Archive of Our Own

Kimi has a morbid fascination with true crime documentaries. He’s a connoisseur of the genre, if he might say so himself.

He would sit on the living room sofa with his laptop open, cross-checking the facts with the way they deliberately framed the actual case. Most of the time, the flaw lay in the overdramatization. Directors had a terrible habit of highlighting an insignificant part of a story just to twist a fresh perspective onto a cold case. They would isolate a single text message, a fleeting glance caught on CCTV, or a weird hobby, and construct an entire psychological profile of a killer around it.

Kimi liked to put these documentaries on when he was deep cleaning the flat like today. There was something grounding about scrubbing the sink while listening to a British narrator describe the gruesome unraveling of the human psyche.

It was a perfectly normal sociological interest. Or, at least, it had been.

If a documentary crew were to ever descend upon their building, Kimi would not be the detective, nor the witness, providing insight into the human condition.

He would be the subject.

You either die a hero, Kimi thought, aggressively spraying antibacterial cleaner onto the kitchen counter, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain in a three part Netflix series.

He could already see the opening credits. A slow, panning drone shot of their apartment building. A dramatic cello chord. A black-and-white photograph of his boyfriend, Oliver Bearman, smiling innocently at the camera. And then, a cut to a shadowed interview with Arvid from across the hall, saying: “He seemed like a functioning young adult. But behind closed doors…”

Welcome to: Kimi’s Strange Addiction.

Because it really was an addiction

It had been exactly seven days since Arvid had deconstructed Kimi’s entire psyche in the middle of the living room. Seven days since Kimi had been forced to look in the mirror and acknowledge that his desire to see Oliver cry was not a quirk of poetic romance, but a toxic behavioral dependency. And Kimi was currently experiencing severe withdrawal.

He was trying to correct his ways. He had made a vow to himself that he would be a good, ethical, emotionally supportive partner. He would be healthy. He would not derive pleasure from Ollie’s distress.

(But I want to) a tiny, whiny voice echoed in the most depraved corners of Kimi’s brain. (I want to see his eyelashes clump together. I want to see the pink flush on his nose. I want to tell him a hypothetical story about a lost puppy and watch him crumble. Just a little bit. Just a drop.)

Kimi scrubbed the counter harder, gritting his teeth. No. He was in recovery.

The problem was that it wasn't that Oliver was less wonderful when he was stable. He was a sunshine incarnate. 

It was just that Oliver Bearman provided so many opportunities for Kimi to exploit. The man was walking, breathing, unguarded free real estate for Kimi’s fucked up mind.

Take, for example, their morning routine.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, their schedules diverged. Kimi had an early lecture in the humanities building, while Ollie had to trek across campus to the sports science complex. They would walk together as far as the central quad before parting ways.

Kimi, being a functioning adult, would simply offer a brief nod, say goodbye, and turn to walk to his class.

But Oliver Bearman did not know how to simply walk away.

The man of his immense stature would literally walk backward across the quad, ignoring the flow of pedestrian traffic just to keep his eyes fixed on Kimi. He would walk backward for a terrifyingly long distance, waiting for Kimi to turn around and wave back at him.

Before the Arvid Intervention, Kimi would have played with this. Kimi would have purposefully withheld the wave, letting the distance stretch. He would have felt the thrill of knowing that Ollie was panicking, wondering if he had done something wrong, wondering why his Bambi wasn't looking back. Kimi would have waited until the last possible second before casually turning and offering a small flutter of his fingers, instantly restoring Ollie’s will to live.

It was intoxicating.

But now? Now, Kimi was practicing ethical behavior.

So yesterday morning, when they parted ways, Kimi had forced himself to stop. He had turned around immediately, raised his hand and offered a prompt, healthy wave.

Ollie had beamed, waved back enthusiastically, and then turned around to walk normally to his class.

It was a successful interaction, a textbook healthy relationship dynamics.

It was so boring.

And now, standing in the kitchen on a Friday afternoon, spraying an already pristine countertop, Kimi knew he was reaching his breaking point.

“Pleasure can also make some people cry.”

Kimi stopped scrubbing. He slapped the rag onto the counter with a wet smack.

No, he needed to scrap that thought entirely. He needed to violently evict that concept from his brain.

Because why, in the name of all that was holy and logical, was Kimi Antonelli taking relationship advice from Arvid?

Arvid was not a licensed therapist. Arvid was not a couples counselor. Arvid was a sleep-deprived biochemistry major who communicated primarily through grunts and passive-aggressive charcoal sketches.

Kimi should not take what Arvid said seriously. Hell, he should never listen to Arvid. Or Liam, for that matter.

They were not functioning members of society. They were cryptids inhabiting the drafty ecosystem of their floor, and any advice originating from that side of the floor was hazardous to human life.

Just last month, Ollie had made the catastrophic error of taking culinary advice from Liam. Ollie had been complaining about a mild head cold, and Liam had handed him a bright red packet of instant noodles.

“Buldak ramen, mate,” Liam had cheerfully announced in the hallway. “Clears the sinuses right up. But you have to eat it the traditional Japanese way. Straight out of the boiling pot, no cooling down. The heat activates the spices.”

Kimi, who had been standing in the doorway holding a bag of recycling, had physically cringed. It’s Korean, you uncultured dipshit, Kimi’s internal monologue had screamed.

But Oliver Bearman, possessing a heart of gold and a skull devoid of basic self-preservation instincts, had eagerly accepted the noodles. Ollie had marched into their kitchen, boiled the water, added the blood-red nuclear sauce packet, and, following Liam’s advice to the letter, shoved a massive, hot forkful of the noodles directly into his mouth.

Ollie had immediately turned a violent shade of purple. He had scorched his taste buds off. The chemical warfare of the Korean spices, combined with the boiling water, had completely destroyed his delicate British white boy stomach lining.

The man had collapsed onto the kitchen tiles, real tears of physical pain, streaming down his face. He had been panting, sweating profusely, and making a sound like a dying walrus. Kimi had spent the next three hours frantically pouring glasses of whole milk down his massive boyfriend’s throat and feeding him ice cubes like a zoo animal.

Liam had nearly killed him. 

So why would Kimi ever trust Arvid’s advice regarding the mechanics of the human nervous system? Why would he trust the psychological insights of a man who willingly shared a lease with the Buldak terrorist?

He shouldn't. Kimi crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the kitchen island, giving himself a stern mental lecture. He shouldn't care what those two entities talked about. He shouldn't care what they did behind closed doors.

Hell, he should not even care what they did behind open doors.

Because Kimi knew exactly what they did, and it was horrifying.

Two days ago. It had only been two days since the incident that had permanently scarred Kimi’s visual cortex.

He had trudged up the four flights of stairs to their floor, desperately looking forward to the quiet sanctuary of his flat, and perhaps forcing Ollie to give him a very long, very tight, completely non-manipulative hug.

But as Kimi reached the landing, he had frozen.

The door to Flat 3B was propped wide open, held ajar by a heavy combat boot.

Kimi should have kept walking. Every instinct he possessed, honed by years of watching true crime documentaries where the victim ignores the obvious red flags, screamed at him to unlock his own door and seek shelter.

But Kimi was inherently nosy. The silence emanating from the usually chaotic flat was deeply suspicious.

Kimi had paused. He had taken one stealthy step toward the open doorway, leaning his head just slightly around the doorframe to peer into the living room.

What he saw defied all logic and basic human decency.

The neon smiley-face rug had been pushed against the wall. A massive, clear plastic tarp was laid out across the hardwood floor.

Sitting directly in the center of the tarp was Liam.

Liam was completely shirtless. He was wearing vibrant blue SHORT shorts, sitting cross-legged, his posture unnaturally stiff.

Kneeling directly in front of him, his face hovering perhaps four inches away from Liam’s chest, was Arvid.

Arvid was in his sweater, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He was holding a wooden painter’s palette in his left hand, entirely coated in thick globs of primary colors. In his right hand, he held a fine-tipped, professional-grade paintbrush.

Kimi had held his breath, paralyzed by confusion. What were they doing? Was this some sort of bizarre, bohemian grooming ritual? 

And then, Arvid had dipped the paintbrush into a thick glob of cobalt blue acrylic paint, leaned forward, and with slow, meticulous precision, began to paint Liam’s left areola.

"Aw! Aw, mate, cold!" Liam had yelped, flinching violently as the wet bristles made contact with his skin.

"Hold perfectly still," Arvid had commanded, his gravelly voice echoing in the sparse room, completely devoid of any humor or irony. "If you flex your pectoral, you are going to ruin the symmetry of the pigment."

"Right, sorry," Liam had mumbled, forcing himself to sit rigidly still, his eyes squeezed shut as Arvid diligently continued to coat his nipple in bright blue paint.

Kimi’s jaw had unhinged. He had stood in the hallway, his brain completely flatlining, unable to process the visual data his optic nerves were feeding him.

Once the area was sufficiently coated in wet acrylic, Arvid had tossed the paintbrush onto the tarp. He had picked up a large, blank canvas that was resting against his knee.

"Alright," Arvid had muttered, holding the canvas up by the edges. "On three. Exhale completely, and lean forward. Press firmly. We want a clean impression."

"Got it," Liam had nodded, looking as serious as a soldier receiving orders for a covert extraction.

"One. Two. Three."

Liam had lunged forward. He had pressed his freshly painted chest directly against the tight white fabric of the canvas. There was a sickening, wet schlop sound as skin met canvas.

"Hold," Arvid had ordered. "Let the paint transfer."

After five agonizing seconds, Liam had pulled back, shivering slightly as the cold air hit his chest.

Arvid had lowered the canvas, turning it around to inspect the result.

Right in the upper quadrant of the pristine white canvas was a perfect, textured, cobalt blue circle.

"Mate!" Liam had gasped, leaning forward to look at it, his golden-retriever face breaking into a massive, awestruck grin. "That’s brilliant! It looks like a supernova! The texture is incredible!"

It was potato stamping. But with a nipple.

Arvid had nodded slowly, looking entirely satisfied with his work. "The texture of the areola gives an organic stippling effect. It’s raw. Okay, wipe that off. We need to do the other side in crimson for the contrasting binary star system."

Kimi’s gaze had slowly drifted down the canvas. The blue circle was not the only shape on the fabric. The bottom half of the canvas was already covered in a series of abstract, elongated, oddly textured smears of yellow and green paint. Shapes that did not look like they had been created by a brush, or a sponge, or a hand.

Kimi’s mind, usually so eager to decode, suddenly slammed the emergency brakes.

No.

Kimi had violently recoiled from the doorframe. He refused to get it. He refused to analyze the abstract art. He categorically, absolutely, under penalty of death, would not try to guess which other boy parts they had used to create the sweeping green strokes at the bottom of the painting.

He had practically sprinted the five feet to his own door, jammed his key into the lock, and thrown himself inside his flat, slamming the deadbolt shut behind him as if attempting to lock out a zombie apocalypse. He had spent the next forty-five minutes sitting on his own couch, staring blankly at the wall, questioning the fundamental fabric of reality and wondering if the fumes from Flat 3B were slowly dissolving his own sanity.

And that, that was the man who had told Kimi to use pleasure to make his boyfriend cry.

A man who used his roommate's anatomy as a kindergarten craft project.

"Absolutely not," Kimi whispered aloud in the empty kitchen, shuddering violently at the memory.

He reached over and aggressively muted the true crime podcast. He needed silence. He needed to re-center himself in the world of the sane, the rational, and the fully clothed.

He would not take Arvid’s advice. He would not engage in a psychological sadism disguised as an ethical sexual loophole. He was reformed. 

The sound of the front door unlocking echoed down the hallway.

Kimi stiffened. He quickly grabbed the spray, aggressively wiping the counter, forcing his posture into one of casual domesticity.

The thing is, the problem with going cold turkey on a psychological addiction is the whiplash of the withdrawal, and Kimi Antonelli did not possess a dial for his personality. He only had an on/off switch.

If he couldn't be manipulative, then he had to be an impenetrable fortress of rationality. He had to flatten his affect. He had to establish rigid boundaries to protect Oliver from Kimi’s own sadistic urges.

“Bambi, I’m home!”

Ollie didn't even take his shoes off. He walked straight into the kitchen, bypassed all social conventions, and wrapped his arms completely around Kimi from behind. He buried his sweaty face directly into the crook of Kimi’s neck, turning Kimi into a load-bearing pillar.

"Bambi," Ollie groaned happily, a soft, needy vibration against Kimi’s collarbone. "I’m so tired. My legs are jelly."

Normally, Kimi would either lean back and playfully complain, or he would use this exact moment of physical vulnerability to whisper something profoundly devastating, just to watch Ollie’s glassy-eyed reaction.

No, Kimi’s internal monologue barked. Healthy boundaries. Do not engage in sadism. Do not coddle the dependency.

Kimi went completely, rigidly stiff. He did not lean back.

"Oliver," Kimi said, his voice entirely clipped, flat, and devoid of its usual melodic warmth. "You are heavy. Get off."

Behind him, Ollie’s breath hitched. The massive arms wrapped around Kimi’s waist twitched slightly, but they didn't immediately loosen.

"Just for a minute?" Ollie mumbled into Kimi’s skin, sounding uncertain, the golden-retriever enthusiasm dialing down a fraction.

"No," Kimi stated, adjusting his grip on the rag, staring blankly at the countertop. "You are actively compressing my vertebrae. It is terrible for my posture, and you are covered in a layer of smelly sweat. Please detach."

Kimi thought he was doing incredibly well. He was stating objective facts. He wasn't being manipulative, he was advocating for his own spinal health and hygiene. It was a triumph of communication.

Kimi did not see the reaction. He did not see the way Ollie’s thick eyebrows pulled together in sudden, sharp confusion. He did not see the brilliant, sunny smile completely vanish from Ollie’s face, dropping millimeter by agonizing millimeter until his mouth formed a flat, distressed line.

Slowly, the heavy, comforting weight lifted.

Ollie took a step backward. His large hands slid off Kimi’s waist, hovering in the air for a second before falling awkwardly to his sides. His shoulders, usually squared with athletic confidence, instantly hunched forward, curling inward as if attempting to make himself smaller.

"Oh," Ollie said. His voice was incredibly quiet. "Right. Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your back."

"It is fine," Kimi said briskly, "Just be mindful of your size."

Ollie stood in the center of the kitchen for another five seconds, staring at Kimi’s rigid back. He looked like he had run all the way home just to show Kimi a stick he found, only to have the door slammed in his face.

"I'll... I'll just go shower, then," Ollie murmured.

"Excellent idea," Kimi replied sharply, not looking up.

Ollie quietly backed out of the kitchen. His heavy footsteps retreated down the hallway, completely lacking their usual bouncy, energetic cadence.

Kimi let out a long exhale, feeling a surge of self-righteous victory. He had navigated an interaction without utilizing a single psychological micro-aggression. He was cured.

He was spectacularly oblivious to the trail of emotional destruction he was leaving in his wake.

The pattern continued over the following dats

When they sat on the couch to watch a movie, Ollie instinctively reached out to grab Kimi’s hand, seeking the constant tactile reassurance he craved. Kimi, terrified that holding hands would lead to eye contact, which would lead to a tear-farming opportunity, gently extracted his fingers.

"My hand is cramping from taking notes," Kimi lied, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ollie had slowly pulled his hand back, resting it on his own knee. He had stared at the television screen for the rest of the evening, not processing a single frame of the film, the light completely gone from his eyes.

When Ollie made dinner the next night, he proudly presented Kimi with a perfectly cooked plate of carbonara. "I added extra pancetta, Bambi. Just how you like it."

"Thank you," Kimi had said, picking up his fork.

Ollie had hovered by the table, waiting for the praise, waiting for the dramatic, sweeping compliment Kimi usually bestowed upon his cooking.

"Is it good?" Ollie asked tentatively, twisting a dish towel in his massive hands.

"It is adequately seasoned," Kimi replied, not looking up from his plate.

Ollie’s jaw tightened. He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing, before he quietly turned around and began scrubbing the frying pan with entirely unnecessary force, his back rigid with a quiet, suppressed misery.

Kimi noticed none of this. Kimi was too busy aggressively policing his own internal monologue, building a titanium wall around his sadistic tendencies, completely blind to the fact that his cold detachment was hurting Oliver infinitely more than a fake story ever could.

Instead, by Thursday afternoon, the psychological pressure of repression had reached critical mass.

He was alone in the flat, and the silence of the apartment was deafening. Kimi’s brain, a highly advanced, hyperactive analytical machine, was screaming for an outlet. It needed a project. It needed to hyper-fixate.

“Pleasure can also make some people cry,” Arvid’s cursed, gravelly voice echoed through the empty living room.

Kimi sat at his laptop. He had promised himself he wouldn't manipulate Ollie emotionally. He had promised he wouldn't use tears as a metric for devotion.

But what if…… Kimi opened a new browser tab.

He simply blacked out. His consciousness detached, floating somewhere near the ceiling, while his hands operated the keyboard with terrifying autonomy.

He fell into a deep rabbit hole. He approached the subject with the clinical methodology of a university scholar compiling a thesis.

He started with Wikipedia articles on the psychology of sensory deprivation. He moved on to Reddit forums detailing the specific ergonomics of physical restraint. He read reviews on tensile strength, skin-chafing prevention, and the psychological impact of temporary immobilization on high-performance athletes.

He rationalized it entirely through academia. I need to understand the physical mediums of non-verbal power dynamics. This is purely sociological research. It is a study in trust.

An hour later, Kimi Antonelli, a man who organized his socks by color gradient and drank espresso out of vintage ceramic, was staring at a checkout screen.

In his digital cart was a pair of heavy-duty restraints.

They were not cheap novelty items. They were matte black, genuine Italian leather. They featured reinforced, heavy-gauge steel hardware and a dense, plush neoprene lining designed specifically to prevent bruising against the skin. They were designed to hold a very large, very strong man completely, helplessly in place.

Kimi stared at the 'Confirm Purchase' button.

His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. A dark, heavy heat pooled low in his stomach. He wasn't going to use them. Of course he wasn't. That would require a conversation. That would require admitting to Ollie that Kimi possessed a twisted desire to pin him down and completely break his physical composure.

He was just buying them to have them.

Just a prop. A sociological artifact. A physical manifestation of the control Kimi was currently fighting so hard to suppress. Just to keep in the bottom of his drawer. 

Kimi clicked the button.

He paid for expedited, next-day shipping. When the confirmation email hit his inbox, he slammed the laptop shut, his hands shaking slightly, feeling entirely deranged and utterly terrified of his own mind.

The sleek, discreet black box arrived on Friday morning while Ollie was in class. Kimi had immediately taken it into their bedroom, shoved it into the very back of his bottom dresser drawer, and buried it underneath a pile of heavy winter sweaters.

He felt like he was harboring a radioactive isotope. The mere presence of the leather cuffs in the flat seemed to alter the atmospheric pressure of the room. Kimi spent the entire day vibrating with a strange, internalized nervous energy.

The delivery of the package had required a level of espionage usually reserved for international intelligence agencies.

Kimi Antonelli had not used his real name. He had placed the order under the highly suspicious, uncreative alias of K. Antonio, and he had paid a premium, expedited shipping fee to guarantee that the packaging would be completely unmarked.

He had to be careful. The ecosystem of their floor was compromised by the presence of Liam.

Liam liked to view himself as a good Samaritan. Whenever the postman left packages in the ground-floor lobby, Liam would scoop them up and distribute them to their rightful owners. This, in theory, was a kind gesture. In practice, it was a waking nightmare, because Liam loved to loudly, enthusiastically guess the contents of every parcel he delivered.

One time, Kimi had ordered a high-end walnut chopping block. Liam had knocked on their door, vibrating with excitement, and yelled down the hallway, "Got your package, mates! It’s heavy as a brick! Ooh, is it a new cutting board?! A fancy one?!"

Kimi had snatched the box from Liam’s hands, mortified that the entire building now knew his kitchenware preferences.

So, when the discreet tracking app pinged Kimi’s phone to announce that K. Antonio's parcel was out for delivery, Kimi had actively hovered by the front door. He had intercepted the postman in the stairwell, signed for the unmarked box with a rapidly beating heart, and smuggled it into the flat while Ollie was safely across campus at a two-hour biomechanics lecture.

Now, the box was open.

Kimi sat cross-legged on the living room rug, staring at the contents laid out before him. It was a pair of heavy-duty restraints. And they were... genuinely pretty.

Kimi reached out, running fingers over the material. It was incredibly soft Italian leather, dyed a deep, matte black. They utilized heavy, reinforced steel buckles that gleamed coldly in the afternoon light, and the interior was lined with a plush, high-grade neoprene designed to protect the skin from chafing under heavy friction.

They were designed to hold a very large, very strong man entirely, helplessly in place.

Kimi picked up one of the cuffs, turning it over in his hands. His heart was hammering a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs. He felt like he was holding contraband. He had bought them just to have them. Just to look at them. Just to satisfy the dark, brewing curiosity in his own deeply corrupted mind.

But as he sat there in the empty flat, the academic curiosity morphed into something entirely unhinged.

I need to understand the structural mechanics, Kimi’s internal monologue rationalized, attempting to dress his deviance in the respectable garb of sociological research. I need to test the tensile strength and the locking mechanism. Just to ensure they are safe.

He couldn't exactly test them on his own wrists. If he locked both of his hands together and couldn't reach the buckles, he would be trapped in his own living room until Ollie came home, which would result in a conversation Kimi would rather fake his own death than have.

Kimi did a quick, visual calculation. His own wrists were far too delicate to accurately simulate the experience. However, Kimi’s ankles were roughly the exact circumference of Oliver Bearman’s massive, tree-trunk wrists.

It was flawless logic.

Kimi kicked off his slippers. He pulled the thick, plush cuffs around his left ankle, threading the heavy leather strap through the steel buckle and pulling it tight. It fit perfectly. The neoprene hugged his skin comfortably. He did the same to his right ankle. Then, with trembling fingers, he took the short, heavy-duty steel chain that came in the box and clipped the carabiners to the D-rings on the cuffs, binding his ankles securely together.

"Fascinating," Kimi murmured to the empty room.

He wiggled his feet. The range of motion was severely restricted. The leather was unyielding.

Okay, Kimi thought. Let us test the weight distribution.

He placed his hands on the rug and pushed himself up, attempting tostand. He meant to stand up straight, just to test the tensile resistance of the connecting chain.

What Kimi failed to account for was the fact that his legs were bound together with exactly four inches of slack, eliminating his center of gravity.

As soon as Kimi’s weight shifted forward, the steel chain snapped taut. Kimi’s feet locked in place. The momentum carried his upper body entirely out of the safety zone.

"Ah!" Kimi yelped, his arms flailing wildly like a panicked windmill.

He pitched violently forward. He tried to catch himself, but his bound ankles completely betrayed him. He crashed shoulder-first into the decorative wooden side table, knocking it over with a deafening crack. The stack of heavy art history textbooks resting on the table cascaded onto the floor, directly onto Kimi’s torso.

Kimi landed hard on his side, his legs tangled in the heavy leather cuffs, trapped beneath a small avalanche of Renaissance literature.

He lay there for a second, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pain to register. Mostly, it was just his pride that was shattered. He tried to sit up, but the awkward angle of his fall, combined with the fact that his ankles were firmly tied, made it impossible to gain any leverage. He was essentially a flipped turtle. A flipped, deeply perverse turtle.

He grunted, awkwardly twisting his spine, reaching down to unbuckle the leather straps. His fingers grazed the cold steel, but he couldn't quite get the necessary angle to pull the stiff leather back through the lock.

"Okay," Kimi wheezed, struggling against the restraints. "Don't panic. Just contort."

Then, at the worst possible time, a loud cheerful knock echoed from the front door.

"Kimi? Ollie? Mates, are you in there?!"

Kimi froze.

His blood instantly ran freezing cold. It was Liam.

"I'm baking a protein cake and Arvid used the last of the eggs for his hair mask!" Liam yelled through the wood. "Do you have any spare eggs?!"

Kimi squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, praying to whatever deity governed the fourth floor that Liam would assume they were out and simply walk away.

Click.

The front doorknob turned.

Kimi’s stomach violently plummeted into theearth’s mantle. He had forgotten to lock the deadbolt after bringing the package inside.

"Oh! Door's unlocked!" Liam’s voice drifted into the entryway.

The door creaked open. There was a pause. The silence from the living room, punctuated only by Kimi’s shallow, panicked breathing, seemed to trigger Liam’s wildly disproportionate survival instincts.

"Hello?" Liam called out, his voice suddenly dropping its cheerful cadence, replaced by a sharp, tense edge. "Kimi? Are you alright? Why is the table smashed?"

Kimi didn't answer. He couldn't answer. He was currently lying on the floor, wearing bondage gear on his ankles, pinned beneath a textbook on Michelangelo.

"Mate, if there's a burglar in there, I’ve got pepper spray and I’m not afraid to use it!" Liam shouted, his heavy footsteps creeping cautiously down the short hallway. "I am stepping into the perimeter!"

I am going to die, Kimi thought wildly, his dignity evaporating into the ether. I am going to expire from mortification.

Liam rounded the corner into the living room, holding his teeny tiny pepper spray.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Liam looked at the overturned side table. He looked at the scattered textbooks. And then, he looked down at Kimi, who was sprawled on the rug, staring up at him with the wide, terrified eyes of a panicked, caught animal.

Liam’s eyes drifted down Kimi’s body, landing squarely on the heavy, matte black leather cuffs and the steel chain securely binding Kimi’s ankles together.

The silence stretched for five agonizing, world-ending seconds.

"Um," Liam said.

"I was conducting an experiment," Kimi blurted out, his voice cracking on the final syllable.

Liam immediately dropped his spray. The defensive posture completely melted away, replaced instantly by the gentle, soothing aura of an Australian wildlife rehabilitator approaching a wounded wallaby.

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Liam murmured, putting his hands up in a placating gesture, tiptoeing carefully around the scattered textbooks. "It's alright, mate. I'm not judging. Let's just get you sorted, yeah? I'm gonna help you untangle, okay?"

"I do not need help," Kimi lied through his teeth, struggling violently, looking like a fish flopping on a dock. "I just lost my footing."

"Right, right, you lost your footing," Liam agreed easily, kneeling down beside Kimi’s legs. He completely ignored Kimi’s lack of dignity. He reached out with surprising dexterity, his calloused hands easily finding the release mechanism on the heavy steel buckles.

Kimi lay on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling, fully accepting that his life was over. He was going to have to pack his bags and move back to Italy. He could never look Oliver in the eye again. He could never look anyone in the eye again.

"Ooh, nice gear, by the way," Liam commented casually as he threaded the leather strap backward, loosening the first cuff. "Really high quality. Soft leather, no velcro. Hand-stitched, too. Professional stuff."

Kimi squeezed his eyes shut. "Please do not patronize me."

"I'm not!" Liam laughed softly, successfully pulling the first cuff free. He moved to the second ankle. "I'm being serious. You don't want cheap synthetic leather for bounds. Causes terrible friction burns."

With a final clack, the second cuff came loose. Kimi’s legs were free.

Liam reached out, offering a massive hand. "Here, let me help you sit up."

Kimi accepted the hand in defeated silence. Liam effortlessly hauled Kimi into a sitting position on the rug, leaning him against the base of the sofa. Liam sat down cross-legged on the floor opposite him, casually tossing the heavy leather cuffs onto the coffee table next to the empty cardboard box.

Liam didn't make a joke. He didn't laugh. He just sat there, looking at Kimi with his bright, golden-retriever concern.

"You okay?" Liam asked gently.

Kimi pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins. He nodded once, a pathetic, jerky motion. A tiny, entirely involuntary sniffle escaped his nose. It was too much. The anxiety, the repression, the humiliation of being found hogtied in his own living room, it was completely overwhelming.

"What's that for, anyway?" Liam asked, pointing a thumb at the cuffs.

Kimi buried his face in his knees. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Eh, I have my guesses," Liam said cheerfully. "But you know, if you ever need recommendations for more stuff, we have lots! You wouldn't believe the inventory we've acquired."

Kimi peeked over his kneecaps, his dark eyes narrowed in confusion. "Why do you have an inventory of leather restraints?"

"Oh! Because of the band!" Liam beamed, looking thrilled to share. "That industrial anarchist band I’m managing? We just wrapped their new music video shoot last week. The director wanted a very specific aesthetic. Really gritty. Used lots of chains, bounds, heavy leather. That's why I know lots about the gear! We had to source it all."

Kimi blinked. The tension in his chest eased slightly. It was a professional connection. Liam wasn't a fellow degenerate (allegedly), he was just a very enthusiastic prop master.

"Look, I'll show you," Liam said, pulling his phone out of his bright yellow athletic shorts. He unlocked it and eagerly leaned forward, tapping on his photo gallery. "The set was mental. Abandoned abattoir. Lots of red lighting."

Liam held the phone up, swiping through the pictures. Kimi reluctantly looked.

Swipe. A picture of a man in a welding mask chained to a radiator.

Swipe. A picture of Liam giving a thumbs-up next to a woman holding a megaphone and a riding crop.

Swipe. A picture of a massive, heavy-duty leather harness resting on a mixing console.

Swipe.

A picture of Arvid.

Kimi’s brain stalled.

Arvid was asleep. He was lying on his stomach, his face turned toward the camera, buried halfway into a white pillow. His chaotic dark mullet was spread across the cotton. He was completely shirtless, the broad expanse of his back exposed.

The picture had clearly been taken by someone lying in the exact same bed, right next to him. It was a fundamentally, overwhelmingly intimate photograph. It captured a private vulnerability that Arvid never, ever displayed to the outside world. Arvid looked soft. 

"Whoops," Liam blurted out.

Liam’s thumb violently swiped the screen, banishing the picture.

Kimi looked up.

A furious, violent blush had crept up Liam’s neck, completely taking over his face. Liam swallowed hard, suddenly refusing to make eye contact with Kimi. He aggressively tapped his phone screen, hastily locking it and shoving it back into his pocket.

"Ahaha, yes," Liam let out a loud, incredibly strained, entirely unnatural laugh. "That's it. Wrong picture. Um. Must have accidentally scrolled too far into the... the camera roll."

Kimi stared at him.

Kimi did not have the emotional capacity to process this right now. He was already drowning in his own psychological turmoil. But he could not ignore the volume of lore he had just witnessed.

Liam, the man who wore carabiners and used the word mate as punctuation. Liam, the man who had looked Kimi dead in the eye in the hallway and cheerfully declared himself “Straight as an arrow, love the ladies.”

That same Liam currently possessed a sleepy intimate photograph of his “unlabeled” biochemistry roommate in his camera roll, and was currently blushing so hard he looked like he was going to spontaneously combust.

There was a lot to unpack from a straight man who bottoms on Tuesdays.

But Kimi couldn't unpack it. He simply didn't have the space in his room.

Kimi let out a long, heavy, shuddering exhale, dropping his chin back onto his knees. The silence stretched again, replacing the frantic energy with a heavy, oppressive vulnerability.

"I just wanted to try something," Kimi whispered into his own kneecaps, completely abandoning his pride. He was sitting on the floor with a guy who apparently moonlighted as an industrial prop master and was secretly in love with his roommate. There was no point in lying anymore.

"Try something with Ollie?" Liam asked softly, the awkwardness instantly evaporating from his tone, reverting back to the supportive, golden-retriever bro.

Kimi nodded miserably.

"So why are you testing it on your own ankles in secret?"

“Because I’m a fucking creep, Liam! Lock me up!”

"Hey, hey. Mate, listen to me," Liam said, his voice entirely devoid of judgment, echoing with sincerity. "It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just... it’s just arts and crafts, you know?"

Kimi peeked through his fingers. His dark, tear-filled eyes locked onto Liam’s earnest face.

"Arts and crafts?" Kimi repeated, his voice thick and wavering. He glanced at the heavy-duty, reinforced steel and Italian leather restraints sitting on the coffee table. "Liam, that is not papier-mâché."

"It's expression!" Liam argued cheerfully, waving his free hand in the air as if painting a rainbow. "It's creative! It's exploring the physical boundaries of the human form! There is absolutely no shame in it, Kimi. Big J would agree."

Kimi sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his sleeve. He blinked..

"Big J?" Kimi asked cautiously, terrified that Liam was about to reference a notorious serial killer or perhaps a prominent figure in the underground BDSM community.

"Yeah, mate! Jesus!" Liam beamed, looking incredibly proud of his own theological insight.

"Jesus?"

"Mr. Christ himself! Aren't you Catholic? You guys love Big J," Liam nodded enthusiastically. "You know the prayer, right? Our father who art in heaven?"

Kimi stared at him. "Yes. I know the Pater Noster."

"Right!" Liam snapped his fingers, pointing directly at Kimi, "He does art in heaven. That’s what he’s doing up there. He’s up there getting creative! That’s sick, isn’t it? So why wouldn't he support you getting a little creative down here with Ollie?"

He sat on the living room rug, completely paralyzed. His brain attempted to process the sentence Liam had just uttered.

"What," Kimi whispered. The single syllable was completely hollow, devoid of any intonation.

"I'm just saying," Liam shrugged, completely oblivious to the fact that he had just committed a theological atrocity that would make the Pope spontaneously combust. "You have divine approval to use the leather cuffs. So don't beat yourself up about it."

Kimi closed his eyes. He took a long, deep, agonizingly slow breath in through his nose. He did not have the emotional bandwidth to correct this.

"Anyway," Liam continued, entirely unbothered by Kimi’s catatonic state. He shifted his weight on the rug, crossing his long legs. "Just talk to Ollie. Tell him what you want."

Kimi sniffled again, hating the weak, pathetic sound of his own voice. "But he is... normal."

"Normal?"

"Yes. He likes holding hands and baby talks and soft kisses.”

Kimi gestured aggressively toward the heavy, matte black leather cuffs sitting innocently on the coffee table.

"And I bought those!" Kimi cried, his voice pitching higher with hysterical panic. "I spent four hours researching tensile strength! I want to pin his wrists to the bed! I want to completely dismantle his physical composure! I have abnormal thoughts, Liam! If I tell him, he is going to look at me like I am a predator! He is going to realize that I am a freak, and he is going to pack his giant gym bag and leave me!"

Kimi buried his face in his hands, fully expecting Liam to agree. He fully expected Liam to awkwardly pat his shoulder and suggest a therapist.

Instead, Liam let out a soft, sympathetic little "Aw."

Kimi felt a heavy, warm hand land on his shoulder, giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze.

"Mate," Liam said, his voice entirely devoid of judgment, echoing with a profound, grounded sincerity. "You are underestimating Oliver Bearman."

Kimi peeked through his fingers. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, the bloke worships the absolute ground you walk on," Liam said with a soft chuckle. "I've seen the way he looks at you when you’re just making coffee. He looks at you like you invented the concept of espresso. He’s obsessed with you, Kimi."

"That doesn't mean he wants to be tied up," Kimi argued miserably.

"Maybe not," Liam conceded easily, shrugging his broad shoulders. "But maybe he does. You don't know until you ask. Just because he defaults to 'normal' doesn't mean he wouldn't be absolutely thrilled to explore 'weird' if it meant he got to do it with you."

Kimi stared at Liam.

It was a staggering display of emotional intelligence from a man who had nearly hospitalized Ollie with Korean noodles. Liam didn't play mind games. He wasn't capable of the dark, psychological edging that Arvid specialized in. Liam was just a guy who loved his friends and believed in the uncomplicated power of honest communication.

"You think so?" Kimi whispered, the heavy, suffocating knot of shame in his chest loosening just a fraction.

"I know so," Liam smiled brilliantly, "Just tell him, mate. You don't have to break out the heavy steel hardware on day one. Just talk to him. I am one hundred percent sure Ollie would be completely open to at least listening to what you want."

Kimi looked from Liam’s reassuring face to the leather cuffs resting on the table.

For a week, Kimi had been torturing himself. He had been freezing Ollie out, repressing his own desires, and spiraling into a toxic vortex of self-loathing, all because he was terrified of communication. He was so used to manipulating outcomes that the simple act of just asking for what he wanted felt like leaping out of an airplane without a parachute.

But looking at Liam, chaotic, accidentally-in-love, fiercely supportive Liam, Kimi realized that maybe he didn't have to be a mastermind all the time.

"Y'know, you two are my favorite couple." Liam said.

Kimi let out a bitter, self-deprecating scoff. "Please, stop. Do not patronize me. I am currently sitting on the floor having an existential crisis over my own sadistic tendencies."

"No, I'm serious!" Liam pressed, leaning forward slightly. The bright cadence of his usual speech was gone. "I mean it. You two are so, so weird. But you're so good together? Like, a little crazy? You complain about him constantly, and he cries over AI dog videos, and you have these massive, dramatic staredowns in the hallway."

Liam paused. He looked down at his own hands, picking absently at a stray thread on the knee of his violently yellow shorts.

"But you're also so sure of each other," Liam murmured.

Kimi stopped rubbing his temples. He lowered his hands, looking across the coffee table at his neighbor.

Liam wasn't smiling anymore. In its place was a look of quiet longing that it physically ached to witness. Liam was staring at the floorboards, his broad shoulders slumped, entirely stripped of his usual bravado.

"It's just..." Liam sighed, a heavy, wistful sound that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand unspoken conversations. "It's so... easy? In a way. You know? You know he's yours. He knows you're his. There's no guessing. You just... are."

The silence that settled over the living room was thick and suffocating.

Kimi Antonelli sat perfectly still, his own emotional crisis temporarily suspended as his analytical mind kicked into high gear.

There was a lot to unpack in that statement.

It wasn't easy for Liam.

Liam was desperately, hopelessly in love with a man who categorically refused to be put in a box. Liam was a golden retriever who craved loyalty, devotion, and a clearly defined pack structure, but he was trapped in an "unlabeled," avant-garde, emotionally detached situationship with a goth biochemistry major who treated human connection like a conceptual art project.

Liam was bending himself entirely out of shape, pretending to be chill, pretending to be open to being perfectly fine being a casual Tuesday night hookup who got painted blue for fun. He was accepting whatever crumbs of intimacy Arvid was willing to throw at him, because he was terrified that if he asked for more, Arvid would simply pack up his charcoal sketches and walk away.

Liam was looking at Kimi and Ollie’s relationship, with all of its dramatic hysteria and tear-farming neuroses, and he was violently envious of the one thing they possessed: certainty.

Kimi felt a sudden wave of empathetic heartbreak wash over him.

For all of Kimi’s own twisted, psychological flaws, at least he knew that Oliver Bearman would walk backward across a quad just to wave at him. At least Kimi knew that he was the center of Ollie’s universe. Liam didn't have that. Liam was walking on a tightrope, terrified to look down.

"Liam," Kimi said softly.

Liam blinked, snapping out of his reverie. He threw his head back and let out a loud, slightly forced laugh, slapping his hands against his thighs.

"Anyway!" Liam announced brightly, the melancholy vanishing as if it had never been there. "That’s why I'm saying you should just talk to the bloke! You've got it made, Big K. Don't let a pair of fancy leather bracelets ruin a good thing. Ollie will be well up for it, I promise you."

Kimi stared at him. He knew better than to push and when a conversation was officially closed.

"Okay, Liam," Kimi said, his voice gentle and entirely devoid of its usual bite. "Thank you. I appreciate the... perspective."

"Anytime, mate!" Liam beamed, pushing himself up from the floor with an effortless, athletic grace. "Glad I could help. Now, I really do need to get those eggs!”

Kimi nodded, slowly pushing himself up from the rug. He smoothed down his sweater, his dignity somewhat restored, though his mind was still reeling from the sheer volume of emotional lore he had just absorbed.

"You can check the fridge," Kimi offered, gesturing toward the kitchen. "Take whatever you need."

"Legend," Liam grinned, taking a step toward the archway.

"Also," Kimi said, his voice suddenly dropping, sharp and authoritative.

Liam paused, turning back around. "Yeah?"

Kimi took a step forward. He squared his shoulders, looking Liam dead in the eye. He needed to establish a perimeter. He needed to ensure the containment of this absolute disaster.

"I need you to promise me something," Kimi said, his tone entirely lethal.

Liam’s smile faltered slightly at the sudden intensity. "Oh. Sure, mate! Shoot."

"Do not tell Arvid any of this," Kimi enunciated, stressing every single syllable.

Liam froze.

The color instantly drained from his tanned face. His eyes darted nervously toward the front door, then back to Kimi. He looked like a man who had just been asked to smuggle contraband across an international border.

"Oh," Liam breathed out. "Oh no."

"Liam," Kimi warned, his eyes narrowing into dark, dangerous slits. "If Arvid finds out that you found me hogtied on my own living room rug, he will never let me live it down. He will use it to psychologize me until the end of time. He will draw charcoal sketches of it. He will mock me. You must swear to a vow of absolute silence."

Liam brought a hand up to rub the back of his neck, visibly sweating. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, the jingling of the carabiner on his shorts betraying his escalating panic.

"Big K, I want to keep your promise, I really do!" Liam pleaded, his voice climbing an octave higher. "I’m a vault! But... but you don't understand!"

"What is there to understand?" Kimi hissed, stepping closer. "Just do not speak the words!"

"But Arvid has his ways!" Liam cried, his eyes wide with genuine, unadulterated terror.

Kimi stopped. "His ways?"

"Yes!" Liam waved his hands frantically. "He just... he looks at me, Kimi! He looks at me with those eyes, and he just knows I’m hiding something! He extracts information using biological warfare!"

"Liam," Kimi said, placing a firm hand on Liam’s shoulder, grounding the guy. "Listen to me. You are a strong, independent man. You are managing an underground anarchist band. You are capable of withstanding the psychological pressure of a man who wears oversized sweaters. You will go back into that room, you will hand him the eggs, and you will tell him I was reorganizing my art history textbooks. Do you understand?"

Liam swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing. He looked into Kimi’s fierce, unyielding Italian eyes, and seemed to draw a tiny fraction of courage from Kimi’s sheer, terrifying willpower.

"Reorganizing," Liam repeated, his voice shaky. "Just reorganizing textbooks."

"Exactly," Kimi nodded, giving his shoulder one final squeeze before letting go. "Now. Go get your eggs. And Liam?"

"Yeah?"

Kimi looked at the leather cuffs still resting on the coffee table. He thought about Ollie’s devastatingly vanilla confession. He thought about Arvid’s terrifyingly accurate psychoanalysis. And then he thought about Liam, standing in the middle of the room, pining for a certainty he wasn't allowed to ask for.

"You are a good friend," Kimi said softly.

Liam’s face instantly brightened, the panic receding as the praise hit his system. A massive, brilliant smile broke across his face.

"Thanks, mate!" Liam beamed. "You're not so bad yourself, for a bloke who buys heavy-duty bondage gear on a Thursday afternoon!"

Kimi closed his eyes, inhaling sharply. "Go to the kitchen, Liam. Now."

Liam laughed, a booming, echoing sound, and jogged into the kitchen. A minute later, he emerged holding a carton of half a dozen eggs, offering Kimi a cheerful salute before he let himself out the front door, pulling it shut behind him.

The lock clicked into place.

Kimi Antonelli was alone again.

That night, the rain was lashing against the bedroom window, casting erratic, watery shadows across the ceiling.

They were lying in bed. The flat was dark and quiet.

Despite Kimi’s week-long campaign of detachment, Ollie’s golden-retriever nature had finally overridden his confusion. Ollie needed contact. He had tentatively, slowly shuffled across the mattress in the dark, closing the gap between them. When Kimi didn't immediately complain about his weight, Ollie had carefully wrapped a heavy arm around Kimi’s waist, pulling him back flush against his broad chest.

Ollie held him gently, as if terrified Kimi might shatter, or worse, tell him to get off. Ollie buried his face in the space between Kimi’s shoulder blades, letting out a long, quiet, incredibly relieved sigh.

Kimi lay rigidly awake, staring at the wall.

The heat radiating from Ollie’s massive frame was intoxicating. Kimi could feel the steady, rhythmic thump against his spine. The proximity was driving Kimi insane. His mind was racing, actively pulling at the threads of his own sanity. The black box hidden in the dresser drawer felt like a physical weight pressing down on his chest.

Kimi couldn't take the silence anymore. The turmoil inside his head finally spilled over.

"Oliver," Kimi whispered into the darkness.

Ollie shifted slightly, his arm tightening a fraction of an inch around Kimi’s waist. "Yeah, Bambi?" he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and hope.

Kimi swallowed hard. He kept his eyes fixed on the shadows playing across the wall. He tried to sound completely casual, as if he were asking what time they should go to the grocery store tomorrow.

"Hypothetically speaking," Kimi began, his voice barely above a whisper. "What are your... parameters for intimacy?"

Ollie paused. "My parameters?"

"Yes," Kimi pressed, his heart rate spiking. "What do you like? In terms of dynamics. Have you ever considered... exploring different psychological spaces in the bedroom?"

He couldn't bring himself to say the word 'kinks.' It felt too heavy, too real. But the implication hung heavily in the cool air of the bedroom.

Behind him, Ollie was quiet for a long moment. Kimi could practically hear the gears turning in the giant’s head, trying to process the sudden, academic phrasing of the question.

Then, Ollie let out a soft, incredibly tender little chuckle. It vibrated warmly against Kimi’s spine.

"Oh, we’ve talked about this, Bambi," Ollie whispered, his tone incredibly soft, overflowing with absolute, unadulterated purity. "I'm fine with the normal stuff."

Kimi stopped breathing.

"The normal stuff?" Kimi echoed hollowly.

"Yeah," Ollie hummed, nuzzling his nose gently against Kimi’s vertebrae. "I just... I like looking at you. I like when we make eye contact, and I can see that you feel good. I like holding your hands. Missionary is great. Or, you know, missionary with a twist, where we interlock our fingers. Or when we.. um, do it bare…"

Ollie let out another soft, sleepy sigh, entirely content with his own wholesome reality.

"I just like being close to you," Ollie continued, his voice softened. "I don't need anything crazy. I don't want to hurt you, or do anything weird. I just want to love you. The normal way."

It was the sweetest, most beautiful, most pure declaration of intimacy a partner could possibly offer. It was a testament to Oliver Bearman’s gentle soul, his absolute respect for Kimi, and his complete lack of any dark desires.

It was the absolute worst thing Ollie could have possibly said.

The words struck Kimi with the force of a physical blow.

I don't want to do anything weird.

I just want to love you the normal way.

Kimi lay perfectly still in the darkness, trapped within the warm, heavy embrace of his vanilla, golden-retriever boyfriend. A profound, suffocating wave of shame washed over him, drowning him completely.

He likes normal stuff, Kimi’s internal monologue whispered, a cold, terrified realization freezing his blood. And you bought reinforced steel hardware and plush neoprene lining.

The contrast was horrifying. Ollie wanted to interlock their fingers and gaze lovingly into Kimi’s eyes. Kimi wanted to pin Ollie’s wrists to the headboard, blindfold him, and systematically dismantle his nervous system until he wept.

Kimi Antonelli was a freak.

He was a sick, twisted, deranged monster who did not deserve the pure, unfiltered sunlight of Oliver Bearman. Arvid had been right. Kimi was fundamentally broken. His wiring was entirely corrupted.

A heavy, aching sadness bloomed in the center of Kimi’s chest. It wasn't the dramatic, cinematic sadness he usually enjoyed analyzing. It was a real, ugly, isolating misery.

If Ollie ever found out, if Ollie ever discovered what Kimi truly found aesthetically pleasing, what Kimi had spent an entire Thursday afternoon researching with breathless, frantic obsession, Ollie would be horrified. Ollie would look at Kimi with those wide, trusting puppy-dog eyes, and he would see a predator.

"Bambi?" Ollie whispered, sensing the sudden, rigid tension that had seized Kimi’s body. The heavy arm around Kimi’s waist loosened slightly, a physical manifestation of Ollie’s anxiety returning. "Did I say the wrong thing? Are you mad at me?"

"No," Kimi choked out. His throat felt incredibly tight, thick with unshed, pathetic tears of his own. "No, Oliver. You didn't say the wrong thing."

"Are you sure?" Ollie pressed, sounding remarkably small for a man of his size. "You've been... you've been really far away lately. If I did something, Kimi, please just tell me. I can fix it. I promise I can fix it."

The desperation in Ollie’s voice, the bleeding eagerness to mold himself into whatever Kimi needed, twisted the knife deeper into Kimi’s soul. Ollie didn't need to fix anything. Ollie was perfect. 

"You didn't do anything," Kimi whispered, closing his eyes tightly against the darkness, physically fighting the urge to shatter into a million pieces. "Go to sleep, Oliver. Your muscles need repair."

Ollie didn't argue. He just let out a quiet, incredibly sad little breath that broke Kimi’s heart in two.

Kimi was ready to sleep it off. Maybe he’d donate the cuffs to Liam to add to his collection. Maybe he’d find someone on Facebook marketplace who was in the same boat as him as in seeking to further their sexual life spectrum and be successful in it. 

But apparently, this small wish of his couldn’t be granted.

"Did I really not do anything wrong?"

Kimi kept his eyes closed. He swallowed the thick, aching lump in his throat. "I said you didn't, Oliver. Go to sleep."

"Because I feel like..." Ollie murmured, his voice cracking on the whisper. "I feel like you have been acting... different this past week."

"I have just been tired," Kimi lied, the words tasting like ash on his tongue. "University is demanding. Please drop it."

"Okay," Ollie breathed out.

It was a quiet, defeated sound. Kimi felt a sharp stab of relief mixed with profound self-loathing. He had successfully shut it down.

"But... was it because I hugged you when I was sweaty on Tuesday?" Ollie asked, the words tumbling out of him in a rushed stream. "Because I know you hate when I get the furniture dirty, and I just grabbed you without thinking. Or did I forget something? Did I forget an anniversary? Or a chore? Was it the carbonara? Because I know you didn't like it, and I can make something else, I can look up a better recipe-"

"Oliver-"

"Or is it just me?" Ollie choked out, the underlying terror finally bubbling to the surface. "Am I just... too much? Because I can give you space, Bambi. If you just tell me what I broke, I promise I will fix it."

The words landed on Kimi’s chest like physical blows.

Every single frantic, self-blaming question crushed Kimi a little more. He lay there in the dark, listening to the most wonderful, pure-hearted man in the world actively tear himself to shreds over a crime he didn't commit. Ollie hadn't broken anything. Kimi had. Kimi had built a titanium wall of cold detachment to protect Ollie from Kimi's own sadistic urges, and in doing so, he had completely starved Ollie of the affection he needed to survive.

Kimi felt sick, sad, desperately insecure, and incredibly, violently angry.

He was angry at Arvid for opening his eyes. He was angry at Liam for giving him false hope. He was angry at the leather cuffs sitting in the bottom drawer. But most of all, he was angry at himself. He felt fucking dumb and so thoroughly broken that he didn't even know how to begin putting the pieces back together.

The pressure cooker inside Kimi’s chest, building for seven days, finally exploded.

"Stop it!" Kimi snapped.

Kimi violently shoved the heavy blankets off his body. He twisted around, slapping Ollie’s arm away from his waist, and scrambled backward.

In the dim light filtering through the blinds, Kimi saw Ollie physically flinch. The man recoiled as if Kimi had struck him across the face, his dark eyes wide with shock.

"I said you didn't do anything wrong!" Kimi yelled, his breathing ragged, his temper completely overriding his rational mind. The fear and the shame morphed instantly into a defensive rage. "Why do you have to do this?! Why do you have to be so- such a pushover!"

The word echoed off the walls.

"A pushover?" Ollie repeated. The vulnerability in his voice was gone. It dropped an octave, scraping against the bottom of his chest.

"Yes!" Kimi threw his hands up, his fingers digging into his own hair. He was cornered. He had been so scared, so anxious, so tentatively encouraged by Liam’s advice just hours ago, only to have the door slammed in his face by Ollie’s declaration of 'normalcy'. Kimi was drowning, and he was dragging Ollie down with him.

"You say yes to everything!" Kimi vented, his voice rising, harsh and frantic. He scrambled off the mattress entirely, his bare feet hitting the cold hardwood floor. He began to pace at the foot of the bed, a caged animal completely losing its mind. "You just take it! I freeze you out for a week, I treat you like a stranger, and what do you do? You make me pasta! You ask what you did wrong!"

Ollie sat up slowly. The duvet pooled around his waist. Even sitting down, he was a massive, imposing shadow in the dark room, his broad shoulders tense and rigid.

"I was trying to communicate with you," Ollie said, his jaw tight. "I was trying to understand why my boyfriend suddenly couldn't stand the sight of me."

"Because you're so clingy!" Kimi shouted, projecting every single one of his own deeply internalized insecurities violently onto Ollie. "You are so suffocatingly clingy! You need constant validation! You need me to tell you I missed you every time you walk through the door! You ask me hypothetical questions about worms in the middle of the night just to hear me say I love you! You are so insecure, Oliver!"

It was a cruel monologue. But beneath the venom, Kimi’s fucked-up mind was screaming a desperate message: Fight back! Be angry! Prove to me that you aren't made of glass! Show me that you can handle my darkness, so I don't have to feel like a monster for wanting to break you!

Ollie did not see the hidden message, only the knives being thrown at him.

"I'm insecure?" Ollie asked.

He didn't yell. Oliver just  threw the duvet off his legs. He stood up. Ollie took a step toward the foot of the bed. Kimi instinctively stopped pacing, his heart seizing in his chest.

"I'm insecure?" Ollie repeated, his voice vibrating with anger Kimi had rarely ever witnessed. "I am clingy because I love you, Kimi. I ask you for validation because you spend half your time acting like you're too cool to even acknowledge my existence!"

"I do not!" Kimi defended instantly.

"You do!" Ollie fired back, closing the distance between them until he was towering over Kimi, forcing Kimi to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. "You mock me! You laugh at me when I'm upset! And this past week?  You've been cruel. You pulled your hand away from me on the couch like I was diseased!"

"I was setting boundaries!" Kimi shouted, his voice cracking, the lie tasting acidic and foul.

"Boundaries for what?!" Ollie yelled, finally losing his temper, his massive hands balling into fists at his sides. "For what, Kimi?! For loving you?! I was making you dinner! I was trying to hold your hand! Are those crimes now? Are you so above basic human affection that you have to treat me like a stray dog you regret letting inside?!"

"You act like a stray dog!" Kimi spat back, entirely unable to stop the runaway train of his own destruction. "You follow me around! You wait for me to pat you on the head! Why don't you ever stand up for yourself?! Why don't you ever get angry when I am acting like a bitch?!"

"I am angry right now!" Ollie roared, the sound deafening in the small bedroom.

Kimi flinched, his shoulders pulling up toward his ears.

Ollie stopped. He looked at Kimi, standing barefoot on the rug, hugging himself defensively, looking tiny and terrified. His chest heaved, the anger in his eyes suddenly fractured, shattering into a million pieces of hurt.

"Is this what you want?" Ollie asked, his voice suddenly hollow, devoid of the booming fury from a second ago. He looked down at Kimi, shaking his head slowly. "You want me to yell at you? You want me to be a prick to you so you have an excuse to keep pushing me away?"

"No," Kimi whispered, the fight suddenly draining out of him, leaving behind a cold, empty void. "No, Oliver, I-"

"I don't understand you," Ollie interrupted, taking a heavy step backward. He ran a trembling hand through his dark curls, looking at Kimi as if he were looking at a complete stranger. "I try so hard, Kimi. I try to be gentle with you. I try to be exactly what you need. And you just... you just throw it back in my face and call me a pushover."

"Oliver, please," Kimi choked out, the reality of what he was doing finally crashing down on him. He reached a hand out, desperate to reel it back in, desperate to fix it.

Ollie stepped entirely out of reach.

"Don't," Ollie said.

It was a single syllable, a firm boundary.

Ollie turned his back on Kimi. He walked over to his side of the room, yanked open his closet door, and pulled out a heavy gray sweatshirt. He dragged it over his head, not bothering to fix the collar. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand.

"Where are you going?" Kimi asked, genuine panic finally breaking through the layer of defensive anger.

"I'm going for a walk," Ollie said flatly. He didn't look at Kimi. He didn't look anywhere near Kimi.

"At three in the morning?"

"I'll be fine. I just can't be in this room with you right now."

Ollie walked out of the bedroom. Kimi heard the heavy, muffled tread of Ollie’s footsteps down the short hallway. He heard the metallic click of the deadbolt unlocking.

And then, Kimi heard the front door slam shut.

The sound echoed through the flat, finalizing the catastrophic failure of Kimi Antonelli’s grand communication strategy.

In their duration of cohabitating, Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman had fought.

It was an inevitability of sharing a small space with two wildly different temperaments. They probably fought a little less than most couples their age, Kimi liked to believe, but when they did, the dynamic was always predictable. Kimi was fiery, theatrical, and prone to rapid-fire Italian exasperation. Ollie was conflict-avoidant, easily overwhelmed by raised voices, and deeply sensitive.

When things got too heated Ollie would walk out of the room. He would retreat. He would sit heavily on the sofa, and put his head in his hands. He needed twenty minutes to let his heart rate settle before he could confidently walk back into the bedroom, wrap his giant arms around Kimi’s waist, and rationally talk through the misunderstanding.

Ollie walked out of rooms.

He did not walk out of the house.

He certainly did not walk out of the house at three o'clock in the morning. And he had never, in the entire history of their relationship, walked out looking at Kimi as if Kimi were a stranger who had just gutted him with a rusty knife.

Kimi stared at the empty doorway, waited for the door to open again. He waited for Ollie to realize he had forgotten his keys, or his wallet, or simply realize that he couldn't bear to be away from Kimi for more than forty-five seconds.

One minute passed. Then two.

Ollie was not coming back.

Kimi’s knees finally gave out. The adrenaline that had fueled his defensive, venomous rage evaporated entirely, leaving behind a cold, hollow, cavernous void in his chest. He collapsed onto the hardwood floor, landing hard on his knees, directly at the foot of their bed.

He had fucked up.

He had fucked up so incomprehensibly that there was nothing to justify what he had just done.

He brought his hands up to his face and he wept.

It was a pathetic breakdown. Kimi gasped for air, chest heaving violently, tearing at his vocal cords as loud, broken sobs ripped their way out of his throat. He curled inward, pressing his forehead against the cold, unforgiving floorboards, his body shuddering with the sheer force of his own self-loathing.

He had done it. He had finally pushed the giant over the edge.

For a week, he had been terrified of turning into a monster. He had bought heavy leather cuffs and hidden them like a predator. He had agonized over his own sadistic desires to see Ollie vulnerable. And in his desperate attempt to lock that monster in a cage, he had let an entirely different, far crueler beast take the wheel.

He had taken every single one of Oliver’s best, most beautiful qualities, his devotion, his eagerness to please, his gentle, golden-retriever nature, and he had weaponized them. He had called him a clingy pushover. He had looked at a man who would willingly jog across the Eurasian steppe to keep him safe, and he had destroyed his self-esteem.

I am a monster, Kimi’s internal monologue wailed. I am a cruel, pathetic, irredeemable monster.

The absolute love of his life couldn't stand the sight of him. Ollie had looked so hurt by Kimi’s words that he had preferred to wander the dark, quiet streets of the city at three in the morning rather than breathe the same air as Kimi.

The streets. Three in the morning.

Kimi’s head snapped up. His eyes, swollen and burning with salt, darted toward the hallway.

Ollie had just grabbed a sweatshirt and his phone. He hadn't grabbed his wallet. He hadn't taken his keys.

And he hadn't taken his pepper spray.

The pepper spray that Kimi had researched and purchased for him after that conversation long ago with Arvid, the one that Ollie kept clipped to his gym bag, was sitting completely useless in the entryway.

Kimi’s true-crime-addled brain instantly kicked into high gear, flooding his system with horrifying imagery.

Ollie was an athlete, yes. But Ollie didn't have a single aggressive bone in his body. He was a lover, not a fighter. If someone approached him in the dark, Ollie’s first instinct would be to de-escalate. 

He was going to get mugged.

Oh my god, Kimi panicked, his breathing escalating into a rapid, shallow hyperventilation. He is walking blindly through the city. He is distracted. He is devastated. He is a prime target for a predator.

Kimi pictured Ollie walking down a poorly lit alleyway. He pictured a shadow stepping out from behind a dumpster, a glint of metal in the moonlight.

Ollie was going to get stabbed in some random, filthy alleyway, and he was going to bleed out on the cold pavement. And as the life drained out of his beautiful eyes, his very last memory on this earth would be Kimi Antonelli standing in their bedroom, screaming at him, calling him insecure and suffocating.

"No, no, no," Kimi chanted aloud, a frantic, hysterical mantra. He scrambled on his hands and knees toward the nightstand, frantically feeling around in the dark for his phone.

His fingers brushed the cool glass of the screen. He snatched it up, the bright light blinding him momentarily.

What had Kimi ever even given to this relationship?

As he rapidly scrolled through his contacts, his tear-blurred eyes searching for Ollie’s name, the weight of his own inadequacy crushed him into the floorboards.

What had he contributed?

It had always been listing, hadn't it? The ship of their relationship had always been asymmetrical. Ollie had always been the one giving. Ollie gave his time. Ollie gave his patience. Ollie cooked the meals, carried the groceries, and folded the laundry. Ollie absorbed Kimi’s stress, listened to his pretentious rants about film theory, and bent his entire massive frame backward just to accommodate Kimi’s neuroses.

Ollie gave, and gave, and gave.

And Kimi had just sat there on his throne, greedily absorbing every single drop of affection like a bottomless parasitic void. He took Ollie’s love and offered nothing but critique, manipulation, and impossible standards in return. He was a black hole, and he had finally consumed the only star that had ever bothered to shine on him.

Fuck his ego.

Fuck his Italian pride. Fuck his boundaries and his desperate need to be the one in control.

Kimi hit the call button.

He pressed the phone to his ear, hand trembling so violently he could barely keep the speaker aligned with his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, hot tears continuously spilling down his cheeks, staining the collar of his shirt.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Please," Kimi begged into the empty room, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Please, Oliver. Pick up. Please be alive."

Ring. Ring. "Hi, this is Oliver Bearman. I can't get to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you! Cheers!"

The cheerful, sunny, pre-recorded voicemail greeting felt like a physical knife twisting in Kimi’s gut.

Kimi hung up. He immediately dialed again.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail.

"Oliver," Kimi sobbed out loud, a pathetic, wounded wail. "Answer the phone. Please, I am so sorry. Just answer."

He dialed a third time. It went straight to voicemail after a single ring. Ollie was actively declining the calls.

Kimi dropped the phone onto the rug. He wrapped his arms tightly around his own torso, trying to physically hold himself together as the panic attack fully consumed him. His chest tightened painfully, black spots dancing at the edge of his vision. He couldn't breathe. 

He had destroyed the only good thing in his life. He was going to spend the rest of his life alone in this flat, haunted by the memory of the giant who used to walk backward across the quad just to wave at him.

Suddenly, the phone on the rug vibrated with a short, sharp buzz. The screen lit up the darkness of the floor.

Kimi lunged for it. He snatched the device with frantic, clumsy fingers, swiping upward to read the notification banner on his lock screen.

It was a text message from Ollie.

Kimi’s heart stopped entirely. He held his breath, terrified of what the words might say. 

Ollie: I'm safe. Don't worry. I just need to calm down.

Kimi stared at the glowing pixels. He read the two short sentences once, twice, three times.

The air rushed back into his lungs in a ragged, stuttering gasp. He was safe. He wasn't bleeding out in an alleyway, nor had he been mugged.

Kimi lowered the phone to his lap, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

It was so unfair, how Oliver Bearman operated.

Kimi had just spent the last twenty minutes screaming at him. Kimi had stripped him down, mocked his vulnerability, called his devotion suffocating, and driven him out of his own home in the dead of the night.

And Ollie, standing somewhere in the dark city, had looked at his ringing phone and thought about Kimi.

Ollie had known Kimi would be spiraling. He had known Kimi’s true-crime anxiety would be painting horrifying pictures of muggings and stabbings. Even in the absolute depths of his own misery, bleeding from the wounds Kimi had just inflicted, Ollie’s very first instinct was to prioritize Kimi’s peace of mind.

I'm safe. Don't worry.

He was still protecting Kimi. He was still giving.

"You are an idiot," Kimi wept to the empty room, clutching the phone tightly against his chest, doubling over until his forehead rested against his knees. "You are such a beautiful, stupid idiot, Oliver."

Kimi didn't deserve him. He didn't deserve a man who would reassure his abuser from the sidewalk at three in the morning. He deserved the cold and the silence, and he deserved to be left alone with his psychological research and his heavy Italian leather restraints.

But Kimi was selfish. He was a parasite, and he knew it. He couldn't let Ollie go.

With shaking hands, Kimi unlocked his phone. He opened the text thread, staring at Ollie’s message through a fresh blur of hot tears. He didn't ask Ollie to come back. He didn't have the right to demand anything of him ever again.

Instead, his trembling thumbs slowly typed out a response.

Kimi: I am so sorry. Please take all the time you need. I will be here.

He hit send. He watched the little word Delivered appear beneath the text bubble.

He didn't expect a reply, nor did he get one.

Kimi dropped the phone back onto the rug. He didn't get back into bed. He didn't have the stomach to lie in the sheets that smelled like cedarwood and sweat.

It was fourteen minutes past four in the morning when the clack of the deadbolt finally shattered the silence of the flat.

Kimi l was sitting on the living room sofa. His hands were folded perfectly in his lap, knuckles white with the strain of keeping them entirely still. Just beside the foot of the couch, resting against the coffee table, was his backpack.

Kimi had not packed much. He hadn't felt he had the right to linger in the bedroom long enough to gather a substantial wardrobe. He had thrown in his passport, laptop, charger, a toothbrush, and two changes of clothes. It was the bare minimum required to extract himself from the premises. He was removing the tumor from Oliver’s life.

The front door slowly pushed open.

Kimi remained perfectly still on the sofa, his heart seizing in his chest as he conducted a frantic, desperate visual assessment of the man standing in the hall.

There were no bloodstains on his clothes. There were no bruises on his face. He had not been mugged, or stabbed, or left to bleed out in a filthy alleyway. My Oliver is safe. He came back.

But emotionally, he looked like he had been dragged behind a truck.

Ollie was breathing heavily, as if he had literally jogged the perimeter of the city. He was sweating, a light sheen of moisture glistening on his temples despite the biting cold outside. His dark curls were a wind-blown mess, standing up at odd angles. 

His eyes were rimmed in a violent red. The skin beneath his lashes was puffy and bruised with exhaustion. 

Ollie gently pushed the front door shut until the lock clicked. He didn't look up immediately. He stood in the entryway, staring at his own unlaced sneakers, looking as though he were physically bracing himself for round two. He looked like a man preparing to walk into a war zone, completely unaware that the enemy had already surrendered.

"I'm sorry," Kimi said.

Ollie’s head snapped up. He looked at Kimi sitting rigidly on the sofa, his dark eyes instantly darting to the packed black backpack resting on the rug.

Kimi had spent the last hour on the floor, weeping until his tear ducts were entirely barren, and then he had dragged himself up, washed his face, and constructed a script. 

"You can have the place for today," Kimi continued, his voice monotone, reciting the lines exactly as he had rehearsed them. "And tomorrow. I will stay over at Bea's."

Ollie froze. The hands hanging at his sides twitched. "Bea's?"

"Yes," Kimi nodded once.

It was the most sound, logical decision Kimi had ever made. Oliver didn't need him tonight, no, ever. Providing physical space was the absolute least Kimi could do after mentally terrorizing the man for a week.

"I understand if you need... more time," Kimi said, his throat tightening horribly. He forced the words past the barbed wire in his windpipe. "Or... or if you don't want to see me again. I understand."

Ollie didn't move. He stood in the entryway, his mouth parting slightly, his breath catching in his lungs.

"I understand if you... if you need..." Kimi faltered.

The script was falling apart. He couldn't say it. He physically could not form the syllables.

I’ve practiced this, Kimi’s internal monologue screamed, a frantic, desperate drill sergeant. I’m ready. Fuck. Be strong. Be a man. Take accountability. Get it out.

Kimi raised his right hand.

With a sharp, violent motion, Kimi slapped his own cheek.

The sharp smack of skin on skin echoed loudly in the quiet flat. It was a stinging strike designed to snap his vocal cords back into compliance. A red mark instantly began to bloom across Kimi’s pale cheekbone.

Ollie gasped, his massive frame jolting forward a single step.

"If you want to end things," Kimi blurted out, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, the words tearing their way out of his throat in a rushed, agonizing breath. "Just give me time to get things out. I will arrange a time to collect my boxes when you are at practice."

And then, silence.

No words. No sound. The air in the room was completely, entirely dead.

Kimi slowly looked up, bracing himself for Ollie to nod. He braced himself for Ollie to agree, to quietly say that yes, he wanted Kimi to leave, that the toxicity was too much to bear.

Instead, Oliver Bearman looked like he had just been physically impaled.

He stood perfectly still, his massive shoulders completely dropping. His dark eyes were impossibly wide, staring at Kimi with a level of shock it bordered on horror.

"Kimi," Ollie whispered.

The glassy sheen that was always so quick to form over Ollie’s irises instantly returned, pooling rapidly, spilling over the rims of his eyes before he could even blink. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again, struggling to form a coherent response to the sheer, apocalyptic trauma Kimi had just unleashed upon him.

"Kimi, what?" Ollie choked out, his voice cracking violently into a high, wounded register.

Ollie crumbled. The dam broke with catastrophic force. He let out a loud, ragged sob, pressing the heels of his massive hands against his eyes as his entire body began to shake.

The sight of Oliver Bearman breaking down with genuine, terrified, ugly sob, instantly shattered whatever fragile resolve Kimi had left.

Kimi let out a loud, tragic wail.

Ollie cried, and it made Kimi cry. They crode.

An inescapable purgatory feedback loop of mutual empathetic destruction.

Kimi threw his hands over his face, curling his knees to his chest on the sofa, sobbing so hard his ribs ached. Seeing Ollie cry made Kimi cry. Kimi crying made Ollie cry harder. Within three seconds, the living room was transformed into a symphony of absolute Italian and British devastation.

Ollie didn't stay in the entryway.  He stumbled forward, crossing the living room on shaking legs, and collapsed onto his knees directly in front of the sofa.

He reached out, his massive hands grabbing Kimi’s wrists, pulling Kimi’s hands away from his tear-streaked face.

"Bambi, no, please, what are you talking about?!" Ollie wept, his face completely wet, his chest heaving. "End things?! Why would we end things?! I just went for a walk! I was coming back to apologize! Please don't leave!"

"Because I am a monster!" Kimi cried, launching himself forward. He collided with Ollie’s broad chest, wrapping his arms around Ollie’s thick neck, burying his face in the sweaty, freezing cotton of the gray sweatshirt.

"You aren't a monster!" Ollie sobbed, immediately wrapping his arms around Kimi’s waist, hauling Kimi half off the sofa and crushing him into a desperate embrace. "You're just stressed! We just had a fight!"

"It wasn't just a fight, Oliver!" Kimi gasped, hyperventilating against Ollie’s collarbone. The dam holding back a week’s worth of insane, suppressed lore entirely collapsed. He couldn't hold it in anymore. The confession began to pour out of him in a chaotic word-vomit. "I am a sadist!"

"What?" Ollie sniffled loudly, bewildered, rubbing his large hand aggressively up and down Kimi’s spine to soothe him.

"A sadist!" Kimi cried, his words slurring together in his hysteria. "I am a tear-farmer! I bought the Percy Pig mug on purpose! I just wanted you to cry!"

Ollie paused his rubbing. He pulled his head back slightly, looking at Kimi through his own blurred, tear-filled eyes, his eyebrows pulling together in absolute bewilderment. "To see me cry?"

"Yes!" Kimi sobbed, burying his face back into Ollie’s neck, too ashamed to look him in the eye. "Because you are too pretty! When you cry, lashes spiky, nose pink, I liked it! I liked watching you melt! I was edging you emotionally! Arvid said so!"

"Arvid?" Ollie choked out, brain struggling to process the barrage of information. "Arvid told you that you were edging me?"

"Emotionally! He said-!" Kimi stuttered , gasping for air, "-he called me a toxic behavioral addict! And I tried to stop! I tried to be boring and healthy for a whole week, but the withdrawal was killing me! That is why I was so cold to you! I was trying to protect you from my sick mind!"

"Bambi, breathe, please," Ollie begged, entirely lost in the weeds of Kimi’s psychological breakdown, completely failing to understand ninety percent of what was being said, but prioritizing Kimi’s oxygen intake above all else.

"I can't breathe!" Kimi yelled, "Because I am a freak! I bought Italian leather, Oliver!"

Ollie blinked, a fresh tear tracking down his cheek. "You bought leather?"

"Heavy-duty restraints!" Kimi confessed, sobbing so hard he started to hiccup. "With reinforced steel buckles! Because Arvid said pleasure could make people cry, so I bought bondage gear! And I tested it on my ankles! And I got stuck! I was a flipped turtle, Oliver! And Liam found me!"

"Liam found you hogtied in our living room?!" Ollie gasped, the absurdity of the statement momentarily overriding his heartbreak.

"Yes!" Kimi wailed, pounding a fist weakly against Ollie’s chest. "And I thought I could use them on you, but then I asked you what you wanted, and you said you liked interlocking fingers! You said you liked the normal stuff! And I realized I was a depraved, corrupting influence on your pure soul!"

Ollie sat back on his heels, keeping Kimi firmly anchored against his chest. He was actively crying, his breathing ragged, but his face was currently a canvas of absolute, profound stupefaction.

"Kimi," Ollie said, his voice thick and wavering. "You... you pushed me away for a week... because you bought cuffs and thought I wouldn't like them?"

"Because I am taking advantage of you!" Kimi cried, utterly inconsolable, ignoring Ollie’s attempt to clarify the timeline. Kimi pulled back, grabbing Ollie by the shoulders of his sweatshirt, giving the massive athlete a  frantic shake. "Open your eyes, Oliver! Do you not see it?! We are a listing ship! The ship is listing!"

"The ship?" Ollie asked, fresh tears springing to his eyes, completely lost again.

"Our relationship!" Kimi sobbed, gesticulating wildly. "You give, and you give, and you give! You make the pasta, and you fold the laundry, and you offer me your dessert, and you walk backward across the quad! You do everything, and I do nothing but sit on my throne and manufacture emotional crises for my own gratification! I am a parasite! I have given you nothing!"

"You give me everything!" Ollie shouted back, his own voice cracking, entirely rejecting Kimi’s nautical metaphor.

Ollie surged forward. He didn't care about the cuffs. He didn't care about Arvid’s weird psychological diagnoses, or Liam’s rescue mission, or the Percy Pig mug. 

All Ollie cared about was the fact that his Bambi was sitting on the couch, shaking like a leaf, genuinely believing that he was unlovable.

Ollie wrapped his massive arms entirely around Kimi. He hauled Kimi off the edge of the sofa and pulled him down onto his own lap on the rug. He enveloped Kimi completely, pressing Kimi’s head firmly against his chest, tucking Kimi’s limbs against his own body until Kimi was entirely encased in Ollie’s warmth.

"You are not a parasite," Ollie wept, resting his chin on top of Kimi’s dark hair, rocking them both slowly back and forth on the floorboards. "You are my entire world, Kimi. I don't care about the ship. I don't care if it's listing."

"But I was mean to you!" Kimi sobbed into Ollie’s sweatshirt, his voice muffled by the thick cotton. "I yelled at you! I called you insecure!"

"I am insecure!" Ollie admitted freely, his own tears dripping into Kimi’s hair. "I am terrified of losing you! When you packed that bag, my heart literally stopped, Kimi. I thought I was going to die. Please, please unpack the bag. Please don't go to Bea's."

"I don't want to go to Bea's," Kimi whimpered, clutching handfuls of Ollie’s sweatshirt in his fists, "Her couch is unergonomic."

Ollie let out a wet, breathless, half-sob, half-laugh. He pulled back just enough to look down at Kimi.

Kimi looked disastrous. His eyes were swollen, his nose was red and running, and his face was splotchy. He looked entirely stripped of his pride. He looked vulnerable, and desperate, and completely, hopelessly in love.

Ollie reached up with a trembling, calloused hand. He gently, reverently cupped Kimi’s jaw. His thumb brushed over the sharp, red mark on Kimi’s cheekbone where Kimi had slapped himself.

"Don't ever do that again," Ollie whispered, his dark eyes fierce and protective through the sheen of tears. "Don't ever hurt yourself, Kimi. And don't ever pack a bag without talking to me first."

"I didn't want to corrupt you," Kimi sniffled, leaning heavily into Ollie’s large palm, his eyes fluttering shut at the warmth of the touch.

"You couldn't corrupt me if you tried," Ollie said, his voice dropping into a soft, intensely devoted register. He used his thumb to wipe a fresh tear from Kimi’s cheek. "Kimi, listen to me. I don't care if you manufactured a story about a jacket. I love that mug. I love that you want to see me soft."

Kimi opened his eyes, looking up at Ollie in absolute disbelief. "You... you are not disturbed? That I am a tear-farmer?"

"I think Arvid has spent too much time reading Freud and not enough time minding his own business," Ollie sniffled. "If you want me to cry, Kimi, you just have to ask. I can cry at anything. I love crying."

"But the cuffs," Kimi whispered, his face flushing violently, a fresh wave of shame threatening to pull him under. "The... the weird stuff. You said you only liked the normal stuff."

Ollie’s brow furrowed. He looked down at Kimi, his brain finally catching up to the more scandalous portion of Kimi’s hysterical confession.

"Bambi," Ollie said slowly, processing the data. "Did you... did you actually buy heavy-duty restraints?"

Kimi nodded miserably, biting his trembling lower lip. "They are in the bottom drawer. Under the sweaters. I am a deviant."

Ollie stared at him.

"I just wanted to ethically make you cry!" Kimi wailed, burying his face in his hands again, the words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate rush. "I realized that manipulating your emotions was cruel, but I still had these… urges to see you undone! So I thought... I thought if I used the restraints, if I edged you... the tears would fall, and it would be ethical!"

Ollie’s breath hitched, his massive chest rising sharply.

"But then I tried to ask you!" Kimi sobbed, peering miserably through his fingers. "I tried to gauge your boundaries, and you said you liked the normal stuff! You wanted to interlock fingers and make eye contact! And I realized I was trying to force my sick bondage fantasies onto a man whose soul is vanilla!"

Ollie let out a slow, stuttering exhale. He reached up, gently but firmly pulling Kimi’s hands away from his tear-stained face.

"Kimi," Ollie said, his voice dropping into a slightly raspy, incredibly earnest register. "I only said I liked the normal stuff because... well, because that is literally all I knew. I didn't say I don't like bondage, Bambi. You never actually asked me about it. I would try it. If you want to tie me up, I'll let you."

Instead of being comforted, Kimi let out a frustrated whine, pulling his hands free from Ollie’s grip.

"But see?!" Kimi cried, gesturing wildly in the air between them. "This is exactly what I am talking about! This is you complying with my whims! You are just rolling over and offering yourself up like a sacrificial lamb because you think it will make me happy! I want you to want it because you actually want it, Oliver! I don't want to just exploit your eagerness to please me!"

"Okay, okay, calm down," Ollie soothed, shifting on his knees to box Kimi in gently, resting his large hands heavily on Kimi’s shaking shoulders to ground him. "Just take a breath. We can discuss this later. Fuck Kimi, we should have just discussed this in the very first place instead of you freezing me out and treating me like a shit for a week."

"I tried to discuss it!" Kimi argued, his lower lip wobbling pathetically. "I tried to ask you about your intimacy parameters! I just did it terribly!"

Ollie let out a wet laugh, his thumbs swiping back and forth across Kimi’s collarbones. 

"Listen to me," Ollie said, his tone leaving no room for debate. "Me wanting to make you happy is not a symptom of you manipulating me. It is a symptom of me being hopelessly in love with you. I am a grown man, Kimi. If I genuinely didn't want to do something, I would tell you no. But the truth is, I want to do whatever makes you look at me the way you're looking at me right now."

Ollie slid his hands up Kimi’s neck, cupping his face, forcing Kimi to hold his unwavering gaze.

"If being so in love with you that I would die for you makes me 'manipulated,' Kimi," Ollie whispered fiercely, "Call me manipulated."

Kimi stopped breathing entirely. The blood roared in his ears, incinerating the last remaining shreds of his anxiety.

"I would walk through fire for you, Kimi," Ollie said, pulling Kimi flush against his chest again. "I would let you lock me up. I would let you do whatever you needed to do. Just... just don't ever pack that bag again. Please."

Ollie buried his face in Kimi’s shoulder, a fresh, quiet sob tearing through his broad chest as the residual terror of the breakup threat washed over him again.

Kimi wrapped his arms tightly around Ollie’s neck. He held on with all of his strength, burying his hands in Ollie’s messy, wind-blown curls.

"I won't," Kimi wept, the tears flowing freely again, but this time, they were tears of relief. "I promise, Oliver. I will never pack it again. I am so sorry. And I’m sorry I called you insecure.”

“I said I am, Kimi, I know, it’s okay.” Oliver said softly.

"It is not okay," Kimi choked out, shaking his head frantically against Ollie's chest.

Because it wasn't. The horrific weight of exactly what he had weaponized suddenly crashed down on Kimi with renewed, suffocating force.

Oliver had talked to Kimi once, in the vulnerable hours of the morning. He had talked about secondary school, confessed how incredibly invisible he used to feel. He had spoken about the alienating experience of how he had suddenly developed this imposing body, but internally, his mind still felt completely stuck as the awkward, overlooked Oliver Bearman from Essex. He was a giant who constantly felt like he was taking up too much space, terrified that people would never see the boy underneath.

It was something deeply personal he had entrusted to Kimi’s care.

And Kimi had taken that exact vulnerability, loaded it into a gun, and shot it point-blank into Ollie’s chest. He had called him insecure. He had called him a pushover. He had taken Ollie's deepest, most fragile fear and used it as a bludgeon just to protect his own ego.

"You trusted me," Kimi sobbed, his fingers curling desperately into the fabric of Ollie's sweatshirt, disgusted with himself. "You told me about Essex. You told me how it felt to be trapped in your own size, and I used it against you when you were just trying to hold my hand. I am so cruel."

"Hey. Look at me," Ollie murmured. He shifted his weight, gently but firmly tilting Kimi's chin up until their tear-blurred eyes met. Ollie's dark eyes were red and exhausted, but they were remarkably, beautifully steady. "I know what you said. And I know why you said it. But it is okay."

"How can it be okay?!" Kimi cried.

"Because with you, I don't feel that way," Ollie said, his voice completely bare and ringing with absolute honesty. He rested his forehead against Kimi's. "When I am with you, I don't feel like the invisible kid. I don't feel like I'm taking up too much space or that I'm dumb. You look at me, and I feel so secure, Bambi. I feel so incredibly loved."

Kimi let out a breath, the last remnants of his self-loathing washing away in the warmth of Oliver's forgiveness. He buried his face back into the safety of the man’s shoulder, holding on for dear life.

"I'm sorry too," Ollie cried into Kimi’s shirt, his own tears soaking the thin cotton. "I won't be so clingy."

"No!" Kimi shouted, pulling back just enough to grab Ollie’s face with both hands, squishing the giant’s cheeks together. "Be clingy! Cling to me! Walk backward across the quad! Ask me about the worms! I want the worms, Oliver! I love that you are obsessed with me! I will choose you, I will always choose to love you in every lifetime.”

Ollie let out a wet, watery laugh, his squished face breaking into a wobbly, devastatingly beautiful smile. "You woulf?"

Kimi nodded aggressively.

“Even if I was a worm?” 

"I want all of the invertebrates," Kimi declared fiercely, swiping a thumb beneath Ollie’s red eyes, catching a tear before it fell.

They sat on the living room rug for a long time. They were both exhausted, emotionally drained, and physically sore from the sheer, violent intensity of their own communication.

But as Kimi sat in Ollie’s lap, surrounded by the absolute, unshakeable certainty of the giant’s love, he realized that Liam had been right.

They were weird. They were a little crazy. Kimi was a recovering emotional sadist with a penchant for leather, and Ollie was a codependent athlete who worried about the souls of annelids.

But they were sure of each other.

"Come to bed," Ollie murmured eventually, his voice gravelly with exhaustion, his arms still locked securely around Kimi’s waist.

"Okay," Kimi whispered. He rested his forehead against Ollie’s, feeling the steady, rhythmic warmth of Ollie’s breath. "But first, I need to put the backpack away."

"I'll do it," Ollie said immediately, his golden-retriever instincts overriding his fatigue.

Kimi stood up from the rug. His legs felt a little shaky, and his face was sticky with tears, but his chest felt lighter than it had in a week. 

He looked down at Oliver Bearman, sitting on the floor in his gray sweatshirt, looking up at Kimi as if Kimi had personally invented the concept of the stars.

They had eventually migrated from the hardwood floor to the mattress. They were both physically and emotionally hollowed out, bodies heavy with the weight of having almost lost everything, only to find it entirely reinforced.

They lay facing each other in the center of the bed, the heavy duvet pulled up over their shoulders. Ollie’s hand was resting on the pillow between them, entirely engulfing Kimi’s. Their fingers tangled, exchanging pulses. 

Oliver lay with his eyes half-closed, his curls mashed into the white pillowcase. His breathing was slow and even, but Kimi knew he wasn't asleep.

"I feel like I've loved you in every lifetime." Oliver murmured.

Kimi let out a slow, silent breath, a small, impossibly fond smile curving his lips against the cotton pillowcase.

Oliver loved to talk about this. He had a deeply romantic, wonderfully unscientific fascination with the cosmos. He loved the concepts of parallel universes, string theory, reincarnations, and lifetimes.  Ollie viewed the universe as a massive, romantic tapestry where their souls were simply meant to collide, over and over again, across the fabric of space and time.

"Yeah?" Kimi asked, his voice rough with sleep and the residual strain of crying.

Ollie shifted slightly, squeezing Kimi’s hand. "Mhm. We fall in love in every universe."

Kimi’s smile widened, entirely unable to defend himself against the earnestness of the man in front of him. "Did we?"

"Yeah," Ollie whispered, his dark eyes fluttering open, locking onto Kimi’s with certainty. "Even as rocks, we fell in love."

Kimi let out a quiet, breathless laugh. "Rocks?"

"Yeah," Ollie nodded, "We were just two rocks. Sitting next to each other in a stream somewhere. For a million years. Just letting the water rush over us, totally content, because we were touching."

It was the most absurd, beautifully Oliver Bearman concept Kimi had ever heard. It bypassed every single one of Kimi’s defenses and struck him directly in the heart.

"Did they have silly fights like ours, too?" Kimi asked softly, tracing the pad of his thumb over Ollie’s knuckles. "The rocks?"

"Oh, they had many fights like ours," Ollie confirmed, a small, sleepy smile breaking through the exhaustion on his face. "Very dramatic. The Italian rock got very possessive over the moss distribution. The British rock just rolled over and apologized."

Kimi let out a wet laugh, bumping his forehead gently against Ollie’s. "You're so silly."

"I'm serious," Ollie breathed, smiling. He untangled their fingers just to bring his hand up, gently cupping the side of Kimi’s face, his thumb resting against Kimi’s cheekbone. "I love you. In every universe. Whatever version of us is out there, I love you."

Kimi closed his eyes, leaning his weight into Ollie’s palm, feeling the last, lingering shadows of his anxiety burn away completely in the light of Ollie’s certainty. He didn't need to manipulate anything. He didn't need to manufacture drama or play games. The love was just here unyielding and entirely his.

"I love you too, Oliver," Kimi whispered, turning his head just slightly to press a soft kiss against the center of Ollie’s palm.

Ollie let out a long, contented sigh, his eyes fluttering shut as the exhaustion finally pulled him under. Within minutes, the steady, rhythmic cadence of his breathing signaled that the giant was deeply, safely asleep.

Kimi lay awake for a little while longer, watching the pale morning light slowly illuminate the sharp line of Ollie’s jaw and the thick fan of his dark eyelashes.

I am going to marry this man, Kimi thought.

He didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to wake Ollie up to declare it.

That was a conversation for another day. Right now, Kimi just closed his eyes, shifted closer until he was entirely wrapped in Ollie’s warmth, and finally let himself sleep.

When Kimi finally opened his eyes again, the bedroom was flooded with the bright light of high noon.

The space beside him on the mattress was empty, the sheets cooling, but the comforting scent of cedarwood lingered in the air. Kimi could hear the steady, rushing sound of the shower.

Kimi blinked slowly, staring at the ceiling. His entire body felt leaden. His head throbbed with a dull ache, and his eyelids were so swollen from crying that he felt as though he were looking through two narrow slits. He felt like he had been run over by a freight train of his own emotional processing.

But beneath the physical exhaustion, his chest felt incredibly light. The suffocating walls of his psychological repression were gone.

Kimi pushed the heavy duvet off his legs and sat up, grabbed one of Ollie’s oversized hoodies from the end of the bed, pulling the thick cotton over his head, letting the sleeves swallow his hands entirely.

He shuffled out of the bedroom, his bare feet padding softly against the hardwood floor. He needed water.

Sitting directly in the center of the coffee table was a neat pile. His laptop, charger, toothbrush. And two changes of clothes, folded with the precision of a man who packed gym bags for a living.

Kimi looked around the room. The black canvas backpack was nowhere to be seen.

Kimi stared at the neatly stacked pile of his belongings. A smile broke across his face, pushing against his puffy cheeks.

Silly, Kimi thought, a fresh, happy tear pricking the corner of his eye. So incredibly silly.

Ollie had woken up, seen the packed bag resting near the couch, and his separation anxiety had simply refused to tolerate its existence. Instead of leaving it, Ollie must've gently unpacked Kimi’s things, folded his shirts, placed everything respectfully on the table, and  hidden the bag so Kimi couldn't try to leave him again.

Still smiling, Kimi turned toward the kitchen, but a flash of white caught his eye.

Lying flat on the floor, shoved halfway under the crack of the front door, was a piece of folded cardstock.

Kimi frowned. He padded over to the entryway, crouching down to slide the paper out from under the door. It was a bright yellow card. On the front, someone had drawn a very detailed, charcoal sketch of a blueberry muffin. It was shaded with professiona precision. 

Kimi flipped the card open.

The inside was covered in frantic, bubbly handwriting that leaned heavily to the right, scrawled in bright blue ink.

Mate(s),

We were NOT trying to eavesdrop. Seriously, I swear on my life, we were actively trying NOT to eavesdrop, but the walls in this building are made of wet paper, haha!

We heard shouting. Then we heard crying. Then we heard nothing, which was honestly the scariest part. We hope you are doing well and that you are both still alive and haven't murdered each other.

Text me when you're awake! We baked protein muffins! Surely you need the energy after... everything. Hope everything is ok.

xoxo Liam

(And Arvid. He drew the muffin on the front!)

Kimi stood in the entryway, reading the intrusive yet incredibly sweet message. He read it twice.

He shook his head, a soft, exhausted laugh bubbling up from his chest, echoing in the quiet hallway.

The sound of the water shutting off in the bathroom signaled the end of the shower. A few moments later, the door clicked open.

Oliver stepped out into the hallway. He had a white towel wrapped securely around his waist. His dark curls were plastered to his forehead, dripping small beads of water onto his collarbones. The redness around his eyes had faded into a sleepy, post-cry puffiness.

Ollie stopped when he saw Kimi standing in the entryway, wearing his oversized hoodie.

Ollie’s dark eyes darted nervously toward the living room, specifically toward the coffee table where the neatly folded clothes sat. He swallowed hard, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot.

"I, um," Ollie mumbled, rubbing the back of his damp neck, a faint pink flush creeping up his cheeks. "I put the backpack on top of the refrigerator. Pushed it all the way to the back. You... you can't reach it without a stool."

Kimi looked at the two-hundred-pound, six-foot-three athlete confessing to petty luggage theft.

Kimi didn't say a word. He just dropped Liam’s yellow card onto the entryway console.

He walked down the short hallway, closing the distance between them. He reached his hands out, sliding his arms under Ollie’s damp ones, and wrapped them securely around the man’s waist. He pressed his face directly against Ollie’s bare chest, breathing in the scent of soap and clean skin.

Ollie let out a long, shuddering exhale. His arms came down immediately, wrapping around Kimi, hauling him flush against his body with relief. He buried his wet face into Kimi’s dark hair, holding on tight.

"I am never asking for the stool, Oliver," Kimi murmured against his skin.

Ollie’s arms tightened a fraction of an inch, his chest vibrating with a happy hum. "Good. Because I'm throwing the stool away."

Kimi laughed, closing his eyes, letting himself be entirely engulfed by the man he loved.

"We have to text Liam," Kimi whispered into Ollie's chest a moment later. "Apparently, they baked us protein muffins to aid in our emotional recovery."

Ollie snorted, a deep, rumbling sound. "Liam baked them? Don't eat them, Bambi. They probably have Korean nuclear hot sauce in them."

"I know," Kimi smiled, pressing a soft kiss to Ollie’s damp sternum. "But Arvid drew a very nice picture of one on the card. I think it is an olive branch."

"We can put the card on the fridge," Ollie decided, resting his chin heavily on the top of Kimi’s head. "Right next to where the backpack is hidden."

"Perfect," Kimi agreed.