I nodded against his neck, jaw tight enough to crack.
He made a sound—almost a laugh, but not quite. “It’s over,” he said, thumb pressing into the meat of my shoulder. “You’re here. I’m here.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t enough, that the fear was a poison that never fully faded, that I could patch the house a hundred times and it’d never stop the nightmares. But I didn’t. Instead, I just pulled him closer, pressed my mouth to the top of his head, and hoped it would be enough.
Levi shifted, wincing at the movement—his ribs were still a canvas of angry purple, a map of everywhere they’d hurt him. He let out a slow hiss, then settled his weight against my chest,the soft weight of his hair tickling my chin. For a long minute, neither of us moved.
I traced a line down his spine, feeling each bump and notch. He shivered, then let out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding. “Don’t ever leave the bed like that,” I said, my voice barely above a grunt.
He grinned, even with the split in his lip. “Didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping for once.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You leave, I wake up.”
He nodded, the smile fading, replaced by something older and sadder. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, fingers twisting in his hair, needing the pull of it to keep the world from tilting. He was here. He was mine. I had to believe it.
We stayed like that, tangled together, until the sweat dried on my skin and the sheets cooled beneath us. I could feel his heart, beating steady now, thumping a counterpoint to my own. With every beat, the nightmare faded, replaced by the solid comfort of his body, the clean line of his collarbone, the slow, familiar rhythm of his breath.
The moon shifted, painting silver bands across the battered wall. I watched the light crawl up Levi’s shoulder, watched the blue of his eyes go dark as he drifted back toward sleep.
“You okay?” he asked, voice barely there.
I nodded again, but this time it felt closer to the truth.
He reached up, thumb tracing the scar on my jaw, the one he’d kissed a thousand times. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I believed him. I had to. I let the dark have me, as long as he was there to hold on to. And for a few precious hours, the world stayed quiet.
The night didn’t let go easily. It stuck, cloying, pressing into every crack in the old walls and every space between our bodies.I lay there, pretending sleep would come, but my brain wouldn’t let me have it. I kept hearing the dream on repeat, the way Levi’s voice had faded in that darkness, the way my own hands felt empty after clawing at nothing.
I must have squeezed him too tight, because he shifted in my arms, a hiss leaking through his teeth when his ribs caught on the motion. He tried to hide it—always did—but I felt every shudder in his breath. He rolled onto his back, left arm flopping over his head, hair splayed wild on the pillow.
We didn’t speak for a minute. Just listened to the silence, thick and electric. The moon had sunk lower, and the room was lit only by the LED blink of my phone on the nightstand.
Levi broke the standoff, voice small but sharp. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing?” I said, though I knew.
He turned to face me, his face a mess of old bruise and fresh resolve. “The thing where you wall up, like if you don’t talk about it, it’ll just go away.”
I snorted, but it came out brittle. “Some things should go away.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, eyes level with mine. “Talk to me,” he said, simple as a command.
I wanted to. I didn’t know how. I’d spent years learning to let the worst of me out only in controlled doses—at the range, in the shop, in the kind of fight where everything was clear and simple.
This was neither.
Instead, I reached for his face, thumbing the edge of his split lip, the swelling that had gone greenish yellow under his eye. My calloused fingers looked brutal next to the delicate skin, but he didn’t pull away. I cupped his cheek, and my hand shook, just barely.
He caught the tremor, smiled, and covered my hand with his own. “You’re allowed to be scared, you know,” he said.
That gutted me. I felt the words in my chest, like a hand reaching through my ribcage and squeezing until I saw stars.
“I can’t lose you,” I said, the words raw and low and not at all how I’d meant them to sound. “I can’t.”
Levi’s hand drifted up, palm to my jaw, thumb tracing the line of my beard. “But you didn’t,” he said. “You found me. You always find me.”
