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‘’Tis so,’ said the Duchess: ‘and the moral of that is—“Oh, ‘tis love, ‘tis love, that makes the world go round!”’

‘Somebody said,’ Alice whispered, ‘that it’s done by everybody minding their own business!’

‘Ah, well! It means much the same thing,’ said the Duchess”

- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Mull woke up with a start.

She’d always had an innate sense of being watched, and she could feel it, despite being asleep. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten where she was.

She wasn’t in Oz’s bedroom at the moment, she had sprawled out on Oz’s very narrow and uncomfortable sofa.

Arranging herself on it required some complicated geometry and body positioning, involving an arm and a leg stretched over the backrest and a leg resting on the ground at a weird angle.

There really wasn’t any other way of doing it.

Mrs. Cleaver had surrendered the bedroom to Oz, because she was all about the politeness, and was willing to scream at Oz until he took her up on it.

That had left Mull with the living room couch though.

She hit the floor in a heap, immediately trying to recover her footing and defend herself from attack.

Instead, she found only Oz, leaning against his doorframe, watching her.

He held up his hands. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Mull tried to catch her breath and relax, now jacked up for a fight. “No, it’s okay.” She assured him, running her hand through her hair. “Just not really used to being around people.”

“Me either. ”

He was shirtless at the moment, and Mull was very, very aware of it.

It was the primary reason why her heartrate wasn’t slowing down.

“What… what are you doing up?” She asked, trying not to look at his chest.

“I have trouble sleeping sometimes.” He said softly, sounding haunted. “I got thrown away once. Still bothers me.”

“Ah.” She wasn’t sure how to reply to that.

She unconsciously ran her hands over her body, making certain that she was still dressed and didn’t look disgusting. She made a face, silently wishing she’d worn a sexy teddy to bed rather than a Kim Possible nightshirt and one green sock.

Just once in her life, she wanted to be sexy. Wanted to do something which would make all the prudes blush and clutch at their pearls in shock. But it seemed to be beyond her grasp.

She looked back to the sofa, making sure that she hadn’t messed it up too badly. Oz lived in an orderly little domain and she felt like a chaotic oaf, lumbering through it. She went out of her way to make sure her footprint on the sands of Oz’s world were kept to a minimum.

She winced when she saw that in her sleep, she’d drooled on his perfect sanitary pillows while snoring again.

Fuck.

She quickly grabbed it and tried to hide the evidence, but then recognized that Oz saw everything. “I’ll… I’ll buy you a new one.” She promised. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked confused. “About?”

She held up the pillow.

“Ah.” He looked strange. “My problems are not your problems, Natalie.” He said softly. “You don’t have to change your behavior to conform to my peculiarities.”

“Yeah,” she ran her hand through her hair again, trying to keep its disorderly tangle out of her eyes and failing miserably, “but… I know it’ll bother you and I’ll gladly replace it.”

“It won’t bother me.” He assured her.

“Yes, it will.”

“No, it won’t.”

She tossed the pillow back onto the couch. “No, no, I’ll get you a new one, I promise. Don’t worry and don’t freak out.”

“I don’t need a new one,” he gestured to the closet with his head, “I’ve got three in the closet over there. ”

Natalie turned to look at the closet of wrapped gifts. “Why do you have so many giftwrapped presents in your closet, Oz?” She said softly, feeling like there was a story there.

He walked over to the closet, grabbed several packages, then tossed one of them onto his coffee table– which was now a mid-century kidney bean shaped affair thanks to Mrs. Cleaver– but was still pristine.

It was small and wrapped in red paper with little rocket ships on it.

She stared down at it, feeling like she’d seen it before.

He tossed another one onto the table, which was larger and featured an elaborate bow.

Her brow furrowed in thought…

He tossed another one, this time the package had an elegant “to from” tag on it, which indicated that it was “from Oz,” but the “to” section had been left blank.

But Natalie recognized the handwriting.

It was hers .

She stared down at the package, feeling her heart go faster. “You…” she began, “you bought all of these from the store…”

He nodded.

“…and you had all of this stuff you didn’t want giftwrapped…”

He nodded again.

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “…because…”

“Because you worked in the giftwrap department at the time.” He said, his voice tender but hungry. “And I wanted an excuse to be around you.”

She stared down at the packages, thinking about that.

“Something you should know about me Oz?” She swallowed, feeling scared and desperate about the situation.

“I screw up a lot.” She admitted. “My life is a mess. I don’t even know who I am half the time, and I don’t particularly like who I am the rest. I can promise you that if you get involved with me, I’m going to do something to mess it up.

I always do.” She looked back up at him, meeting his eyes.

“I am a dangerous woman to be around, Oz. If you’re with me, there is a very good chance I’ll go evil and I will gut you in your sleep.

Or one of my enemies will. The people around me have a tendency to die bloody . ”

“I was the sole survivor of several massacres already.” He reminded her simply, his voice firm and filled with rough shadows, which belied his usual serene perfection. “So I’ll take my chances.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You won’t. Because as much as I might…” She swallowed. “I can’t put you in that kind of position. I can’t be responsible for your death, and if you’re with me, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t count the number of people who have told me the same thing.

Only about myself. Nat, everyone in my family is insane.

” He sat down on the coffee table in front of her, which seemed tremendously out of character for him.

“My father killed my mother and sixteen others. My brother strangled his girlfriend because she broke up with him! My cousin butchered my aunt and uncle and stabbed me! Most of my former co-workers tried to destroy the city and me along with it. There isn’t a person in town—including me– who isn’t expecting me to go evil and start hurting random people too.

And until that happens, my enemies will… ”

“No offense, honey, but I bet your enemies are total pussies.” She snorted in dismissal. “You point them out to me and I’ll protect you from them.”

“Are you trying to say that your enemies are more deadly than my enemies now?”

“Absolutely.”

“My father killed seventeen people!” He reminded her.

“Uh-huh.” She gave a theatrical yawn. “And what did he do for the rest of the afternoon?”

“We haven’t caught a whole host of Freedom Squad members yet, and most of them are maniacs who vowed revenge on me and…”

“Oh, do you know how many people vow revenge against me on a daily basis? A lot.” She jabbed him in the chest with a fingernail.

“ Curses, Oz. That’s how you know you hit the big time badasses.

I had a guy slit his own daughter’s throat and drink the blood in some kind of dark ritual, just because he was trying to channel some kind of demon to help him kill me. ”

“My cousin staged a prison riot and had all of cell block A attack me!”

“They put the losers in Block A, Oz. A real threat would have been if he sent all of Block D to come whoop your ass!”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “I’m saying that I could kick your nemeses’ candy asses while watching an episode of Top Chef , and be finished with them in time to watch the quick fire challenge!”

“I don’t know what that means, but I assume it means you’d do it quickly.”

“I do everything quickly,” she assured him, “except torture and that other thing.”

He nodded, his gaze darkening.

He reached out and gently wrapped a curl of her hair around and around his finger, looking captivated by it.

She watched him, finding the sight oddly sensual. There was something quiet and intimate about the small action.

It made her body feel tight and warm again, her breasts moving against the nightshirt, silently begging for his attention too. Without a bra, there was really no hiding how much she liked him touching her.

She took a shaky breath, trying to ignore it. “Y-y-you were saying that all the big scary bad men which inhabit your Mr Rodgers-ian world will fall upon poor defenseless me and I’d be helpless to stop some asshole that the regular cops took down! I am genuinely insulted right now.”

“I didn’t say that.” He shook his head, her hair still wrapped around his finger. “You said that! You were the one saying that I couldn’t possibly fight against the onslaught of bad people that being with you would bring down on my head.”

“Oz, I love you with my entire soul, but Rondel would make you his bitch if I wasn’t there to stop him.”

“I a ssure you, that man is the deadest… ” He paused. “Wait… run that by me again?”

“I said that Ronnie would…”

“No, not that part, the other part.” He dropped his hand from her face, her hair forgotten.

“I…I don’t remember what I said.” She cleared her throat and made a swirling motion next to her temple. “I’m crazy, Oz. Sometimes I babble.”

“Don’t give me that! No, no, no…” He shook his head. “You’re not getting out of this that easily, Natalie.” He met her eyes. “You said you love me.”

“I don’t remember that.”

He simply stared at her, which was the man’s go-to argument winner. And it somehow always worked! She didn’t know how he did that!