The recognition was on his face first — his eyes landing, pupils widening, the quick sharp intake of breath. Understanding was next—Asher knew this one well because Levi’s hands dropped to his lap as he stared. Then the fear itself rolled in behind the understanding, filling everything.
Asher felt his cheeks heat as Levi looked at him like that again.
He didn’t realize how much he missed that look until right now — the way Levi’s eyes went wide, the particular way his throat worked when he swallowed against the panic, the way his whole body went rigid against the tape. The last time he saw fear like this on Levi’s face was in the forest. That first night. Asher had caught him and Levi had looked at him the way he was looking at him now.
In the game, Levi’s fear always had a frame around it — the loops, the resets, the knowledge that death wasn’t permanent. Levi could be scared and still be thinking, fear and strategy running side by side on his face.
This face had no strategy in it.
This face was just afraid.
There you are.
The warmth Asher felt was the warmth he didn’t know he had been chasing. He spent his whole life disconnected and hollow — those were the parts Marianne spent thirty-five years trying to fix with pills and appointments and locked bathroom doors — but suddenly, just like that moment in the forest, he wasn’t hollow. He wasn’t disconnected. The air had more oxygen in it when Levi looked at him like that.
He could breathe.
“Don’t pull at the tape again,” Asher said softly, picking up a glass of water and taking a sip. “It’s not coming off. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
This is what water should taste like. This is what breathing should feel like. This is what was missing.
“I made dinner,” he continued, his eyes moving to the tube in Levi’s nose and the warmth in his chest flickered into something harder. “I have a lot to tell you. And I need to know who’s been taking care of you. Because whoever it is —”
He had to stop himself. Levi’s eyes were welling with tears and he was starting to breathe faster, a flush creeping up his face, and Asher felt his cock twitch. Levi’sI’m scaredface was remarkably similar to hisI’m about to cumface and Asher was running through a lot of memories very quickly. He took a longer drink of water.
“— they haven’t been doing a very good job.”
Levi opened his mouth, his lower lip trembling, as the first tears slipped loose from his eyelashes. Asher wanted to follow the trails those tears left on his cheeks with his tongue.
“I’m sorry — Mr. Kane, I-I haven’t — I didn’t violate the NDA —” The words came out fast and shaking, tumbling over each other, and Asher heard every one of them and understood none of them because Levi had just called himMr. Kane.“— I haven’tt-talked to anyone, I haven’t turned on my computer, I’m going to my appointments, I’ve been d-doing everything she told me, I followed all the rules, I —”
Mr. Kane.
Levi had never called him that. Levi called him Asher and very, very occasionally,dovey, which was his favorite.Marianne called him Asher and Paul called him Asher and…he was just Asher. This — this was not right.
“— I’m not going to be a problem, I promise, I just want to go to my appointments and come home, that’s all I —”
“Stop.”
Levi stopped.
“You called me Mr. Kane.” Asher’s voice had gone somewhere he didn’t like — smaller, younger. He could feel his eyebrows doing the thing they did when something didn’t make sense. He tilted his head at Levi, trying to roll the utterance ofMr. Kaneout of his skull. “You don’t call me Mr. Kane. Where did you get that? Why would you call me that?”
Levi stared at him, and the panic was still there — the fast breathing, the beautiful way his eyes shined when he was scared— but something was being recalculated.
“Asher?” Levi squeaked out.
“There you are,” Asher breathed, and he let the smile come — too wide, he could feel it being too wide. He didn’t fix it. “I was worried you forgot me. Say it again, baby. Will you say it again?”
“Asher.”
“Better.” Asher let the sound of his name on Levi’s lips wash over him. He never got tired of it. He reached across the table, because Levi’s lower lip was still trembling and he wanted to feel it, but Levi’s entire torso jerked in the chair, hands coming up between them. Asher looked at his own hand in the air, then at Levi’s face behind it. “Why...why did you do that?”
Levi swallowed. The tube shifted on his cheek. He did not say anything.
“Dr. Kane said you didn’t want to see me,” Levi said finally. “That you didn’t—”
“Marianne told both of us the same lie. She lied to you about me and she lied to me about you. I’m trying not to be angry about it because, because she’s dead now,” Asher said simply. “But she left you all alone here and you’re not doing well—”
