12. Twelve o Clock

Silene had aged the rest of her day and all night after collecting her last death staring out of her window at where Gabriel had stood across the river, sitting by the edge, his head hanging between his knees.

"Look up at me," she whispered as the sunless dawn started rising in her world in lilac hues. "Look up at me, please."

And as if he'd heard her, he did.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, pressing her hand to the window, trailing his faraway silhouette, wishing she could just touch him just once more.

Again, as if he'd heard her, he shook his head, a look of utter defeat falling over his eyes as they left hers again.

"Tell me goodbye," she begged. "At least come and tell me goodbye."

The candle on her vanity burned alive, and she turned to find a letter beside it.

No more than just a sentence written across it.

My beautiful, beautiful demise, live long and well.

"Coward," she murmured, tears clinging to her eyes. "You coward."

Ink started appearing on the letter, new words forming. I am.

"Come here."

Not if I am to ever let you go.

"Then don't."

I love you.

Her knees gave to the ground, her body merely a pile of bones surrendered to the grave she'd opened in her own chest.

Silene had done something she thought she'd never do—she'd asked for a bargain.

And Azriel had done the most senseless thing she'd ever seen him do—he'd accepted.

With her new debt in hand, she made her way towards Asador, almost climbing the stairs to his home two at a time, too impatient and afraid of losing precious minutes to take the lift.

She'd not even waited for her breaths to even out before she'd rasped her knuckles against the door as loud as she could. Even when he'd stood there, eyes red and tear stained, astound at her presence, she had not waited before she'd thrown her arms around his neck and held him as tight as she could.

"Silene," Gabriel breathed in panic, trying to move away from her, but she only held him tighter, tighter than she'd held onto anything before.

"It's okay," she breathed over his skin, smiling when the pain only crippled her heart. "You can't hurt me."

"What?" he shakily asked, putting an unsteady hand at the back of her head and pressing his nose to the crown of her head, inhaling her so deeply as if he was taking his first ever breath. "How…how is this possible?"

"I asked Azriel for a favour."

That's when he moved away, pulling back from her as if she was on fire, panic turning his blue eyes a dark sapphire. And she helplessly, wordlessly watched as he drowned behind them. "My brother grants no favours. What have you done, my ruin? What have you done?" he asked, crumbling to his knees and pressing both of his hands to his face. "What have you done?"

Tears clung to her lashes when she forced a trembling smile on her face and climbed onto his lap, her smile uncontrollable for finally being able to do as she'd wished despite grief turning her corpse into a catacomb filled with helplessness. "Please," she begged, guiding his weakened and lifeless limbs around her own and burying her face in his chest as she had dreamed of doing so many nights. When his scent of lavender filled her lungs, a strangled cry left her lips.

"Why do you cry, my sad girl?" he said, his fingers still shaking as he touched her face and leaned to kiss her tears away.

"I'm happy."

With a finger under her chin, he tipped her head up and pressed his lips to hers in a crushing kiss. There was no time to brace at the impact of that one kiss. Or the more that were to come.

Silene finally gave away to the sea.

And the sea did not drown her.

After one detailed session on how to properly prepare tea which had included him clinging behind with every step she had taken, baking him a few cupcakes with her special buttercream which she had made sure to leave behind a detailed recipe for, chasing Tommy around and playing with every possible toy of his before nearly cuddling him to death, they'd finally settled quietly on the sofa.

He'd laid her on top of his naked chest as they both mindlessly watched some strange documentary on the television, neither paying any attention to it, he was entirely too preoccupied tracing his fingers everywhere he could on her body while she was entirely enthralled by the sound of his heart as she pressed her ear to his chest.

"Gabriel?" she asked, smiling when she heard his pulse quicken.

"Yes, my beautiful ruin?"

She pushed herself up onto her hands, caging him between her arms as she stared down at the eyes she could swear changed shades every once in a while. After she was satisfied with her close observations, she poured about a thousand pecks down his face that had him chuckling like a fool.

His arms banded around her, hands sneaking under her shirt and settling against her naked back. "There were so many places I wanted to take you," he said, moving his palms up and down her spine. "Let me take you."

"This is the only place I wish to be. Nothing else matters. I'm scared nothing else will ever matter to me."

"I want to make this mean something."

"It means everything."

He shook his head. "This doesn't feel enough. It isn't enough. I wanted to give you everything. I have everything to give, it was going to be yours to take. Not like this, my ruin, not like this at all."

"I just want you," she whispered, trailing a finger down the hard panes of his stomach down to the deep muscle ridges on his hips that disappeared under his trousers.

"I'm all yours to have," he breathed.

She pulled her hand back when he let out a pained groan. "What's wrong?"

"It feels so good, Silene."

"Oh," she whispered, continuing to trace the lines of his stomach, watching the myriad of expressions cross his face and the way his chest rose faster and faster each time.

He pulled her to his chest, kissing the crown of her head repeatedly and hugging her nearly to suffocation. "Let me make you feel good, too."

"I don't know if I can," she murmured. "It has never felt good before."

"You can, my beautiful ruin," he said, hooking a gentle finger under her scarf and slowly pulling it off, the scalloped edges of the lace material kissing her skin as it slid over it.

He sat up with her on his lap, his strong fingers weaving into the back of her head to grasp her long hair and angle her head back as he pressed his mouth to her scar, licking the length of it and then the column of her throat before he grasped her lips again. "Can I see what's under the tablecloth?"

She could not help but smile against his mouth as he kissed her. "You might want to take Tommy to another room."

"I'd rather have a witness to my murder."

"I'm going to get you very naked, Gabriel."

"I'm pretty certain he's somewhat deaf and partially blind."

Her giggles filled the room, and he grinned up at her, eyes flashing so many shades of blue.

Pressing his brow to hers, he sighed. "You're perfect. How can you fit so perfectly in my hold yet be the only thing I can't hold onto forever? How can you be made for me so perfectly yet be the one thing I cannot have?" he whispered as he kissed her neck, her shoulder, her arms, her hand, the tips of her finger, anywhere he could.

Reaching for the edges of her shirt, she pulled it up and over her head. The rest of her clothing followed until she stood before him bare and wanting, needing—desperately needing him. "You have me."

"Say it again." His touch was barely a whisper against her skin, like the gentle touch of spring wind, tentative and careful as he trailed the curves of her breasts until her limbs melted against his hold. "Tell me you're mine like I am forever yours."

When his hand came around her throat, wrapping there so gently as if she was a flower stem, her eyes drew shut. "I'm yours."

He drew a nipple in his mouth, rolling his eyes up at her as he licked and sucked and bit her flesh, turning her entire body to liquid. Gabriel took his time with her, his lips and tongue exploring every dent and dip, tasting every inch of her skin until she was panting and on the cusp of begging.

Grasping her jaw with one hand, he kissed her while his other hand cupped and kneaded her breast, his fingers circling the hardened centre. He pulled back only so he could bring two fingers to his mouth to lick them. "I wanted to learn your body," he said, lowering those fingers between her legs and pressing them to the apex of her sex, rubbing slow circles over her sensitive flesh until her legs were buckling and a moan flew out of her lips, only to be swallowed by him. "If only we had more time, I would have taken my time with every dip and curve. Tasted every inch of your skin until it would be branded in my memory until the very end."

"Please," she begged between kisses, as pressure built up down her spine and at her core.

"Don't beg me, my ruin. Order me. Tell me what you need."

"You."

He smiled over her lips as her fingers slid down her sex, teasing her wet entrance. "I need you to be a little more precise. A finger?" he asked, pushing one inside her and leaving her gasping. "Or two?" He nipped at her lips as a second one filled her, pushing them in and out of her until her limbs began trembling. "Or my cock? Fuck, you're so wet. Maybe you want my cock. Tell me and I will give you anything you want."

"Enough playing," she breathed, her chest rising and falling fast. "Just have me."

Sliding his fingers out of her, he brought them to his mouth, licking the both of them clean. "As you wish," he said, lifting her up just enough to reach and remove his trousers. The man or God before her looked drunken, in an utter haze as he pressed his lips all over her before reaching between them with a hand and angling her hips with the other.

She gasped in his mouth when she felt the thick head of his cock nudge at her sex. But he did not push in just yet, he waited until she softened in his arms again, pushing her wetness over the length of her sex and teasing that centre of nerves at the apex of her thighs that had her gasping for new air, air that only he could breathe back in her lungs. He didn't have to push in at all because Silene lowered herself on him, making them both groan. She sank down his cock bit by bit, moaning as he stretched her insides. "God."

One of his hands came to the back of her neck, wrapping to hold her there as he kissed her. "I'm right here."

"Arrogant prick."

"That is inside you," he cooed, his hips bucking up to remind her of just that, and he slid even deeper inside her.

Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she slowly rocked on his thick length, feeling her core heat up with each sway.

"My Silene," he breathed in her mouth as his hands came down the curves of her body and settled on her hips as she slowly rode him. "My beautiful Silene."

Her eyes drew shut as pressure built in her core. "I…I can't."

Hooking his hands under her knees, he lifted the both of them up and laid her down on the sofa on her back, hovering over her and taking the opportunity to suck on both her breasts before he grabbed his cock with one hand and pushed it in her again. "Open your legs wider for me, Silene," he said, bracing both his hands on either side of her, and she felt her cheeks heat up. "That's it, my beautiful ruin, let me see."

She was sure she'd gone entirely red under his perusal.

Her legs wrapped around his thighs, and she watched where they joined, running her hands down his chest as he thrust in her gently, slowly. Then their eyes locked, the world disappearing as he made love to her, as he brought her near an edge nothing had ever brought her before. One that had her vision filled with stars and her lungs drowning with air. An edge he'd followed her to.

Spent and breathless, he pulled her on top of his naked body, his mouth pressing to the top of her head in a dozen kisses.

She'd never made love like that. Silene had never really made love at all. She hated the way bile rose to her throat at the memories of how her innocence had been ripped away. How she'd been merely an object to the other hands that had held her. "I wish this had been my first. I wish you'd been my first."

"I am your first."

"But—"

He trailed the back of his hand down her cheek. "Your brother killed them, and I burned every single soul who took what you did not give permission to take. They no longer exist. I burned their pasts and their futures, every trace of their existence. The only place they haunt is here," he said, pressing a finger to her brow, "and soon they will be gone forever."

"There are other things that haunt me there," she admitted. "I like how he haunts me."

"Then I shall haunt you, my great ruin."

Tipping her head up, she pressed her mouth to his. "I will be waiting for it. Should we wash up?"

"I was planning on dirtying you up again."

Just then, her stomach did something it had not done in centuries—it growled with hunger, making him drop his head back and laugh.

"Food it is," he said, grabbing his shirt and throwing it over her head, guiding her arms through the short sleeves before sitting her up in his lap and wrapping her legs around his waist. With her clinging to him like that, he started making her food.

Then he'd made love to her again right there in his kitchen, then as he'd brought her under the hot shower, and again in his bed until their limbs were tangled together to the point neither knew where the other started and where they ended.

"If I gave you a dream, any dream, what would you want to dream about?" he murmured, eyes fluttering from sleep. "I will give it to you."

"Too late," she whispered. "I got my dream."

They'd fought sleep hard, the both of them.

But exhaust and grief had meddled in a strange concoction and drowsed them.

Time had done the most unforgivable thing.

It had passed.

As she stared down at his sleeping form sprawled on the bed, she started counting down the seconds that would soon strike to dawn, trying not to let the last memory of him blur behind tears.

"I will remember," she whispered to herself as she choked on chopped sobs. "How can I forget? I can't forget. Nothing could make me forget you."

Seconds before her own clock would finally strike a second death, she reached a hand to his face, forcing herself to remember every detail on his skin, the exact way he felt at her touch, the colour of his hair that she hoped to forever see in the sun.

She pressed her lips to his brow as gently as she could without waking him up in the new cold world of hers. "You are so beautiful. You are so beautiful to me."

Holding her timekeeper tightly to her chest, she wished one last time that it would stop working. And when more seconds were wasted away on wishes that couldn't be fulfilled, she gathered every little bit of strength she had to stand and leave and not scream: Let me be just a ghost only to haunt you for I can no longer love you.

Her heart could never be hollow or narrow enough not to fit him. It was a but a wretched thing, blackened by misery and bruised by hopelessness, but she would behold him like a beacon.

Azriel was waiting for her right against the gates to his world, his head lowered in a defeat that Death never accepted—there was no hopelessness in death so why were his endless, dark eyes drowning in it? "I am sorry," he whispered, low and dark and mournful.

It was then Silene let it all out. Everything she had held in.

She crumbled in the only arms she could ever allow herself to crumble, she'd crumbled in his arms one too many times, and he'd welcomed it every single time.

"I don't want to forget him."

He would not look at her, his hopeless gaze latching on her palms pressed against each other at her chest, her only shield against the pounding of her heart begging to be set free. "You both made unbreakable bargains, Silene. There are worse things than forgetting," he said. "Remembering is one of them."

"What will I remember?"

"Of him? Nothing. You will never remember him for long even if you meet again. You will start anew in my service. For five hundred more years."

Time passed, it was what it did best, but she didn't want it to make her forget. "And then?"

"Only the fates know." A flicker of something less than hope and more than despair flickered in his eyes. "Maybe they will be kind."

Despite all the strength she used to will her tears back, she broke again. "They never are."