“I’ve got you,” Dex says, closer now.
I feel it before I fully register it, the shift of his weight, the warmth of him near me, one hand steady at my arm as he adjusts the blanket around me with the other, careful but firm, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Don’t try to get up,” he says, quieter now. “Just rest. I’ll take care of you.”
Care.
The word settles deep, unfamiliar and unsettling in a way I don’t quite understand.
I’ve been running for so long, holding everything together on my own, taking care of everyone else, that the idea of someone taking care of me feels almost wrong.
But my body doesn’t argue.
It sinks into it.
I hear him move through the apartment. Water running. Fabric shifting. The soft rhythm of someone staying close without making a big deal of it.
“Open your mouth, Tinker. You need to take your antibiotic,” he whispers.
I do as he says.
“Good girl,” he murmurs, and somehow that makes me relax.
My breathing slows as I look into his green eyes.
A finger runs gently over my cheek.
I hold onto that.
I don’t know what he’s apologizing for.
But it settles over me anyway, quiet and steady, like something I didn’t know I needed.
My eyes close again.
And this time, I don’t fight it.
The warmth, the steady presence, the quiet around me, it pulls me under slowly, gently, until everything fades.
???
Something is wrong.
My breath catches, chest tightening as the warmth twists into something suffocating, something I know too well.
I’m not safe anymore.
I’m fourteen again.
The room is too small. The air too thick. The walls pressing in until I can’t breathe right.
A shadow moves.
Too close.
Too familiar.
My stomach knots, panic rising fast, clawing its way up my throat as I try to move, try to get away, but my body won’t listen.
