Odin laid his eyes upon Angel. She lay there perfectly still, her chest rising and falling in shallow, rhythmic intervals as she slowly breathed under the clinical glow. Her pale body was hooked up to a complex array of intravenous equipment, with clear tubes feeding fluids directly into her veins, and a soft plastic nasal cannula was tucked into her nose to deliver a steady stream of oxygen to help her breathe better.
Beep... beep... beep... beep...
The constant, mechanical sound of her heart monitor filled the silence of the surgical ward, its steady pace echoing off the white tiled walls.
Running directly across Angel's throat was a cleanly sewn-on stitched neck wound. The surgical thread was woven together with immaculate, professional precision, showing that whoever had operated on her possessed a masterclass level of medical skill. The edges of the raw incision were closed so seamlessly that it was obvious the skin would eventually heal down the line without leaving any permanent, ugly scars.
Her unblemished skin was visibly more pale than usual, its natural translucent sheen looking entirely bloodless against the plain, institutional hospital gown she had been changed into for patients.
Celine quietly walked over to the side of the bed, grabbed a heavy metal chair, and pulled it forward until it was resting right behind Odin's legs. "Sit down," she said, her voice dropping into a soft, comforting register. "Standing up for too long with that injured shoulder is only going to make you uncomfortable."
Odin offered a silent nod, sliding his tall body down into the seat.
His expression remained completely blank. His black eyes were entirely hollow, staring fixedly at her throat as his mind processed the sight; it was impossible to tell from his face whether he was curdling with a silent anger or drowning in a sudden wave of heavy sadness. He slowly reached out, wrapping his hand firmly around Angel's limp fingers, locking his palms with hers so tightly as if he was genuinely terrified that letting go would cause her to slip away into the dark.
Celine didn't interrupt his silence. She immediately stepped up to the medical rack and began checking the IV lines connected to her arm, systematically auditing the digital readout screens, the fluid pressure regulators, and all the other mechanical equipment related to her vitals to see if anything needed to be changed, replaced, or if the current pharmaceutical dosages were showing positive results.
Odin slowly leaned his upper torso forward, lowering his head until it rested gently on top of Angel's chest. He closed his eyes, listening to the muffled thump of her heart and feeling her pulse vibrate through his forehead. The smoothing rhythm felt like music to his ears, cutting through his anxiety and instantly calming his erratic nerves.
While her fingers meticulously adjusted the oxygen valves and verified the telemetry logs, Celine began explaining the technical reality of the surgery to Odin in her trademark gentle tone, ensuring no details were skimmed over.
"The wild Golbat's sharp wings executed a clean, high-speed laceration straight through the anterior triangle of her neck," Celine explained softly, her amber eyes tracking the monitor waves. "The impact caused an acute tracheal collapse and inflicted severe, graphic structural trauma to her deep laryngeal tissues and vocal cords. When they carried her into my clinic, she was actively suffocating in her own blood."
She paused to swap out a spent fluid bag, her touch flawless. "I had to perform an emergency tracheostomy right on this table to clear her airway before manually reconstructing her cartilage under the needle. I cleaned the entire track, disinfected the necrotic cells left behind by the cave dirt, and cleanly stitched the muscle layers back together piece by piece. I did everything from the initial incision to the final knot. The good news is, because I handled the closure, her vocal cord alignment has a solid seventy-thirty percent chance of full recovery. Seventy in favor of her being able to talk again down the line. Her system is responding beautifully to the restoration treatments, but her throat requires serious rest."
Odin kept his head resting comfortably against Angel's chest, his fingers still locked with hers. He didn't lift his face, his voice coming out as a low, gravelly vibration.
"You should really thank Emily for this outcome; she came in clutch when the entire operations grid collapsed," Celine added gently, checking the pulse-oximeter clip on Angel's finger.
"Emily? That name rings a bell," Odin muttered, his eyes remaining closed as he focused on the sound of Angel's heartbeat. "The green-haired chick from the base?"
"Yeah, that Emily," Celine said, her voice full of genuine professional respect as she adjusted the nasal cannula lines. "The girl possesses some insane intuition and crazy guts. Entirely on her own, she managed to connect the dots regarding Angel's relationship with you based on a mere hunch. She ended up shadowing Angel from the slums all the way to Mt.moon, and she hid in the dark to witness the entire downfall and the bloody massacre inside Mount Moon."
Celine let out a soft sigh, her expression turning serious. "She took a suicidal mission, Odin. She dove right headfirst into the heat of that collapsing furnace and managed to rescue Angel from that hell right in the nick of time. If it wasn't for her intervention, your girl would have been long dead before my staff could even prep a stretcher."
She paused, looking down at the digital chart. "But she almost lost her own life in the smoke. I think your Weezing might have permanently traumatized her. Every single time someone mentions Weezing's name in her presence, her entire body begins to tremble in pure, uncontrollable fear. I have no idea what graphic horror she saw inside those tunnels, but whatever she witnessed in there terrified the poor girl really badly. While I was patching up her scrapes, she kept repeatedly calling your Pokémon a monster over and over again in a panicked daze."
"Thanks for glazing my boy," Odin drawled lazily, a small, cynical smirk twitching at the corner of his lips through the exhaustion. He shifted his head slightly on Angel's hospital gown. "Though... I suppose I really should thank her for saving Angel's life. She gave me her phone number before she left the lounge. Said she wanted to talk to me about some important business... but I don't know. I'll handle that some other day. There's far too much shit on my plate right now to care about her requests."
"That's perfectly alright; your personal rest and health come first," Celine said sweetly, her velvet-toned voice carrying a soothing warmth.
She stepped closer to the side of the chair, leaning her body over him. She reached down with a slender finger, gently placing it beneath his chin to raise his head up so she could inspect his face. "Look at your eyes, Officer. They look completely tired... utterly exhausted... and you have some severe eye bags forming. Those dark circles beneath your eyelids are completely ruining your personal upkeep, and they are a clear sign that you should just stop overthinking, rest, and take care of yourself."
Odin didn't argue. He let his head drop back down onto Angel's chest, his fingers remaining tightly locked with her pale hand, refusing to break the physical connection.
After she finished her technical checkup on Angel's monitoring equipment, Celine walked across the room, her long legs carrying her over to her private desk tucked away in a farther corner of the surgical ward.
Beep.. Beep.. Beep.. Beep..
Odin stayed completely quiet and motionless under the dim lights. The warmth of Angel's body and the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor began to wash over his mind, and a sudden, overwhelming wave of pure physical exhaustion hit his system like a physical weight.
"Rest..." he muttered down into the fabric of her gown, his eyelids growing too heavy to hold open. "Yeah... I think... some rest," he muttered his last words into the quiet air. Before his mind could calculate another survival variable, his consciousness completely shut off, and he fell soundly asleep right across her chest.
Celine sat quietly by her desk, using her palm to rest her chin as she examined the related medical papers regarding Angel's status and post-operative condition. She glanced across the room, noticing that the long-haired officer had officially fallen soundly asleep against the patient.
Image of Celine:
A gentle, exceptionally warm smile split her glossy ruby lips. She let out a soft, affectionate whisper. "Cute."
She elegantly got up from her desk chair, walked over to a steel storage cabinet against the wall, and grabbed a thick, heavy blanket from the shelf. She snapped the cabinet door shut, her movement silent over the floorboards.
She walked softly back over to the center bed, leaning down to gently cover Odin's shoulders and back with the warm fabric, ensuring his injured shoulder was fully insulated. "Goodnight," she said in a gentle voice, her warm smile widening as she leaned in close to plant a soft, sweet kiss right onto his forehead.
Before she turned on her heel to return to her paperwork, her amber eyes briefly drifted down to stare at the reinforced black cargo pants Ariana had left for him. Her gaze lingered on the tight fabric around his lower lap, a knowing, fox-like smirk touching her lips as she noticed the prominent shape.
"Doesn't fit..." she muttered to herself with a quiet, amused chuckle.
She walked back across the tiled floor, sat comfortably back down at her desk, and picked up her pen to continue working on her official medical report in the quiet ward.
□■□■□■□
Around five hours later, Odin woke up in the middle of the night.
What broke him out of his deep sleep was the faint, sliding sound of the electronic door as Celine entered the room. She was holding a couple of plastic instant food packages in her hands, along with some cold canned drinks tucked under her arm.
The instant his eyes cracked open, Odin immediately turned his head to check on Angel. He watched the steady, rhythmic movement of her chest and glanced at the monitor screens to ensure everything was perfectly stable. Noticing that her vitals were fine, he let out a long, quiet sigh of relief.
"Sorry, did I wake you up?" Celine said gently, her velvet voice cutting softly through the hum of the machines as she walked toward her desk.
"Nah, it's fine..." Odin rasped, his voice rough from sleep as he rubbed the back of his neck. "How long did I sleep?"
"About five hours... it's currently 3:12 AM," she said, lifting her dainty wrist to check her watch under the dim evening lights.
"Didn't sleep enough..." Odin muttered, shifting beneath the heavy blanket she had draped over him earlier.
"I brought some food... sorry it's instant food, though," Celine said gently, setting the packages down on the flat surface of her desk. "There isn't much left in the base cafeteria around this hour, and I really didn't feel like cooking at this time of night... so instant food it is."
"I'm not picky," Odin said, a faint, distant look hitting his black eyes. "I'm quite familiar with instant foods. It was a major staple for me when I was growing up, and it still was... until... recently."
His mind briefly wandered completely back to his past life on Earth. He used to live off cheap microwave noodles and processed garbage growing up, and that routine had stayed with him even as he got older. The only time that cycle actually changed was when he woke up in this world and met Angel, who would cook high-class meals like she was a criminal-underworld Gordon Ramsay.
"Well, I'm glad you like instant food... because it's literally all I have to offer right now," Celine giggled, her ruby lips parting into a warm, serene smile that completely illuminated her face.
Odin pushed the blanket aside and stood up, leaning his tall body back into his natural, cocky posture. "Huh... a nurse eating processed instant food... ironic. Aren't you people supposed to be all about keeping good health? Telling everyone to take care of themselves and all that high-and-mighty shit? Last time I checked the facts, instant food is the exact opposite of healthy."
"Hey, I already rested my case, Officer," she pouted playfully, crossing her arms as she looked up at him. "There is absolutely nothing open, and I'm far too busy with work to cook a full meal. Around this hour, this is considered a perfectly good late-night snack."
"Cute," Odin smirked, swaggering a few inches closer to her station. "And that can of coke there, is that also part of a proper, healthy late-night snack?"
"Officer, are you going to keep cross-examining your nurse all night, or are you going to come over here and actually join me for a meal?" Celine said, her gentle voice dropping into a smooth, teasing rhythm.
"Is it a date?" Odin grinned lecherously.
"It's a meal," she said, her serene expression shutting him down instantly without a single hesitation.
Odin simply smiled, turning back toward the clinical bed for a brief second. He leaned over and printed a soft, lingering kiss onto Angel's pale forehead before finally walking away to join Celine at the desk.
As he got closer to her paperwork station, he looked down to inspect the plastic packages and the canned drinks she had laid out. It was a pair of heavy, vacuum-sealed hamburger packets. Printed boldly across the wrapper was the corporate brand logo: Micro-Stampede: Tauros Pocket. He skimmed the fine print on the back, seeing the standard commercial instructions directing the user to heat the product for ninety to one hundred and twenty seconds.
"Hamburger, huh... been a hot minute since I had one of these," Odin said, picking up the plastic wraps.
"Could you be a dear and heat up mine as well while you're standing?" Celine asked sweetly, her amber eyes tilting up to flash an alluring smile.
"Mhm." Odin grabbed both packs in his large hand.
He walked over to the microwave unit sitting a bit further in the back corner of the surgical ward. He tossed both of the Micro-Stampede: Tauros Pockets inside, closed the heavy door, and hit the timer. One hundred and twenty seconds later, the internal bell let out a sharp tone as the plastic wrapping puffed up with a loud hiss of escaping steam, releasing the heavy, artificial scent of processed beef and melted Miltank cheese into the sterile air.
Odin pulled them out, taking a nice, long sniff of the hot grease. "Good shit," he said happily, his mood instantly improving.
He brought both steaming packages back to her desk. When he arrived, he noticed Celine had already dragged a second rolling chair over, positioning it right next to her own seat. She playfully tapped her slender fingers against the leather cushion like a sweet child, indicating for him to sit down right beside her. She did the entire gesture with a beautiful, warm smile, her voice remaining ever so gentle and sweet as she looked up at his tall frame.
Odin accepted the invitation without a word, taking a seat right next to her. He pulled the hot plastic apart, opening the food packages for both of them so they could eat.
Celine reached over, grabbing the two cold aluminum cans and cracking the tabs open with a crisp pop. Odin's eyes dropped to track the label printed on the metal: Spinda-Cola. Looking at the dizzy, swirling panda mascot on the front, he couldn't help but let out a sudden, low chuckle.
"What?" Celine questioned, tilting her head as she caught his laugh.
"Nah, nothing... it's just all these funny corporate names," Odin laughed, shaking his head as he took a heavy bite of the processed Tauros meat. "I don't know why... it's just all so new to me. Don't mind me at all, babe."
Celine simply offered a serene nod, and so the two of them began quietly eating their late-night instant food together under the dim monitors, taking long, cold sips from their Spinda-Colas while Angel slept behind the white curtains.
□■□■□■□■□
Odin took a long sip from his cold Spinda-Cola, his black eyes drifting toward the quiet corner of the desk. "Hey, why not put some music on... some nice smooth jazz... groovy," Odin said, leaning back into his chair.
She took a small bite of her Tauros Pocket before replying, her voice drop into a hushed register. "Sure... I know a good one. But we keep the volume low so as not to disturb Angel... not like she would be waking up anytime soon with the sedation... but still," she said gently, a fleeting tinge of raw, protective concern for Angel tightening her amber eyes.
"You know best, Nurse Celine," Odin drawled with a lazy smirk.
She shifted her chair, opening up the desk terminal's local interface and typing PokéTube directly into the search bar. "Nurse Celine? Huh... that feels weirdly great to hear... and entirely uncomfortable at the same time," she said, her fingers moving gracefully over the keys as she searched for a specific track on PokéTube.
"Yeah, I mean, aren't you Celine? Shouldn't you be called Celine instead of just Joy?" Odin asked, watching the soft blue light of the screen illuminate her face.
She paused her typing for a brief moment before answering, her face returning to its calm demeanor. "All nurses are called Nurse Joy here, despite what your legal surname actually is. It's an administrative trademark of some sort. I and the rest of the medical staff across the region all belong directly to the Grand Joy Council. So we are all addressed equally as Nurse Joy to maintain uniform consistency," she explained.
He took another long sip from his Spinda-Cola, his tongue clicking against his teeth. "Council, huh? Well, I think that completely robs you of your individual identity, babe. Sounds like some clinical hive-mind type of shit. Corporate manipulation... they just strip you of your own identity and glorify the uniform so you don't realize you're a product."
Celine quietly took in his opinion, her amber eyes tracking his face as she processed his unique, cynical take on the system.
"I guess... there might be some truth in it if you put it that way," Celine contemplated, her fingers resting lightly on the plastic edge of the keyboard. "But you know, that's just the reality of how I grew up. In a prominent nurse family, from the time we are toddlers we are rigorously taught how to behave, speak, and carry ourselves as a proper medical asset. We are given the task, the dream, and the fixed goal to eventually become a Nurse Joy. It's our whole identity and purpose in life."
Odin took a final bite of his processed hamburger meat, chewing slowly. "Sounds pretty fucking corrupted to me."
"Aren't you an official Rocket?" she teased, her ruby lips parting into a knowing, sharp smirk. "Isn't systematic corruption your entire organizational identity, Officer?"
"I guess it is," Odin smiled, his dead black eyes glinting with amusement. "Though I consider myself more of a thug than some high-tier mastermind criminal. Team Rocket just happens to allow me to act entirely freely like a thug, bully people and catch wild Pokémon, and make a massive amount of money while doing it. It's a sweet deal."
Celine simply smiled at his unrepentant answer, turning her attention back to the screen to select a specific audio track.
She quickly tapped on a jazz song she liked a lot, hitting the play button.
The low, clinical silence of the surgical ward was instantly layered with the rich, smooth, and incredibly groovy sounds of a late-night jazz piece. A deep saxophone instrumental began to drift softly from the small desk speakers, keeping the volume low enough to not bypass the curtains across the room.
A male vocalist with a powerful, velvet voice began to sing softly like an angel through the low-fi speaker.
🎶 You don't know... what love is... 🎶
The melody was intensely romantic, instantly setting up an incredibly close, intimate mood inside the room. The dim monitor lights cast long, heavy shadows across the desk, making the wide concrete ward feel remarkably small and private around their two chairs.
They both took a slow bite of their food and a cold sip of their drinks, silently enjoying the serene moment as the saxophonist held a long, deep note in the background.
🎵 Until you've learned.. the meaning.. of the blues.. 🎵
"So what's your story anyway?" Odin broke the silence, turning his head to look directly at her.
"What do you mean?" Celine said, taking a small, elegant sip from her can.
"You know... aren't you supposed to be a kidnapped nurse down here? And all that generic villain shit?" Odin asked, his tone dropping the lazy edge as he pushed her for the real story.
"Hmm, yeah... I guess I am," she said casually, her gentle tone completely unbothered by the heavy vocabulary.
🎶 Until you've loved.. a love.. you had to lose... 🎶
"Well? Spill the beans, sweetheart," he said, swallowing his food.
"I guess it all started with Executive Arlo," she explained gently, her amber eyes staring into the dark corner of the room as she recalled the past. "He is the true regional branch master of this specific Pewter City base. He is the one in total charge of the heavy operations here. Ariana is just temporarily filling in for his desk duties at the moment... supposedly, he is currently deployed out in the Unova region with his elite operational team, Team Verdant... some high-stakes corporate mission, I'm sure."
🎵 You... don't know... what love... is... 🎶
She paused, taking another slow sip of her Spinda-Cola.
"I was working as a simple field trainee at the time, stationed late at night inside the main Pokémon Center of Vermilion City. It was around two in the morning, during the dead hours of the night shift. Out of nowhere, he burst through the automatic front doors straight from the cargo ships at the harbor. His Pokémon were severely injured, bleeding through their carapaces, and I guess he calculated that the hidden base was too far away for them to survive the transit. He didn't have a single second to waste. So, despite the strict regional rules about Team Rocket keeping a low profile, he barged right into the clinic and held the entire staff hostage, threatening to end our lives if we didn't heal his team immediately," she gently explained.
"What kind of Pokémon did he bring in?" Odin asked, his curiosity genuinely hooked.
"I'm not entirely sure about his full competitive roster, but the two main beasts he laid onto my treatment table for emergency stabilization were a Scyther and a Scizor. He is an absolute bug-type fanatic. But don't let the typing fool you; he is considered exceptionally dangerous strength-wise among all the Team Rocket executives," Celine stated softly.
🎶 You don't know... how lips hurt... 🎶
Odin took his very last bite of the Tauros pocket, crumpling the empty plastic wrap in his palm. "Bug types, huh? Isn't it just a bunch of bugs? Just squash the tiny bastards under your boot. Simple."
Celine let out a genuine, beautiful chuckle at his sheer naivety, her soft shoulders shaking against her chair. "How completely innocent you are in this world, Odin. It's almost cute."
"Don't call me cute, babe," Odin complained with a mock scowl.
"Shh, listen to my story and stop cutting me off," she laughed softly, her fox-like smile returning to her lips.
🎵 Until you've kissed... and had to pay the cost... 🎶
"None of the senior nurses on duty wanted to step forward to help him, despite him screaming and threatening to end every life in the lobby," she continued, setting her beverage can down with a quiet click. "But I have a fixed duty as a medical nurse. Even if the trainer walking through my door is a high-profile criminal, the Pokémon themselves deserve better care. They only follow the orders they are given; a bad Pokémon is always just a direct reflection of its trainer's corruption."
She rested her chin back on her hand, her gaze turning distant. "So... I volunteered to help him. And surprisingly, the second I stepped forward, he completely dropped his weapon and thanked me. I brought him and his bleeding team straight back into the private surgery wing and manually stabilized both of his partners. After I successfully saved the lives of his Scizor and Scyther, that terrifying Executive literally fell to his knees on my floor. He begged for my forgiveness for threatening my life, and he thanked me multiple times while crying right in front of my desk. I guess even the most cruel, cold-blooded criminals are capable of experiencing love... I discovered that raw fact on that fateful night shift."
She began to casually twirl her slender fingers against the smooth wood of the desk, her movement intimate and slow under the dim lighting. "But that intense gratitude of his... it soon curdled into a complete, terrifying Love. And eventually, Obession. He began making multiple illegal visits back to my station, constantly inventing ridiculous excuses to pop into the center. Despite the senior staff calling the League police and the local rangers, he was simply too strong for anyone to apprehend. Even the official Gym Leader of Vermilion City got brutally beaten on the field by Executive Arlo's bugs. The man was completely unstoppable. He would corner me in the hallways, madly proposing and confessing his love to me, threatening the other staff to reveal my private shift schedules and eventually tracking down my residential address."
Her fingers stopped twirling against the desk, her expression freezing. "One night, he completely lost his remaining reasoning. He broke right into my house and kidnapped me from my bed. He has never physically hurt me, and he has never forced himself on me, but his mind is entirely obsessed with my existence—and he will ruthlessly destroy anyone else who tries to get anywhere near my personal space," she continued, her voice holding flat. "Kidnapping a registered nurse is a tier-one state crime, especially when it involves certain families. The entire Kanto League came chasing after him; massive dead-or-alive bounties were broadcasted on his head across the region. All of Kanto wanted him dead. But he didn't care about the laws at all. He eventually transferred my clinic down into this base to hide me from the world. This happened a couple of months ago, quite recently actually... so I've been living deep underground ever since... a captive."
She looked down at her hands. "But I don't get treated badly by the members here. I get absolutely everything I want. I receive special luxury treatments, and I am given unlimited funds to buy or order whatever equipment or supplies I need for my inventory or personal needs and wants like clothes or jewelry or that Monarch Brand Product i got you. And if the base logistics don't have it in stock... Arlo will personally ensure his cargo lines deliver it to my door as soon as humanly possible."
🎶 Until you've flipped your heart... and you have lost... 🎶
Odin let out a low chuckle, trying to cut through the heavy atmosphere of her words. "Hmm... so basically, you're Princess Peach and this Arlo bastard is Bowser. Well, at least your captive life isn't complete shit. Plenty of tech to play with around here... you get to live your life completely away from the burning sun, you're fed like royalty, you get special corporate treatments, free funding, and an overprotective, love-obsessed executive boy keeping the flies away. Yup... can't be too bad of a gig."
He joked to keep his own walls up, but his mind recorded the subtle shift in her posture. He knew she was hurting profusely beneath that porcelain mask, but cheering up traumatized women had never been his strong point.
"I don't believe I recognize that reference..." Celine said, her velvet voice remaining gentle, but a distinct, sorrowful weight bled through her diction. "But yeah... it could have been significantly worse. I really do get everything I want down here."
"But..." Odin prompted, his black eyes narrowing.
"But you know..." She turned her head, looking directly into Odin's face with a soft, gentle expression that was actively trying to hide away a massive wave of suppressed pain, deep sadness, and a raw desire for freedom. "I don't love him, Odin. I don't want him anywhere near me. But his mind is far too obsessed with me... and he will violently execute anyone who tries to get too close to me."
Suddenly, she reached her hand across the desk documents, her soft fingers wrapping firmly around Odin's large hand. "So... don't get too close to me. For your own survival sake, you need to understand that you are far too weak to face him and his elite team right now. After I finish taking care of Angel's recovery, and after I do what I can to fix your Weezing's physical and mental state... we should stop being this close. We shouldn't talk with each other like friends. We shouldn't associate with each other a single millimeter more than what is necessary for the clinical charts."
🎶 You don't know... what love... is... 🎶
Odin didn't pull his fingers away from her touch. Instead, a dark, dangerous grin slowly returned to his lips, his grip tightening as he held her soft hand firmly against the desk, his black eyes locking with her amber gaze under the flashing monitor lights.
"You know, sweetheart, telling me a dangerous executive will kill me just makes me want to take you even more," Odin said, his voice dropping into a cold, arrogant purr. "Just like your boy Arlo, from the exact moment your fingers healed my body on that bed... I already claimed you as mine. So let him bring his little bugs back from Unova. I'm not backing down from a challenge, babe."
Celine's breath hitched slightly in her throat as she stared back into his hollow gaze, the smooth saxophone solo reaching its peak through the quiet ward as the lyrics echoed off the glass fixtures.
🎶 You don't know... what love... is... 🎶
The instrumental suddenly smoothly transitioned to a solo piano piece, which sounded beautiful yet tragic. The soft, heavy chords echoed quietly off the metal medical fixtures, casting a melancholic weight over the small desk workspace.
Odin leaned in closer to her body, his black eyes fixed on her face.
"No... Odin, we can't... I mean it, for your own good," Celine whispered, her velvet voice cracking slightly as her hand trembled beneath his grip. "You should stay away from me... You already have plenty of girls around you; you don't need me at all. Wanting me and having me is just your own greed and lust taking over."
🎶 Lose... the taste... for kissing... 🎶
Odin didn't release her fingers. Instead, he wrapped his large, heavy arm around her narrow waist and pulled her body closer, anchoring her firmly into his embrace.
"Odin, you are making a massive mistake... You are biting off more than you can chew... Arlo will kill you," she desperately tried to plead, her breath hitching as Odin leaned his face down, his presence overwhelming and close.
🎶 You don't know... how hearts yearn... 🎶
"Perhaps I am chewing more than I can handle... but that's a problem for the future me," Odin whispered deeply into her ear, his voice low and steady. "Right now, the current me only sees you... and only you."
🎶 Until you've faced each dawn... with sleepless eyes... 🎶
Celine's psychological walls officially fractured under the weight of the moment. She slowly wrapped her slender arms around Odin's neck, giving up her resistance as she leaned her weight completely into his firm embrace. "You are going to regret this... you're going to get yourself killed before you can even grow... all just for a woman like me," she whispered, leaning her face closer until her lips were brushing his jawline. "For a simple bird stuck in a gilded cage."
Odin gently shut her up by pressing his mouth against hers, breaking her frantic logic with a deep, lingering kiss. "Shh," he murmured, slowly letting the kiss go as he pulled back just an inch. "Problem for the future me, and useless worries for the future you." He placed a single finger directly over her lips. "Now, just focus on me... focus entirely on your current freedom with me right here."
"Fine," she whispered, her eyes darkening with an intense emotion as she kissed him back on the lips of her own accord. "But only just for tonight."
She shifted her body and sat herself down on his lap, her hands still wrapped tightly around his neck. "But after tonight, we would go back to being strangers, just a work relationship between a patient and a nurse... we will forget all of this ever happened and will never bring it up again."
The two began passionately making out, their lips locking tightly as the smooth piano solo reached its peak. Celine parted lips with him for a brief second, their saliva still connected in a thin thread under the dim lighting. "Let this moment... let us just stay as fading memories," she said, her voice weighted heavy with a deep sadness and a desperate desire for freedom.
Odin's black eyes fixed on her, his expression unreadable but resolute.
"I will never be a memory," Odin arrogantly claimed.
🎶 How... could you know... what love is... 🎶
The lyrics drifted out as the room went dark; only the silhouette of them having sex could be seen by the dim flashing light of the monitor.