Warmth.
“I knew I’d find you pilferin’ my clothes ago,” Bran says, breath brushing the shell of my ear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “These are community property now. Like the coffee pot’s going to be. And your Netflix password.”
He chuckles, low.
He’s solid at my back, chest pressed to my shoulders, chin hooked over my head.
Big spoon, tiny menace.
I lean into it shamelessly.
“How’s the shoulder?” I ask.
“Fine,” he says. “Stopped hurtin’ days ago.”
He’s lying. It still twinges when he lifts it too high.
I don’t call him on it, though.
“How’s your head?” he asks.
I know what he means.
“Depends on the hour,” I say honestly. “Mornings are usually good. Nights are…noisy.”
Nightmares. Flashes. The smell of that cloth, thick and cloying, the feel of being carried like luggage.
Sometimes it’s Henry in those dreams.
Sometimes it’s my father, all blank eyes and lists.
Sometimes it’s nobody at all.
Bran’s arms tighten.
“You tell me when it gets bad,” he says. “Yeah? Even if it’s two in the morning.”
“I do,” I say.
I do. More nights than not, I end up pressed against him, hand on his chest, counting each heart beat until mine slows.
“What about you?” I ask, tilting my head back to look up at him. “Any alley flashbacks? Santa suit trauma?”
He huffs.
“I’ll never be able to look at a beard the same way again,” he says. “But I’m all right.”
He’s not. Not entirely.
He watches doors now with a hunter’s focus. Tracks exits in every room. It was always there in him. It’s just…sharper now.
But when I wake up choking on the memory of that cloth, he’s there before I get both eyes open.
We’re both learning how to live with it.
“What if we go one day without mentioning him?” I suggest. “Just as an experiment. Twenty-four hours where we treat him like he’s not the center of the universe.”
