It's time to put the facts on paper.

"Do you want him to love you by making it so bad for him? Do you really feel anything for him, Fiona? Or is this whole evil-super-well-thought-out plan of yours the activity of your grandiosely sociopathic mind, hoping it will boost your ego? Because, look at that! How dare Loid Forger not like the so smart, so superior, so experienced Fiona Frost?" She's smart. She's so superior. She's everything he wants. Everything he avoids and at the same time desires so intrinsically that he could sacrifice a thousand men for it. Too wrong to admit. Briar only spits out nasty things because he likes the way she twitches involuntarily. He discovers this when he sleeps with her for the second time; sometimes she's about to show an emotion and doesn't have time to hide it sufficiently, so arriving before she's finished building walls on top of her own reactions is an effective thing to do to read her thoroughly.

This time, however, she pushes the reactions away, shelters the action, and crosses her arms, holding her nose to prove that she can be better. And she winces inside as the magenta irises scrutinize her from top to bottom, from side to side, waiting for her to explode so he can come and consume the taste of her anger that leaves his smug mind with traces of lust, like a little taster.

"It's funny to hear this from you, Yuri Briar, a bird-headed fool who was mysteriously glazed over by my evil-super-well-thought-out plan two months ago. Because, look! A grown man who can't survive without all the attention of his "big sister". She can rub it in his face, too, with her overbearing bangs and petulant little face that he, in his deepest thoughts, wants to bite.

And now they fight like children in kindergarten, a constant pushing and pulling. A first crush as hateful as it is vitriolic.

"And yet I managed to put myself in place before you and your psychodysleptic mind. I wouldn't ruin my sister's life and the people around her because I think she needs to live with just me. You should realize that," he advises like a wise monk. And she wants to laugh like a hyena, debauch like a deviant. But Fiona catches the bullet. That's not good. She's been called crazy before. But now, for some reason, it hurts.

Frost doesn't show it by continuing to defend herself:

"I didn't want this! I didn't need you to drag me into your new cognitive reality! I didn't want my most valuable asset to be taken away from me over a stupid thing like that, you worthless piece of shit! I can't even be around Loid anymore. Because of you!" she yells, the scream going around and around, and many things warning him that he'll get a notice from the landlord in the morning for fighting in the middle of the hallway with the woman the old bastard is sure is his girlfriend, but he doesn't care because inviting her in is almost a pointless move.

"You think I..." Yuri sneers, dragging out the sentence. He is an insatiable will to win. A proxy for the prize of who hurts the most. "Am I a big reason for Loid to stay away from you?" He continues: "Loid hates you so much. With your fake charisma. Your fake attitude and your fake personality. How do you expect him to want to be around you? What do you want him to see in you that's interesting? What do you want people to find so interesting about you?" He means that he doesn't care if other people, if Loid, find her interesting, because she's interesting enough for him, Yuri Briar. For less than seven seconds, he wonders if they are soul mates. It's the only explanation for why he finds himself at the mercy of all her evil scrutiny, which he discovers he loves all the same. He loves it so much that it's as if invisible hands are sinking into his flesh and drawing blood to make him admit it.

Fiona is slow to answer, her expression heavy as her breath begins to curl around her, resentful and offended, but she keeps her voice low, trying to stop the lecture or come up with useless answers:

"What do you see in me?"

Everything. Everything. Everything.

But he holds back, keeps the answers in a small box, locked with chains and curses. He measures her from top to bottom, watches the corridor from side to side, and loses sight of her eyes when he decides that to look at them is to show what he's keeping. Briar wonders if this is going to turn into an explanation, remembers that the last time they did this they ended up kissing, but quickly returns to the facts of a minute ago. He takes a step back, understanding a little of her persistence, and counters her words with gunpowder. His breath turns to fire as his muscles begin to twitch in nervousness, his hands mulling over fallacies:

"Empty. You're empty, Fiona. As empty as chaos."

I see myself in you. I see everything in you. I want you so much. I like you so much. If you have some time, I'd love to discover everything you like. Because I know you have it all. I know you're interesting. And that you somehow know how to love in the best way. I'm sorry.

He can hurt her before she hurts him. Because eventually she'll do it without blinking and he'll lose his dignity. Fiona is like that.

Her eyes widen so slightly that at first it doesn't even seem like a movement. But she stays, her fingers restless, watching him for what could be years, her chest rising and falling in what looks like pain, and when he catches a glimpse of her eyes starting to glaze over, Yuri feels like taking two steps forward and wrapping his shoulders around her in apology. He doesn't. He holds the doorknob and stares back at her in a competition to see who blinks first.

Fiona digs her own nails into the line-marked palms that love to run down his back, sharing secrets with the soft skin in the middle of the night. Briar is all her comfort, what she finds as a mantra and discovers as real care. Next to what he does for her, Loid has no room for the crumbs she's been trying to fill her heart with for years. But she's too old to look for unrequited love. And i know i should have just used him.

So Frost decides that keeping to herself is the most effective way to bring those who shouldn't into her own unstructured and flawed equation. She sighs, steps back, and wonders what she's doing here. I just wanted to see him. To fight, maybe. If so, all would be well. And if he just kissed me and told me to shut up instead of making me want to cry, I'd take it like the big idiot I am.

"Fine." Nodding frantically doesn't make things any better. And she wants, for some stupid reason, to search for confirmation, to hear him say that it's a lie. That she can stay, that they'll be okay. But it doesn't happen. Was everything you whispered to me a function of dopamine?

She never asks, but he seems to know what she wants. And Yuri delivers, lies filled with her fear.

"Do you think I'd buy you stupid flowers? That I'd call you babe if I wasn't playing with you?" I would. I would. I'd do anything for you.

He's all stubbornness, even though deep down her voice is dropping because of her feelings, and for a moment it's a good idea to reveal how he really feels about her. But he doesn't, as Frost walks away with her hands in her pockets, confirming his earlier theory about not being disguised enough. Fiona wonders how big the emptiness is that plagues her, and why it's so obvious.

She deconstructs herself, begins to fall apart, but finds time to nod. To say that she knows how illusions work. With her hands sweating and a cold shock in her ribs, it's painful not to let her voice slip as she mumbles again:

"Just... Get out of my life, Yuri. I don't need you telling your sister what I did or didn't do." She's as calm as the weather after a storm, her tone as heavy as the feeling of a stab wound. She accepts it. That there won't be anything more. That she should have buried the desire to see him with herself.

She doesn't even think about taking one last look at him, and in the embarrassment of waiting for the elevator, she searches for the emergency stairs, pushing the metal door with her body. And shaking her head as the annoyance spreads through her body like a disease.

[...]

It's hard to pay attention to his own existence when the dark surroundings are filled with music loud enough to shake bones and, by the gods, silence the exorbitant thoughts that have been orbiting him for the last few weeks. There came a time when he could no longer spend the night at work, so he was forced to take time off — contradictory, considering that the Ostanian government is out to profit by exploiting its employees to the maximum. His boss counters that it's no different from serving the citizens and Ostania if you can't get up when you're that tired.

When they drag him out of the office, Briar doesn't argue, just keeps quiet and tries to go back to work next week, but only on request. Yor can't go out with him. She's busy, she says, working for two after some of her colleagues were laid off to cut costs at City Hall.

He can't feel comfortable drinking unless he's with Yor. Maybe it's the way she understands his lack of tolerance for alcohol, or the way conversations can flow, and the way he likes to listen to her until he gets tired.

So Yuri finds some kind of nightclub, not because he wants to or needs to, but as a way to get out of the ordinary and beat out of his own head the person who's been keeping him going in circles since the night he watched her wipe away her tears on the way home. He didn't knew that shrews cried.

He enters the square leisurely, after whatever fills his mind.

Sinking between couples in love, teenagers with fake IDs, and groups of friends hoping to find dates, Briar settles into a barstool filled with drinks he never knew existed. He doesn't stray from the conventional. He orders beer. Not the best drink. Not his favorite. But what he wants now — a real search for immediate pleasure when he knows the headache will keep him in bed all day tomorrow.

Briar keeps his mind empty as he drinks. And he fills his glass once, twice, seven times, until his head hurts and his face burns. The alcohol calms his body as he puts his face between his hands. He clamps his tongue between his lips and rubs his hair in a way he knows is messy. And he starts to wonder how drunk he is when he can smell her in his head.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." Yuri doesn't complain to anyone in particular, the urge to stab his own heart sinking deep into his gut. He wants to tear out his own hair, scream as if that would bring her back, bang his head on the marble counter in front of him and choke on the blood until he passes out. Would she disappear like that?

The sudden movements that follow cause a kind of alarm in his fingertips, but it's not enough to make him move until he knows someone is approaching next door. The noise makes the muscles in his legs twitch, the heavy aura grabbing him by the collar. Her bag is thrown over the bar like a grenade down a flight of stairs, her feet scrambling for a place to sit as she whispers loudly, asking for a vodka. Curiosity soon consumes him.

Yuri looks away.

Of course. Of course, what the hell.

The purple dress fits her body as if it had been handmade, months of hard work to make sure all her curves were given due attention, skimming her waist and hugging her breasts in a way he thinks is more than right, her lips parted as she traces a loose pattern in the marble with her fingers. The lilac strands glow red against the light, the music stops as she is all that remains in the room. Of course, she had to be in the same place as him today.

For a few seconds, Yuri doesn't notice he's watching her. Then her eyes catch him without much need. This time, when the noise suddenly fades, there's a void, as if a giant sound wave had given up trying to hit him. Everything is pitch black the moment the light focuses on her, a mix of blue and red cutting vertically through her. It makes her shine brighter. Her face. Her eyes. Her mouth. Her neck. Everything about her is so bright. Briar doesn't know why she's so beautiful. If she's real.

He knows she is when he sees her leave her drink on the bar and walk out the door, breaking eye contact. And he doesn't hesitate... To go after her. The long strides and the glass cup falling to the floor with the suddenness of his step.

Why does he go after her?

He can't think about running over himself trying to catch up, dizzy when he sees her almost at the end of the street.

"Fiona!"

She doesn't think twice before stopping. His voice pierces her like an arrow, her legs go weak at his voice and her hands begin to sweat more than they should. She swallows, puts a foot forward, tries to move. Nothing happens.

Why does she stop? Why does she let him come closer? Why does she turn around? Why doesn't she make him wait?

They stare at each other for a while. Cars cross the avenue honking, a group of girls laughing loudly and outrageously, a couple arguing on the other side of the street. A kitty runs past them. Not even the smallest details of their surroundings shake them out of their inertia, their uncertain silence. Frost catches a glimpse of his ruby eyes, searching for her in a way she wouldn't want to understand in a million years. Because he pretends well. And that's just an act, too.

She gasps for air before looking away from him, sighing as she whispers:

"You're bleeding."

He seems surprised, more sober now that he's standing in front of her, looking at his own right hand. "I think... I dropped my glass running."

She bites her lip. Agree.

The usual Fiona would end this conversation in the next sentence, but now, after almost two hours of smiling at a stranger, she just wants Yuri. The specific Yuri who sneaks into her thoughts without her wanting him to. The Yuri who weakens her and makes her feel things she doesn't need to. The Yuri she hates. The Yuri who hates her as much as she hates him.

The only one she wants. The only one she needs.

"Did you come by car?" the Yuri who makes her do things she shouldn't. Briar nods before stopping herself from answering: "Give me the keys."

She's the kind of person who would take away his car just to avoid having to bandage him and watch him bleed to death. But he does. Because today is a bad day and he wants to find silence.

The mortifying, heavy silence she can carry in the worst of situations.

[...]

Frost doesn't explain why she's driving him to the pharmacy. Or why she buys everything he needs to clean his wound. Why she's doing it now. She just does it. In silence, without returning to the fact that she asked him to get out of her life, and that he hurt her so badly that she cried. And that she didn't say anything to him before they pulled up to a deserted block in the car with the headlights on while she slowly drew his blood.

Her fingers are like cushions — he remembers now — keeping the pressure on his palm the same way she did when she almost smothered him with a hug, so that he would give her more, feel her more, implying that she wanted to be the last thing he could breathe before he died. Fiona doesn't think Yuri was ever self-conscious about that. On the contrary, he would like her to be the last thing he sees before he dies. He thinks this when she scratches his back and her nails dig into the flesh until it bleeds. He thinks it when she bites his shoulders so hard that his bones might break. He thinks it when she looks at him as if she can visualize all the parts and details of him that she never thought to explain. He thinks it when she walks away. When she says she hates him and pretends to love him. He thinks it now.

When he discovers that she is his darkness and his support. When she takes care of him and Yuri knows, an imprecise idea, that she ignites something in his stomach that he cannot decipher. It's not something he can touch, examine as he usually does.

No sound of any kind escapes him when he's so focused on watching her open the band-aid package and press it just above a certain line on his right hand. He's in the passenger seat, hoping to hear something from her after several minutes of silence: "You're a total idiot," or "I told you not to follow me."

Fiona doesn't argue, though.

She doesn't look up as she finishes the bandage, the warmth of her hands making him sweat. Her hair begins to run down the side of her face, and Briar wants to reach out to stop it from covering the beautiful sight of her glowing skin. He hesitates, but does it. He pushes the strands away, doesn't even think about tucking them behind her ears because — somehow — he knows she hates it when they do that. Then the strands fall back and others, very stubbornly, turn to the left side of her face. And this time, when he puts his thumb on her cheek, holding it as if she could use his fingers as a pillow, Fiona doesn't pull away. She analyzes his irises as he pretends not to notice. She seems so intimate. Calm. Surrendered. His.

"What do you want?" her conscience doesn't take long, fleeing his touch like an alley cat after an easy meal. She's almost always painfully cold with words, but now it's a tropical chill. The kind without snow or blizzards.

He straightens. There is the rustle of clothes. Silence. Silence. Silence.

"I don't know." It comes out as such a sigh that it almost sounds like an insult. The drunkenness is in vain when he finds her so peacefully at his side. I wanted to see you. "Why were you there?"

Fiona doesn't bother to don't stop the conversation.

"I was running away from my blind date." He wonders for a moment. What's his name? Did he hurt you? Do you like him? Is he better than me? Would you marry him?

"The blind date was me?" Yuri teases, trying to break the mood. Fiona rolls her eyes, which is typical of her. The explanations come even with the assertion that it was a meaningless joke:

"Remember, I don't want to meet you even in death."

"And what are you doing here?"

"A fluke."

"No, exactly. You could have ignored me and turned down the road. But you didn't. Why didn't you?"

"You could not have given me the car keys. But you didn't. Why didn't you?" He has his answers, but he's not sure of her answers.

The moment she does that thing she does every time she gets in trouble, Briar starts to wobble. The tip of her pinkie finger leaves a trail on her lower lip. He wants to grab her. God, he wants her so bad, he needs her so bad. The smell. The consistency. The anger. The desire. The desperation. For God's sake, he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. He wants to channel her feelings, he wants her to know what he feels and he wants to know what she lives. He could throw up his own heart and let her know how much it beats for her, even if it's disconnected.

"Do you think we should have met?" It takes years for Briar to understand. He doesn't know what kind of question it is, how to interpret it, how to judge it with her always inexpressive expression. "Today."

He holds his breath, doesn't know why, waiting to think. But he stares at her as if he wants to stick his hand into her bosom to inspect it, to make sure there's something inside.

He doesn't fucking know a thing — he's pulling the part of him that says yes to hell.

Then Fiona comes closer — she shouldn't. It's dangerous. It's too hot. It's too painful. Sometimes she have this thought that she'll suffocate if she can't feel him, as if putting her hands on him would be the fuse to end her own madness.

Yuri should be hers. With the haircut she hates. The eyes that always tear her apart because they hurt like a razor floor. The hands that are rough and soft at the same time, pulling her painfully every time she acts like a child. The voice that always tries to make her feel like a monster, that sometimes calls to her with such affection that she gets confused.

"What do you want?" she wants to ask. She asks, almost begs. Whispering, just for him, a secret that mutates and remains only between them. Briar drinks her gaze, sinks into her. Fiona feels as if his hands are on her throat, squeezing to kill her, his fingertips marking the entire circumference, a bright purple coloring her windpipe. She really is a wretched. She deserves it. She's evil.

I want you to get out of the car.

He doesn't say it because he doesn't want to. He doesn't say it because he wants to find a way to make it not come out crooked, lying, robotic.

She knows it's a dead end. But as she reaches for the handle, Yuri locks the car. The bang tickles her ribs, her feet tingle, the back of her neck shivers.

Frost turns to look at him.

She wanted to feel for him. To be half of him.

"Stay," he murmurs. She listens closely, feels the shape of the letters, draws them with her eyes, could touch the air and trace them. "I want you to stay. Please."

"Why?"

Stay now? Forever?

"Because I need you." Yuri says it only once, precisely. It doesn't sound real. It's not a stutter. He's joking again, she realizes.

He doesn't need her. She knows he doesn't.

But she reaches out anyway. She grabs his face, pulls him forward, dives into his lips to feel something other than insignificance, hoping she can die here. She needs him. And she gives in, because he's already broken everything that was left in her. Thank you for making me worse. Thank you for destroying me even more.

Fiona finds a patheticness that roars to life in her stomach as she convinces herself that it's okay to wrap herself in this web of lies with him one last time. She convinces herself. She convinces herself. She convinces herself. And she doesn't believe it when he squeezes her cheeks and sticks his tongue in her mouth. Because leaving is hard.

This horrible, palpable feeling that she almost doesn't know is wallowing in her lungs. She can't breathe. Frost feels too much, feels him, feels for him.

"I gave you the keys because you look beautiful today, babe."

She falls.

She falls.

She falls.

She falls.

He can see, maybe it's an impression, her eyes shining through the compliment. Briar knows she likes the reaction, that he sees her vulnerable now. Fiona's lips part, her ragged breath meeting his mouth. Yuri is sure she has something in mind, she's going to say that's no reason, that he should stop calling her that.

Fiona says nothing. She's barefoot when she decides to join him in the passenger seat, her warm thighs wrapped around him as she looks at him. He almost confuses lust with longing when she runs her hands through his hair, pushing him back against the seat, kissing him so tenderly it's like sugar.

"Was your blind date nice?" he teases, knowing she hates it when he talks. He wants one last look at her lack of patience. Frost breathes against his lips as his left fingers try to join hers, his right hand tracing a slow path down her thighs. Unbelievably, the orders and complaints or detours for lack of answers he expects from her do not appear. She doesn't ignore him.

"No," she shakes her head to soften her denial. He wants to smile when he sees her talking more than usual, and an inner voice — the one he's been dragging away since she didn't ask him to pay attention — whispers that something is wrong.

Briar nods, a finality. His hands wander to her shapely thighs like some kind of amateur massage. He wonders if she knows how perfect she is. The last piece of his puzzle.

There's a faint bite just below the end of his jaw as she sinks her hands into his hair and he floors her cleavage with kisses he wants her to know are all affection. She almost sighs as his fingers wander around her crotch, finding a job in pulling the small cloth aside. His middle and ring fingers make such a complete home inside her that he swears they were made especially for her.

"You're so w..."

"If you finish that shitty sentence, I'm getting out of the car," is more of a gasp than a rebuke, the lines making the process slower and more pleasurable. The Fiona he's grown accustomed to returns, and Yuri lets out a mocking chuckle before moving his fingers back and forth inside her, small spasms against him as the speed increases.

"What did you want to tell me?" she trails kisses down his face as she tries to keep quiet, starting with his cheeks, nose, chin, stopping when she reaches his lips to look at him. "At that...time." Her voice melts into caramel — the most expensive, the most well-made.

"I hate that I can't get you out of my head. I missed you so much." Briar isn't lying. He finally gets a moan out of her, counting on his ring finger circling inside her, and Fiona interrupts him by biting his shirt.

"Your lies are so convincing." Frost squeezes his fingers as the disbelief in Yuri's eyes is felt more quickly than false revenge as he presses against her clit in the cruelest way he can find. And she smiles as she presses his fingers against her, loving the ride all the same, not hurrying as she repeats that this is the last time she'll be able to have him near her.

Nimbly, Yuri changes positions almost imperceptibly, crawling under the glove compartment as he pushes the seat back, his expression mixed with confusion and irritation at his fingers leaving her. Suddenly, the spacious car seems small as she watches him squeeze into the narrow seat. She wants to laugh instead of frowning. She wants to say that she appreciates his efforts to please her. That he looks ridiculously nice being helpful.

But she forgets when Briar puts his head between her legs, his dress bunched around her hips, his nose between her wet folds, and his bare feet nervously flattened against the windshield.

And when he kisses her,

I love you, Yuri Briar.

she feels it. She feels it.

His nose slowly maps her insides, her legs trembling more than expected as he envelops her with his lips and traces a sultry, cutting path with his hands to her hips, as if offering one of them for Fiona to hold. Frost grasps his left hand, intertwining their fingers with such confused affection that she suddenly loses herself in it. The yellowish light of the streetlamps shines brightly in his eyes as Yuri looks at her. Smiling. Precise. Handsome. Ah. Maybe he's better looking than Loid. Better than...

Her lips open wide, she reaches out for support as he sucks her, not missing a beat, sinking his face into her with his free hand, Yuri doing the same as he allows the right hand to rest her right leg on his shoulder, more open, one foot almost marking the front glass, the other pressing into his back for more.

She scratches his scalp, choking on her own breath.

"Yuri." Frost wants to consume him in every way, forever. She holds him tight. Reverently. Looking for confirmation that he is real, that he will stay with her until he is sure that she is as much his as he is hers. "Yuri. Yuri." she repeats almost prayerfully, crying out his name with no room for rationality. The warm air of his breath falls over her, she knows he's laughing before he plunges his tongue into her slit. Fiona is mischievous at the sensation, scolding herself as she accidentally chokes.

She slips a little in her seat as she involuntarily seeks relief, shuddering and squirming, her heels pressing hard against the glove compartment.

"Please..." her voice is lost in a tangle of desire. Briar loses his mind, the tone sinking painfully into his bones, a hum of desperation that leaves him reeling. She begs so much, a different Fiona from twenty minutes ago. She almost curses herself as she recognizes the phrase, swallowing every moan and plea for the next minute, her lips drawn in a thin line.

Yuri is triumphant as he takes it all in, his breath ragged and his fingers squeezing his hand with tension at its peak. He wants to hear her more if he can, but he sees that the movements she made were involuntary and that insisting she do it again will only bring back the usual Fiona.

Her legs close around him, another kick to the windshield, and she bites her lips harder as she makes a ridiculous little sound that shouldn't be there. It's almost as if her body is forcing her to say she loves him. Yuri lets his right hand wander around her hips, cupping her breasts as he rolls her nipples between his thumbs. She moans, but not a real moan, takes her right hand out of his hair and keeps up the rhythm. You can't tell what's happening, but she screams as he rolls his tongue inside her in an unreal way, pulling his right hand away to slam it against the fogged glass.

"Yuri." Yes, yes, I'm here, my love. Here for you. For you. Only for you. All yours. Anytime you need me. "Ah. Oh, shit. Holy shit." Her voice excites him. He loves it. He hopes it doesn't end tonight. He hopes she'll never have to remember their incompatibility. With her begging. Saying his name.

Frost arches her back as Briar grabs her hips, riding his face, her mind reeling as the peak melts her bones. It's so good. It's always intense. She loves to be intense with him.

Her hair clings to her and the feel of the dress against her is unbearable, her mouth still open as she breathes heavily, small tears filling the corners of her eyes as she finds Magenta once again.

"Yuri..." she whispers. She begs. She collapses, letting him rebuild every broken piece of her.

He raises an eyebrow. She has all night to listen to him. His dark hair spilling down his sides, his mouth swollen, his face covered with traces, with her scent, still kneeling like an obedient puppy, his thumbs resting on her thighs.

"Yes, babe?" she doesn't know when they've reached an agreement where he can make her as soft as jelly. "I'm here. For you and your filthy mouth." She hates it when he does that. Because she fell in love with him when he called her that in front of Loid. Something like this sentence. "Yes, babe? I'm right here. Do you need anything? Do you want to go home?" she cursed him that day, but she loved him just as much as she loves him now.

She likes his false affection. She wants to hold on to it. Even though she knows what he feels for her. It's just... a joke. It's okay.

She pulls him up, kisses him without much effort until he's leaning against the bench and she's riding him. The tips of his thumbs run along the side of her neck like poisoned smooches.

"I like it when you're loud." It's relaxed and giggly, and she wants to punch him. His fingers creep between her strands, a friendly massage running down the back of her neck. Briar pulls her back a little — not enough to hurt — and bites her neck with a kind of obsession. And Fiona loves it.

"I'm drunk." She dodges the facts with a lie, shakily, not wanting to make it obvious that she's saying it because he's all she can think about.

"You don't get drunk, Frosty." But he still knows some things about her. And it is difficult to contradict them. With his muffled voice making its home in her jaw, Frost prefers to bite her lip and let the air carry the conversation, her legs still a little wobbly as she keeps herself sane by trying to unzip his pants so quickly.

It's easy to get caught up in a tangle of clothes while he's amused by her concentration as she searches for the zipper of her dress as well.

"When you say 'please'. You never said please," he has to continue, right? The next moment, Fiona is fiddling with the buttons on his shirt, struggling to undo them and getting a little annoyed when she almost tears the fabric. Yuri holds his hands up, as if about to do something bad: "You don't have to be so rough." A playful smile dances across his face as she looks impatient at his interruption.

"Things could be so easy if these stupid buttons weren't bothering me..." he unbuttons the garment so slowly and easily that she is mesmerized by the movement. I love you, Briar. I love it when you're persistently handsome — she would become religious if it guaranteed the secrecy of her feelings.

When it comes to an end, he opens his arms willingly to let her tear off his clothes, the straps slipping off her the next minute. "Patience is..."

"Shut up," she silences, and he is a little dizzy at the sight of her bra-less. Briar does shut up, pushing her pants down with her feet, leaving practically nothing but her dress between them. Her fingers slip into the last piece of clothing he has left, and he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat, mumbling inaudibly as her hand warms him all over, fingers so good he thinks he might die.

Fiona holds his face with her free hand, rubellite meeting dark gray as she manages to catch a glimpse of his moaning, reveling in the lust trapped within him, pausing to watch him almost shed tears of reproach.

"You don't deserve any of this," she is a persistently spiteful and heartless little witch. He sighs as he throws his head back again, dark strands tangled against the seat, a little sweat dripping down his Adam's apple as he swallows his thirst and Fiona follows his movements with her gaze. She's never been so hungry.

"Why are you always so mean to me?" she doesn't answer. Instead, she moves closer, pushing her thoughts aside to face him, sitting down hard as they both sigh.

Thank you, God. Oh shit, thank you.

Feeling him like this is different.

"We should..." Yuri hooks his fingers behind her knees, pushing his body forward a little to feel more of her. He can't think straight as he tries to continue: "Protection." He sinks his head into her neck, hoping to stabilize himself when she moves so well against him that Briar forgets what he said before.

"I haven't... been with anyone but you for the last year. And we're not going to..." the words stop when his mouth meets her nipples. Fiona doesn't make a sound, but she rolls her eyes as she recklessly grabs his hair, tugging shamelessly as she leaves the consequences for later, bucking her hips against him as she throws her neck back, his warm hands squeezing her waist so tight it hurts, and she moans, dammit, she moans as Briar clenches his teeth on her nipples, stares at her with eyes as red as polished ruby. Yuri's tongue traces a path down her neck, an interruption of kisses across her jaw before returning to her lips in desperation.

Fiona closes her eyes tightly as she holds his face, their mouths meeting in a slow, intense kiss as his fingers run up her back, bringing her closer as their breaths become more restricted. Frost rests her left hand on the damp glass as she cradles his shoulder blades with her right arm, finding a rhythm on his lap, taking him slowly to enjoy him more. He holds her heels, pushing her back a little as he steals her work, legs spread wider as he aligns himself even more with her, sweat clinging to her body as he gradually increases his thrusts.

His fingers wrap around the lever that puts the passenger seat back, bringing her close to him as they lie down completely. Yuri holds her waist as he tries to turn her over, and Fiona grabs the locked handle to stop him.

"What are you doing, Briar?" she pulls away from the kiss to face him and he sighs, squeezing her ass as he tries to turn her again, but Frost is determined to remain inert.

"Will you stop being stubborn?" he insists. They continue to answer question after question. Yuri throws himself on top of her, but she holds him against the soft seat.

"I'm not going to stay here..." in a distraction, he squeezes her thighs and changes positions, hovering over a grumbling Fiona, her hair all over the leather. Briar smiles at the sight of her underneath. "I don't want to..."

He releases her with a fake kiss of distraction that she would hate if she could.

"Can you shut up?"

"No. I won't shut up, you son of a..." She bites her lip as he touches her hard, thrusting into her with the intention of silencing her as much as possible. His hair is pulled as he locks her legs behind his back, and Fiona scratches him until there's blood on her nails as she gives up complaining, hurting him more out of revenge than anything else. She swallows his eyes with all the rabid ferocity she can bring herself to unleash on him, but his thumb on her sensitive spots causes her to lose eye contact.

She rolls over on the seat with her mouth wide open, making a noise she wouldn't normally make, just because she can forget for a moment that she's in his arms. She comes down from the high like a pretty sweaty mess, collapsing against him, desperately searching for air, a few tears finding her again halfway through. This time more intense and visible.

Frost doesn't have time to talk, which is why he keeps thrusting his hips against hers, hard, letting her wrap around him so tightly, feeling the blood rush through every part of his body until he feels her fingertips squeeze his neck. He breathes her in, catches her up, and she thinks she can't take it anymore.

He says her name so many times that she forgets what she's really called. Yuri squeezes her until she tastes life — blood, sweat, saliva.

Fiona smiles weakly through her tears and he grunts at the sensation of adrenaline consuming him, the brightness not matching the current darkness, the warmth inside not matching the chill on his skin.

"You're perfect. You're so fucking good, my love. You're beautiful, babe. So perfectly beautiful..."

He gasps, drinking in her gaze, and she's happy, so happy, drunk on him, marked by him. Briar falls on top of her after a few seconds, the sticky texture soothing them. His face against her collarbone, his breath touching her, is almost an instant confirmation that she's not dreaming.

Yuri lifts his head to look at her. He brushes away the small tears that still cling to her face. Fiona follows his eyes before answering him. She pulls him aside, resuming her original position. And gives a little of herself before everything falls apart.

She kisses him tenderly, silent as a cat, drawing her lips to the corner of his mouth until Yuri decides to wrap his arms around her, rubbing her back as if he knows she needs comfort. In a silent car on a deserted street at dawn, they channel into each other the tenderness they couldn't show. She doesn't need many words to accept the embrace, tucking her face into the curve of his neck, hoping for more warmth.

He smells good. Even with the sweat, Briar smells the best she's ever smelled.

She doesn't struggle to know that he has his eyes closed tightly from the sighs, enjoying himself. Enjoying her. Enjoying them. Vulnerability hits her as she catches sight of him again: the dark, dazzling lashes that most women would probably envy, the calm, handsome face, perfect mouth, perfect nose. She pushes the dark, drenched hair away from his face, rolling it between her index finger, moving it a little to pass the time until he faces her. Magenta glows against the darkness and the streetlights.

I think I love you, Yuri. I've been wrong all along, and I've always loved you.

He wants to know what to say to her and how sudden the night was, but she looks at him and everything is replaced by that pair of quartz irises he missed trying to decipher. He walks around her back and feels her warmth spread through him.

"And..." Briar clicks, lost in all that she is: "And now?" he asks, a little serious and worried, afraid — who knows? — she doesn't respond. "What happens to us?" he doesn't try to figure out if she's sad or angry this time, he just lets himself get lost in the depth of her as she gives up the idea.

"I'm sorry." Fiona wants to frown. She doesn't. Yuri waits for her to say something, finds no protest from her: "I didn't mean it that night." She doesn't know what he's getting at, she's not sure she needs to know, she closes the little box in her core she calls hope. "I want to love you. I want to love you, Fiona." He even thinks he's made a fool of himself when she remains silent. But she's there: watching him, processing, maybe hating.

She purses her lips, looks frightened, and he gets anxious. Fiona opens and closes her mouth more times than he can count. She wants to say: Me too. I already love you. And it sounds so ridiculous that she just shrinks away.

It's embarrassing after.

What could have been an answer turns into a sudden retreat, enough to make him almost slip, but his reflexes are more efficient as he holds on to the door. Yuri thinks about the lines, wondering how far she would go to ruin him over his feelings for her.

Fiona rummages through his glove compartment, looking for papers or wet wipes. Then she goes back to where she was sitting earlier in the evening and cleans herself in silence.

He watches her with her head down as she searches for her dress and desperately puts it on a second time, not bothering to take it off at her feet to put it on properly. Then she puts on her heels, slower than she would like. Yuri searches through her own clothes, trying to figure out what's so bad about her thoughts. Then he leans his head back on the seat, straightens his hair as he looks out at the fogged windows, and lets it go in the silence:

"You don't want to love something that's empty, Briar." The tropical chill disappears as her voice uses the Siberian climate to answer him. He clicks his tongue, still shirtless as he looks at her, saying nothing and saying everything.

Fiona laughs bitterly, seems to swallow as she grips the steering wheel with both hands and rests her forehead against it, thinking for a few minutes. "Find someone as nice as you." Her voice is somewhere between tired and annoyed, but she's not trembling when she says it. "Someone who seems nice. And caring. You can take care of her, she can take care of you."

"What do you mean by that?" Breaking through her inverted reality, the understanding she proposes seems embellished because it comes out so sternly:

"I wasn't supposed to..." Frost shakes her head, "You said games like this don't need so much reality, Briar. That's all." He doesn't ask for her explanation, hating himself for it later.

"Fiona..." she pulls her arm away from him before Yuri's fingers can find her.

"I only got in the car because you're my non-existent option. It wasn't because I missed you. It wasn't because you're good for me." It wasn't because I like the way you can warm me up.

"You're in denial," he says. She knows yes. He knows yes, but he doesn't know what moves to make her understand. There's no manual for reading her at times like this.

"I'm not."

"You know you are, Fiona. You know that. And I know that deep down you know you can't steal my heart and walk away." For a moment he suffers. There's this drama he's taking on and giving to her, like he's going to die if he doesn't tell her the facts.

"You don't want all of me." The insistence comes across to him as anger.

"I do. I want all of your confidence. Your smile that you pretend isn't real. I want your stubbornness. I want all your aggression. Your way of loving. I want you to like something without hiding it. Fiona, I..."

"Shut up," she begs, without hiding it, without avoiding false feelings.

"I want y..."

"Shut up, Yuri. Shut the fuck up." Frost wants to put her hands over his mouth, shut him up. But she's too affected to scream, too confused to find the right action.

"I've been in love with you for more than..." he thinks slowly as she approaches him like a rabid lion, her hands clutching his neck as if she hesitates to hurt him, but is too angry to deny the will of her reactions.

"You don't love me. You don't like me." It's as if she's trying to hypnotize him, her face flushed and her eyes watering as she absorbs his confused reactions, which, despite his shock, he doesn't respond to. "You like having me around because you love that I give you the attention you lost for Yor. You love me as something practical, but you don't love me as a whole person. So stop pretending, please." She stumbles over her own words, the plea trapped between them coming out faintly. Decipher. Decipher. Decipher. Even what isn't true. "I told you to get out of my life. Why do you keep coming back? You should see me and pretend I don't exist, but you're always so... So stupid, Briar." She refuses to cry in front of him, averting her eyes as she pulls away.

Yuri runs his hands down his neck as he remains silent.

"Why did you keep coming back?" he asks again. It sounds like an insult. A retort.

Because you're good for me.

Fiona gives up on answering.

"Why did you tell me to stay?"

"Because I fucking love you. Because I fucking love you, damn it! Is that what you wanted to hear? I don't want to love you, Fiona. I fucking love you. I fucking love you. Not as a practical thing. I love you." Suddenly she is clinging to him, crying outrageously as she chokes on her own saliva and hits him while he holds her hands and embraces her until despair is but a memory.

On the other hand, when she comes to, Yuri is panting and her eyes are wide open.

"Why haven't you been with anyone but me these past months? Did you ever think of Loid when you kissed me? You didn't come to me in the middle of the night to discuss something that could have been said on the phone, did you? What about that whole 'fifteen minutes' thing?"

"I don't need your illusions, Yuri. I don't need you. I don't feel anything for you. I don't want you. I don't want your heart. Your kindness. Your love. I despise all of that more than you can imagine." It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie.

Fiona wanted him to magically discover her and bind her to him forever.

Briar comes closer. He holds her face between his hands, kneading it. "Everything. I have all of me just for you." Frost doesn't pull away, looking down, loving the warmth of his hands, waiting for answers: "So look at me. And tell me, directly, that none of this matters to you." Please tell me that you think of me as much as I think of you. Tell me that you'll dream about me tonight so that I can do the same for you. Please. Please, babe. Please.

Fiona sees all sides except him. She mocks, sighs, wants to cry. She'll do it at home, after she realizes that she's not only radioactive to herself. When she realizes that Yuri would tire of her in less than two years. That she would hurt him as much as she would hurt the plants she was supposed to be taking care of. Because she's empty. And she's given up on fixing herself.

It's easier to replace anger with the intensity and responsibility that comes with loving someone.

"You know you deserve better," she murmurs, her voice heavy against his ear, her touch a memory even so close. "We can't go on like this."

He barely moves, barely breathes.

"Is that what you want?" is the only thing he asks before Fiona finds what she needs.

Takes too long. Takes too little.

And she acts as she usually does: impassive, hateful, unsympathetic, spiteful. She doesn't answer.

Opens the door and stomps on the asphalt as if her legs weren't wobbly. Doesn't look at his reaction as she leaves him without an answer. Slams the car door shut before letting out a deep sigh. And leaves with a broken heart, giving up on her first option.