But Logan didn’t press.
He nodded, letting the lie stand, offering the small mercy of pretending to believe it.
“I thought you would go to sleep for a while before coming,” Adrian added.
“I’ll sleep later.”
Adrian exhaled, the sound soft but deep, an unspoken ache wrapped inside it. He didn’t argue. Instead, with slow movements, he shifted beneath the thin sheets, his hand slipping from Logan’s grasp, and scooted over an inch.
“Come here,” he whispered. The word hung in the air between them, tender and fragile, part invitation, part plea.
Logan moved without thought.
He shrugged off his jacket, let it fall to the chair, kicked off his shoes with the absent grace of a man who had done this too many nights now, whose body moved on instinct even when his mind spun with everything it could not fix.
Then he climbed into the narrow bed, careful—always careful.
Careful of the IV in Adrian’s arm, thin and pale beneath skin that bruised too easily now. Careful of the central line threaded into his chest, a lifeline and a threat all at once. Careful of the dark blooms of bruises along his ribs, the new sharpness of bone beneath skin that had once been golden and strong. Careful of how easily the body he loved seemed to be slipping away beneath his hands.
He slid an arm around Adrian, drew him in with infinite gentleness, fitting their bodies together in the small space. He pressed his face into the hollow where Adrian’s neck met his shoulder, breathed in the scent that was still his, beneath the antiseptic and the faint odor of saline.
And in that moment, there was no hospital. No beeping machines. No time ticking away at the edges of their fragile peace.
This was home.
Adrian sighed softly with content, melting into Logan’s embrace, into the warmth, into the familiarity ofthem. His body, fragile as it was, still fit perfectly against Logan’s, like it always had. Like it always would.
“You need to sleep, Lo.”
Logan answered not with words but with a kiss, pressed to Adrian’s cheek, slow and lingering, lips resting there as though he could drink him in, absorb him, carry him beneath his skin. As if the sheer force of loving him might be enough to keep him here, in this bed, in this life, for just a little longer. ”I’ll just close my eyes for a while,” Logan mumbled.
Adrian breathed out quietly, a sound that held understanding and love and grief all woven together.
And as Logan began to drift, the weight of wakefulness loosening its grip, pulling him gently toward dreams, the last thing he heard was Adrian’s voice singing to him, a low hum, rough and thin.
Their song, unfurled in a low, smoke-rough murmur meant for his ears alone, a private lullaby, a spell uttered softly enough to carry him into that long-known ethereal garden of dreams, where the almost-s loosened their hold and sank back into the soil. What had once survived only as a sanctuary of the imagined, conjured from hunger and ache, at last took form and weight. Adrian was no longer a figure dreamed into being, but flesh and warmth and gravity, held, undeniably, within his arms.
Logan didn’t know how long he had slept, only that when he blinked himself back into consciousness, the room was softly glowing with lamplight, the low murmur of voices filling the air. The sterile scent of the hospital was still present, but now it was mingled with the aroma of home-cooked food. A soft draft brushed across his face, and as his eyes adjusted, he noticed the window slightly cracked open, letting in the December air. It was freezing outside, but someone had opened it for Adrian. The smell of food must have been too much.
His family was there.
He could hear Ann’s hushed, rapid-fire words, the excitement buzzing in her voice as she spoke to Adrian.
“Ann, be quiet! Your brother is sleeping, you know how exhausted he is,” Samantha scolded, but there was affection in her voice.
Logan stirred, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and felt the solid warmth of Adrian still beside him. His heart tightened, his breath settling just knowing that Adrian was still there.
The soft rustling of bags and containers being placed on the small hospital table made Logan glance toward the cluster of people now filling the space.
Jane was unpacking something from a bag—food, from the smell of it. Samantha was watching Ann with amusement, while Ann, practically vibrating with curiosity, was already leaning toward Adrian, talking animatedly, her eyes bright with something between fascination and genuine care.
And then there was his father.
Standing by the door, still in his business suit, the tie loosened just slightly.
Their eyes met across the room.
His father was here.
