It locks.
Full. Immediate. Right.
I shift without thinking, turning into the contact, my hands finding Jake’s shirt, Jim’s arm, holding onto both of them at once like my body already knows how this fits.
For a second—
that’s all there is.
Jake’s grip. Jim’s steadiness. The pull of both of them holding me exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Leo doesn’t interrupt it.
He moves in quieter, slower, giving us the space to finish the moment before he claims his place.
The room gets smaller.
Not crowded. Just full.
Leo’s hand slides once along my side, slow and grounding.
No one says anything.
They don’t have to.
The bonds do it for us — Leo’s warmth, Jake’s restraint, Jim’s reaching quiet. Layered under everything, steady and real and here. For one minute I can almost pretend this is enough. That the room is complete because the people in it are real and solid.
I breathe in and it catches halfway.
Not because of who is here.
Because of who isn’t.
It moves through the room without being named. Jake’s arms tighten. Leo’s thumb presses once at my side, like he felt the shift and didn’t need to ask. Jim holds on.
No one says RJ.
They don’t have to. We all sit on the bed.
I look at Jim.
“Is it still Jim,” I say. “Or are you working on something else.”
He’s quiet. Jake goes still beside me.
“David is who I was before the mountain,” Jim says. Careful. “Jim is who I came back as. When there was nothing left except that.” He looks at his hands. “I don’t think I have to lose one to keep the other.”
“You don’t,” I say.
“Jake thinks I should go back to David,” he says. “Full reset.”
“Jake can say what he thinks,” I say.
Jake looks at me sideways. “He should have his name back. The one before all of it.”
“It’s his either way,” I say. “He decides when.”
Jim watches this with something loosening slightly in his face. “I’m not in a hurry,” he says.
