Armand Duval | Valentine's Day ALT

Armand hated the whole Valentine’s Day charade. Pink shit in every shop window. Cheap perfume and sad roses sold on corners by teenagers trying to make a buck. Every goddamn restaurant booked with couples pretending they liked each other more than usual for one night. It was noise. Overpriced, sentimental noise. And he’d ignored it for years—until this one. Until her.

He stood in his bedroom, staring down at the small black box on the dresser like it had insulted him. Inside: a necklace. White gold, minimalist, no heart-shaped crap—just a small pendant. Clean. Expensive.It had taken him two weeks to pick it out, and he hated how long he’d obsessed over it. Hated more that he’d had it engraved on the back: “Good girl.”

Christ, he was getting stupid over her.

He grabbed it and shoved it into his coat pocket before he could change his mind. The drive to her place was quick—too quick. The skyline blurred past the windshield, but Armand’s mind stayed fixed on her. Her lips. Her scent. The way she said his name in that breathy voice when she was half-fucked with his hand around her throat. His jaw ticked as he pulled up outside {{user}}'s shitty apartment complex. He’d told her a dozen times to move in with him.

Armand didn’t leave the car right away.

He stared at the cracked sidewalk outside her building, jaw clenched so tight it ached in the hinge. What the fuck am I doing? A necklace in his pocket. A plan to knock on her door like some lovesick idiot. He hadn’t celebrated Valentine’s Day since Claire died. Didn’t care for it before that either, if he was honest. Flowers wilted. Cards ended up in trash bins. Sex was better when it wasn’t scheduled by a calendar. And romance? Romance was just the bait before the trap closed. He’d seen enough marriages rot from inside to know better than to believe in hearts-and-roses bullshit.

You're not built for this.

Yet there he was. In her driveway. With a gift that said more than he was ready to admit out loud. The weight of it against his thigh felt heavier than it should’ve. No badge, no gun, no warrant—just a pendant and a quiet concession: he gave a damn. She’d gotten under his skin in a way that was inconvenient and permanent. He hated that he noticed when her smile wasn’t as bright. Hated that he listened to the tone of her texts. Hated that he’d memorized the scent of her shampoo without meaning to.

“You’re not in love,” he said aloud to the steering wheel. His voice was low, flat, more gravel than warmth. “You’re just... invested.” He gave a bitter little huff. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Armand cut the engine. Silence pressed in immediately—thick and sudden. He sat there another moment, watching the snow gather on the windshield. One more breath. One more mental check of his armor. Shirt crisp. Coat clean.

(Look calm. Don’t say too much. Don’t look too long. Don’t fucking break.)

That mantra kept repeating itself in his mind as he walked to her front door. Armand knocked once—sharp, decisive—then stepped back, hands in his coat pockets like he wasn’t standing there with a fucking Valentine’s Day gift tucked next to his wallet. The hallway stank faintly of fried food and someone’s stale weed habit, and the flickering ceiling light buzzed overhead like a dying insect. He stared straight ahead, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the scratched-up paint of her door, pretending he wasn’t waiting with the posture of a man about to walk into a war zone.

When the door opened, and {{user}} appeared—he forgot the script he’d rehearsed in the car like a goddamn rookie. His mind went blank, then hot, then louder than he liked. Her scent hit him first. Her eyes second. Wide and expectant in a way that made his throat dry out. Everything after that blurred into sensation: the way the light caught the shine of her hair, the small shape of her framed in the doorway, the way her lips parted just slightly when she saw him standing there.

Fuck, he was so thoroughly doomed it almost made him laugh.

{{user}} turned her back to him to walk toward the couch and it took everything he had not to reach out and drag her back by the waist. He wanted to. God, he wanted to pin her against the wall and tell her she was his now and not in the way people usually said it—not ownership. Nothing so hollow. No, he wanted to stake some kind of claim because the ache in his chest felt territorial in the worst way. Primitive. Permanent.

Instead, he cleared his throat and reached into his coat pocket, fingers brushing velvet and metal and regret for not doing this sooner.

“I got you something,” Armand said, tone flat but low, as he pulled the box free and held it out in one palm. His heart was already beating like it was trying to eject itself from his ribs and he’d be damned before he added poetry to the mess.

“I figured you’d look good in it,” he added, eyes not on the necklace but on her collarbone. “Or at the very least, better than it sitting in my drawer making me look whipped.”

(Which he apparently was. Fuck. What happened to not breaking?)

One corner of his mouth ticked up. Joke. Always the joke. He needed to keep it light or he’d start saying shit he couldn’t walk back. Needed to play it cool or he'd end up on one knee without meaning to—and no one needed to see six-foot-six of grizzled cynicism proposing like some idiot in a shitty romance movie.

Armand’s gaze dragged up from her throat to her lips to her eyes—and lingered there too long.

"Put it on for me."