It started with the smell.
Sunny was halfway up the stairs, the key hovering near the lock of his front door, when his highly evolved survival instincts quietly tapped him on the shoulder. Something was wrong. It wasn't the metallic scent of blood, and it wasn't the tang of an unstable gate. It was a smell that involved heat, oil, and a spectacular lack of common sense.
He stopped on the landing. He listened.
There was no screaming. No sounds of a struggle. Given the general trajectory of his life, the silence was actually making him more anxious. He slid the key in, nudged the heavy door open with his shoulder, and stepped cautiously into the hallway.
He found Cielle in the kitchen.
She was standing directly in front of the stove. She was barefoot, her hair tied up in a messy, haphazard knot with a piece of string that was clearly losing the battle. She was wearing one of his shirts again, which swallowed her small frame entirely and hung dangerously high on her thighs…. Again. Her massive white wings were half-tucked behind her back. She was staring at the stove with the intense, unblinking focus she normally reserved for nightmare creatures.
The stove was on. The front burner was glowing a hostile, furious orange. On top of it sat a metal pot.
The pot contained water.
The water was boiling.
The water was also smoking. Not steam. Heavy, gray smoke.
Sunny gently lowered his grocery bag to the floor, moving like a man trapped in a minefield.
"Cielle," Sunny said, keeping his voice as flat and non-threatening as possible. "What are you doing?"
"I am cooking," Cielle replied, not taking her eyes off the pot.
As if to loudly disagree with her, a small tongue of actual fire licked up the side of the metal pot.
Sunny abandoned all caution. He crossed the kitchen in two massive strides, reached past her, and violently twisted the dial off. The flame let out a sulky hiss and died. He leaned forward to inspect the damage and immediately wished he hadn't. Floating cheerfully on top of the boiling water was a thick layer of cooking oil. And resting at the bottom of the pot was a blackened, unrecognizable lump that looked like it had given up on life.
He took a slow breath and looked at the rest of his kitchen.
On the counter sat a bowl containing two cracked eggs, though most of their insides had clearly decided to make a break for it across his expensive granite. Next to that was a tomato, sliced into perfectly even, immaculate circles. An open bottle of oil lay tipped on its side. And propped up against the wall was his communicator, displaying a basic breakfast recipe, currently smeared with something that he desperately hoped was egg yolk and not blood.
On the far wall, the fire extinguisher sat in its bracket. Unused. Deeply disappointed in him.
Sunny pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache blooming behind his eyes. "Okay. Let's start at the beginning. What exactly were you trying to make?"
"Egg," Cielle answered promptly, her tone perfectly earnest. "Toast. Tomatoes. I wanted to make the meal you made yesterday, but correct."
Sunny frowned, looking down at her. "Yesterday was correct. I literally made us breakfast."
"You said the egg was 'almost right,'" Cielle reminded him, pointing a delicate finger at the wreckage on the counter. "You looked annoyed when you ate it. I wanted to make it entirely right."
Sunny groaned internally. He had said that. Because he was an idiot perfectionist who couldn't just eat a slightly overcooked egg without complaining to himself about it.
"Right. Okay," Sunny said slowly. "And at what point in this rescue mission did you decide to steam-fry a foreign object in a pot of boiling water?"
"The recipe said to heat oil," she explained, looking genuinely puzzled by his reaction. "You used a shallow pan. But a pot holds more volume. I assumed that mixing water and oil would create a faster thermal transfer(Yeah i googled that shi, proud of it too). For speed."
Sunny just stared at her. "Cielle, water and oil are mortal enemies. They do not collaborate. They explode."
"It worked enough to catch fire," she pointed out reasonably.
Sunny opened his mouth to argue, realized she was technically correct, and closed it again. He grabbed a wooden spoon and cautiously poked the black, charred lump at the bottom of the pot. "What is this?"
She leaned over, her shoulder brushing against his arm. "Garlic," she said. "Earlier."
"And now?"
"Carbon?" she answered helpfully.
"Congratulations," Sunny muttered, dumping the entire ruined mess into the sink and turning the cold water on full blast. "You invented a new element. Please step away from the stove. You are banned from the fire."
Cielle didn't argue. She simply took a step back, her wings drooping just a fraction. It wasn't because she was scared of the stove, Sunny was fairly certain she could punch a hole through the appliance if she wanted to, but she seemed annoyed with herself that her logic had failed. It usually does.
Sunny looked at her, standing there looking like a ruffled bird in his clothes, with a smudge of flour on her cheek.
His irritation completely evaporated, instantly replaced by something entirely pathetic.
'Look at her, '
Sunny's brain supplied unhelpfully. '
She nearly burned down your house, and you just want to kiss her forehead. You are a victim. You are completely compromised.'
"Why didn't you just wait for me?" Sunny asked over the sound of the rushing water, his voice going soft.
"You always cook," Cielle said, looking down at the floor. "You came back late from the dream realm yesterday. You looked tired. I wanted the food to be ready so you could just sit down."
Sunny's hands went still on the edge of the sink. He looked over his shoulder. The Flaw twisted in his chest, making sure his next words were stripped of all his usual sarcasm. "I don't mind cooking for you, Cielle. I actually like doing it."
She tilted her head, her large green eyes meeting his. "But you need calories. You have lost weight since last week."
He blinked. "Wait, are you tracking my weight?"
"Yes," she said, nodding once. "For safety. If your health drops, your combat effectiveness drops. And your ribs feel sharper when I hold you."
Sunny let out a long, ragged exhale. "I hate that you make stalking sound like a medical service," he grumbled, though he couldn't stop the small smile pulling at his mouth. He grabbed a towel, wiped his hands, and pulled a proper, shallow frying pan out of a cabinet. "Come here. Stand on my right."
She padded over silently, standing exactly where he pointed.
"Now watch," Sunny instructed. He poured a tiny, entirely reasonable amount of oil into the pan. "No water. Low heat. And we crack the egg into the pan, not onto the surrounding area."
He demonstrated, the egg sizzling pleasantly without erupting into a fireball. Cielle leaned in close, her eyes tracking his every movement with her untomost, unwavering focus.
"You make it look very simple," she noted, her voice a quiet murmur near his ear.
"It is simple," Sunny said, sliding the cooked egg onto a plate next to her perfectly sliced tomatoes. He nudged the plate toward her. "There. Breakfast. Completely right, and with a zero percent chance of arson."
She looked at the plate, and then at him. "You should eat it. It is your food."
"We are splitting it," Sunny countered, grabbing a fork and cutting the egg exactly in half. He pushed the plate firmly into her hands. "Eat. Before I pass out from hunger and ruin your precious weight-tracking data."
Cielle finally smiled. A tiny, impossibly subtle curving of her lips that made Sunny's heart skip a stupid, entirely unnecessary beat, and picked up a piece of toast.
They were standing at the counter, halfway through the meal, when the buzzer to the front door rang.
Sunny froze, a piece of tomato halfway to his mouth. He wasn't expecting anyone. Effie would have just scaled the wall and knocked on the glass, and Kai always called first to make sure Sunny was decent. The buzzer rang again. A short, lazy, sustained buzz.
"I will check," Cielle announced, already turning away from the counter.
"Wait, no!" Sunny started, but he was too late. Cielle was already walking down the hallway. Her bare feet were silent against the floorboards, and the hem of his oversized shirt was swaying in a way that Sunny found deeply distracting and entirely inappropriate for company.
Sunny scrambled after her, cursing his own life choices. He reached the entryway exactly as Cielle yanked the front door open.
Standing in the hallway, leaning casually against the doorframe, was Soul Reaper Jet.
Jet looked exactly like she always did: dressed in dark, tight clothes that still somehow felt like a uniform, her hair falling loosely around her pale face. She had a cup of coffee in one hand, looking like she had just rolled out of bed or just finished murdering a platoon of Awakened. With Jet, it was impossible to tell.
Jet took a sip of her coffee, her icy blue eyes flicking down to whoever had opened the door.
She paused.
Jet recognized Cielle. They had crossed paths briefly a few weeks ago at the academy when Jet was dropping off an aspirant. At the time, Cielle had been fully armored, quiet, and had stared Jet down with the intensity of a lost child, she had looked terrifying.
Now, that same terrifying girl was standing in Sunny's doorway, completely barefoot, wearing nothing but a too large black shirt, smelling faintly of burnt garlic, with her massive wings comfortably relaxed behind her.
Jet's gaze slowly drifted over Cielle's shoulder, landing on Sunny, who had just skidded to a halt in the hallway. He was wearing faded sweatpants, holding a fork, and looking absolutely frantic.
Jet lowered her coffee cup. The sheer, overwhelming bizarness of the scene seemed to process in her brain for a few seconds. A slow, deeply amused, incredibly dangerous smirk spread across her face.
"Well," Jet drawled, her voice dry as a desert bone. "I see the rumors were severely lowballing things."
Sunny's brain immediately flooded with panic. "Jet. This is not–"
"—what it looks like?" Jet finished for him, pushing off the doorframe and stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. "Sunless, I am literally looking at an almost naked angel wearing your clothes in your house. My imagination is pretty dark, but I don't even need to stretch it for this one."
Cielle looked down at her bare legs, and then back up at Jet. "I am wearing a shirt," Cielle said, trying to be helpful.
Jet let out a quiet snort. "Yeah. I noticed. It's his."
Sunny dragged a hand down his face, completely surrendering his dignity to the void. "Master Jet. Hello. What are you doing here?"
"I was in the district picking up coffee," Jet said casually, toeing off her boots and tossing her stuff onto the side table like she lived there. " Then I remembered my favourite flower boy lives nearby. Thought I'd drop by and see if you were still rotting in your new paranoid little cave. Clearly, you've been busy."
"I live at the Academy," Cielle stated, turning around to follow Jet as she wandered into the living room.
"Mostly," Sunny mumbled under his breath, glaring at the ceiling.
"Mostly," Cielle agreed, nodding.
Jet stopped by the kitchen doorway, crossing her arms as she took in the scene. She saw the two mugs of tea, the single shared plate, the ruined pot sitting in the sink, and the fire extinguisher.
Jet's eyes narrowed slightly with amusement as she looked at Cielle. "You live at the Academy, but you're cooking breakfast in his kitchen wearing his clothes?"
"The dormitories are cold," Cielle answered, completely unbothered by the interrogation. She spoke as if she were reciting a logistics report. "Sunny's house is warm. He has a pod in the basement for me. He buys the good fruit. And he lets me sleep on him."
Jet slowly turned her head toward Sunny like a turret locking onto a target.
Sunny stared into the shadows. His gloomy shadow face-palmed on the floor.
"You lured a girl into your house with central heating and physical affection?" Jet asked, her voice filled with absolute delight. "Proud of you, shorty. Really."
"I didn't lure anyone!" Sunny hissed, his face burning with the heat of a thousand suns. "We are a cohort! We share resources! It is pure comradery!"
"Yes, he simply opens the door when I knock," Cielle added, entirely destroying his defense.
Jet laughed, a real bark of laughter that echoed in the kitchen. "You two are ridiculous. I've seen married couples with less commitment." She walked over to the sink and peered into the ruined pot. She sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling. "What exactly died here?"
"Garlic," Cielle said proudly. "I boiled it in oil and water. But it caught on fire."
Jet paused, looking from the charred pot to Cielle's completely earnest face. "You set water on fire?"
"Yes," Cielle said.
Jet looked incredibly impressed. She turned to Sunny. "I want her on my squad. Anyone who can weaponize soup is an asset."
"No," Sunny said firmly, stepping between them. "You are not recruiting her, and you are not weaponizing my kitchen disasters. Just drink your coffee and stop bullying me."
Jet leaned against the counter, her amusement fading just enough to let her usual chill, observant edge bleed back in. She stayed for twenty minutes. Cielle made tea, she didn't cause any disasters this time, boiling water was her speciality, she even reached into the exact correct cabinet for the honey without asking.
Jet watched the whole thing in silence over the rim of her mug. She saw the way Sunny's shoulders immediately dropped the second Cielle stood next to him. She saw how Sunny instinctively moved a few inches to the left to give Cielle's wings room when she turned around. She saw the way Sunny's shadow on the floor had drifted over and was currently resting comfortably against Cielle's bare heel.
It was disgusting. And also, quietly, very nice.
"Alright," Jet said, finishing her drink and standing up. "I've seen enough bliss to rot my teeth. I'm leaving. Try not to blow yourselves up before you at least marry"
"We'll do our best," Sunny grumbled, walking her to the door.
Jet pulled her boots back on. She opened the door, but paused on the threshold, looking back at them.
"Oh, and Sunless?" Jet smirked, her eyes gleaming. "Buy the poor girl some pants. You're starting to look like a pervert."
Sunny opened his mouth to shout a retort, but Jet was already out the door, the lock clicking shut behind her.
The house fell completely silent. The chaos of Jet's visit slowly faded, leaving just the faint smell of burnt garlic and the ticking of the wall clock.
Sunny let out a long, exhausted breath and leaned his forehead against the heavy wood of the front door. "I am going to change my identity and move to the hollow mountains," he announced to the empty hallway.
Cielle walked over, stopping right behind him. "Jet is very loud," she observed.
"Jet is a menace to my sanity," Sunny corrected, turning around to face her.
Cielle tilted her head, her massive wings shifting slightly. "She implied that we are acting like a married couple."
Sunny flinched, his face instantly heating up again. "She was just trying to antagonize me, Cielle. That's what she does. She enjoys my suffering. Ignore her."
Cielle thought about this. She looked down at the oversized shirt she was wearing, then up at Sunny's flustered, exhausted face.
"Jet also called you a pervert," Cielle said, her voice perfectly calm and even.
Sunny choked on his own spit. "She was joking! It was a jab at my-"
"A pervert means you want to have sex," Cielle reasoned, taking a step closer, completely invading his personal space. She looked up at him, her large green eyes blinking slowly, utterly devoid of shame or hesitation. "Do you want to have sex with me? You know im finally starting to sense the shadow's around us, i can even see through some..."
Sunny's brain completely flatlined.
His gloomy shadow threw its shadowy hands in the air, while his happy shadow practically did a backflip. The pain built up in his throat, undeniable, and entirely merciless.
"You cannot," Sunny squeaked, his voice cracking violently, "ask me that right after Jet leaves the house."
"You told me to ask questions if I wanted to clarify things?" Cielle said, entirely earnest. "I am doing that. Do you?"
Sunny stared down at her. He looked at her messy hair, the absolute lack of guile in her expression, and the way she was waiting for his answer. She wasn't teasing him.
He let out a ragged, completely defeated laugh.
"Right now,"
Sunny managed, his voice dropping an octave as he reached out and gently gripped her waist, pulling her flush against him, "I want to clean the charred garlic off my floor so we don't slip."
Cielle nodded, accepting the answer. "Okay. We will clean the floor. And then?"
Sunny rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes, completely surrendering to the absolute disaster that was his life.
"Maybe," Sunny whispered. "Later. Some day"