Page 4

X avier's room was familiar. I knew every band poster, every carefully organized newspaper clipping, every peculiar system he used to sort his life into controllable pieces. The three monitors on his desk cast their usual blue glow across the controlled chaos that was pure Xavier. Even his bed looked exactly as it always did, the black sheets pulled military tight because god forbid Xavier Laskin let anything exist in a state of disorder.

But tonight, everything felt different. The smell of smoke clung to my clothes and hair, a constant reminder that I'd nearly died. My chest was tight, each breath a struggle against invisible smoke.

God, help me breathe . The prayer rose unbidden, a childhood reflex I couldn't quite shake despite years away from the church. How many times had I muttered those words during panic attacks in the confession booth? Too many. Not enough. Maybe both.

"Shower," Xavier said, already pulling clothes from his dresser. "You reek of amateur arson."

I tried to smile at our usual banter, but my hands trembled, betraying me. The tiny circuits in my brain that kept me functioning in crisis, that helped me code through sleepless nights while creating combat simulations in the safety of my Army office, were shorting out. System failure imminent. "Pretty sure all arson smells the same."

"Not to me." His voice dropped into that dangerous register that made my skin prickle. "This was crude. Uncontrolled. The work of someone who doesn't understand fire's beauty."

The way he talked about flames like they were sentient, like they had purpose, should have terrified me. Instead, it created the same flutter in my stomach as watching him code, fingers flying across keys, breaking through firewalls like they were tissue paper. His technical competence was its own kind of flame. Dangerous. Beautiful. Pecaminoso. Sinful.

I looked down at my soot-stained Star Wars shirt. The one I'd worn a hundred times while coding on his floor, the fabric now reeking of destruction. "I lost everything," I whispered, reality finally sinking its teeth into me. "My figures. My photos. All my projects. Everything's just... gone."

"We'll get you new things," he said, his voice softer than I expected.

"You can't replace memories." My voice cracked open like burning wood. "The photo of my unit. My dad's dog tags. My rare first edition Sailor Mercury. They're all..." The words choked me. "Oh god, they're all gone."

Suddenly Xavier stood before me, his hands anchoring my shoulders to reality. His fingers tightened, then loosened, as if he was unsure about the right amount of pressure. "Breathe, Leo. Just breathe." There was a note in his voice I'd never heard before. Not just command, but concern.

I tried, but the air felt thick. Wrong. Like back in the trailer when the smoke was filling my lungs, when everything was burning, when I couldn't find the way out. My chest constricted painfully, lungs refusing to expand. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. The world started tilting, the sounds becoming distant and muffled. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, couldn't feel the floor beneath my feet.

"I can't... I can't..." The words came out in desperate gasps. I was drowning in air, in memories, in terror. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs, a drum beating out the rhythm of primal fear.

"Leo." Xavier sounded worried. I didn’t want him to worry, especially not about me. Dammit, I was being such a burden, and when he was being so… Him .

His hands framed my face, fingers trembling slightly against my skin. "Focus on me. You're safe."

But I couldn't find him in the darkness that was closing in. My legs started to buckle, the room spinning like a corrupted video file, reality glitching around me. I was back in the fire, smoke filling my lungs, heat pressing against my skin, nowhere to run. Death reaching for me with burning fingers.

"Breathe with me," he urged, pressing his forehead to mine, his own breathing deliberately slow and deep. When that didn't work, his expression shifted to something I'd never seen before. Uncertainty.

"I don't know how to fix this," he whispered, almost to himself, a rare admission that something had slipped beyond his control. His eyes searched mine.

Then something changed in his expression. His hands tightened on my face, and for a moment, he hesitated.

Then his lips crashed against mine, rough and demanding. Not a gentle first kiss but a claiming, his teeth grazing my lower lip with just enough pressure to shock me. He kissed like he owned me, like he had every right to take what he wanted. His fingers tangled in my hair, pulling just hard enough to hurt, forcing my head back to give him better access.

When I gasped, he took advantage, his tongue sliding against mine in a deliberate invasion. The kiss tasted like smoke and control, like Xavier had distilled his essence into this one brutal act of possession. It wasn't tender or sweet. It was calculated dominance, a predator's understanding of weakness exploited to perfection.

And it worked. My systems froze, then rebooted, all processes redirecting to this new overwhelming input. His kiss hijacked my brain, forcing a total shutdown of the panic sequence. My body responded instantly, nerve endings lighting up like a Christmas tree, blood rushing south so fast it made me dizzy. The world snapped back into focus, oxygen suddenly flowing into my lungs as I gasped against his mouth.

I knew, even as I melted against him, that this was manipulation. Xavier knew exactly how I felt about him. Had known for months, probably from the moment I first started looking at him too long, laughing too eagerly at his jokes. He'd identified my weakness and was now exploiting it with a hard system override.

But knowing didn't stop me from responding. From pressing closer, from making a small, desperate sound against his mouth that would haunt me later. My hands clutched at his shirt, holding on for dear life as his kiss dismantled every firewall I'd ever built.

When he pulled back, I caught a flicker of surprise in his eyes, as if he hadn't fully intended to cross that line. The calculated mask slipped back into place almost immediately, but not before I glimpsed something vulnerable beneath it.

"Better?" he asked, voice slightly unsteady despite his effort to sound casual.

I nodded, unable to form words. My heart still raced, but from something entirely different now. I could breathe again. Could think again. But I couldn't process what had just happened. Xavier had kissed me. Xavier, who didn't want anyone sexually, had just kissed me like he wanted to consume me whole.

"Good." His thumb brushed over my lower lip where his teeth had been moments before. "You were having an anxiety attack. Needed to break the cycle." The clinical explanation didn't quite match the lingering softness in his eyes or the way his hand still cupped my face, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to let go.

"You... you kissed me." The words came out raw, shell-shocked. I couldn't reconcile what had just happened with two years of careful boundaries and friendly distance.

Something flickered across his face—not quite discomfort, but definitely uncertainty. "It worked, didn't it?" He shrugged, the casual gesture betrayed by the tension in his shoulders. "Panic attacks are just feedback loops. I made an executive decision to interrupt yours."

The clinical explanation felt like ice water down my back at first. Was the kiss just tactical, another problem solved? But something didn't add up. The lingering touch on my face, the way his eyes kept returning to my lips, the slight roughness in his usually controlled voice—these weren't the hallmarks of Xavier's usual efficiency. They suggested something I barely dared hope for: that maybe, just maybe, there was more behind that kiss than simple problem-solving.

"You're safe." His voice carried that edge again. The one that allowed for no argument. But beneath it, I caught a note of reassurance directed as much at himself as at me. "You're here. No one can touch you while I'm around."

The possessive edge in his voice felt like solid ground in an earthquake. I leaned into his touch without meaning to, seeking that unwavering strength.

"Someone tried to kill me," I whispered. My lips still tingled from his kiss, making it hard to focus. I kept touching them unconsciously, tracing where his teeth had been. "They waited until we were awake. They wanted us to know we were burning."

"Yes." Xavier's voice carried the weight of promised violence. "And they're going to regret that very, very much." His thumb brushed my cheek, the touch carrying none of our usual casual friendship. This was deliberate. Possessive. Different now that he'd crossed the line between us, shattered two years of careful distance with one brutal kiss.

He stepped back abruptly, as if suddenly aware of how long he'd been touching me. His hands flexed at his sides, seeming unsure what to do now that they weren't anchored to my skin. The brief glimpse of doubt made him look younger, more human than I was used to seeing him.

"Go shower. We'll figure everything out tomorrow."

He pressed a stack of clothes into my arms. Soft flannel pants. One of his Bad Omens shirts. And his favorite hoodie—the one he wore when he was coding for hours, when he was in his element. The casual intimacy of borrowing his clothes made my chest ache with feelings I wasn't ready to examine, especially now, with the ghost of his mouth still haunting mine. I'd seen him wear this hoodie hundreds of times. It meant something that he'd chosen this specific one for me.

The hallway felt endless as I made my way to the bathroom, my bare feet cold against the wooden floor. Everything felt different now. The walls, the floor, the air itself seemed charged with new potential. One kiss had reconfigured my entire understanding of our relationship. If he could kiss me once, could he do it again? Was this a new feature permanently installed in our interactions, or a one-time emergency protocol never to be activated again?

Even the Laskin house's bathroom felt different after what had happened. I'd teased Xavier enough about his expensive hair products, all promising things like "volcanic charcoal" and "smoke and leather." Of course Xavier would smell like fire even in the shower. It was built into his code, hardwired into his DNA in a way I found terrifyingly attractive. But now I knew he tasted like smoke and danger and control too.

The hot water hit like absolution, washing away ash and fear in equal measure. I stood under the spray until my skin flushed with heat, the water running gray as it spiraled down the drain. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flames. Felt the heat pressing in. Heard that horrible whoosh as my home transformed into a death trap.

I shook my head and grabbed Xavier's body wash, working it into a thick lather before bringing it to my face. It smelled like him, and that helped. Like leather jackets and midnight rides and the particular scent of his skin when he'd been coding for hours, that mixture of concentration and brilliance that made my brain short circuit with want.

My cock stirred as I breathed in his scent, the treacherous thing hardening despite my attempts to focus on anything else. This was Xavier's shower. Xavier's soap. Xavier's private space, and here I was, getting aroused just from the smell of him. My hand drifted lower, almost of its own accord, but I snatched it back. The last thing I needed was to jerk off in my best friend's shower when he'd never want me that way.

Though after that kiss... maybe he did want me? At least in some way I didn't fully understand yet?

A knock jolted me from my thoughts. "Leo? You okay? You've been in there twenty minutes."

"Sorry!" I scrambled to shut off the water, suddenly aware I'd been having a breakdown in Xavier's shower. "I'll be right out."

I pulled his hoodie over my head, and his scent enveloped me immediately. I couldn't help burying my nose in the collar, breathing in that unique Xavier smell. It felt like being wrapped in his presence, like being claimed and protected all at once. The sleeves fell past my hands. Everything was too big, but that only made it better. More comforting. Like being surrounded by him.

When I emerged in a cloud of steam, Xavier was sprawled in his desk chair, scrolling through something on his monitors. The deep blue light of his screens painted his face in shadows, highlighting the sharp angles of his jaw, the concentration in his eyes. He looked up as I appeared, his gaze sweeping over me with something more possessive than our usual friendly concern.

"Better?"

I nodded, pushing wet hair from my eyes. Without my glasses, everything blurred at the edges. Softer. Less real. I picked them up and tried to clean the soot away, my hands still betraying me with their tremors.

"You know where everything is," Xavier said, turning back to his screens. Then, after a pause that seemed to hold unexpected weight: "Take my bed."

The casual way he offered his most private space made something warm bloom in my chest.

"I can take Xander's..."

"Leo." His voice carried that edge again, but something softer lingered beneath it. "You almost died tonight. If you expect me to sleep, the only way that's going to happen is if I'm right fucking next to you, listening to you breathe."

His words stole my breath all over again. Something raw lived in his voice, something that transcended our usual friendship.

"Okay," I said softly, because what else could I say when he looked at me like that? Like I was something precious he needed to guard.

Xavier nodded once, seemingly satisfied with my surrender, though I caught a flash of relief in his eyes.

I hesitated for a moment before going to bed, my fingers instinctively moving to form the sign of the cross. The gesture was so automatic I barely noticed I was doing it. I hadn't been to mass since leaving home, hadn't been to confession in three years, but some rituals were carved too deeply to abandon.

I whispered a quick prayer under my breath before I climbed into his bed. Surrounded by his scent, I immediately regretted every life choice that had led to this moment. The black sheets felt cool against my skin, but the weight of his comforter wrapped around me like his presence. Like being claimed. My cock hardened instantly at that thought, blood rushing south so fast it made me dizzy. I was fully, uncomfortably erect within seconds, the borrowed sweats doing nothing to hide my arousal. I shifted anxiously, my erection throbbing almost painfully against the soft fabric, tenting the material in a way that would be impossible to explain if Xavier turned around. I tried to think about anything except how many times I'd jerked off in my own bed, imagining Xavier claiming me like this.

I watched him work, the blue glow of his monitors painting shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp angles that made him look dangerous. I pulled the comforter higher, trying to hide the obscene bulge in the sweatpants that was simultaneously shameful and exhilarating. My cock twitched with each heartbeat, demanding attention I couldn't give it, reminding me with every throb how much I wanted what Xavier couldn't provide.

Or was it that he couldn't provide it? The memory of that kiss, of the barely disguised hunger in his eyes afterward, suggested the boundaries between us might be more fluid than I'd believed.

"What if they try again?" I asked, partially to distract myself.

"Let them try. Nobody gets past my security. Nobody touches what's mine. I can't... the thought of losing you tonight..." He stopped, looking almost surprised by the emotion in his own voice. "Just try to sleep, okay?"

There was that word again. Mine. He'd been saying it all night, each time with more intensity. Each time making my cock throb with need, sending another surge of blood to my already painful erection. I pressed my thighs together, trying to create friction, trying to relieve some of the pressure without being obvious. Fuck, I was the worst kind of disaster. My home had just burned down, someone had tried to kill me, and all I could think about was how much I wanted him to pin me to this mattress and show me exactly what being his meant.

My abuela would be crossing herself in horror. This was pure lust, one of the seven deadly sins, consuming me from the inside out.

"Is this weird for you?" I whispered. "Us, like this?"

Xavier was quiet for so long, I thought he might have ignored the question. "No," he finally said. "Which is the strange part. It should be weird. I don't do this with anyone else. Never have." His fingers stilled on the keyboard, his profile silhouetted against the blue glow of his monitors. "I'm not good at explaining this shit, Leo. I just know that with you, things are... different."

"Different how?"

"I'm still figuring that out," he admitted, the confession more intimate than the kiss we'd shared. "Give me time."

His honesty—the rare glimpse of uncertainty from someone who always seemed to know exactly what he was doing—made my heart race faster than his touch had. This was Xavier showing me something he'd never shown anyone else: doubt.

"Try to sleep," he said, his voice gentler than before. "I'll be right here."

"I don't know if I can sleep," I admitted. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw flames. But more than that, I couldn't stop thinking about him. About how he'd looked on his motorcycle. How his hands had felt positioning my body against his. How possessive his voice got when he said 'mine.'

"Want me to put on that lo-fi coding playlist you like?"

I nodded, grateful for the distraction. Soft beats filled the room, familiar and soothing. But even that reminded me of all the nights we'd spent coding together, me sneaking glances at him while pretending to focus on my screen. Watching the way his pupils dilated when he solved a particularly elegant exploit. The way his fingers moved across the keyboard like a pianist, creating digital symphonies of broken security protocols.

The bedsheets rustled as I tried to find a comfortable position that wouldn't be awkward later. One that wouldn't make it obvious how much I wanted him. How many times I'd imagined him pushing me down into these same sheets, marking me, claiming me, making me his in every way possible.

"Stop overthinking," Xavier said. "I can hear your brain spinning from here."

Fuck, if he only knew what I was actually thinking about. What kind of friend was I, perving over someone who'd never want me that way?

But that kiss... that wasn't the action of someone entirely disinterested.

"If you're not asleep in ten minutes..." He paused, uncertainty flickering across his face as I watched his reflection in the dark monitor screen. "I don't know if this is crossing a line, but I'm coming to bed. I need to know you're okay. That you're still breathing."

My breath caught, heart suddenly jumping into my throat. "What happened to hunting?"

"The scripts are running. Nothing more we can do tonight." He glanced over his shoulder, and even in the dim light I could see the possessive edge in his expression, but now it seemed tempered with something almost vulnerable. "Besides, you think I'm letting you lie there having a panic attack by yourself?"

"I'm not having a panic attack," I protested, but my voice came out shakier than intended. Truth was, I didn't know what I was having. Fear and desire tangled up in my head, making it hard to tell where the trauma ended, and my regular Xavier-induced sexual crisis began. A crisis that had only intensified after that kiss, after experiencing firsthand the control I'd only imagined before.

"Right." He hit a few more keys, then turned back to his screen.

Ten minutes. I had ten minutes to get my body under control before Xavier would slide into bed next to me. Ten minutes to kill the increasingly persistent erection that refused to understand that its owner was in crisis. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, watching the minutes tick by with mounting panic.

Think unsexy thoughts. Think unsexy thoughts.

I tried picturing my old professor, Dr. Weiskopf, with his perpetually sweat-stained shirts and tendency to speak through a mouthful of tuna sandwich. That helped for approximately thirty seconds until my traitorous brain remembered Xavier's lips crushing mine and we were back to square one.

Listen, we need to calm down. This is NOT the time. He's asexual, remember? He doesn't want this. We don't DO this.

My traitorous cock responded by twitching eagerly and starting to leak pre-cum into Xavier's borrowed sweatpants. Was I seriously having an argument with my own dick? And losing? What the fuck?

I switched tactics, trying to name every character from Evangelion in chronological order of appearance. I got as far as Shinji, Misato, and Rei before my brain short-circuited with the realization that Xavier had the same cold, calculating intensity as Gendo Ikari, and somehow that was doing it for me. Dios mio, was I really lusting after someone who reminded me of the most toxic anime father figure ever? I was officially beyond help.

I resorted to desperately trying to remember every saint's prayer my abuela had taught me. Hail Mary, full of grace... Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle... Our Father, who art in heaven... I mentally begged every saint in the Catholic pantheon to intercede on behalf of my extremely inappropriate erection.

None of them answered.

In absolute desperation, I tried pinching myself through the blankets. Hard. Just enough pain to distract from the arousal. That backfired spectacularly when a jolt of unexpected pleasure shot through me. I tried again, pinching my nipple this time, and nearly gasped aloud as my cock throbbed painfully in response, dangerously close to spilling over the edge.

Holy shit. I'm going to Hell for sure.

I finally gave up and attempted to position myself in a way that would hide the evidence, curling toward the wall and pulling the comforter higher. Maybe if I pretended to be asleep already...

"Move over."

Fuck.

I scooted toward the wall, hyper aware of how my cock was still half hard in his borrowed sweats. Maybe if I stayed perfectly still and thought about dead puppies...

The mattress dipped as Xavier slid under the covers. I made the mistake of looking over just as he pulled his shirt off, and my mouth went dry like I'd been wandering in the desert. The health bar tattooed over his heart almost glowed, dark ink stark against his skin in the blue monitor light. My eyes traced the WASD keys inked along his ribs, the horror movie icons scattered across his shoulders, and the triforce right over his belly button.

I'd spent countless hours memorizing every tattoo while pretending to focus on my coding, imagining tracing them with my tongue like I was mapping circuitry. Now here I was, in his bed, while he was half naked and radiating heat like a server farm running at capacity. I could smell leather and smoke and that dark scent that was purely him, and my cock was absolutely not getting the message about appropriate crisis behavior.

"Sleep," he ordered, but there was a hesitancy to his movements as he shifted closer. For once, Xavier Laskin seemed uncertain of his welcome as his arm hovered over my waist.

"If you apologize for needing this, I swear to god..." He finally wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against his chest. Then, so quietly I almost missed it: "I need this too, you know. After tonight... I need to know you're here. Safe."

The admission seemed to cost him, his shoulders stiffening slightly as if he'd revealed too much. I froze, caught between wanting to melt into his touch and processing the unexpected vulnerability. Xavier Laskin had just admitted to needing another human being.

His hand slipped under the hoodie to rest against my belly, and I flinched involuntarily. I wasn't built like him. My body was soft, without any refined muscle like he had. I didn't have a six-pack. I didn't really have abs at all. Just a squishy belly with probably too much hair to be sexy. But Xavier just made a low appreciative sound and spread his fingers wider across my skin, claiming every inch like it was exactly what he wanted.

"You smell like me now," he said, voice rough with satisfaction.

The possessiveness in his tone made my cock throb almost painfully against the mattress, yet another pulse of blood making it strain against the confines of the sweatpants. If I shifted even slightly, I'd get friction against the sheets, and I honestly wasn't sure I could stop myself from rutting against them like a desperate animal. The combination of his voice, his scent, and his skin against mine overwhelmed me. I lay painfully hard, trapped between wanting to arch back against him to relieve the ache in my groin and needing to maintain enough distance to hide my reaction.

"What are we doing, X?" I whispered into the darkness, the question escaping before I could catch it.

The steady rhythm of his breathing paused. For several heartbeats, he was silent, and I feared I'd ruined everything by putting words to this nebulous thing between us.

"I don't know," he finally admitted, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain. "I just know that when I saw that trailer burning, when I thought I might lose you..." His fingers tightened against my stomach. "I can't explain it. I just know I need you close."

"But you don't... I mean, you've always said you don't want..." I couldn't finish the thought.

"Want and need are different things," he said, his voice low against my ear. "I don't have all the answers, Leo. This is... new territory for me, too."

The admission—that Xavier Laskin didn't have everything figured out, that he was feeling his way through this just as blindly as I was—felt more intimate than his arm around my waist or his chest against my back.

"We'll figure it out," I whispered, offering him the same comfort he'd given me earlier.

His arm tightened around me. "Yeah," he agreed, the word rough with something that might have been vulnerability. "Now go to sleep before I change my mind."

But the way he pulled me closer contradicted his gruff tone, and I knew neither of us wanted to let go.

As Xavier pulled me against him, I caught his reflection in the darkened monitor screen. For just a moment, his carefully maintained mask slipped, revealing a complex mix of emotions I'd never seen on his face before. There was protectiveness and possessiveness, yes, but also a vulnerability that made my breath catch. His eyes met mine in the reflection, and I watched him deliberately rebuild his walls, piece by careful piece. But now I knew what lay behind them, and that knowledge felt more intimate than his arm around my waist.

His warmth dragged me under, the safety of his arms winning out over my anxiety. My eyes grew heavy as his fingers traced idle patterns on my stomach. I should move away. Should put space between us. Should do anything except melt into his touch like I'd dreamed of doing for two years.

But I was so tired. And he felt so good. And maybe just this once, I could allow myself this comfort without drowning in guilt.

The last thing I registered before sleep took me was Xavier pulling me closer, his breath steady against my neck, and the terrifying certainty that whatever was happening between us, there was no going back to the careful distance we'd maintained before.