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Otto was asking the right questions to the wrong person. And she was all he had now. So, just as she'd figured out when she'd first come back to him, Otto was truly, truly alone.

"I don't specialize in what's right, sweetheart." She reminded him with a tender, regretful smile. "I've always specialized in what's very, very wrong. And nobody knows that better than you. Maybe all you really needed to find yourself is to get rid of me. You could have made the right decision all along. And here I am, thinking that I can help you, when all I'm doing is making you get angry and - " The back of her hand pressed against his cheek, brushing down the length of it. "And other terrible things. You told me you couldn't be with me anymore. You said that. But is that what you wanted? Or was that what's right?"

She let out a long, audible sigh, and let her breath blow gently against his skin. There was want. There was feeling good. But was it right? If he didn't see the difference, then she really was out of ideas.

And she was out of willpower, too. He was too close, too intoxicating. She knew what would feel good, and she knew what was right. The difference between them was clear to her - and that changed nothing about which she chose.

He promptly explained what he thought he'd left them for, and she sagged against him, unable to fight the same fight all over again. "It's the dumbest thing in the world, I tell you." She grumbled, more to herself than anything. "That all of this could have been avoided if we'd just all been smart enough to admit that monogamy was for the birds."

She'd silently promised herself she would never make that mistake again. Ever.

"You know what hurts me, Otto? Not anything you did. I mean, it did hurt me. It totally did. But God," She rolled her eyes. "None that even registers to me anymore. The only thing that's hurting me right now is how ******** lost you are. And I can't stand to watch it. I keep telling myself you'll figure it out eventually, and that'll be that, but then I keep coming back and trying and trying and I should know better than this." She breathed out a laugh, and her eyes stung with tears. It felt so good to just register that he still wanted her. Even if he never touched her again, even if he didn't pull her in the way that gravity was demanding she be pulled, it felt so good to see her desire reflected in his eyes.

Both of her hands pressed against his cheeks, and she straightened, just enough to be an inch higher, looking down at his angelic face again. There was the Otto she loved. Where had he been hiding all this time?

"Maybe I'm just obsessed with helping you because you made me better, too. And I'm never going to feel whole until I can return the favor."

Funny enough, that was all she wanted to hear. But she knew she wanted more than just to hear it. She needed to look into his eyes when he promised her he'd try. She needed to believe him, or else she'd never stop worrying, or thinking about him, or coming over with presents and emotions and hands in his hair.

"Promise?" Even though it sounded like she was asking him if he really meant what he'd said about doing him good, what she was really asking for was a promise to his previous words. "Promise you won't give up on this? Promise me that you won't run away, you'll fight, like an animal, and you'll figure it all out one day." She leaned in, and pressed her forehead against his. His eyes were closed, and it would have been so easy to just kiss him, like she wanted. She could feel his lips even now, their phantom pressure never truly forgotten.

"Promise me." She whispered, her breath blowing warm against his lips.

He'd promised. And when Otto promised something, despite that one time he didn't.. she still believed he'd keep it.

Relief flooded her so quickly, she wasn't equipped to deal with it. Her body flushed with endorphins of victory and she felt it tingle against her skin and force her smile to turn into something bright and vibrant and dangerously alive. And then all of those endorphins turned into something else, and she had absolutely no ability to stop herself a moment longer.

Because he was asking her not to go. And deep down in that little corner of her heart that had her coming back time and again, Maebe truly, maddeningly wanted nothing more than to hear those words from his lips again. It was like a trigger, and her subsequent kiss was the release. She drank him in, and everything behind and around her faded away in a blur.

She never actually managed to answer, but it was pretty clear she had no plans to go anytime soon.

This was why it had been so hard to give him up in the first place. The feel of giving in to a gravitational pull so tense, so overbearing was its own little taste of ecstasy, and she moaned into his kiss in the exact moment she felt him surge back onto her, unleashing everything he'd been holding back for so long into one solid and powerful thrust.

She felt him come alive in her arms, and there she lost herself, responding off of pure sensory instinct. Her body arched everywhere he touched, the wordless response for more. Her lips parted to let him in as if he belonged there, as if she was his, inside and out. And she was, in that moment. There was no denying the fact.

Maebe succumbed to all of it, without a breath of regret left in her lungs. She tore his shirt away just to feel her skin on his. And she drowned, gladly, without ever letting him go for a second. Because this was their night, their moment. And they were long overdue.