Harvey, or Haviel, because apparently one unnecessarily fancy name wasn’t enough, currently had the distinct feeling that his life choices had been... aggressively bad. Specifically, the decision to sprint full-speed through a pitch-black maze while dressed like a walking curtain. When he slammed into the guy, it wasn’t graceful or cinematic at all.
The impact should have sent them both sprawling into the dirt, but the guy didn’t even wobble. He felt sturdy. Like a coconut tree solid.
Instead of the shouting or the dramatic "How dare you!" Harvey expected from a noble, what he got instead was...
"Are you alright?" the man asked.
His voice dropped just enough to make Harvey instinctively pay attention. It wasn’t the voice of someone panicking. The man’s hands came up, steadying Harvey with a grip that was firm but weirdly controlled. Not aggressive. Just... solid.
Harvey blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus through the watery sting of his bruised nose. Up close, the guy was a lot. Like, a lot a lot. He had this deep, tan skin that looked like it had never seen a fluorescent office light in its life, contrasted by hair as black as a spilled inkwell. But it was the eyes that got him. They were red. Not "I’ve been staring at a screen for twelve hours" red, but the color of a dying fire.
He was dressed in clothes that screamed "I have more money than you have brain cells," yet he carried himself? Effortless. Way too effortless. Harvey’s brain, currently operating on one cylinder and a dream, did a quick scan. Noble. Definitely a noble. Probably one of those guests the servants were gossiping about earlier. The wedding guests were supposed to be arriving around now, right?
The best part? The guy didn’t seem to recognize him. No "Lord Haviel, why are you in a bush?" No "Guards, over here!" He just looked at Harvey with a polite, slightly amused curiosity.
"I’m fine, totally fine, just...uh, training for a marathon," Harvey said, scrambling, whispering like he was trying not to alert the universe.
The man’s expression didn’t change much, but something in his eyes shifted.
Harvey scrambled back a step, nearly tripping over his own foot. "Oh, God. I am so sorry. I totally didn’t see you there."
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, feeling like a complete disaster. "Are you okay? I hit you pretty hard. I didn’t break a rib or anything, did I?"
The man’s lips tilted up. "I assure you, I am quite intact. Though, I believe I am the one who should be asking that question."
Harvey, who had been aggressively massaging the bridge of his nose to stop the stinging, froze. He forced his face into what he hoped was a charming, "I totally have it together" expression.
And just like that, the sound was back. Heavy footsteps, metal knocking. The guards were close. Like, "about to see me and drag me to a demon-altar" close.
Harvey’s brain did, technically, respond. Just not helpfully.
Running purely on panic, Harvey grabbed the front of the guy’s very expensive-looking shirt and yanked him down, nearly losing his balance in the process. "Walk with me," Harvey hissed, his heart trying to break out of his ribcage. "Just walk and don’t make it weird. Please. I’ll explain later. Or I won’t. Just move!"
The man didn’t resist. That was the first red flag Harvey should have noticed, honestly. A normal person would’ve at least asked why a stranger was grabbing their clothes like that. Instead, he just... let it happen. Gave a small shrug like this was a normal Friday and not a stranger in his space.
"As you wish," the man replied.
Harvey started walking, okay, shuffling, and tried to casually tuck himself under the guy’s arm. The plan? If they looked like two nobles sneaking a private moment, maybe the guards would have the decency to mind their business.
"So," Harvey said, glancing over his shoulder every two seconds like a paranoid squirrel. "You here for the wedding? The big... human-demon merger? The ’I do’ or ’we die’ special?"
The man tilted his head, watching Harvey’s frantic movements. "I am. It is a significant event, is it not?"
"Crazy, right?" Harvey let out a nervous laugh. HA HA. It sounded more like a dying bird, but he rolled with it anyway. "Marrying a human to a Demon King. Like there’s no other way to sign a treaty. What happened to a nice luncheon? Or a very long email? No, we gotta go full sacrificial bride. It’s wild."
"Well," the man began, "I believe they think it’s..."
"And this Demon King guy," Harvey interrupted, because listening was for people who weren’t being hunted by soldiers. "Is he scary? Like, nightmare-fuel scary? I heard he’s got ten eyes and pointy horns. Maybe red skin? Like a giant, angry lobster?"
The man actually laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, it was a deep, genuine sound that seemed to rumble in the ground beneath Harvey’s feet. "Ten eyes? That sounds... inconvenient. Eye contact alone would be confusing."
"Is he not?" Harvey asked, squinting up at him. "I mean, he’s a demon. I’m assuming he doesn’t look like a K-pop idol."
The man frowned slightly. "I don’t know what that is."
"Forget it," Harvey said. "I’m picturing something more like less ’perfect skin,’ maybe fire behind him for no reason, or smoke? No, no. Chains!"
"What kind of storybooks have you been reading?" the man asked, his red eyes dancing with a light that Harvey couldn’t quite decode. "And what, exactly, would you prefer the Demon King to look like?"
"Please," Harvey huffed, tripping slightly over a stray root because of course he did. "I don’t care if he looks like a supermodel or a gargoyle.I don’t even want to be here. I’d rather be literally anywhere else. A sewage plant. Office. Anywhere."
The man slowed his pace, his gaze dropping to where Harvey was still white-knuckling his shirt. "Hoo... You seem to be in quite a hurry to get... anywhere else."
"Yeah, well, I’ve got things to do. People to see. Tacos to eat," Harvey rambled.
"We haven’t properly introduced ourselves," the man noted. "I am..."
"No need!" Harvey cut him off again. "Really. Don’t worry about it. I won’t be here long enough for it to matter. I’m just a passing cloud. A temporary guest. A glitch in the system."
"And where does a passing cloud go at this time of night?"
Harvey opened his mouth to give some vague answer, but the words died in his throat.
"Lord Haviel! Where are you?"
The shout came from just around the next hedge. It was loud. It was authoritative. It was the sound of his freedom dying a quick, painful death.
"Lord Haviel! Search the maze! He couldn’t have gone far!"
Harvey’s blood turned to ice. He looked at the man, then at the entrance to the path they were on, then back at the man. Panic finally finished its takeover of his nervous system. He didn’t think. He didn’t weigh the pros and cons. He just grabbed the man’s hand, which was huge and warm, and started running.
It was a terrible idea. Running through a maze with a stranger while wearing these ridiculous robes was basically an Olympic sport in bad decision-making. They took a sharp left, then a right, then another left, until they hit a wall.
A dead end.
The hedges here were thick, ten feet tall, and completely impenetrable for a human like them. And the sound of the guards? It was right behind them. He could see the flicker of torchlight reflecting off the leaves at the corner of the path.
Harvey looked at the dead end. He looked at the man, who was standing there with that same, infuriatingly calm expression. He looked at the corner where the guards were about to appear.
He had one idea left. It was a bad idea. It was probably the worst idea in the history of ideas. But it was all he had.
"Sorry about this," Harvey whispered.
He didn’t wait for a response. He stood on his tiptoes, grabbed the man by the collar, and pulled his face down.
And then, Harvey kissed him.
It was a disaster. It was impulsive, messy, and smelled vaguely of panic. There was no romance in it, of course there was not because it was a survival tactic, pure and simple. He figured if the guards turned the corner and saw two nobles making out in a dead end, they’d be too embarrassed to stick around. They’d just assume it was some scandalous guest hookup and keep moving.
Harvey’s eyes were squeezed shut so tight he saw stars. He expected the man to push him away. He expected to get punched or at least insulted.
But the man didn’t move.
No, he didn’t turn into a statue, it was more like he was making a conscious choice not to move. He didn’t lean in, but he didn’t pull back either. He just... let it happen.
The guy was hot. Like, genuinely, why was he so warm? Harvey felt like he’d accidentally kissed a space heater. Please work, please work, please work.
The light from the guards’ torches hit the wall next to them. A bright, orange glow that cut through the darkness of the maze like a knife.
"Over here!" a voice shouted.
The footsteps stopped, and the light suddenly got way too intense, turning their overlapping shadows into a long, awkward crime scene outline.
Harvey didn’t move. He couldn’t. He just held his breath, praying to whatever god looked after idiots and office employees, while his lips stayed locked with a man whose name he didn’t even know.
The maze went dead quiet, then a torch sparked to life and a guard made a very audible "oh no" inhale.
"Oh," the guard muttered. "We... uh..."
Harvey felt the man’s hand move. Slowly, it came up to rest on Harvey’s waist. It didn’t pull him away. It pulled him closer.
And that was the moment Harvey realized he might have just jumped out of the frying pan and directly into the heart of the volcano.