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Gideon watchedas Marguerite walked into his kitchen, her dark brown hair still damp. The ends were still tipped in that obnoxious shade of orange. He wondered if it would begin to fade soon.

Idly, he pondered if she would let him help her redye it. Or even if he might help her pick out a new shade.

My god, I am truly a wretched thing, aren’t I? Was he truly so desperate for her time and favor? Yes, he supposed he was. He hadn’t been lying when he confessed to her that he had spent years of his life attempting to hate her, to forget her, anything if it meant he’d be free of her hold over him.

But nothing he did could shake her grasp on his heart. And for a brief moment or two, it had been rather hysterically literal. She was wearing a simple black t-shirt and blue jeans that she must have found on the dresser. Not having known which room she would pick, he had to place her change of clothes in there after she fell asleep.

Not waking her up in the process while he was nearly falling-down drunk had been a bit of a procedure, but he had managed. Likely because she was exhausted and through no skill of his own.

Even as simply dressed as she was, with Algernon riding on her shoulder and playing with the damp strands of her hair, he couldn’t help but stare longer than he should. She had always been a beautiful creature no matter how she was dressed. But something about the simple cut of the shirt and pants, and her seeming obliviousness to the body she possessed, made her all the more alluring.

How he wanted to hold those curves to his body. She was short, but hardly petite. Her full bosom tapered to a narrow waist that bloomed into hips that he desperately, so desperately, wished to sink his fingers into.

Gritting his teeth and silently commanding a certain rebellious part of his anatomy to not embarrass him, he turned back to the stove. Mephisto was sitting at his feet, panting, waiting eagerly for any bits of the breakfast he was cooking to fall to the floor.

Crepes. Her favorite. It had taken several years to master making them, but what did he have if not a great deal of time on his hands?

“Tuck it down, asshole,” the irritating Hero said bitterly from where he sat at the kitchen table.

Gideon resisted the urge to hurl the frying pan he was holding directly at the cretin’s head. Instead, he stayed silent for a long moment, counted backward from ten, and made sure to keep his words measured as he spoke. “Did you sleep well, princess?”

“I did. Only a few weird dreams.” Thankfully, she had ignored her friend’s crude comment. “I’ve been blacking out less when I’m awake, but that doesn’t protect me when I’m asleep.”

“Which do you prefer?” He flipped the crepe and began to lay out the scrambled eggs, tomatoes, green onions, and diced mushrooms he had prepared.

“When I’m sleeping, definitely. At least then, I don’t wake up having mutilated my kitchen table or find myself standing ten miles away from my apartment with sore feet.” The scrape of a chair revealed that she had sat down at the kitchen table across from her friend. Gideon had already placed out a carafe of coffee, and he was hopeful that was what drew her there, and not the revenant’s presence.

He could hope.

“You okay, Mags?”

“I’m all right, Harry. Thanks.”

The softness to their voices when they spoke to each other made his stomach lurch. He despised the revenant. But the creature served a purpose, and there was no getting rid of him for the time being. But it wasn’t just hatred that roiled in Gideon, it was jealousy. He knew it, and he had long since given up ridding himself of it. It was as intractable as his love for her.

He set the finished crepe aside and walked over to Marguerite. She smiled up at him as he set the plate in front of her. “Thanks.”

“You are very welcome.” He fought the urge to stroke her hair. Something about how it hung around her face in damp tendrils made him want to tangle his fingers into it and pull her to him. The images that ran through his head were shaken free very quickly, however.

“What about me?” Hero sneered up at him.

“You have no need for food, you insipid thing. Make your own breakfast if you feel the need to amuse yourself with such pretenses.” He went to the oven and pulled the crepes, which he had placed there to keep warm. He had wanted hers to be fresh.

“What is the deal with you two?” Maggie sighed. “I know you won’t tell me the whole story, but I can’t figure out if you two need to punch it out or fuck it out. Or both.”

Gideon made a visceral gagging noise just as “Harry” did much the same thing.

“Mags, that’s disgusting.” Hero wrinkled his nose. “Don’t ever say that again.”

But the little imp was grinning to herself and eagerly digging into the breakfast Gideon had made for her. “I don’t know, the more you protest, the more you’re just hiding it.” She shook her fork at her friend.

“If you think I would ever be caught dead—and I mean that in all possible senses of the word—dallying with our dear Hero, I wonder how little you truly think of me.” Gideon sat down at the table with them and smirked at her. The playful glint in her eyes was wonderful, and he would feed that fire as long as he could.

Anything to keep her eyes from going glassy and dull as he had seen them do so many times before.

“Why do you call him ‘hero’?” Maggie sipped her coffee but seemed enamored of the crepes. She was already almost through the first of the pair. It took everything in him not to straighten his shoulders and puff himself up like a bird out of pride.