The bed dips again on my other side. Finn lays behind me, his warmth solid against my back.
I'm bracketed between them. Safe. Held.
Malcolm's purr never stops.
More footsteps. Quieter than the others. Heavier but deliberate, careful, the tread of someone who moves with intention.
The chair beside the bed scrapes softly as it's pulled closer.
I crack my eyes open.
Rhys is lowering himself into it. He's too big for the chair and he knows it, his knees spread wide to accommodate himself, his elbows resting on them, hands loosely clasped. He doesn't touch me. Doesn't reach for me. Just settles into the space beside the bed and stays.
His eyes find mine through the blanket's edge.
He holds my gaze. Then he nods once, the same small certain nod from before.
I'm here. That's all it means.Nothing required from you. I'm just here.
His purr starts.
It's low and resonant and it reaches the places inside me that the other purr can't quite touch. The broken places. The ones that have been broken so long they've started to feel like just the way I'm shaped.
His purr doesn't try to smooth those places over.
It just sits with them.
I hear more footsteps before Alex appears in the doorway. He takes in the room—Malcolm, Finn, Rhys in the chair—and moves to the foot of the bed. He rests against the wall with a book in his hands, opens it and starts to read.
He doesn't look at me. Just turns a page.
His purr joins the others.
No one talks. No one asks what's wrong or tries to fix it.
They're just there.
All four of them.
The sobs come harder.
Finn's hand finds my shoulder and stays there, steady pressure.
Rhys leans forward slightly in the chair. His hand comes to rest on the edge of the mattress beside me. Not touching me. Just there. Close enough that if I reach for it, it's there.
I reach for it.
His fingers close around mine with that careful deliberateness that I'm starting to expect.
Alex turns a page.
I cry until I can't anymore. Until I'm empty and exhausted and wrung out and there's nothing left.
And they stay.
All four of them stay.
When the crying finally stops the room is very quiet. Malcolm's purr has settled to something slower, softer. Rhys's still stutters but it's gentler now, like it knows the crisis has passed.
