Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first thing Stelle did on her first day at the university archive was ruin everything.

She had arrived fifteen minutes late, sleep-deprived and riding a dangerous high of three energy drinks and a caramel latte she hadn't even tasted. Her hair was pulled into a lopsided bun, two pencils jabbed through it like improvised hairpins, and she had somehow lost one of her earrings in the stairwell. The ancient, creaky elevator was “out of order” in the same tired way everything in the Humanities building was always out of order.

She finally burst through the doors to the archive reading room, breathless, arms full of notebooks, tote bag swinging like a wrecking ball, and then immediately tripped over her own bootlace and slammed into a reading desk with the force of someone who had no business being upright at that hour.

Her latte? Airborne. Her dignity? Shattered. The coffee? Direct hit.

It arced in perfect slow motion, flipping end over end, before landing squarely on a massive leather-bound volume that looked like it belonged in a tomb. Dark roast spread across the parchment like blood blooming in water.

“Oh my god, no no no!” Stelle dropped everything, hands flailing as she lunged forward. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even see that! What is that? I didn’t mean–”

In her panic, she tried to mop it up with the sleeve of her cardigan, only to knock over a second, even older-looking volume that crashed to the floor with a dramatic thud. Somewhere under the table, a box of index cards gave up on life and exploded.

She reached to catch them, clumsy and scrambling, and then hissed in pain.

A paper edge had sliced clean across her palm. Blood welled fast, dripping onto the table, the manuscript, the very expensive, possibly priceless, utterly irreplaceable manuscript.

“Oh god.” She held up her hand like it might detonate. “That’s…that’s not that much blood, right? It’ll stop! I just need–” She looked around frantically. “Napkins. A tourniquet. Maybe a priest?”

“Step away from the book.”

The voice didn’t shout. Instead, it was low, cold, calm in the same way a blade is calm before it enters your ribs.

Stelle froze and turned slowly.

He stood at the far end of the reading room, flanked by shadow and silence like he’d been carved from both. He wore a charcoal hoodie with the sleeves rolled to his forearms and a pair of dark, scuffed jeans that looked like they’d seen more history than the manuscripts around them. The hood was up, shadowing his face, but she could still make out the glint of narrowed eyes under it, piercing and blue, like winter moonlight.

He was tall, and somehow the room felt smaller when he stepped into it.

“Are…” Stelle stammered. “Are you the archivist?”

He didn’t answer. He crossed the floor in long, unhurried strides, eyes locked on the coffee-stained tome like it had personally offended his ancestors.

“You’re bleeding,” he said flatly, stopping just short of her.

“I know,” she said, clutching her hand. “I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“That’s a third-edition illustrated chronicle of Solon of Athens’ Law. Only twelve copies exist.” He paused. “Or did. Yours may now be classified as evidence.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” she said, rapidly backing away. “You don’t have to press charges, right? Is that a thing? Can manuscripts press charges?”

He ignored that. He picked up the volume with careful fingers – gloved, she noticed now – and inspected it with surgical precision. His lips pressed into a line so sharp it could’ve been etched.

“You’ve bled,” he said slowly, “on three separate centuries.”

“That’s…bad, right?”

He looked up at her then, and she caught the full weight of his eyes for the first time. Not angry, not even disgusted.

Just...exhausted. Like she wasn’t the first disaster he’d weathered this week, or even this day.

She wanted to crawl under the nearest table and disappear forever.

“I’m Stelle,” she blurted, as if that might help.

A long silence passed. “Phainon.”

He knelt, carefully separating the stained pages from the bloodied ones like he was handling the remnants of a saint. She watched, cradling her hand against her chest. It throbbed, but the pain wasn’t the worst part.

The worst part was knowing she’d ruined something sacred to him. Something that clearly meant more than she could understand.

“I really didn’t mean to do this,” she said, softer this time. “I’ll pay for repairs. Restoration. Whatever you need. Or you can...take my blood permanently. You already have some, anyway.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, and she almost thought he was going to laugh.

He didn’t, but he did exhale like he was reconsidering every life decision that led him here.

“It is fortunate for you that all of these pages are protected by special, reinforced film them,” he said, standing. “Follow me.”

“What?”

“You need to disinfect that.”

She blinked. “You’re not going to murder me?”

“I haven’t ruled it out.”

The staff break room was barely big enough for a table and a coffee machine that smelled like it gave up hope in 1997. Phainon moved with precision, opening a supply drawer with one hand, already holding a first-aid kit in the other.

Stelle sat stiffly on the edge of a table, watching him in silence.

He knelt again, this time in front of her, and gently took her hand.

She expected his touch to be rough, or clinical, but it wasn’t. It was careful, steady, like he’d done this before, too many times. He didn’t flinch at the blood, didn’t comment. Just cleaned the wound, wrapped it with practiced ease, and sealed it with a butterfly bandage.

She stared at the top of his hood while he worked. He smelled faintly of old books and petrichor.

“Do you always rescue the girls you threaten to murder?” she asked softly.

He glanced up, just enough for her to see the barest sliver of his face, sharp cheekbones, and the faint shadow of something disappearing into the edge of the hood.

“No,” he said. “Just the ones who bleed on law codes from 594 BC.”

“Well,” she said, giving a shaky smile, “guess I’m special.”

Something flickered in his expression. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t feel like a compliment.

Phainon stood and silently returned the first-aid kit to its drawer, as if by habit. His movements were clean, each step measured, like someone used to making no more noise than necessary.

Stelle, still perched on the table, cleared her throat. “So…is this where you tell me I’m fired?”

He paused just long enough to make her sweat. “No,” he said finally. “Unfortunately.”

“‘Unfortunately’?”

Phainon turned toward her, hood still up, expression unreadable. “I didn’t ask for an assistant. The university assigned you without consulting me. I filed a complaint.”

“Oh,” Stelle said, a little too brightly. “That explains the warm welcome.”

“I was told rejecting the appointment would be…‘detrimental to departmental harmony.’”

“You know, you say that like you haven’t been living as a cryptid in the east wing for the last three years.”

“I like the east wing,” he said with an edge. “No one goes there.”

“Except me, now. Congratulations.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then he sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose like he was preparing for battle, and gestured for her to follow him out of the break room.

They returned to the archive’s main hall. Phainon led her past rows of shelves and locked cabinets, every surface precisely ordered, like a mind that found safety in structure. There were thick glass cases for high-value manuscripts, and secure drawers for restricted documents, each labeled in a delicate but obsessively neat hand.

“I’ll say this,” Stelle offered. “You run a tight ship.”

He gave no response, only motioned toward a long wooden table covered in parchment and crisp cataloguing slips.

“You’ll assist with the following,” he said, tone clipped. “Reference sorting, microfilm requests, light transcription when needed. Re-shelving. No access to the locked cases without my supervision.”

“Understood, Captain.”

He gave her a look.

“And I won’t…bleed on anything else,” she added quickly.

“Appreciated.”

She watched as he returned to the reading desk where her crime had been committed. His gloved fingers moved over the edge of the manuscript with a gentleness that was, frankly, disorienting.

“You’re really upset about the book,” she said, less joking now.

“I’m responsible for every artifact in this collection,” he said, eyes still fixed on the pages. “When something is damaged, it’s not just paper that’s lost. It’s memory. Time. The breath of the people who wrote it.”

Stelle blinked. She hadn’t expected something that poetic.

She stepped closer, watching him, hesitant. “You…really love this work.”

Phainon didn’t answer at first. “It’s all still here. The whole of human history. What they left behind, what they didn’t mean to. And no one notices, because it’s quiet. But I do. I notice.”

She looked at him then, not just as the grumpy, hoodie-cloaked disaster response unit he’d been fifteen minutes ago, but as someone who saw the world in layers. In shadows and residue and meaning.

“Well,” she said softly, “that’s kind of beautiful.”

He glanced at her; not a full look, just enough of a shift in posture, a tilt of the head under the hood.

“You’re not what I expected,” he muttered.

“Is that good or bad?”

He didn’t answer.

Later, when he handed her the security keycard and the stack of orientation papers – dull, bureaucratic, printed in 12-point font and soul-killing Arial – he made a point not to touch her hand.

His gloves stayed on the entire time, and his hood never came down. Even in the lamplight of the archives, not once did she see his full face, but she noticed the way his shoulders tightened whenever she stepped too close. The way he never turned his back to her, but never faced her fully, either.

And something in her, a spark of chaos, or maybe just stubborn curiosity, decided then and there that she would figure him out.

No matter how many centuries of dust he tried to hide behind.

XxxOxOxOxxX

Stelle plopped herself down into the café booth like a corpse returning to the earth.

She dropped her bag to the floor with a thud, flung her arms dramatically across the table, and muttered into the sleeve of her cardigan, “Girls. I have seen the abyss. He’s six-foot-four, radiates terminal melancholy, and bandaged my bleeding hand with all the emotion of a man performing an exorcism.”

Across the booth, Hyacine arched a perfectly shaped brow. “Your new boss?”

“Archivist Phainon,” Stelle moaned. “The human embodiment of a lock screen.”

Cipher, sipping an iced lavender latte with far too many paperclips braided into her curls, perked up. “Wait, Phainon? The Phantom of the East Wing? That guy's like, local legend. Most people haven't seen his face in three years. Some say he’s a vampire. Others think he’s a disillusioned PhD student who stayed too long and merged with the collection.”

“He has a face,” Stelle muttered. “Probably. But I can’t confirm because he wears his hoodie like it's part of a witness protection deal.”

Castorice leaned in over her art history textbook, dark lipstick immaculately applied as always. “So what’s the verdict? Silent brooding academic…or cautionary tale?”

Stelle paused, then linked. “Yes.”

Hyacine snorted into her chai. “Girl, what happened?”

“I bled on a manuscript.”

A collective gasp went around the table.

“Stelle!” Cipher shrieked, clutching her chest like someone had insulted her favorite encryption algorithm. “What kind of cursed power move–”

“I tripped!” Stelle said, gesturing wildly. “And I spilled coffee! And then I tried to clean it, and I cut myself, and then there was blood, and then he appeared from the shadows like a haunted librarian ready to smite me–”

“You what?” Castorice was laughing now. “He came out of the shadows?”

“Like a ghost with a 401k!” Stelle cried.

They lost it. Cipher was wheezing, Hyacine had to dab her eyeliner, even Castorice cracked a rare wide grin.

“I’m not kidding,” Stelle said. “He just stood there, judging my soul. Then he bandaged my hand like I was made of glass and proceeded to emotionally ice me out for an hour straight.”

“So what you’re saying is…” Hyacine leaned forward, eyes gleaming, “you’ve already got a tortured romance dynamic brewing.”

“No.” Stelle pointed a finger at her. “No tropes. He is not mysterious and brooding, he is deeply annoyed that I exist.”

Cipher raised a finger. “Is he hot?”

“…I don’t know,” Stelle admitted. “I couldn’t see his face. But his voice is hot. Like...slow fire. And he has this scar on his hand that looks like he’s fought some ancient God of destruction and maybe won but regrets it now.”

“Oh,” Castorice said, sipping her coffee. “You’re doomed.”

“I am not catching feelings for some emotionally unavailable archive goblin with a tragic backstory!”

“Yet,” Cipher whispered ominously.

Hyacine clinked her spoon against her mug and said, “Ladies, I give it three weeks before she breaks through his tragic backstory wall with a post-it note and a smile.”

“One week if he sees her cry,” Castorice added.

“Never happening,” Stelle muttered, crossing her arms.

But even as they teased her, something small and uncertain flickered behind her words.

Because she wasn’t quite sure what she’d seen in those pale eyes under the hoodie.

But it hadn’t felt like nothing.

XxxOxOxOxxX

The room was quiet, except for the steady sound of pen scratching paper.

Phainon sat at his desk in the far corner of the archive office, head bent, one gloved hand scrawling marginalia in a spidery, exacting script. His hoodie hung loose over his shoulders, the long sleeves pooled at his wrists, masking any sliver of skin. The only part of him truly visible was the hunched curve of his back and the intent stillness that seemed to radiate from his entire frame. Like he was carved from stone.

Stelle peeked in, holding two mismatched mugs in her hands. She hovered in the doorway for a second, then nudged it open with her hip.

“You didn’t answer when I asked, so I made you tea anyway,” she said lightly, stepping inside, but he gave no reply.

He didn’t even glance at her, just kept reading, flipping a fragile page with ridiculous care, like it was made of spider silk.

Stelle made a face. “You know, normal people at least grunt when you bring them things.”

Still no response. Not rude, exactly, just wholly, wholly focused.

Rolling her eyes in mild amusement, she stepped closer and gently set the mug on his desk.

She placed it near the edge of the parchment, off to his right, not wanting to risk a spill. It was steaming, faintly spiced, warm in the air. She paused for a second to glance at him, and then turned to leave, shaking her head and smiling.

She was halfway to the door when it happened.

A soft scrape, a shuffle, then a sudden, sharp hiss followed by the sound of porcelain clattering against wood.

She spun around.

Phainon had jerked back from the desk, his chair screeching slightly against the floor. One hand hovered in midair, fingers curled back like he’d just touched acid. His hood had fallen slightly, revealing just a tiny sliver of his jawline, tight with something that looked suspiciously close to panic.

The mug was overturned on the desk, tea spread in a slow wave toward his open book.

He didn’t seem to notice.

“Phainon?” she asked, voice gentle but rising. “Are you–?”

“I’m fine.” His voice was hoarse, clipped.

She moved forward on instinct, pulling a clean cloth from a nearby stack to blot the spill. “Oh my god, I didn’t mean…did you burn your hand? I didn’t think, I–”

“Don’t.” He stood abruptly. “It’s fine.”

His shadow towered for a moment above the desk, long and strange in the afternoon light. Then he stepped away from it, one pace, then two, like he needed distance.

Stelle held the cloth in one hand and looked up at him, her brow furrowed. “I…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” he said, too quickly, but the way his hands were clenched told a different story, and the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes – just stared at the floor like it was safer there – twisted something in her chest.

She stepped back slowly, giving him space.

“I’ll clean it up,” she murmured. “You…do what you need.”

He didn’t answer, and the door whispered shut behind him a moment later.

Stelle stared at the closed door for a long minute before sighing softly.

She reached out and righted the mug, fingers brushing the faint trace of steam still curling from the inside. A small splash of tea clung to the edge.

She hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. She’d just wanted to be kind, thoughtful, but something in that single, accidental moment had hit a nerve so deep he couldn’t stay in the room with her.

She didn’t understand.

Not yet.

But she would.

XxxOxOxOxxX

Phainon’s hands were shaking.

He stood in the narrow hallway just outside the break room, his back against the cool concrete wall, breathing slowly, one hand braced near his shoulder. The heat in his throat was imaginary, but real enough to hurt and so was the phantom pain, so was the memory.

The scent had pulled him back, sharp and sweet and warm, so warm, and suddenly he wasn’t in the archive anymore, he was back in the corridor of flame, wood groaning around him, toddlers crying in the distance–

He exhaled through his nose. Control it. You’re not there. It’s over.

Still, his pulse didn’t quite slow.

It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t have known.

But the look on her face, the concern, the guilt, seared through him worse than the memory.

He would have to speak to her. He would have to lie, or he would have to tell the truth.

And neither option felt safe.

XxxOxOxOxxX

Stelle sat cross-legged on her couch, swaddled in her favorite blanket like a sentient dumpling. Her hair was still in a messy ponytail from work, and her laptop glowed beside her, half-forgotten, a spreadsheet open and neglected.

Her phone buzzed against her knee.

Stelle: okay. i might’ve traumatized my boss today. like actually. accidentally. help

March 🌸: You’ve been there three weeks, how did you already ruin a man

Stelle: i made him tea 😭

Castorice: ...did you throw the tea at him?

Stelle: NO I JUST SET IT DOWN. he was super focused, didn’t even look at me, then when he reached for a book his hand touched the mug and like. i swear. he FLINCHED like i handed him a hot coal. he stood up. tense. silent. walked out

Hyacine: You’re kidding.

Stelle: i wish i was, he didn’t say anything. just left the room

Cipher 🪐: How hot was the tea? Like “burn the skin” hot?

Stelle: no it was normal tea-hot! not lava-hot! but he reacted like it hurt or scared him or both??

March 🌸: Okay but can we talk about how terrifyingly elegant this man is, like if he silently walked out of a room after touching tea I’d assume I just broke a curse

Stelle: STOP i feel so bad 😭

Castorice: You couldn’t have known. He’s private. Like, Olympic-level reclusive. He barely speaks to anyone outside his department

Cipher 🪐: Yeah, dude has walls thicker than a bank vault. But he’s not cold, just…remote

Hyacine: He’s meticulous, and weirdly gentle with fragile things. Just doesn’t do people well

Stelle: well he’s definitely not doing me well today. how do i apologize?? do i bring more tea?? a cold drink?? a handwritten letter of remorse????

March 🌸: step one: don’t give him another hot object. step two: idk. bring him something neutral. like water. or vibes

Castorice: You could say you didn’t mean to startle him. Keep it low-pressure. Let him decide if he wants to engage

Hyacine: He’ll probably pretend it didn’t happen. But he’ll remember if you handle it kindly

Cipher 🪐: Or leave a peace offering on his desk Post-it note. Small joke. Something only slightly chaotic.

Stelle: ugh i hate that i made him uncomfortable, he already barely speaks and now i’m the human embodiment of a system error

March 🌸: you are sunshine wrapped in bad timing and we love you

Castorice: Just give it time. You didn’t break anything, you just nudged something he wasn’t expecting

Stelle: i hope he doesn’t hate me now

Cipher 🪐: You’re impossible to hate. Even Phainon will learn that eventually

XxxOxOxOxxX

Stelle stood outside his office for a full three minutes, frozen with a container in her hands and a drink carrier hooked around her wrist. The Tupperware was warm still from the oven, and inside were snowmen. Yes, snowmen. In July. She was acutely aware of how stupid that sounded now that she was here.

The drink was a cold brew. Icy. No surprises.

And taped to the lid of the cookies, in her best (but slightly rushed) handwriting, was a note on a pastel sticky:

“I come bearing peace offerings:
1) snowman cookies (because it’s never the wrong season for joy)
2) a cold drink (guaranteed non-traumatic)
I didn’t mean to startle you yesterday. You don’t have to say anything, just…I hope today is gentler.  –S”

Before she could overthink it more, she knocked softly on the half-open door and peeked her head in. Phainon was at his desk, sleeves rolled up to the forearms, head bent over some handwritten manuscript pages, a mechanical pencil in one hand. He didn’t look up.

“Hey,” she said, just a little quieter than usual. “I brought you something. Not tea, no mugs. I promise.”

That made him pause. Slowly, he turned his head. His hoodie was zipped to the collarbone today, sleeves pushed up, and the lighting behind him cast half his face in shadow, the hood as ever keeping most of it obscured. But his eyes, sharp and tired, and a little uncertain, met hers.

Stelle crossed the room like she was walking across a frozen lake, carefully setting the container and drink on the empty corner of his desk. She stepped back again, not lingering.

He looked at the cookies, then at her, then at the cookies again.

“…Why snowmen?” he asked.

Stelle’s heart leapt. He speaks!

She tried to look breezy. “Because I can’t bake hearts without them looking like kidneys, and stars are a lie. So, snowmen. They have personalities.”

A few moments of silence passed, and she was ready to faint from embarrassment when one corner of his mouth twitched upward, so brief she almost missed it, and a breath that might’ve almost been a chuckle escaped him.

“They’re…charmingly misshapen,” he murmured, lifting the Tupperware lid slightly.

“They’re personality-forward,” Stelle corrected proudly. “That one’s missing a button and the one next to him melted sideways but they’re still doing their best.”

He exhaled quietly through his nose, his hand lingering near the cold drink.

“Thank you,” he said finally. It was soft, sincere.

She tilted her head. “For the cookies?”

“For the…thoughtfulness. And for not asking questions.”

She blinked. “You mean, like, what happened yesterday?”

His jaw twitched.

“I won’t,” she said quickly. “Not unless you want to talk about it. And it’s okay if you never do.”

Something in him settled then, just a notch. Not fully,  but like a dial turned one click toward ease.

He nodded once. “Noted.”

Stelle offered a small smile. “I’ll leave you to your cryptic scribe duties. Let me know if you need more abominable snowman men.”

He didn’t answer, but as she turned to go, she thought, just maybe, she caught the faintest flicker of a smile.

XxxOxOxOxxX

The sky had been threatening it all day.

From her window seat in the far corner of the archives, Stelle had watched the clouds gather like arguments on the edge of a breath. The hours ticked on, rain holding back until the moment the university officially shut its doors for the day.

Then it let go and once it did, it poured.

Not a gentle drizzle, not a cleansing summer mist, no. This was thunder-ridden, curtain-thick, bone-soaking rain. And of course, because life had a sense of humor, she’d left her umbrella in her apartment, resting smugly by the shoe rack where it was doing absolutely nothing useful.

She stood beneath the eaves near the entrance, arms folded, backpack slung over one shoulder, watching the sheets fall. Her phone was dead, the last bus had probably splashed off without her, and the three blocks back to her place suddenly felt like an Olympic swim.

“Perfect,” she muttered.

And then, without a sound or a warning, he was there.

The umbrella was already open when he stepped up beside her. Matte black, like everything else he wore. One arm extended toward her, the other holding the umbrella aloft.

Phainon didn’t say a word.

He didn’t look at her directly either, not really. His hood was pulled low, casting most of his face in shadow, and his body angled slightly away, like he was standing between her and the storm, or maybe between her and himself.

The silence stretched long enough for her heart to thump once, slow and startled.

“…Is this for me?” she asked, glancing up at the umbrella.

Still nothing, just the faint incline of his head.

Stelle stepped into the space beneath it without question.

The rain roared around them, but the small circle under the umbrella was warm, close, suspended in a hush that felt sacred. She could smell the petrichor in the air, the faint scent of rain on pavement, and, strangely, books. He always smelled faintly of old books and graphite.

The umbrella wasn’t quite big enough for two. Their shoulders brushed once, twice, when they shifted slightly to accommodate each other. He tilted the umbrella more toward her, subtly, so the rain wouldn't catch her hair.

She noticed, and she didn’t mention it.

He noticed that she didn’t mention it.

They walked, and there was no small talk, no jokes, not even a sarcastic remark about the absurdity of the weather. Just the slap of rain on concrete, and the rhythm of two pairs of footsteps in easy step.

At one point, a flash of lightning lit the puddles in the street. She saw the side of his face for a moment then, half-lit, hidden by his hood, eyes set straight ahead. Stoic, but not cold. Guarded, but not pushing her away.

And though he never said a word, when they reached her apartment gate and he handed her the umbrella without letting their fingers touch, she could see it in the slight bend of his posture, the care in how he passed it to her without rushing.

He wasn’t afraid of the rain.

He was afraid of being seen in the light of it.

XxxOxOxOxxX

It started with the snowmen.

After that rainy day, the silent umbrella walk, the moment suspended in stormlight, Stelle found herself bringing things.

At first, she told herself it was just manners. A thank-you. A reciprocation.

A bag of cookies, this time with stars that actually looked like stars. She left them neatly boxed on the edge of his desk one morning, before he arrived.

He didn’t mention them, but the next day, the box was gone.

So she did it again.

A week later, it was a tall cold brew, left sweating faintly on the far side of his desk, labeled with a sticky note in her signature pastel ink:

“For the brooding book cryptid. Extra ice, zero trauma. –S”

No reply, but he drank it.

Then came the snacks. A pack of fancy matcha biscuits she’d found at the weekend market, a miniature succulent with a hand-painted name tag that said Archival Gremlin. A tiny resin model of an open book she thought would look good on his shelf (and it did; he put it next to the antique globe without comment).

She never left them with fanfare, never explained, and he never acknowledged them with words, but he never ignored them either.

And somehow, it became a part of her routine, like clocking in, organizing the manuscripts, dodging the micro-aggressions of the university’s printer. She’d bring something. Something small. Something for him.

The more she did it, the less it felt like a transaction, the less it felt like thanking him for a single kindness.

The more it felt like…a natural thing. Like brushing her teeth. Like humming under her breath while sorting new entries. Like him.

XxxOxOxOxxX

“Okay, but what if he’s actually a vampire?”

Stelle looked up from her phone. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, texting her group chat while nibbling on a cookie from the batch that didn’t make it to the archive.

Cipher’s message pinged in again: “Have you ever seen him in daylight without that hoodie?”

March 🌸: “Do vampires drink cold brew though??”

Hyacine: “If you were 300 years old and burned by the sun, you’d probably need caffeine too.”

Castorice: “Bold of you all to assume he’s not just a cursed prince in exile.”

Stelle rolled her eyes, grinning, but her fingers hovered before she typed.

Because the thing was…she had started wondering. Not about vampires or curses, exactly, but about him.

Why he always kept his face hidden. Why he never let the sunlight hit him full-on. Why he seemed to drift through the halls like a wraith, barely seen but always there. Why sometimes, when she cracked a joke, he looked at her like he wanted to smile but had forgotten how.

He was polite, distant, efficient, meticulous, and so achingly alone that some days she swore she could feel it hanging in the air between them like old dust.

Stelle: “He’s not a vampire. He just…has a lot of shadows.”

The chat went quiet for a second.

March 🌸: “Okay… but like. That’s the most poetic thing you’ve ever said.”

Cipher 🪐: “Girl, just admit you’re smitten.”

Stelle stuck out her tongue at the screen, locked her phone, and flopped back on the bed.

Maybe they were teasing, maybe they were right.

All she knew was, every time she left something behind for him, every time he accepted it, no matter how silently, something in her settled, and something else grew louder.

A steady, insistent whisper in her head.

Who are you, really?

And why do I want to be the one to see?

XxxOxOxOxxX

The package arrived under triple lock.

It came by courier, signed with multiple stamps and seals, and required both a fingerprint scan and two signatures just to unbox. Stelle watched the whole ordeal with wide eyes and a half-eaten cookie frozen halfway to her mouth.

“What is that?” she asked, awe slipping into her voice.

Phainon, crouched by the long archival table, didn’t look up. “Codex Aurelius. 9th century. Illuminated text. Partial volume.”

“…Wow.” Stelle blinked. “That sounds important enough that I should stand like…thirty feet back, maybe?”

“No need.” He rose, the black gloves already on his hands. “You’re assisting.”

She nearly choked. “I’m what?”

Phainon glanced over his shoulder. “Assisting,” he repeated, like it was obvious.

“You want me to touch the Holy Grail of paper?”

“It’s vellum, not paper.”

“That’s not the issue here!”

He exhaled, a breath that might’ve almost been amused. “You’ve handled delicate volumes before.”

“Yeah, like slightly-overdue library books. Not, like…divine relics that cost more than my entire existence.”

Stelle’s heart thudded as he turned to face her fully, already unfolding the cloth wrap from the artifact’s casing. Even though his hood was up and his face still obscured, his voice was level, even, maybe even kind.

“I wouldn’t ask you to help if I didn’t trust you.”

That shut her up for a second and she instinctively stood straighter. “…Okay,” she said, quietly. “What do I do?”

He beckoned her closer. “Put your gloves on.”

She obeyed, and the sterile white gloves felt strangely heavy today.

The codex rested on a support cushion like it was asleep. Gold leaf glimmered faintly along its curling edge. It was cracked in places, worn in others, but still heartbreakingly beautiful.

Phainon stepped behind her, close but not pressing. She could feel the warmth of him even through the layers of his coat. When he reached forward, their shoulders brushed, just a whisper of contact, and her stomach fluttered without her permission.

“Start from the outer corner,” he said, gently guiding her right hand with his gloved fingers. “Not the edge. Press too far in, and you risk cracking the binding.”

His touch was firm, steady. He didn’t linger, but he didn’t rush either.

“And the page itself?” she asked, trying not to focus on the way his voice sounded so close to her ear.

“Use two fingers,” he said. “Like this.”

His hand ghosted over hers, thumb and forefinger mirroring the motion. The page shifted just enough to reveal the breathtaking detail underneath; lapis blue ink, gilded script, and a miniature painting of a star collapsing into gold.

“Whoa,” she whispered.

Phainon didn’t respond.

She turned slightly to glance at him, and caught him watching her. Not the book, not the page. Her.

For a moment, he didn’t look away, and though most of his face remained hidden, she saw something flicker in the half-shadow beneath the hood. Something soft. Something cautious.

Then, as if realizing he’d been caught, he looked back down at the codex and stepped away.

“You’ll finish cataloging the ink composition,” he said, voice back to neutral. “I’ll log the preservation status.”

“Got it,” she said, a little breathless.

He passed her the archival brush set without touching her hand, but the distance felt different now, warmer, more personal.

And Stelle, still staring at the ancient manuscript in front of her, couldn’t help but wonder…If he’s willing to trust her with something priceless…

Could he someday trust her with what he’s hiding, too?

XxxOxOxOxxX

The archive had never heard this much chatter before.

Stelle was on a roll; something about fairy lights and how they would really “uplift the vibe” of the fourth row’s “emotional dungeon corner,” whatever that meant. She waved a roll of pastel-colored sticky tabs like a war banner as she paced between the towering shelves, voice animated.

Phainon sat at the central desk, one long-fingered hand resting on the spine of a 17th-century war treatise, the other absently poised near a cataloging sheet. He wasn’t looking directly at her, but the occasional twitch of his mouth betrayed him.

“You’re smiling,” she said, halfway through reorganizing the top shelf.

“I’m not.”

“You are. I can hear it. That’s a thing people can do, you know.”

“You’re imagining it.”

She grinned, climbing another rung of the ladder. “You say that, but I’m about to single-handedly make this archive a certified vibe. Maybe throw in a lava lamp. Phainon, have you ever even seen a lava lamp–?”

Her foot slipped.

It wasn’t a dramatic, slow-motion fall, but a sharp, sudden loss of balance. She lost her footing mid-sentence. The book she’d been reaching for came loose in her hand, and the ladder jerked sideways with a metallic groan.

She felt her leg scrape hard against the frame, and her stomach dropped, bracing herself for what she was sure would be a one-way trip to a broken bone.

Then arms caught her, solid and unyielding.

She didn’t hit the floor. The book did, landing with a dramatic thwump as it bounced across the tile, but she was suspended, half in midair, cradled against someone’s chest.

Phainon.

His hood was still up, but his face was tilted toward her, and she could see just enough of it in the light to catch his expression.

He looked terrified.

“Are you okay?” he asked, voice taut. His grip was firm but careful, supporting her weight as if she were made of blown glass.

“I…yeah. I think…ow! Wait. My leg–”

He lowered her gently onto the nearby bench. When she tried to sit up straighter, he held up a hand.

“Sit. Don’t move. I’ll handle it.”

She blinked. “It’s really not that–”

“It is.”

That shut her up.

Phainon knelt beside her, already pulling the first aid kit from beneath the reading table. He tugged on a pair of gloves with quick, practiced movements, then rolled up the cuff of her jeans just enough to reveal the gash across her shin. The skin was torn and red, a thin trickle of blood curling toward her sock.

He went still for a heartbeat too long, and then, without a word, he got to work.

He was efficient, focused, more careful than anyone she’d ever seen apply a bandage, like touching her too hard might make something else break. His hands never trembled, but his breathing had changed; quieter, shallower, tighter in his chest.

It wasn’t until she studied his shoulders that she noticed they were too stiff.

He was shaken, and that made her throat tighten too.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to give him a smile. “Honestly. You caught me like some kind of brooding batman librarian. That was cool.”

He didn’t laugh. He finished wrapping her leg, then finally spoke, quiet and hoarse, like the words had scraped their way up.

“Don’t do that again.”

She blinked. “Climb a ladder?”

“Scare me like that.”

She didn’t say anything at first. She had no joke or quip to lighten the mood.

Because beneath his calm exterior, beneath the sharp mind, the silence, the careful hands, Phainon had just shown her something real.

And it hadn’t come from nowhere, it had come from caring.

Slowly, she reached out and rested her hand over his gloved one.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I won’t.”

He didn’t answer. Just nodded once, and looked away.

For the first time, she saw his shoulders drop slightly, just enough to exhale.

XxxOxOxOxxX

A few days later…

It rained again.

Not the stormy chaos of the last downpour, but a soft, persistent drizzle. It slid in rivulets down the arched windows of the archive, blurring the lamplight and turning the world outside into something unreal, like a half-remembered dream.

Inside, the silence was deeper than usual.

They’d both stayed late. A rare manuscript had arrived, brittle and sealed in temperature-controlled wrapping. Stelle had offered to help catalog it, and Phainon hadn’t said no, but most of the night, he’d been...off.

He hadn’t made a single sarcastic comment.

He hadn’t looked her in the eye.

He hadn’t touched the cold brew she left on his desk that morning, still sitting unopened.

She didn’t ask, not at first, but she watched him.

The clock ticked past eleven. Rain tapped the glass like fingers searching for something. She heard the distant creak of floorboards as he moved through the rows and rows of shelves, always just out of sight, like the quiet itself was something he needed to fold himself into.

When she finally found him again, he was at the main table, gloves off, hoodie still up, fingers resting on a leather-bound volume he hadn’t opened.

He didn’t flinch when she sat across from him, but he didn’t look up either.

“You okay?” she asked, voice soft.

He didn’t reply at first, and for a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her at all, but then she noticed the slight shake in his hand, the tense shoulders, the way he seemed to want to make himself smaller.

“People leave when they see too much.”

The words dropped like stones in the water between them.

Stelle felt her breath catch. Not because it surprised her, but because of the way he said it. Like it wasn’t a theory, like it was a truth carved from experience. Like it had already happened, more than once, and left scars invisible to most.

She leaned forward slightly, heart tight.

“Then show me,” she said.

Phainon froze.

The rain whispered on.

His fingers flexed slightly against the edge of the book, but he didn’t move, not yet, not until the silence stretched so thin between them it almost hurt.

Then, slowly, almost like it took something from him, he reached up and lowered the hood, the shadows no longer hiding what he spent every day shielding from the world.

The left side of his face bore the ghost of flame: long, twisted scars stretched from his temple, over his left eye, down across his cheek and toward his jaw. Another one, smaller, curved near the corner of his mouth, as if trying to erase a smile before it could ever form.

His neck bore similar marks. Faint discolorations, evidence of deep burns that had long since healed but never truly faded.

And his eyes…

God.

His eyes were the worst of it.

Not because of scars, but because of the fear. The open, naked vulnerability in them. The way he looked at her like he was already bracing for the moment she would flinch, or look away, or find a polite reason to step back and excuse herself from the room, from the building, from him.

Stelle didn’t move.

She didn’t blink, didn’t recoil, didn’t let her gaze drift for even a second.

Instead, she smiled, soft and kind and gentle.

“Hi, Phainon.”

He stared at her. Disbelief cracked across his expression, subtle but raw. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak, but no words came.

She kept her voice as gentle as she could. “Can I ask…how it happened?”

He hesitated, but then, because she had stayed, because she hadn’t run, because he trusted her, he told her.

“There was a fire,” he said, each word careful. “Three years ago. Apartment complex downtown. I lived across the street. I heard screaming before the sirens.”

His hands rested flat on the table now, palms down. He didn’t meet her eyes.

“There were children still inside. I saw them at the window. I didn’t think, I just went in. There were triplets. Sisters. Two years old, maybe three. I got them out. But not before the ceiling collapsed. I made it out just before it hit me. Mostly.”

Silence fell around them for a moment as he took in a shaky breath.

“It didn’t feel brave, it just hurt.” He finally looked up. “I can’t drink anything hot now. Not even tea. I can’t stand summer. Or steam. Or the smell of smoke. I thought I’d get used to it. But...it just became another reason not to let anyone close.”

Stelle’s heart cracked wide open.

He hadn’t just hidden his face all this time. He’d hidden the pain, the trauma, the grief of being someone who survived something that changed everything, who chose to be good, and paid for it in scars and solitude.

Without saying anything, she stood and walked to his side of the table.

Slowly, carefully, she knelt before him. “Can I…?” she asked, reaching gently, so gently, toward his face.

He didn’t answer right away, but when he gave the faintest nod, she let her fingertips brush against his cheek, against the curve of a scar that no longer frightened her, if it ever did.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered.

He exhaled, shaky, ragged, like he’d been holding his breath for years and only just remembered how to let go.

The rain had quieted to a soft patter, like it was stepping carefully now, afraid to interrupt something sacred.

Phainon hadn't moved since Stelle touched his face.

He just…sat there. The hoodie around his shoulders loose and forgotten, his scars bared, his breath shaky. He was so still that for a long moment, she thought he might pull back into himself again, close the door he'd just cracked open.

But then, wordlessly, he shifted.

He leaned back slightly, enough to brace himself with one hand behind him on the bench, and the other came up, hesitantly, toward her.

He touched her hand just lightly, like a question.

She answered by threading her fingers through his.

She sat beside him, and leaned just enough to let her shoulder rest lightly against his arm. She could feel the tension in him, still coiled, still uncertain, but not pulling away, not hiding.

For a while, they stayed like that, wrapped in silence that wasn’t awkward, wasn’t heavy. Just…full.

Eventually, he spoke again.  “There are a few people who know. About the fire.”

Stelle didn’t press and let him continue at his own pace.

“Mydeimos. We’ve known each other since undergrad. He showed up at the hospital when I looked like a corpse, made some awful joke about zombies, and stayed the whole night.”

A faint flicker of amusement pulled at his mouth. It didn’t quite become a smile, but it was something.

“And Castorice,” he added, glancing sideways at her. “They’ve been together for five years now. She knows. I think she always understood why I didn’t talk about it.”

Stelle blinked, surprised, but not hurt, not really, just…thoughtful.

“Cas never said anything,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “Not once.”

Phainon nodded. “Because she knew it wasn’t hers to say. She never even asked me to talk. Just stayed close. Sometimes, that’s what you need most.”

Stelle’s thumb brushed against the back of his scarred hand, gentle and aimless.

“Must be nice,” she said softly, “having someone who waits for you to be ready.”

His gaze flicked toward her, sharp, searching, but all he found was sincerity.

He looked down again. “You didn’t flinch,” he said, almost like it was still dawning on him.

“Should I have?” she asked, leaning back a little so she could look up at him. “I mean, yeah, you look like a brooding villain in an anime sometimes. But you also catch people when they fall off ladders, save ancient books from mold invasions, and don’t complain when I leave dumb snowman cookies in your mail slot.”

He huffed, a sound that almost passed for a laugh.

“Those snowmen were anatomically incorrect,” he muttered.

“You’re welcome,” she said brightly.

A silence passed, soft and warm this time.

“Thank you. For showing me.”

He looked at her like he wasn’t sure he deserved it. Like he didn’t know what to do with the fact she hadn’t run screaming, that she was still here, closer now, if anything.

She could see it written in every scar: all the moments he had convinced himself that being alone was safer for himself and everyone else. And now she was sitting here, touching the places he thought no one would ever willingly touch again.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything back. I just thought you should know.”

The look in his eyes then wasn’t fear, it wasn’t even disbelief. It was something rawer. Hope, maybe, or at least the first fragile breath of it.

And then, tentatively, like he wasn’t quite sure if it was allowed, he rested his forehead lightly against her temple.

They stayed like that for a long, quiet while. Rain tapping the glass, night folding around the building like a blanket. For the first time in years, Phainon didn’t feel cold.

XxxOxOxOxxX

A couple of weeks later…

The rain from earlier had lifted, giving way to a warm golden dusk. The streets shimmered slightly under streetlamps, the scent of baked asphalt and city blossoms still lingering in the air.

“C’mon,” Stelle chirped, bumping her elbow lightly against Phainon’s as they left the archive building. “You promised.”

“I agreed under duress.”

“Same thing,” she beamed.

He sighed, but he was already walking beside her, hoodie up, hands tucked in his coat pockets. His presence loomed like usual – tall, silent, mysterious – but tonight something about him seemed less burdened. Maybe it was the air, maybe it was her. Maybe it was the way she kept smiling like she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

They paused by a convenience store.

“I just need to grab gum for Cipher. She claims she’ll physically perish without mint.” Stelle slipped inside, jingling the bell.

Phainon waited by the door, gaze following her with practiced nonchalance until the cashier, some overly confident guy barely out of his teens, leaned across the counter and grinned.

Phainon’s eyes narrowed.

The guy said something. Stelle laughed – laughed – and tucked her hair behind her ear. She didn’t even seem aware of the way the kid was staring at her, too long, too eagerly.

Phainon stepped inside.

The moment the clerk looked up, his smile dropped an inch, and the room got a little colder.

Stelle turned, confused for a heartbeat. “Oh, hey! Everything okay?”

Phainon didn’t answer the question. He just stepped up behind her and placed a hand lightly – possessively – on the small of her back.

The cashier blinked and said nothing else, scrambling to busy himself with something else so he wouldn’t have to squirm under Phainon’s icy blue gaze.

Stelle glanced up at Phainon with a brow raised, amused, but didn’t comment. As they stepped back out into the warm air, she smirked sideways.

“Something you’d like to say?”

“No,” he replied. “Just...observing.”

“Right. Observing.”

He looked pointedly forward, but the faintest pink crawled up his neck.

They arrived at Dromas Café, a cozy corner hangout filled with mismatched cushions, potted plants, and shelves of card decks and vintage board games. The group was already there.

“About time!” Castorice waved them over. “We were about to form a cult without you.”

Hyacine, dressed like a runway model who’d stumbled into academia, added, “We’ve already sacrificed Cipher to the Dice God.”

“My death was tragic but statistically inevitable,” Cipher said, popping a mint in her mouth as soon as Stelle handed her the package.

Mydeimos threw an arm over Phainon’s shoulder. “You made it. And here I thought you only emerged from shadows for full moons and book sales.”

“I was coerced,” Phainon muttered.

“Still counts.” Mydeimos winked.

Stelle, grinning, dragged Phainon toward the board game shelf. “We’re picking! Something chaotic. Something unhinged.”

“You’re describing yourself,” he deadpanned.

“Exactly! I’m the main character.”

“Terrifying.”

She plucked a game titled Exploding Zombie Apocalypse: Math Edition off the shelf. “Perfect.”

And somehow, between laughter and mock betrayal, Phainon actually smiled. Not just with his mouth, but fully, impossibly, right from his chest. When Stelle leaned back in triumph after beating the group at a round, he chuckled, low and real and warm.

The others fell silent.

Castorice slowly turned to Hyacine. “Did...did you hear that?”

Hyacine nodded gravely. “A miracle.”

Cipher tossed a handful of popcorn in the air like confetti.

Phainon just stared at them all, exasperated. “I regret coming.”

“No, you don’t,” Stelle said, nudging his knee under the table. “You’re having fun.”

He didn’t deny it.

Later, after goodbyes and half-threatened rematches, Phainon and Stelle found themselves walking alone again. The streets were quieter now, lamps buzzing faintly above.

She didn’t ask him to walk her home, but he did anyway.

The air between them had changed. Everything unspoken still pulsed between them, heavy with things neither of them had said aloud.

They stopped at her building’s stoop. She turned to face him, keys in hand, but didn’t move to unlock the door.

“You were different tonight,” she said gently.

He tilted his head, half a frown.

“Not in a bad way,” she added quickly. “Just...lighter. Less haunted.”

His mouth twisted into a soft grimace. “Is that a diagnosis?”

“It’s an observation,” she teased.

The silence hung again, but this time it crackled.

She looked at him, at the way the shadows curled around his collarbone, the slope of his jaw, the way his hoodie didn’t quite hide the scar running along his cheek.

He looked at her like she was something delicate and incendiary all at once.

“I don’t know when it happened,” he murmured, “but I think about you. Constantly. Even when I tell myself not to. Especially then.”

Her breath caught. “Then don’t tell yourself that.”

As if waiting for that very moment, he stepped forward, and kissed her, and it was desperate and starved.

Like he’d been holding back for months through every sugar cookie, every storm, every aching glance, every touch that lingered too long. His hand came to her cheek, gentle and shaking, as if she might disappear. Her fingers curled around his coat, holding him there.

It was sweet at first, but then it became urgent and aching and full of things neither of them could name yet.

When they pulled apart, breathless, he looked like he might say something but didn’t.

She smiled instead, softly. “See you tomorrow?”

He nodded once.

And for the first time in years, he walked home with warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with fear.

XxxOxOxOxxX

Three months later…

It was still early.

The sun hadn't quite broken through the hazy gray of the city morning, and Phainon’s bedroom was steeped in a gentle half-light. Shadows stretched long and soft across bookshelves, muted against dark wood and cooler blue-gray walls. Outside, the hum of the city was distant, muffled by rain-soaked glass and the occasional groan of early trams.

 Inside, it was quiet, warm, and full of a rare, stolen kind of peace.

Stelle stirred first, as she always did, her brain still somewhere in dreamland, but her body already inching toward motion. She blinked up at the ceiling, then glanced sideways at the man wrapped around her like a second blanket.

He was behind her, one arm slung over her waist, the other wedged beneath her neck. His face was buried just behind her ear, breath slow and steady against her skin.

He clung to her in sleep like it was instinct, he always did.

She sighed softly and smiled, then wiggled.

Nothing.

She tried again, gentle, polite nudging.

Still nothing.

Finally, she made an exaggerated groaning noise. “Okay, I’m going to get up and make breakfast before we both starve and get legally classified as fossils.”

“No,” came the gravelly voice behind her, muffled and criminally low.

She froze. “You were awake.”

His response was a very tired, very deliberate tightening of his grip.

“Phainon,” she giggled, elbowing lightly. “I need to get up.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Breakfast!”

“Unnecessary.”

“I bought those fancy eggs! The golden ones with–”

“I will buy you a mountain of golden eggs after I finish what I’m doing.”

She frowned, twisting in his grip, trying to look at him. “And what exactly are you doing, o brooding one?”

He shifted just enough to face her properly, and the hoodie from last night, now somewhere on the floor, was long forgotten. His white hair was tousled, scars soft in the low light.

And he was very much shirtless.

Stelle’s brain stuttered. “Oh.”

His expression was slow, amused, drowsy. “Exactly.”

Before she could make another joke, he rolled her onto her back in one fluid, sleepy move, his weight pressing gently down on her. He braced one forearm beside her head and leaned in, his mouth brushing her temple.

“You’re warm today,” he murmured against her skin.

“I’m always warm,” she protested, even as her hands instinctively slid up his bare sides, cool against the faded burns that marred his ribs.

He shivered at her touch, then smiled, sleepy and rare and hers.

“You run cold,” she whispered, cupping his cheek with gentle fingers. “I’m supposed to be your heater.”

“Mm,” he hummed, dipping his head lower. “You are. But right now, I want to be selfish.”

He kissed the corner of her mouth softly, and then her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

“Phainon,” she whispered, half a warning, half a moan.

“Hmm?” He kissed the dip just beneath her ear. “You were saying something about eggs?”

“I no longer remember what food is.”

“Good.”

He smiled against her skin, and the sensation made her squirm and laugh, her fingers winding into his hair as he slowly buried himself further in the moment, like he couldn’t quite believe it was real still.

Because for so long, this – waking up with someone, letting them see his scars, his softness, the weight of his love – had been a dream locked behind too many doors.

And now it was just her.

Breathing beneath him, kissing him back, tangling her legs with his.

She cupped his face again, drawing him up until their foreheads touched.

He looked at her like she was everything.

“You could seduce me into staying,” she murmured, “or you could help me make pancakes.”

He kissed her slowly.

Then again.

And again, until she was breathless.

She pushed at his chest with zero sincerity. “Cheater.”

“You love it,” he muttered against her lips.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “I do.”

The End