Zeno
He was scared she was avoiding him after their almost-kiss, but after a whispered ‘You up to train?’ in his ear a few minutes ago, he’s not so sure.
It took him longer than it should have to get his directions down. He hasn’t been useful for days, stuck on the two words she said before the Forms-cursed rings decided to ruin the moment.
You’re mine.
It felt like something he’d been waiting forever for finally settled in him. He’s always been hers, but he never thought that she’d want him to be. And now?
Now he doesn’t know what to think. But hopefully he will in, like, ten seconds when they reach the training rooms.
“Do you feel stable enough to spar?” Eudoxia asks.
“I’m stable. The stablest.”
Eudoxia shakes her head fondly. “Sometimes I wonder if you hear the words that come out of your mouth.”
“I do. Usually only after I’ve said them, though.”
“So how do you decide what to say?”
“Whatever’s in my brain,” he lies. If he really said whatever was in his brain, he would have confessed to her years ago.
“Get on the mat. Let’s do this.”
He assumes a ready position across from her.
Before the first punch is even thrown, Zeno can feel something is different about this spar.
It’s vibrating, charged, electric, in a way it’s never been.
There’s static in the air that shocks him every time they touch.
It tells him that all of this is leading somewhere. Where else would all that energy go?
Eudoxia grabs his shoulders to knee him in the stomach, but he steps back just in time. He goes to pull her arm behind her back, but she ducks under and uses the momentum to shove him sideways.
It continues like this—push and pull and push and pull—until they knock each other to the ground, Zeno holding Eudoxia’s hands above her head. She’s almost completely immobile, with her legs held down by Zeno’s knees. It doesn’t feel awkward, the closeness. It just feels right.
“Looks like I win,” he says, and a fire ignites in her eyes. Before he knows it he’s flipped onto his back, with a very smug Eudoxia leaning over him. Her hair must have fallen out of its bun at some point because now it hangs long over her left shoulder.
Her smirk kicks all of the fight out of him. She wins. She always will, with him.
He can’t stop himself. He slowly drifts his knuckles down her face, watching her victorious look fade into something more contemplative, and suddenly the world has shrunk to just the two of them.
“Xia,” he says, but he doesn’t have anything to follow it up with. The way she’s looking at him shuts him right up. He recognizes the expression.
It’s the one on his face whenever he looks at her.
She presses a hand to his shoulder and plants the other by his head to balance herself as she leans closer. Forms, she’s beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
He wants to ask if she knows what she does to him. Does she see how her gaze can set him alight? Is his skin burning her with the heat of it? Somewhere in his reverie, his hands wander to her waist and she moves so close their noses are almost touching.
He’s frozen. If he moved his face up just an inch, they’d be kissing, but instead they just breathe each other’s air. She is honey and pepper, spicy and bitter and sweet. He wants to devour her.
Their eyes are so close he can see her pupils dilate and he can’t help it.
“I love you,” he whispers.
She stills completely, and Zeno’s not sure if she’s breathing at all. Then she slides her hand to his collarbone, his neck, his cheek with focused intention.
“Is that one of the things you say without hearing it first?” she asks.
“I’ve been hearing that in my head since the second I first saw you.”
He wants to regret the confession, especially when she stills again like she doesn’t know what to say, but he can’t. If this ruins their friendship, he’ll never forgive himself. But if she feels the same…
“Eudoxia—” he starts, but she interrupts him.
“I love you, too,” she whispers, so quiet that, if they weren’t forehead to forehead, he wouldn’t have heard it.
His heart stops.
He’s imagined her saying that for five years but here?
Now? Forms, it’s like nothing he’s ever felt.
His body is at odds with itself—like it’s been submerged in a hot bath, every muscle relaxing, every tension gone, and like it’s been set aflame, every nerve rapid-firing with a violence only love can create.
Somehow he manages to tell his hand to bury itself in her hair.
She sighs against his lips and moves in further and oh.
It’s short and chaste but, Forms, nothing has ever been better. When she pulls back, he chases her until he’s sitting up and her arms are wrapped around his shoulders.
She smiles and rolls her eyes and kisses him again. And again. And again.
Eventually he makes an embarrassing—and incredibly involuntary—noise, and Eudoxia pulls away with a giggle. His heart melts at her laugh. His heart melts at everything about her, actually. Like when she puts her hand gently to his cheek and thumbs the soft patch of skin under his eye.
She doesn’t say anything, so he doesn’t either.
His hands play with her hair lightly behind her back. She might be the most breathtaking person in the world. Especially when she’s smiling at him like this.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers to her.
“For you. Only for you.” She lets the tips of their noses touch. “You’re beautiful too, you know,” she adds. “I don’t know if I can say that. Do boys like being called beautiful?”
He takes great care not to laugh. “You could call me anything and I would probably thank you.”
Her eyes light up and a smirk forms on her lips. “Stupid-head.”
“Thank you,” he says, and she kisses him.
“Dumbass.”
“Thanks very much.” She kisses him again.
“Wonderful, kind, mine.”
He kisses her. That’s a thank you enough, he thinks.
When they part for air, he moves to her neck, kissing softly right below her ear. She gasps and pulls him closer and this, he knows—he’s always known—is what he wants until… What was it Eudoxia said months ago?
Until forever has ended and nothing is left but her hands and her smile.