With the sunlight filtering through the high windows, the dust dancing in the gigantic open room between the shelves seemed almost magical, like fairy dust shimmering in the air.

It was a pity that Eva, who had just sneezed for the umpteenth time upon pulling an old tome from one of said shelves, had lost all appreciation for it.

"Bless you," the deep voice in her back intoned, amusement vibrating in the few words.

Eva sniffled, unable to stop the fond smile as she called over her shoulder, "You really need a cleaning lady."

Sparda outright chuckled at that, making her grin widen. She barely caught him waving a hand around, indicating at the entire room, from the corner of her eye. "One?"

"Two," Eva relented, "Three. Perhaps a whole cleaning company, just for your library, you bookworm. Did you find anything yet?"

That sobered him right up, and he grumbled lowly, close to a growl. "Nothing yet. It seems our newest guest is neither known around the West nor the South, at least not in the last centuries."

"It would actually help if we had any clue what our client's idiot of a nephew even tried to summon before he got possessed by it," Eva mumbled, flipping through the pages of the tome she had picked out without much sense. She was barely able to pick out from the old Latin that this book was, indeed, one about a summoning ritual gone wrong, but her grasp on the language was not good enough to make out details.

Her comment must have amused her friend, for he laughed quietly, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like "idiot" to himself. Smiling, Eva looked up – and wasn't able to look away again, instead indulging in a moment of just looking and appreciating.

Sprawled over the couch in the middle of the room as he was, Sparda looked ridiculously tall, nearly lanky. One arm thrown behind his head as a pillow, the other hand holding up the book he had picked out, he was entirely engrossed in the search for information. With his coat and cravat missing, his sleeves rolled up and even his usually immaculate hairstyle just slightly mused, he looked as if he was enjoying a leisurely afternoon with a good book, rather than searching for information about a demon not even he could recall ever having heard of before.

Eva felt both giddy and humbled at being allowed to see this, remembering clearly how uptight he had been when they had first met – his weapons and his attire always close by, always perfectly set up, always collected. Seeing him like this was living proof how far they had come, months and years of partnership having blended into an easy but deep friendship.

She must have been silent for too long, for his gaze shifted from his lecture over to her, eyebrow ticking up as he caught her staring. "Is everything alright?"

"What? Oh…," flustered at having being caught staring so rudely, Eva shrugged with a crooked smile, lifting the book in her hands. "Um, no? My Latin is too rusty for this."

Amusement spread on his face and he smirked, putting his own book away and waving her closer. She went, rolling her eyes at him being so damned cocksure about this, handing him the tome when he stretched his hand out expectantly.

She could help but tease him a bit, drawling, "My hero."

"I aim to please," he shot back readily, eyes crinkling as he shooed her off again.

It was only when he was already leaning back, eyes skimming the pages she had handed him, that Eva caught sight of the book he had put aside just then. Stopping in the middle of rubbing her tired eyes, she squinted, puzzled, trying to decipher the letters on the battered leather-spine. That almost looked like…

Eva blinked, perplexed. Another look – the picture hadn't changed. Even leaning closer, almost touching the book's spine with the tip of her nose, didn't bring a different result.

"Sparda?"

He hummed absentmindedly in acknowledgement, clearly still focused on his lecture. Eva hated to interrupt him like this – she knew how he favored not being distracted while working – but there was a niggling suspicion at the back of her mind starting to grow, and she had never been very good at swallowing down her questions when something piqued her interest.

Gingerly, Eva followed the curve of the unfamiliar signs with the tips of her fingers, looking up to see when she got his attention. "Is that one in Hebrew?"

Another hum, but this time, bright eyes blinked confusedly, snapping over to her to see what she was referring to. "Hm? Ah, yes, it is."

"Weird. Doesn't look like any of the tidbits that I've seen before."

"I do believe you are more likely to have encountered the more modern Hebrew, not the archaic version of it. That might be the reason for the confusion."

She had meant the comment as a joke, an easy way out, but his answer turned the niggling feeling into the jittery, sinking thing of an unplanned free fall – head first and without any means of landing safely.

The archaic version of it. Because of course it would be the archaic version of it.

Feeling dizzy, she took the two steps over to the nearest armchair and sat down, heavily.

Instantly, all of Sparda's attention was on her, ancient texts laying forgotten in his lap as he sat up straighter. "Eva? What is it?"

"Nothing! I'm fine, really-…" she got a raised eyebrow for that and pulled a face. "I'm just… Latin and ancient Hebrew? Sparda, how many languages can you read?"

The second eyebrow joined the first as he seemed about to answer readily, easily - before a frown creased his face, and he paused. It took a moment before he began again, slowly, sounding just a tad surprised, "I… cannot recall. I did not keep count."

"Did not keep count," Eva whispered, rubbing her palms over her eyes. She felt somewhere between incredulous and wanting to laugh. Hysterically. Very much hysterically.

Who lost count of how many languages they had learned – just because there were so many?

Someone, she answered herself immediately, someone who had enough skill and time (mostly time, she reflected) to collect shelves upon shelves of books in different languages, on different topics, Someone who had lived long enough to have the time to learn the languages required – perhaps even been around when they had still been in use - and who read all the books he had collected so painstakingly.

The simple thought of just how much time it must have taken him to learn a dead language – learn more than one dead language – and gather such a collection led to the thought of just how much time he had had, period. Decades, centuries, millennia. And none of that had been spent sitting around doing nothing - apart from doing idle things like reading, he had also saved humanity. More than once.

It was written down in history books, she thought, sharp and sudden, the man who sat beside her, whom she worked with on a near daily basis, whom she talked with well into the night without either of them ever getting bored, had his own entries in history books, had had whole books written about him, because he was not only older than she could even wrap her mind around, he was also known by literally everyone.

When had she forgotten who he was? When had the Legendary Knight Sparda, enigma and legend, become simply Sparda, her friend and partner, to her?

Never before had she remembered the gap between them so clearly, so achingly. He was millennia old, a hero to all of them, and they were only…

She was only…

She hadn't heard him move, but she felt his presence right next to her a second before a gentle touch met her wrist, causing her to drop her hands and look up.

Sparda leaned over her, searching her face for something, the slightest crease between his frown betraying his worry. "What is this all about? Why this sudden interest in my language skills – and this reaction?"

Eva gestured helplessly, searching for words, finding none, and huffed in dismay. "Just – you know, sometimes I think I forget who I'm talking to."

The crease deepened, and instantly she regretted her words. "If I did something wrong-…"

"No! No, it's not – it's not that you did something wrong!"

What an absurd way of thinking. What an absurdly him way of thinking, that he might have been anything but honorable, when he was the most honorable person she had ever met.

It made her smile, fondness spreading through her, even when she still felt like she had been blindsided by a missile. Ridiculous man.

But he isn't, some traitorous voice reminded her, and that's the matter here, isn't it?

She just about managed to catch his hand in hers as he made to pull away, give her space, and was absurdly relieved when he paused and listened. "It's only that you… you're you, and I think that I know you quite well by now, and still I forget who you are sometimes. The experience you have. All the things that you have experienced already."

Realization dawned on Sparda's face, before his expressions closed, hardening and shutting her out. "It bothers you. That I have experienced – that I have lived for a long time."

"It doesn't bother-…," she felt him tug, tenderly, at his trapped hand again, and the fact that he still tried to back off as if she suddenly minded being close to him made something fierce flare up inside her. She tightened her grip, voice sharpening. "It does not bother me, Sparda, it only baffles me."

He paused, going entirely still as he met her gaze again.

Surprise, Eva recognized in his eyes, but also something that was akin to tentative, and the fierce fondness welled up again. She had put that look there, made this prideful, self-assured man look like that without even meaning to, and damn she was going to set this right again.

Resolutely, she gripped his hand with both of hers, tugging gently. "Sit and listen? I'm not freaking out or starting to suddenly be intimidated by or afraid of you…"

At that, she shot him a sharp look, and was pleased to see him twitch slightly. Clearly that comment had hit a nerve.

"… I'm just trying to wrap my mind around some things. So, sit? Answer some of my questions? Please?"

After a moment of hesitating, he complied, slipping out of her grip with a last, parting squeeze before gracefully taking a seat on the armrest next to her. Shifting one leg over the other, he lifted an expectant eyebrow at her, some of the old humor glinting in his eyes as if to say Well? I'm waiting.

She huffed a laugh at him, happy to see the corner of his mouth tick upwards minutely at the sound, before she got serious again.

She considered the walls of bookshelves for a moment, trying to put the flood of thoughts and realizations going through her mind right now into words.

It didn't help much, since she couldn't even put her thoughts into an order that made any sense.

Perhaps, she mused, gaze catching on yet another book with a title she couldn't decipher, perhaps it would be best to start with something easy and simple.

Sparda's gaze was fixed intently on her as she turned back to him, gesturing at the shelves all around them. "So, I know that most demons are capable to speak any language they encounter… But reading and writing it is a different thing altogether, isn't it?"

He nodded ever so slightly, shifting – and, oh, there was still that guarded look on his face that made her heart ache so badly she nearly missed his answer. "Correct. Speaking comes naturally for any higher ranking demon, but to understand the written word takes the same from a demon as it would from a human – studying, and time."

And you had time, Eva concluded, but didn't say. Something in the way he held himself, shoulders stiff and muscles tense as if he was still ready to back away, told her that he was all but waiting for that exact reaction.

It bothers you, he had said, had believed it, and would likely believe so again if she gave him a reason to.

So she refused to give it, instead venturing on, "You learned all those languages simply so you could read certain books? Or was there more to it?"

The tiniest pause in his answer, a flicker of surprise on his face before he had control over himself again. His gaze shifted, wandering away, becoming distant. She was fairly sure he didn't see anything of what was in front of him right now, but rather something in the past. "Yes and no. I did not want only to read certain books – I wanted to read as much as I could. I wanted to understand as much as I could."

He looked back at her then, a small smirk quirking up his lips. "I wanted to understand you."

"Humans," she guessed, and got another tiny smile for it.

"Humans, yes. I found you… Interesting. Fascinating, I think is the best word for it. I still do."

Eva nodded slowly, digesting this new information. It made sense, in a way, yes… but it simply wouldn't add up with the rest of the picture.

"Eva," there was a strange mixture of amusement and resignation in his voice as he spoke again, "Ask."

Feeling sheepish at being caught so easily, she scratched her nose and shrugged. "I guess what I don't understand yet is the why."

"Why I wanted to learn? I just now…"

"No, that's not what I meant," she interrupted him, not really caring about politeness right then. She turned to him, gesturing to emphasize her words, her thoughts as she went, "I meant - Why humans? I understand that at first, we were different from what you were used to, and that was interesting and fascinating, perhaps, but – after all this time, how-… why did we not become boring to you? You have these… these decades of knowledge up on any of us, and you are so old – to you, our lives must be over in the blink of an eye – not to mention that a human could use their entire life, and they wouldn't accomplish even a fraction of what you have!

Why," she ended, feeling winded now that the whirlpool of thoughts running rampant in her mind had found an outlet, "were we in your eyes worth dedicating your entire life to us, when we must seem so… so helpless to you?"

Silence followed her words. It wasn't the kind of silence that she had become so used to between them – the kind only good company could give you, where words were not necessary between two people – but a stifling, heavy one that seemed to press closer, wrap around them and suck the air out of the room.

Then Sparda stood, so fast that Eva actually jumped in her seat a bit, and walked towards the bookshelves, a stubborn, pinched look on his features as he went.

Her gaze followed him as he moved about the room, swiftly, purposefully, stopping only for the briefest moment in front of one or the other shelf. Searching for something, even though what, she had no idea.

Was that his curious way of ending this conversation? Dodging out of it, ignoring her question, going about his life as if this had never happened?

But no, Eva stomped down the fluttering of nerves in her gut resolutely, that wasn't like him. He didn't simply leave things unfinished and unattended, that went against everything he believed in. There was sense behind his actions – that was what she believed in.

A pleased murmur reached her ear, signaling a breakthrough, and then he strode back over to her, holding a book that looked tiny and small in his big hand, thumbing through it quickly as he crossed the distance between them.

"Take a look at this, please," Sparda stopped at one page, handing her the open book. He himself was left standing there, ramrod straight (like a soldier, part of her supplied), gaze sharp and… waiting. Waiting for her reaction.

Left a bit dumbfounded, Eva directed her gaze at the book that had been fairly shoved onto her. Booklet, she corrected herself, because that was what it was, the paper so thin she feared she would rip it. The words in tiny print, a language she barely recognized, and orderly rows crowding together neatly in the middle of each page.

She was left staring in confusion for a moment, before it clicked why this book felt so different than the other ones she had seen in this library. "These are… poems?"

"Poems," Sparda agreed, his gaze softening the slightest bit. "Poetry."

She still didn't understand, didn't catch his point, and he must have seen it, for he slid gracefully to one knee, then kneeled completely before her. Now on eye-level while she was sitting, he plucked the book gingerly back out of her loose grip, fingers briefly skimming over the poems with a kind of worship that she had not seen from him ever, before he put the book onto the small table beside them.

Part of her idly wondered how it would be, to hear him read poems aloud of all things, with the same careful worship to every word of it like he had shown just now, but she pushed that thought away resolutely. Not now.

"Poetry, Eva. Writing, drawing, arts," Sparda intoned, drawing all of her attention back to him. There was something insistent in his eyes, as if he was willing her to understand. "One of the things that caught my interest about humans, one of the first things, was that you, all of you, were able to create something."

Taking her hands in his, warm and gentle, he lifted them as if to show them to her as he continued to speak, gaze never leaving hers, "You're right when you say you're not as strong as demons, or as long-living… but you have things that demons never had, and that was what fascinated me so much about you."

He looked wistful, incredibly young and old at the same time, and Eva couldn't help but squeeze his hands in hers, urging him to go on. Part of her was still reeling, scrambling to keep up, but she wanted to understand… understand him.

A slight squeeze back, the smallest quirks to his lip, and he continued. "Your will to live, for one. Oh, it's true that it would have been easy to overrun your world for Mundus' army – he would have done it, you know it, I know it – because there is little to no competition between our races when it comes to physical prowess, or brute force. However, when I entered this world, what do you think it was that I found?"

A smile broke out on his face, gaze going distant, and Eva thought she had lost him to his memories again for a moment. "I found people fighting back."

Then he blinked, refocused on her, and there was nothing but admiration in his eyes, so much of it that it made her breath catch.

Sparda must have heard her, for he frowned minutely as if wondering if she was alright, before continuing, getting drawn back into by his story. "I was dumbfounded. I had anticipated nothing but fear and despair, found it as well. And still there was something – something that kept them going. That made them able to believe."

"Hope," Eva murmured, aloud. Then she flinched, guiltily, when she realized that she might have interrupted him.

But he merely smiled at her as if he appreciated the comment. "Yes. That, for one. They must have known they stood no chance - no, they did know, just as much as I knew that they didn't. And still they refused to just accept their fate. They were so stubborn. So strong. That was when I began to wonder if humans had more to them than what I had believed up until then."

He paused again, lost for a moment. Eva waited politely if he would return to the story, but when he kept silent for too long, the curiosity became too much. She tugged gently at the hands still gripping hers, "And then what?"

Blinking, Sparda seemed to resurface, before a smirk spread over his face and he grumbled, "Patience is a virtue, Eva."

"You say that after making me curious," she gave back, wrinkling her nose when she could see the amusement spread on his expression. But she fell silent again as he took up his speech anew.

"I began to try and get closer to the humans I had encountered, those still putting up a fight. Not that they liked that, in the beginning. There was quite an amount of screaming and weapons involved, if memory serves me right" he huffed, smile flitting over his face while Eva bit the inside of her cheek because the image of him getting stabbed – again – was absolutely nothing to laugh at, of course. "It took a while to realize for both sides that there were actually things we could do for each other – them, that I could protect them from my own kind, and me, that I could learn from them. More even than I had imagined. Things that might seem simple to you, but that I hadn't encountered before.

Imagination, for example. Creation," his voice was full of wonder as he kept going, "Humans, who should have by all means spent their short lives just trying to survive, had found something that was more than simply destroying, slaying, conquering. More than what demons usually did. They created new life, even from dead things."

Sparda released her hands then, gesturing at the room. "Written words, for one. Capturing the beauty of what they saw around them. Describing the deeper working of the world they lived in with scientific curiosity. Putting their deepest thoughts, their most intimate feelings into heartfelt poems. Bringing whole worlds nobody before had ever thought of to life, just because they could. And writing is simply one of many ways for you to do that. It was something I had never encountered before – and you did it so easily, too."

Eva smiled, feeling warmed by the enthusiasm he displayed about something that she never had spent much thought on. "You're making us humans sound pretty amazing."

"Because you are," he said it as if it was obvious, as much a fact as water being wet or the day following the night. "More so than most of you will ever realize. You all have the makings of something bigger in you – you can use that will to live, that imagination, all of it, for good or for bad, however you please. You all have good and bad in you – and it doesn't stop there.

Such short lives, but such drive to make the most out of it. So much possible kindness, but also possible cruelty. Such weakness, yet so much strength. It was this duality, this potential, that drew me towards humankind before I realized it. There was nothing that could compare back in Hell – Hell was simple. Power was everything. You, this world – it's not simple, there is so much more to fight for in it. And that was what made it worth to keep it alive, to me."

He trailed off then, silence settling between them, this time not stifling or awkward, but companionable. Eva spent it simply watching him, amazed at hearing this story from his perspective for the first time. There had been many rumors, whispers and theories about Sparda back in the day, she recalled, before she had met the man in question herself, and many of them had glorified his decision to stand up for humanity, against his very own kind.

But nobody had gotten it quite right, it seemed.

Reluctantly, carefully, Eva stretched her hand out and cupped his cheek with it.

"The stories," she began quietly, thumb gracing over his cheekbone, making him focus on her again, "say you did it because you saw nothing honorable in destroying a race so much weaker than yourself."

He made a sound that was half-scoff, half-laugh. "Yes and no. It is true that that was a factor as well, but at that point, I had already become quite… enamored with your kind, you could say."

"And had become a bit of a bookworm?" Eva teased, cocking her head towards the many bound pages around them.

This time, it was a real laugh, albeit quiet. "I've been found out. That might have been a reason, too."

"Hmmm, guess there are worse reasons for a full-blown rebellion than love for reading."

"Oh, I do hope so," Sparda agreed easily, amused, before his expression grew serious again. "Do you still believe that you humans are helpless to me, Eva? Or someone that I could look down upon?"

"Well, not humans per se, perhaps," Eva muttered, still caught up in this easy kind of conversation – only to bit her tongue, hard, when she registered what she had just hinted at.

And of course he noticed, like usual, frowning as he tried to grasp what she could mean with that. For a second she found herself hoping that he wouldn't understand, just this one time – but no such luck, of course.

"Oh," he sounded surprised and smug about his realization at the same time, and Eva felt the sudden, quick urge to laugh at it, because of course there was smugness somewhere in there, too. "You were not only talking about all of humanity, were you?"

Eva bit her bottom lip, a wave of shyness coming over her, before she realized what she was doing and frowned at herself. She wasn't going to handle this like a blushing maiden – despite this newly remembered knowledge, she was still a grown and confident woman, thank you very much.

Raising her head, she met his eyes stubbornly, huffing. "There is some surprise when you suddenly realize such a gigantic gap between yourself and someone who is close to you, Sparda."

"A gap," he repeated, sounding perplexed, and Eva huffed again, because really, that couldn't be so difficult to understand? "What kind of… are you talking about the mere years between us? Because I do hope you don't think I didn't catch you calling me old somewhere in that outburst of yours."

"Wha-… I didn't…! Oh, well alright, maybe I did," Eva relented after catching his pointed look, "I did not mean it like that, though. Or not only like that. I meant the whole… you, and me, and…Oh I don't know how to explain it!"

Finishing with a flurry of gestures and a frown, she glared warningly when he actually started chuckling. The nerve of him.

Before she could berate him for it, however, he crossed the distance between them lightning fast, suddenly in her personal space before she could really comprehend it fully. Instinct made Eva jolt – years of having to defend herself against fast opponents kicking in – but she didn't more than twitch, catching herself just before she could reflexively lean away from him.

Sparda's breath fanned over her face as he paused there, gaze scanning her expression, calculating, analyzing – only for a wide smile to spread on his face, seemingly pleased by what he found. He hummed, tilting his head to nudge the tip of his nose against hers feather-light, and backed off the tiniest bit again, mere inches.

(She absolutely did not feel bereft by that little distance being created between them. Absolutely not.)

"Did you know," he began, that rumbling in his voice that always reminded her of purring, eyes shining inhumanly bright with an emotion she couldn't name, "that nobody ever really wanted to hear the reason why I did it?"

Eva blinked, confused for a second about the shift in conversation, before she caught his meaning. She couldn't help the surprised sound that left her. "I'm the first one?"

She had thought they had merely simplified the story, the reason, as history books did so often, but the thought that nobody had even known – not even asked…

"You are," the rumbling sounded even more like a purr now, and if that hadn't betrayed his delight to her, the grin spreading on his face would have done the trick. "So many years, and you're the first one to ask such a question."

So many years, he said, and Eva felt her heart breaking a little bit at that. Thousands of years, was what he didn't say – thousands of years where nobody had asked why he had taken such a drastic step?

Had simply nobody ever thought of asking such a thing… or had there been nobody close enough to him to even bother wondering what had pushed him to do it?

"Well," she joked, hoping that the sudden hurt she felt, for him, could be hidden behind laughter, "I'm glad I still manage to surprise you from time to time."

His grin widened as he chuckled, shaking his head, warm puffs of air hitting her face and making her grin. "From time to time, you say. Eva, you might consider me being old something surprising-…"

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"-… but I hope you didn't believe for one second that I could see you as boring or something similarly foolish. Because you surprise me nearly constantly, by simply being yourself," he continued, the mischief glittering in his eyes telling her he had clearly heard her muttered objection.

But then his gaze grew serious, heavy, making her straighten up instinctively as he kept talking.

"Eva, you never once judged me for what or who I am, but welcomed me with open arms. You make me laugh in the most unexpected situations. You show me that things I have seen thousands of times already still hold beauty like they did the first time. You manage to be kind in the darkest hours. You never give up hope, even when all seems lost. That is what is important to me - not any kind of gap you could be wondering about. Because, tell me - How could I not be drawn to you, after all that? How could you be boring to me?"

Catching her chin between thumb and forefinger when she tried to look away and hide somehow from the praise that made her flush, Sparda directed her to look at him again, giving her no other option than to meet his gaze directly. "Let me give you the answer to that myself: You could never be boring to me, even if you tried. Not when you keep on amazing me at every turn."

Meeting his eyes, open and bright, Eva felt her own eyes burn with sudden tears, overwhelmed by too many emotions at once. The sheer sincerity in his voice –how, how was she supposed to react to such words from him? Such high praise - someone who had seen it all telling her that she still managed to be surprising to him?

He knelt before her, looking at her as if she was the special one out of the two of them – how could he do that, think that, when he was so much.

There were no words for it, she decided then and there, knowing it deep down, not all the words in the world or in any language put together could describe what an absolutely heady thing this was.

So she reacted impulsively, surging forward, dislodging him in the process, and simply wrapped her arms around him in the tightest hug that she could muster, squeezing hard and hoping she could pour all her gratefulness into him through the touch so he would understand.

Sparda responded easily enough by putting his arms around her – a bit stiffly, perhaps, a bit less gracefully than was characteristic for him, but it was a far cry from the way he had simply frozen when she had hugged him for the very first time.

Heat sipped into her, a sound like a deep, rumbling growl in his chest only audible to her because she was this close and more felt than heard it -

And the thought occurred to her that all those things he had experienced, all the decisions he had made – somehow, it had lead him here, to her, gave them the chance to meet.

The thought was followed by a wave of gratefulness - grateful that she had met him, infinitely so, grateful that something about her was enough to keep his interest, to make them become friends, perhaps even the most loyal friend she had ever had-

Eva wanted to tell him all about this feeling and more, but couldn't without the words that she had lost because of his admission, not through a throat that was much too tight.

Instead she sucked in a deep breath, pressing her face against his shoulder and muttering, "You really have a silver tongue, you know that?"

A chuckle shook her, his voice directly in her ear warming her with the laughter hidden in the words. "Another revelation about my linguistic proves? That already makes two today, my lady."

And just like that, the warm yet strangely loaded moment was broken.

Reeling back, disbelieving laughter on the tip of her tongue, Eva did her best to glare at him, smacking his shoulder. "You're such a smug smartass sometimes!"

"Simply using my – how did you put it? – decades of knowledge," Sparda didn't even have the sense to flinch at her slap, testing the quoted words on his tongue with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "I have to say, that does have a ring to it."

She barely managed to turn the amused sound rising up into a mock-despairing groan as she threw her hands up. "I knew it, you're going to be unbearably smug about this from now on."

"Unbearably?"

Something about the way he emphasized the word, eyebrows climbing up, made Eva pause, taking a good, long look at him.

(Remembering how instantly he had reacted, how readily he had backed off when he had thought something about him bothered her.)

She rolled her eyes, sighing so deeply as if she had the entire world resting on her shoulders. "Oh, I guess I will manage, somehow."

Silent laughter shook him as he rose from the ground, dipping down into a swallow, mocking bow before straightening. "I never doubted you, my lady."

He was smirking widely at her, so clearly pleased (relieved?) that she couldn't help but smile back, troubled thoughts calming down. He was still himself – the smug, teasing and proud, but ultimately kind Sparda that she had come to know and couldn't imagine her life without, and she was still herself. Just because it had dawned on her once more who and what he was, that hadn't changed anything between them.

Would never change anything between them, she vowed to herself, determinedly.

We're going to be alright.

She held out her hands to him, smiling at the lightness spreading through her, and broke into peals of laughter as he grasped her and swung her out of the chair and to her feet with ease. "Smooth!"

Sparda's eyes were glittering as he released her slowly, tucking a stray lock of her behind her ear. "Alright, then?"

"Very," Eva nodded easily, agreeable, feeling ready to burst with energy. "And now let's go, find out how to exorcise exotic demons."

"Perfect way to spend a whole day," he muttered, making her laugh, and pushed easily past her to the couch.

Lifting the two books that had started this entire heart-to-heart, he turned towards her, tilting his head. "Then, would the lady prefer to read archaic Hebrew or Latin?"

Eva shot him a look, feeling the childish urge to stick her tongue out at him as he looked at her expectantly, badly hiding a smirk. "Oh, no, I will just leave that to your – what was it again – ah yes, you're linguistic proves. Might as well make use of those."

"Certainly, Madam," she could see the laughter in his eyes even as he nodded earnestly, taking a seat on the couch again and immediately refocusing on the text he had left behind before.

In favor of sorting her troubles out, Eva mused, a little guiltily as she took a moment to watch him work, feeling silly about her outburst now. But, she figured, in the end, it didn't matter, or perhaps was even a good thing, for she had seen a whole new side of him, come even closer to understand the man behind the legend.

Content with that, she turned, flitting through the books on the shelves quickly before settling on one that looked promising (and was actually one that she could understand) and crossed the room over to him.

He was still smirking into his lecture as she sat down beside him with her own book, she could see it in her periphery vision. She knew him well enough to pinpoint instinctively what that was about, and groaned quietly, causing the smirk widen.

There was no way he was going to let the slip-up about calling him old die. He would bring that up at the most inappropriate of times, off-handedly, innocently, pretending not to know why she would throw him glowering glares.

Because she would, even when she had to hold back laughter. Would kick his shin when nobody was looking, even if it didn't hurt him – because it didn't hurt him -, just to see him raise a questioning eyebrow and quirk that triumphant fucking smirk at her. Would pretend not to love this silly side of him that he showed so rarely, even if they both knew well enough already how much she did.

That was how they worked, after all, and neither of them would change a thing about it.

But still… there was also no way she would just let him get away with it.

She huffed, leaning against him heavily and abruptly enough that it surely could be counted as at least an attempt of knocking some sense into him… right? Right.

Deep chuckles rumbled through him, shaking her frame before Sparda pushed back in retaliation, oh-so-gently, making her snort.

She didn't back away, though, not even to look at him in mocking offence. He was a warm presence next to her, steadfast and true, and entirely too tempting to not stay right there. He didn't seem to mind that she used him as a pillow, either. The opposite, if the way he hummed and tilted his head to rest against the crown of hers was any indication.

Grinning brightly, sure that she could feel a smile being pressed against her hair, Eva went back to her lecture.

They were just great, together.

And nothing would change that.

Some Trivia about this fic:

1) This story was born out of a mixture of me wondering if "Eva ever felt inferior to Sparda because he is powerful and ancient" and the thought that "Sparda must have collected quite the skills and knowledge in his long life". Mixed with the thought of WHY he would have dedicated all his life to humans – and fell in love with one – it lead to this story.

2) While they are not in a relationship yet, in this story - Sparda is already in love with Eva at this point, and he is fully aware of it. Eva is on her way there, but she's not fully aware of it, because it's less a falling for someone, and more like love for a friend and partner in crime growing deeper, a smooth transition instead of love at first sight.

3) Sparda hasn't lied to Eva, but he didn't tell her the full truth, either – he might have been fascinated with humanity, still is, but he also resigned at some point in the last 2000 years because he has seen too much. Too much humans trying to gain the power of a demon – his power – too much humans being cruel too each other and no better than demons. Eva and a few other friends (because I refuse to believe there were no other humans and friends in Sparda's life), but Eva especially, gave him back some of that old belief in humans and what he was and is fighting for in the first place.