Doe's POV:

"Doe..." Khloe spoke a warning, quickly getting hushed by Marcus.

"Don't stop her, I wanna see how this goes," He said.

Both of them took up my concentration while I tried to properly balance all of our silverware on top of our cups that I'd stacked one on top of the other.

I would have gotten out plates in on this action too if it weren't for the fact that they were made of glass as opposed to everything else.

I had the spoons balanced against the rim of the top cup, now working incorporating the forks.

Listen, this is just what happens when we all somewhat had somewhere to be once the brothers were done with their lunch, and didn't want to start up an entire game in the meantime.

Marcus even stated that he didn't feel like getting heated right now over a game of Uno or the like, but then went and threatened to nudge the table in a certain way that would make my creation crumble.

As if I wouldn't make him feel my wrath for either.

I placed down the final fork with perfectly focused precision, finalizing my strange and absolutely unnecessary masterpiece, but stepped back with pride anyways.

"And you thought that I couldn't pull it off," I snidely remarked to the blonde.

"It could still fall from mysterious circumstances," He shrugged, soon finding Khloe's elbow against the arm he was threatening to raise.

"For your safety, I'm going to suggest that you don't," She wisely advised.

I'll still partially admit that I was happy that he'd loosened up from earlier, but I'd still take him down if provoked.

He slumped, deciding to listen to her for now.

I sat back into my chair with a victorious sigh, already plotting a way to one-up my creation to prove Marcus wrong twice.

My planning got swiftly interrupted by the dining room doors slamming open, startling everyone at this table.

Only a select few people were able to make that kind of entrance.

I turned my head to figure out which of the few it was, freezing when I saw Xander.

Or more so, the look he had on his face.

The almost... terrified look in his eyes only deepened when he found me.

His posture was a strange sort of familiar, and not at all in a good way.

It was a little too similar to when he was stupidly avoiding me.

Still, my back straightened in concern, ready to pry into him for what happened.

He told me that he needed me in these situations, and well, here I was.

It was just a lunch with his family, how wrong could it have gone?

Maybe it had something to do with the bloodmoon?

His steps were awkwardly quick as he approached, sending a 'hey' to Khloe and a much tenser 'hi' to Marcus, both of whom found this as strange as I did.

Finally, he made it to the back of my chair, hands reaching round to the top of my shoulders.

"I need to talk to you," The panicked edge made it to his hushed words.

Well, props to him for being direct and communicative this time around.

"Okay," I tried to have my voice take on a consoling approach, but in a way that wouldn't be weird for Khloe and Marcus to hear.

Hearing me get all sweet and gushy wasn't a part of me they'd seen yet.

"Where do you want to-"

My words got taken from me with the rest of the air in my lungs as the world flew by, barely processing his grip around me before it was over.

Leaving me squinting and rubbing my head to deal with the headrush, seeing that he'd dragged us back to our room.

I was ready to scold him for the lack of a warning, but the sight of his antsy pacing had me forgetting about that extremely quick.

His emotions were no longer badly masked, his detriment in full view with his knitted brows, the way his shoulders closed in, the nail of his thumb that he was chewing on.

Focussing on me after a moment of that, his pacing came to a stop.

I decided to let him have his silence, figuring he was trying to gather his thoughts and now didn't feel like the right time to try to lighten things up with stupid comments or jokes.

Not when I could practically feel his stress from here.

A wince took over his features with his next long inhale, preparing for something terrible from the looks of it.

He took a step forward.

"I need you-," His voice broke, bottom lip quivering, "I need you to tell me that you don't love me."

I drew back, physically stepping back in response to what he'd said.

"What?" the single word came out as a near yelp.

Woah Woah Woah hang on.

I wasn't prepared for this in the slightest.

Or at least... not with this approach.

"Please," The word was barely audible, yet the desperate anguish was loud and clear, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

His voice held a subtle quiver, making me look and find the starting hints of tears finding their way into his eyes.

I still couldn't wrap my head around how we got here after today's events, but I didn't have the time to think about that with the condition and words of the man in front of me.

Tell him that I don't love him?

"Xander...," My disbelief showed through that consoling tone I took before, "What are you- how much more of what?"

He just stared at me, breathing uneven, ragged breaths. His pupils shifted to this odd mid-way point between thin and round before finalizing at their normal width.

His eyes actually softened before the first tears fell, surrendering to the words before they could be spoken.

"I fell in love with you," He sniffled, a small pathetic breath of a laugh escaping him right after.

Proving along with the smile that matched something that only added to the stunned, crushing pile of emotions.

Showing me that even through the turmoil and the tears that his words weren't even close to being something that he regret.

Like just the memory... the thought of it alone was enough to tame him for a moment.

I found myself frozen, eyes wide and my heart deciding now was the perfect time to run a marathon.

He loves me... He actually loves me!

Even though it felt like I already knew that, hearing it come from him... like this wasn't something I could have ever been prepared for.

And dammit it wanted to be the one to say it first.

That smile... the temporary softness fell away quickly.

"I tried not to," He confessed, "I tried to keep myself in check whenever it came down to you. I wanted to be the one that you experienced everything with because I didn't trust you in the hands of anybody else. I didn't trust anyone to treat you the way you deserved. To approach things properly given everything that you've been through up until now. I thought that nobody could've done it better than I can."

He wiped his tears with his knuckles, eyes falling away from me.

"But everything just made me slip harder. Every reaction you gave me, every way you'd hold me close. Seeing you smile, hearing you laugh at my stupid jokes, just having you there by my side I..." His lips pressed together, momentarily hiding the quivering of his bottom one before a quick exhale, "I told myself that I could keep myself under control, but I lost it so fast because you were everything I could think to hope for and then more."

My mind fumbled desperately to keep up with what he was saying, to memorize each word for me to recall on repeat, but my rushing thoughts were making it an unusually difficult process.

I'd recently thought with the books I've read and the ways I'd imagined this conversation going, if ever, that I'd be ready for it.

That I'd handle it perfectly because I knew what to expect.

That it was just Xander, so I didn't have anything to worry about.

This wasn't worry. Not even close.

It was instead that type of unfiltered admiration that left me speechless.

I thought I was ready to handle everything in a normal, put-together manner, but he was proving the opposite with every word that left his mouth.

Even more when he looked up to catch my eye again, his next words being the ones that rose a lump into my throat, and tears to push against my eyes.

"You're perfect, Doe. I know I've said that before but I mean it every single time. You're strong and beautiful, quick-witted and thoughtful. You speak your mind and call me on my bullshit, but still offer me whatever I might need if I'm stressed. You're open-minded and understanding even in the moments where I don't deserve your understanding. You're passionate about the things you love, and not afraid to show it no matter what. I love it. I love... you."

Again... say it again.

I fought to contain my tears, not yet wanting them to spill and risk interrupting him.

This all just felt too good to be true. Thinking it and hearing these words come from his lips were two very different events I've come to learn.

I was thanking his tendency to cover every detail in times like this, wanting to hear every last word.

Regardless of how vulnerably red he was making my face, or the emotions I usually made him fight for that he was pulling out of me.

Giving me time to process it all and fabricate a response I hadn't yet thought of.

"But I didn't want to scare you. To come on too strong for... so many reasons. I didn't want to ruin what we already had because you make me the happiest I've been in a long time and I know that the last thing I deserve is to hold on to that."

Wait... what?

He didn't even give himself a chance to breathe between thoughts, spilling everything he's been carrying all of this time.

"The night we had sex, any last hold I had on my restraint slipped, and by instinct alone, you became mine that night. Ever since then the fight has gotten so much worse, trying to reason with myself in vain, trying to distance myself until my instincts fought back in your absence."

When he avoided me... So when he said that he needed me-.

Khloe and Marcus were right.

"It's been a losing fight since then, and I can't hold it off anymore. I can feel myself getting greedy and it's making me irrational and stupid. I-I can't think straight anymore thinking that you're going to slip through my fingers one of these days. That I'm going to lose you to someone else when you were never truly mine, to begin with. Not on your terms."

My terms?

In my terms he's mine.

"I'm sorry. know I don't deserve to feel any of this, and only have myself to blame for how far this has gone. I tried to hold out for as long as I could, but the connection in my vampiric mind has been tied and I can't break it by my own means."

Like Layla...

"The last thing I want to do is lash out towards people who don't deserve it on your behalf through the frustration of the uncertainty, and I'm scared that that's getting to that point sooner rather than later, and the only thing that will sever it it hearing you say that you don't..." He winced again, words dying on his tongue.

"Love you" I quietly finished for him, watching his eyes squeeze shut as if my words ached.

He forced them open again at me, giving me just a single nod in return, bracing again for an invisible attack.

Was he expecting me to be upset? To yell at him? Did it even cross his mind that maybe I did feel the same way?

Did he think that he was going to lose me after this?

Or perhaps having that connection be severed is painful in its own right, even more so than typical rejection.

I could only imagine from what I've seen and read already, but I knew tonight wouldn't be the night I saw it for myself.

"And what if I did?" I asked, my voice not coming out as strong as I would have liked from the tightness in my throat holding back all of these emotions.

His brows rose just enough to notice, most likely feeling a hint of the shock I did from his first request.

"Wh... what?" There was a firm lack of the hope I was somewhat expecting in his voice. Instead filled with guarded caution and disbelieving confusion

I cleared my throat as silently as possible, wanting to sound as assured as I could.

"What if I did? What if I love you?"

That look on his face fell into something I'd seen a few times before, though it wasn't into something that was a welcome sight.

The sight of all his pride, all of his confidence and self-assurance falling right down the drain.

That pattern of self-deprecation he falls into making a swift return.

No...

After all the progress we'd made on that with his last freakout... It felt like then he'd finally made somewhat of a breakthrough.

The sight admittedly crushed something in me, that not being one of the many things I was expecting.

"You can't be serious," He spoke as if I'd just told a bad joke that he was now trying to ease the tension from.

I just stared back at him in silence, watching a different kind of panic settle in. Seeing the fight in his pupils.

I say that I might love him and he-

No. I'm not letting him fall back into that again. I'd make sure that this is the last time he ever feels like this.

The last time he listened to those voices instilled in him by that wretched bitch that told him he doesn't deserve to be happy for what he got included in.

He loves me, goddamnit.

I reclaimed the step back I'd taken earlier, my heart sinking further into my chest when he then took an almost fearful step back.

His hunched, closed-in stance straightened and widened into one of attention, of preparation.

His chest swelled and fell in quick spurts, rounded eyes showing off the continuous fight ensuing with himself all over again.

It wasn't until I saw him glance at the door and the tightening of his legs that I realized what he was attempting to do.

I didn't let myself things twice and acted as soon as the realization snapped into place, reaching out to grab ahold of him before he could bolt.

He'd started to move right when I did, leaving me locking my arms around his chest, my face against his back.

I dug my heels into the wooden floor to ground him here, taking the strongest grip I could to the front of his shirt.

Regardless of whether or not he could overpower me no matter what.

Either he stayed or took me with him wherever he planned on running off to because I wasn't letting him do this again.

"Don't you dare," the threatening words were more like a plea, my tears finally spilling with him in my arms.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought that maybe he'd take advantage of his strength. Tear me off of him, and leave me here for god knows how long.

But he didn't, he stayed still.

He said that he did this earlier because he was worried that he'd do something that I wouldn't like, and the actions now were way too similar to back then.

"Doe," He returned the sound of my plea with one of his own, a sniffle following suit.

I took a second to gather myself, leaning my forehead underneath the back of his neck.

"I can't tell you that I don't love you," I began, refusing to loosen my hold on him even a little bit in fear that he'd just disappear, "Not in a way that will solve your problem because I know that you're listening... and I know that you'll hear that I'm lying."

His breath caught. I felt it.

And clung desperately to the idea that my words had gotten through to him, but knew that hope was a long shot.

Even if it did get through to him... there was still the matter of him accepting it.

Of allowing himself to feel it after all of this.

And I worked through the creeping approach of panic trying to figure out what I could say that would make that happen.

He didn't move, didn't tug against my hold, didn't show any sign of resistance, just stayed.

He had to have been listening, or if he wasn't, he surely was now, either from the instance, he was fighting or through just the simple curiosity I'd just put in him.

Which was what I'd hoped for. I didn't want him to have the ability to deny what I was about to say any longer.

I knew denial was something he'd become quite good friends with as of late.

"I... I love you, Xander."

There were two seconds of nothing before his hand rose to his mouth, muffling the odd sob rising from his throat.

Odd because I couldn't tell what it was sprouting from.

Relief? Sorrow? Both?

The muscles in his back shifted while he drew in a breath.

"You shouldn't," was his nearly silent, pitiful response.

Still not enough, but I wasn't giving up.

"Well, that's too bad isn't it?" I replied, wiping my tears against his shirt, "Because even if that was true, it wouldn't change a thing."

After everything we've been through. If after all the messes we've already been through could happen and I still fell for him, what made him think that anything was going to change that now?

"Please," he now just sounded exhausted and defeated, "You of all people deserve the best that this world can offer. I'm the last person who will ever deserve to have the pleasure of being loved by you."

I didn't think my grip could get any tighter, but frustration is a dangerous thing.

"Why?" I bit through the lump in my throat, already knowing what his reasoning was, but wanting to hear him say it.

So I could burn them just like he'd once done with me.

"Why?!" Finally, he had some vigor, "Did you forget everything that happened before we moved here? The hell I dragged you through for absolutely nothing? Doe, I broke you!"

"And then you meticulously pieced me back together like your life depended on it. Saved me from certain death twice. Gave me a fate that someone born in my position could only dream of and then more. You've stayed by my side and helped immensely with everything that I've struggled with since then, and have shown me nothing but days full of fun and laughter since."

I paused to regain my breath.

"I haven't forgotten, but you still seem to forget that you didn't come out of that unscathed either." Maybe he didn't forget... just didn't feel it was as important, " You weren't the one to break me, and no matter what, thanks to you, I'm whole again. It's your turn, Xander."

The room fell into quiet save for his silent sobs, and the snivels I was barely keeping contained.

Hoping and begging with no one in particular that what I said might have been enough.

But I couldn't feel that approval from any part of him that I was touching, and I couldn't see his face either.

So I kept going

"I'm here, Alex. No matter how many times you try to push me away or keep your distance, or tell me that I shouldn't, that's never going to change anything because I love you, dammit!"

Please... please just listen to me.

I hated seeing him get like this and refuse to ask for help until things got drastic and out of control.

So I was going to give it to him whether He asked for it or not.

He cant say that he needs me and then try to push me away.

That's not how this works. That's not how I'm going to let this work.

"I'll be here, picking out the rot Layla put in your brain until you finally accept this. No one is ever going to love me better than you. I don't want anybody else to love me like this because no one compares to how you make me feel."

The words came unfiltered, and I didn't have it in me to double-check before I spoke them.

"All I want is to figure out all of the little details of this so that one day... maybe you can say the same about me."

I wasn't a master of this whole love thing by any means, but I wanted to become one as long as it was at his side.

I wanted to discover everything that there was.

Those were the words that finally got a reaction out of him. A straightening in his back, and a slight turn of his head to where one of his tear-streaked eyes came into view.

"I know what I'm getting in to," I assured him, "And it excites me more than anything else... knowing that I've fallen in love with my best friend."

He could try to push me away all he wanted, but that facade could only hold him over for so long.

Not when I've seen the bookmarked page of a human-turned-vampire that's been on his desk for weeks, or how I'm always present in his thoughts whenever he's absentmindedly talking about his future.

Even if he never thought to accept any of this, he couldn't deny that he'd been planning for a future with me.

The protest of his body trying to move against my unbreakable hold finally ensued, and after a couple moments of fearful debating, I let go.

Either he accepts this and stays.. or he runs, and I get left to stand and deal with the weight of my failure.

The fear of the latter was a different from anything I've felt before, just the short suspense shooting needles into my chest.

My arms slowly fell, dragging down his stomach before falling limp at my sides.

He didn't move for a few, awful seconds. Making it feel like hours to my racing brain.

But once he did, he turned, facing my reddened, and tear-wetted face with his.

The silence became a bit more bearable now that I could see him, the fear of him running getting extinguished further and further.

Then going out completely when he nervously opened up his arms at me, filling my chest with a joy I'd never gotten to experience until now.

I've never jumped into them so fast in my life, new tears of relief spilling over once they looked around me.

Thank god.

"Words will never be able to describe how much I appreciate you," He spoke against my shoulder.

"You can start by accepting-"

"I do," He sniffled, "I want to be better... and you make me better. To have you by my side like this... Dragging me out of my own head when I need you the most... loving you is a reward in of itself, being loved by you is something else entirely. I know I have a lot to work on-"

"But that doesn't mean you shouldn't let yourself be happy." I eased, "you shouldn't deny aid from the people that love you."

He nodded with a sigh that had most of him relaxing.

"I love you," He breathed.

I smiled against him

"Say it again" I whispered, pulling myself impossibly closer than I already was.

"I love you," He entertained, breathing out a quiet chuckle.

The emotion behind his was enough to make me giddy all over again.

I lifted a hand into those ridiculous blonde locks, bringing my lips to his ear.

"I'm yours," I promised, "And you, Alexander Agustus Vanderwood, are all mine."