“Because every time I close my eyes,” he admits, “I see the faces of people who trusted me to keep them alive.”
The fire crackles.
I swallow. “Damian…”
He shakes his head once, cutting me off gently, like he’s too tired to let me comfort him properly.
“Responsibility doesn’t stop when you leave a room, or a city, or a life. It stays. It remembers.”
I’ve seen him furious. I’ve seen him cruel. I’ve seen him patient in ways that terrify me.
But this quiet, brittle guilt is something else entirely.
“You think it’s all your fault,” I say, softer.
He doesn’t deny it.
I pull my knees up to my chest, absorbing the cold that seeps through the floorboards. “You carry too much.”
“And you carry enough for ten people,” he counters, looking at me with an intensity that feels like a hand closing lightly around my throat, not to choke but to hold.
I look away.
“I keep moving. That’s not the same as coping.”
“No,” he agrees. “But it keeps you alive.” A breath. “It keeps me alive.”
The admission is quiet, dropping between us like a stone into deep water. I breathe slowly, steadying the tremor I feel in my hands.
“Do you regret anything?” The question escapes before I can stop it, fragile and reckless.
Damian’s head lifts. His eyes find mine, open and unguarded.
“Only what I never said,” he answers, “when I had the chance.”
My pulse stutters at his words, as if the air in the room thins all at once. Something inside me gives way so quietly I barely register the sound of my own defenses falling.
Damian must sense it because he tracks every shift in me like he tracks danger. Still, he doesn’t move toward me. He holds still, waiting, as if any sudden motion might turn the moment into smoke.
The silence feels full, like snow-heavy branches bending under their own weight. Every glance feels like a touch, every exhale like an invitation neither of us says aloud.
He moves closer, but not enough to close the space. Just enough to acknowledge it exists. My hand rests on the rug and his ends up near mine. The space between our fingers feels electric, like the room has shifted its axis.
After hours or seconds, our shoulders brush slightly.
Except it’s not accidental. The moment his forehead rests lightly against mine, I breathe out in a shudder I didn’t know I was holding.
Sleep takes me before I even know it.
The next morning, my eyes open to a faint glow. My cheek rests against Damian’s shoulder, the exact way I fell asleep. His hand is not holding mine, but it’s close enough to touch. The space between us is marked with a new kind of quiet.
Something that tastes like trust. Deep inside me, a shift has taken place. I don’t wonder whether he’ll disappear the moment danger calls his name. The thought doesn’t even occur to me.
Instead, I wonder what we will do when danger finds us.
Damian’s breath becomes shallower against the crown of my skull, and I know he’s waking up. A strange kind of desperation forces me to brush my pinky against his as he’s coming to, before this moment is taken from me forever.
Damian’s finger curls around mine, brazen and confident.
