Chapter 3
Dialogue Option Tree
Levi’s cheek pressed against the cold metal of the wall, his breath coming back at him off the surface in damp bursts.
Asher’s weight held him there; chest to spine, close enough that Levi could feel his heartbeat through the layers of uniform between them.
It was steady. Controlled. Nothing about Asher’s heartbeat matched what was happening.
His fingers found Levi’s face and turned his head, not gently, but not to hurt either—just enough to see his face. His eyes moved over Levi’s face in the dim light, and the tension went out of his shoulders.
“There you are,” he said softly. Asher’s hand slid from Levi’s jaw to his throat, and he spun him, slamming him into the wall hard enough that the back of his skull connected with metal, the thud ringing through both of them. “You walked away from me.”
Levi grabbed Asher’s wrist, his fingers scrabbling at the grip, and found only the tendons and the heat of skin, as Asher watched him try — furious and fascinated at the same time, his thumb shifting against Levi’s jugular. “I was trying to—”
“You walked away,” Asher said through his teeth. His grip tightened, and Levi saw black dots dancing in his periphery. “You kissed me, and then you walked away.”
“Asher—”
“You left me!” Asher shouted and punched the wall next to Levi’s head. Levi flinched, his eyes squeezing shut as a whimper escaped his throat.
Asher pressed his forehead to Levi’s, his fingers still around Levi’s throat, but his thumb was moving now, tracing the tendon, the hollow of his throat, his Adam’s apple.
Levi opened his eyes as Asher pressed down just a little harder, feeling the pressure of cartilage pressing inward.
Warmth pooled in his belly, and Levi bit the inside of his lip, hating himself for this part.
He hated that he could fear for his life and still be aroused.
It was an incredibly stupid thing for his body to do, but it did it nonetheless.
The pressure at his throat, the impact to his skull, the proximity…
his vision blurred as tears started to streak down his face.
“Asher, please…”
Asher pulled back just far enough to look at him.
The rage was still there — in his grip, in the set of his jaw, in the dent he’d left in the wall — but his eyes tracked the tears down Levi’s face with a focus that had nothing to do with anger.
His thumb came up and caught one at the corner of Levi’s mouth.
“You’re so beautiful when you cry,” he murmured, tilting his head.
His hand moved from Levi’s throat to his hair, pulling back hard enough that Levi’s neck arched and a gasp tore out of him before he could close his mouth around it — sharp, involuntary, pulled from his chest by the pain.
Mostly the pain.
Asher’s breathing changed.
Not from rage. From Levi. From the arch of his throat and the flush climbing his neck and the sound he’d just made. His tongue traced a path down Levi’s neck and back up to his jaw. Levi’s hands came up, fisting the front of Asher’s uniform.
“I couldn’t find you.” The words vibrated against his skin.
“You did find me.” Levi’s voice came out weak. “You always find me.”
Asher lifted his head. “I had to find someone who knew this place first.”
Levi tried to glance over at the blanket, but Asher pulled his head back further. “I’m sorry—
“I had to find out where things were,” Asher whispered as he kissed Levi’s jaw. “Where you would be. How to get to you…” His teeth grazed just below his ear again — deliberate now, a reminder that the capability was there, that it could go further than pleasant. “Where the weapons are stored.”
Levi’s stomach dropped. Not from the words — from the tone, matter-of-fact against his skin. A task completed. A task described with his mouth still on the person he’d completed it for.
“You were somewhere on this thing, and I couldn’t—” Asher’s head lifted again to watch Levi’s face with an expression that looked like grief and hunger wearing the same face. “He was helpful.”
Helpful.
“It took a while,” Asher said, loosening his grip. His fingers spread, moving through the strands instead of gripping, and Levi’s scalp couldn’t tell where pulling ended and petting began.
“And then I found you. Sitting in there. Drinking coffee. Laughing.” His fingers kept moving through Levi’s hair. “You laughed at something Jasper said.”
Oh no.
“I stood in the corridor for thirty minutes.” Asher’s fingers stopped, and his palm cupped the back of Levi’s skull where it had hit the wall, cradling the bump his own violence had left. “I watched you for thirty minutes and you didn’t look for me once.”
“I didn’t know you were—”
“And then he touched you.”
Levi’s breath caught.
“He had his hands on you in front of everyone. Like he had any fucking right. And he did it like he’d done it before.” His fingers twitched against Levi’s skull. “Has he done it before?”
“It’s the game,” Levi said quickly, still gripping Asher’s shirt. “They’re NPCs, Asher, they have backstories that aren’t—”
“I heard them, Levi. Through the wall. I heard every word.”
Oh god.
“It’s not real,” Levi said, and he could hear how desperate it sounded. “None of it’s real. I’ve never — Asher, you know I’ve never—”
“Our bodies reset when we die, Levi. He doesn’t get to be your first, do you understand me?” Asher snapped. “He doesn’t get to be anything to you. Nothing. I’m yours, and you’re mine. That’s it.”
“You’re my first, always,” Levi said quickly, because it was true and because Asher still had him pinned, and he didn’t want to find out what would happen if Asher decided right now was the time to be his first again. “No one has touched me like that except for you. You know that.”
He watched the muscles in Asher’s jaw jump as they locked eyes, then the tension faded around his mouth, and Levi could see the framework settling back into place behind his eyes.
“He doesn’t get to touch you.” Asher’s free hand came up and brushed the tears from Levi’s face. He rubbed a finger across Levi’s lower lip, the gentle pressure dragging the wetness of tears across it, and Levi’s breath stuttered. Asher’s eyes dropped to his mouth and stayed there.
“He doesn’t get to look at you.” His thumb pressed in, parting Levi’s lips, and Levi let him. “Or adjust your clothes. Or say your name like he owns a piece of it.”
Then the thumb was gone and Asher’s mouth was there instead.
The kiss landed like an exclamation point— like something that had been decided well before this room— and Levi’s hands pulled on Asher’s shirt harder as he melted into the kiss.
Asher kissed him the way he did everything: with all of his attention and the single-minded focus of someone who had identified what he wanted and saw no reason to pretend otherwise, and Levi felt that in his lips, on his tongue, quickly racing south even as bruises formed on his neck.
Asher’s hand moved from his chin to his jaw, tilting his head back further, opening the angle of it, and made a low sound against his mouth that Levi felt more than heard, like a pleased sigh.
Levi kissed him back, both breathing harder than was strictly dignified, and he didn’t care—couldn’t care—as his whole nervous system narrowed down to the heat of Asher’s mouth and the hand cradling his jaw like something precious.
“I don’t care what rank he thinks he has,” Asher whispered as he pulled back, his cheeks flushed and his pupils blown wide. “He doesn’t get any part of you.”
Levi nodded quickly, trying to ignore the hard length of Asher pressing against his hip. Focus. You have to focus, not think with your dick. He just rattled your skull because someone touched your shoulder. Now is not the time.
Asher held him there, pinned to the wall by the palm cradling his skull, looking like he was about to go back in for another kiss.
Then he stopped.
A frown formed on his face as his brow creased. He blinked a few times, as if some invisible person had just asked him to explain quantum physics. “You…you didn’t say it back.”
Levi felt the temperature shift between them. Asher let go of him so quickly Levi had to remind himself to use his muscles to stand upright, still plastered against the wall. “W-what?”
“In the corridor,” Asher said, his brow furrowing deeper. “Before. I said ‘I love you’...and you didn’t say it back.”
Before, meaning when he’d killed Levi. Before meaning his lips on Levi’s forehead, and I love you too much to let you leave, and the bolt through Levi’s chest.
“That’s how it works…when someone says it, you say it back. That’s—” Asher took a few steps back, running his hand through his hair, still looking at Levi, utterly bewildered. “Why didn’t you say it back?”
“You said it,” Levi confirmed, nodding slowly.
He needed time to figure out what the fuck he was going to tell Asher, because saying I have strong feelings for you despite all the murder, torture, and inappropriate touching, I’m trying to save both of us, but I don’t know if that’s love seemed like a bad idea given Asher’s hair trigger.
“And nobody has ever — nobody has ever said that to me before. Not like that.”
Asher went very still.
“Not like that,” he repeated.
“Not like that.”
“I know you didn’t have sex, but no one you ever dated—”
“No.” The word landed harder than Levi intended, and he watched it happen — the last remnants of anger and confusion giving way to a strange, delighted calm in every line of Asher’s body.
“So when I said it—” Asher stepped closer. “It’s like before. You should have told me.”
“Like what?” Levi wasn’t sure he wanted to know what thread Asher was following.
“Like when you were scared of sex. You don’t have any experience with telling someone you’re dating you love them,” Asher said softly, his palm settling flat against Levi’s chest where the shot had gone through.
“I can teach you that, too. We can practice until it’s not scary anymore.
” He nodded once, like this was settled, and his palm pressed slightly harder against Levi’s sternum. “And I’ll say it properly next time.”
I don’t know how to respond to this.
“Asher, it’s not that simple,” Levi managed.
“The timing was wrong,” Asher nodded again to himself, as though he didn’t hear Levi. “You were dying. That’s not — you couldn’t enjoy it. You should be able to enjoy it. It’ll be easier to practice if you’re not…”
“Dying?”
“Exactly!” Asher smiled, and the relief in his voice was immediate, like a miscommunication had finally been cleared up.
Levi looked at the utter sincerity on Asher’s face, his mismatched eyes filled with a warmth in them that still caught Levi unprepared every time it arrived.
There was still a corpse in the room that smelled like blood, his throat still ached, his scalp burned, and Asher was looking at him like he was the most important thing in the world.
All of it was insane, but acknowledging that never helped.
“We’ll practice a lot,” Asher said as he straightened Levi’s jumpsuit, smoothing down and adjusting every trace of the last few minutes with a gentle smile on his face.
He tried to pull Levi’s collar higher to cover his throat, but it didn’t work, so he just shrugged and planted a kiss on Levi’s cheek. “I love you.”
Levi’s chest lurched.
“You don’t have to say it back yet,” Asher told him, brushing Levi’s hair back into place with his fingers. “I’ll say it so you can get used to it, like when I used my fingers—”
“We’re going to be late,” Levi said suddenly, his face burning as he realized where Asher was going with the comparison.
Asher just chuckled. “You’re so cute when you get all pink. But fine, let’s go to the boring meeting, then we can practice more stuff.”
What stuff?
Levi just pushed off the wall and nodded. “If it’s quick, maybe there won’t be any monsters to interrupt, so let’s go.”
He was going to have to figure out what to do about everything else later…