He falls asleep eventually, curled against my side, one hand resting over my heart.
I’m far too in my head to get any sleep. I lie in the dark and memorize what happened. The sounds he made. The way his body responded. The look in his eyes when he finally let go.
There’s no framework for this. No protocol. No training that explains why the sight of him coming apart took something out of my chest.
Not because I broke him. I didn't break him. I gave him something he asked for, something he needed, and I brought him back safely when it was over.
This is new. This is different.
This is something I need to understand before I can use it.
But for now, in the dark, with his warmth against my side and his breath steady on my skin, I find that I don't want to analyze it.
I just want to keep it.
Him.
I want to keep him.
The realization settles into my chest like a stone, heavy and permanent and utterly inevitable.
Whatever comes next—Webb, the Custodians, the entire weight of The Silent bearing down on us—I will not give him up.
Not for threats. Not for orders. Not for anything.
Morning comes grey and quiet.
I got a few hours and woke at my usual hour. But instead of getting up, I stayed. Despite the fact that I need to finish reports and get them to Abernathy… I stayed.
We have time. Not much, but enough.
Elliot stirs beside me. His eyes open slowly, blinking against the weak light filtering through the curtains. For a moment, he looks confused, disoriented. Then his gaze finds me, and something in his expression shifts.
Not fear. Not the wary, watchful look he's worn since the warehouse.
Something softer.
"You stayed," he says.
"Yes."
"All night?"
"I don't sleep much."
He processes this. Then, slowly, he sits up. The blanket falls away, revealing the marks I left on his body. Bite bruises on his neck, red lines down his sides, fingerprint-shaped shadows on his hips.
He touches them, one by one, like he's cataloging them.
"I thought I'd feel different," he says. "After."
"Different how?"
"Broken. Used." He looks at me, and there's something in his eyes I haven't seen before. A steadiness. A certainty. "But I don't. I feel... claimed."
The way he says it just about undoes me.
"Is that what you wanted?" I ask.
