He strode out of the house like a force of nature himself —furious and stalking straight for Rocko.Rocko completed what he was doing and scrambled down the ladder only to be grabbed by the front of the jacket and hauled back under the partial shelter of the barn’s overhang.
“What the hell were you thinking?”Apollo bellowed.“You knew the storm was coming!”
“I also knew I had a few loose shingles still to secure and the roof might rip off if someone didn’t bolt it down,” Rocko shot back.“You’re welcome.”
“Welcome?”Apollo’s voice cracked with something that wasn’t quite anger.“I felt you disappear.”
Rocko froze.Wind howled past them, sending sheets of rain sideways.Rocko tried to pull away, but Apollo’s grip tightened, not painfully — desperately.
“You can’t do that,” Apollo said, voice lower now, rawer.“You can’t just… vanish from my senses like that.I thought—” He cut himself off.
Rocko stared, heartbeat thudding.“You thought what?”
“That I’d lost you.”
Silence slammed between them harder than the storm.Rocko swallowed.Nobody had ever said anything like that to him — not with that mix of fury and fear.Not with that edge of vulnerability Apollo tried so damn hard to hide.
The thunder cracked above them.Apollo flinched, jaw clenched.Rain slid down his face like cold sweat.
“You didn’t lose me,” Rocko said quietly.“I’m right here.”
Apollo’s hand was still fisted in Rocko’s jacket.His knuckles were white.His eyes — usually sharp, vigilant, scanning danger — were locked only on him.
“I can’t think straight when you disappear,” Apollo growled.“I can’t feel anything but—”
“Fear?”Rocko offered.
Apollo’s nostrils flared.He didn’t answer, but he didn’t deny it.
Rocko stepped closer, the wind shoving at his back.Apollo didn’t move.Didn’t back up.Didn’t break eye contact.The world shook around them, but this — this strange, impossible connection — stayed solid.
“You scare me,” Rocko admitted.
Apollo blinked, taken aback.“I scare you?”
“Yeah.”Rocko let out a shaky laugh.“Because you’re… huge and intense and terrifying, sure.But also because you look at me like I matter.Like what happens to me affects you.Nobody’s ever done that.”
Apollo didn’t breathe for several seconds.Then, barely audible beneath the storm, “You do matter.”
Lightning lit them both up for a second — Apollo’s expression etched in stark lines of concern, anger, and something else neither man dared name.
Rocko stepped closer.Apollo didn’t step back.
“I’m fine,” Rocko said.“And I’m not going anywhere.”
A muscle jumped in Apollo’s jaw.His hand finally loosened, sliding down from Rocko’s jacket—but instead of dropping away, his fingers curled, hesitating, then settled on Rocko’s chest.Right over his pounding heart.
Rocko’s breath hitched.
“Apollo…” he murmured.
“I need you to stay alive,” Apollo said.Not a request.Not quite an order.Something in between.“Not for the mission.Not for the team.”
Silence.
Then softly, so softly for a man made of steel and fury, “For me.”
Rocko’s throat tightened.“Then you’re in luck, big guy.Because I’m planning on staying right here.”
