Archive of Our Own ^beta

The manor is quiet, just the steady hum of electricity and the low murmur of III and IV’s voices upstairs. II stands in the doorway to the kitchen, watching Vessel fuss with the kettle like it’s a ritual all its own. Vessel hums, faint and uneven, filling the silence in place of words. His shoulders are hunched, his movements deliberate, careful—like the world will tip if he moves too fast.

II doesn’t say anything at first. He crosses the kitchen slowly, pulls two mugs from the shelf, and sets them down by Vessel’s elbow without asking. Vessel glances at him, faint surprise flickering in his eyes before he smiles, quick and small, and adds the tea without breaking rhythm.

They don’t need to talk. The care is in the little things: the way II sets the spoon just where Vessel will reach for it, the way Vessel shifts so II can lean a hip against the counter beside him. It’s easy, practiced, a language they’ve been speaking for years.

Still, the air tonight feels heavier. II notices the way Vessel’s sleeve slips back just far enough to show his hand trembling around the kettle, and how quickly he tugs it back down. Notices how his hum falters on a note, catches, then resumes too steady to be natural. II doesn’t press. Not yet.

When the tea is poured, Vessel sets II’s mug in front of him without meeting his eyes. “Careful, it’s hot.”

II huffs a laugh under his breath. “You always say that.”

“And you never listen.”

The faintest spark of humor, but it dies quickly, like a match snuffed before it catches. II studies him for a long moment, then shifts just enough for their shoulders to brush. Vessel doesn’t pull away.

It’s a small thing, almost nothing at all—but in the quiet of the kitchen, it feels like everything.

II takes the first sip, ignoring Vessel’s warning as always, and hisses when the heat stings his tongue. Vessel’s quiet laugh breaks through, brighter this time, and for a moment it feels like the heaviness is gone.

They stand there shoulder to shoulder, steam rising between them, until Vessel sets his cup down and leans lightly against II’s arm. “We should think about dinner tomorrow. The cupboards are empty except for rice and… half a jar of pickles.”

II hums in agreement. “So, proper food shopping then.”

“Mm. Eggs, bread, fruit…” Vessel trails off, ticking items off on his fingers.

II smirks. “Don’t forget actual vegetables this time.”

“That’s your department. I only know how to cook them one way.”

“Burnt?”

“Crispy,” Vessel corrects with mock offense, bumping his shoulder against II’s.

II shakes his head, reaches for a notepad on the counter, and scribbles half-heartedly as they banter. Vessel leans closer to peek at his handwriting, their cheeks almost touching, and II forgets to move his pen.

The world softens around the edges. The scratch of the pen fades into the background, replaced by the faint memory of a much smaller kitchen, dimmer light, Vessel pressed against the counter beside him in the same easy way. He remembers the smell of something charred on the stovetop, the warmth of Vessel’s laugh, the way their faces had tilted closer without thinking.

The notepad blurs. He blinks, and for a second he isn’t in the manor at all. He’s barely twenty-something again, heart stuttering, about to—

“Hey.” Vessel’s voice pulls him back. II looks up to find him watching, smiling soft and bemused. “You’ve been staring at that list for five minutes. What’s got you so zoned out?”

II blinks down at the page. The only thing he’s managed to write is eggs .

He exhales, shakes his head with a faint smile of his own. “Nothing. Just… remembering.”

Vessel tilts his head curiously, but doesn’t press. He only bumps II’s shoulder again and picks up his mug. “You’re hopeless.”

The manor kitchen dissolves around him. When II blinks, it’s yellow-tinted light and scuffed linoleum. Vessel’s old apartment kitchen, barely wide enough for the two of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, much less cook in.

The smell of singed tomato sauce clings to the air. A saucepan sits abandoned on the stove, a curl of smoke winding lazily toward the ceiling.

Vessel is beside him, leaning against the counter with his mug clasped in both hands, his hair falling into his face. His smile is softer here, a little shy.

“This is the third time you’ve burned pasta this month,” II murmurs, amused.

“Consistency is a virtue,” Vessel shoots back, but his voice is low, warm, not really defensive. His arm brushes II’s, and he doesn’t move away.

They stand like that in companionable quiet, the burnt food forgotten. II should move, should open a window, should tend to the alarm that will inevitably—

But Vessel turns his head, and suddenly their faces are too close.

Not too close. Just close enough.

The space between them buzzes with unspoken words, unspilled confessions.

Vessel’s gaze flickers down once—to II’s mouth, to the tiny gap between them—before rising again.

Neither of them breathe.

Slowly, naturally, like a tide pulling them together, their lips start to close the distance. A brush of warmth, a hitch in the chest.

Then—

The smoke alarm screams to life.

Both of them jolt. II nearly smacks Vessel with the spoon he’d been holding. Vessel curses under his breath, stumbling to grab a rag and fan frantically at the shrieking detector.

II laughs, short and breathless, running a hand down his face. The moment’s gone.

But the way Vessel steals a glance at him, cheeks red, lips parted as if holding back a smile—II knows it wasn’t nothing.

The alarm finally clicks silent when Vessel jabs the button, leaving behind the faint sting of smoke in the kitchen air. The two of them stand frozen, then glance toward the scorched saucepan.

“…Think it’s salvageable?” Vessel asks, entirely too earnest.

II raises an eyebrow. “The pan or the food?”

Vessel tips his head toward the stove. “Both?”

II snorts. “Pretty sure the food was a goner before it caught on fire.”

Vessel hums like he’s considering it, then sets the ruined pan in the sink with a clatter. “We could just… throw the whole lot out. Pretend it never existed.”

“Great plan,” II deadpans, “except that’s the only decent pan you own. What’re you going to do, fry eggs in the kettle?”

Vessel grins, lopsided. “I can be resourceful.”

They bicker lightly, leaning into it to avoid the heaviness of what almost was, until the solution finds them both: cereal for dinner.

It’s anticlimactic and oddly perfect. The box is more dust than flakes, the milk carton light in II’s hand. Vessel tips it out anyway, splitting the meager portions into two bowls without complaint.

“Guess we’re rationing,” Vessel mutters, dropping onto the couch beside him.

“Better than dying of smoke inhalation,” II says, sliding his phone between them, the small screen already queued up with a pirated copy of some B list movie.

They sit close—closer than necessary for the tiny screen. Vessel’s knee knocks II’s, but neither of them shifts away.

The kiss is gone, smoke alarm stealing it from them before it could even begin. But here, in this narrow slice of life—cereal, laughter, the quiet glow of a phone screen—they’re still together.

II knows, even then, that it’s enough.

II blinks, and he’s in a different living room, the memory vanishing like a blown out candle. Quiet. Safe. Vessel beside him on the couch, legs folded up, the lamplight soft across his features.

“Hey,” Vessel says lightly, tilting his head. He’s smiling, but it’s the kind of smile that notices things. “You alright? You’re pretty out of it today.”

II startles, then lets out a breath that comes too shaky for his liking. “Just… thinking,” he answers, voice rougher than he intends.

Vessel doesn’t press, just watches him with that dopey, patient look that makes II’s chest ache. As if he knows where II’s mind went, and is reminding him—wordless and steady—that he’s here, now, warm and alive and his.

II leans back against the cushions, blinking hard, then manages a small smirk. “We’re out of cereal again. Pretty sure III finished it off last night.”

That earns a quiet laugh, soft as it used to be, Vessel nudging his shoulder against his. “Then we’d better add it to the list.”

The store is half-crowded, that strange late-afternoon hum when everyone seems to move with a tired sort of purpose.

III and IV are already at it in front of the produce aisle, arguing over whether green beans or zucchini make better stir-fry. Their voices carry, earning a few looks from strangers.

II pushes the cart slowly, the folded list tucked under his palm. He doesn’t really need to check it—he already knows what’s written there—but it gives him something to focus on. Something to keep his eyes from lingering too long on the people around them, scanning for threats the way he always does without thinking.

He catches himself doing it only when he glances back and sees Vessel.

Vessel is trailing close to the cart, sleeves tugged down over his hands, chin ducked almost to his chest. A couple in the next aisle over look their way—curious, maybe, about the medical masks and the mismatched layers of clothing. Maybe just staring in the way people sometimes do.

It doesn’t matter why. What matters is how Vessel flinches at it, shoulders hunching, posture folding in on itself to take up less space.

The sight knocks something loose in II’s chest, sharp and familiar. For a moment he’s not in the grocery store at all, but somewhere smaller, colder.

It’s late, and the university’s rehearsal rooms are emptying out. II leans against the hood of his car, jacket zipped high, drumming absently on the metal while he waits.

Vessel appears through the double doors, backpack slung low, a tired smile tugging at his mouth when he spots him. He’s wearing an extra sweatshirt over his usual clothes, sleeves too long, and he glances around before heading over.

“You look like shit,” II says lightly as Vessel slides into the passenger seat. He means it as a joke, but there’s a weight in his chest when Vessel only laughs softly, not denying it.

“Long day.”

They drive in easy silence, the city lights blurring past. II tries not to notice how Vessel’s knee bounces, how his gaze keeps flicking to the rearview mirror.

The next week, it happens again. And again.

At work, the little signs start adding up. II stops by sometimes to walk him home, leaning against the wall of the building until Vessel finishes. The place isn’t terrible, not really—just one of those “anything for a buck” kinds of gigs. He says the hours are good, his coworkers are professional, the pay’s better than a campus job.

But II sees the way Vessel won’t meet anyone’s eyes. The way his shoulders tense when he unlocks his locker, double-checking the latch before he shuts it again. Once, II glimpses a slip of paper folded into quarters sticking halfway out of Vessel’s pocket. When he asks, Vessel stuffs it deeper with a shrug.

Later, he finds one himself. Nothing much, just a scrap of handwriting, flowery, calling Vessel “radiant.” He shows it to him, questioning. Vessel laughs it off, brushing it from his hand like dust.

“Somone trying to cheer me up, I guess.”

II wants to push. But Vessel’s smile is thin and sharp, and there’s exhaustion in the slump of his body. So II swallows the words and lets it go.

In the weeks that follow, Vessel’s clothes change. The hoodies get bigger, layers heavier, like armor. He starts wearing gloves when he doesn’t need to, sunglasses even indoors. He never says why, and II never asks, because the answers feel too close to something raw. They’re only friends, after all.

Instead, he brings him coffee. Walks him home when he can. Pretends not to notice how Vessel keeps checking the shadows on the street behind them.

He tells himself it’s just stress. School, work, life. Vessel’s been through worse, hasn’t he? And if he wanted to talk, he would.

II wants to believe that. He needs to.

“Do we need three boxes of cereal?” IV’s voice echoes from down the aisle, half incredulous, half teasing.

“Yes,” III fires back immediately, defensive like he’s already lost this argument before.

“You don’t even eat breakfast—”

“3 AM definitely counts as breakfast.”

“You have to have slept before you eat to call it breakfast, dumbass, not after.”

II exhales a laugh despite himself, one hand steadying the cart while the other fingers the folded list in his pocket. It’s a scene so ordinary it almost feels absurd after where his mind just was.

He forces himself to focus. Present. Now. Vessel is here. With him.

“You alright?” II asks quietly, leaning down just enough that his words are for Vessel alone.

Vessel glances up, caught, then nods once. “Yeah. Just… long day.” He manages the same old deflection, the same tired smile, and for a second II’s heart lurches with the uncanny familiarity of it.

But then Vessel’s hand slips over the bar of the cart, brushing against his. Deliberate. Grounding.

II nudges their little fingers together. He doesn’t press further.

When they regroup with III and IV, bickering still over cereal, the corners of Vessel’s mouth tip up — small, but real this time. II hangs onto that smile like a lifeline.

The manor is warm when they get back. III complains the entire way up the walk about how many bags IV made him carry, but he doesn’t let go of any of them until they’re clattering down on the kitchen counter.

“See,” IV says smugly, “you managed just fine.”

“Barely,” III mutters, flexing his arms with exaggerated drama, and Vessel huffs a soft laugh that makes II’s chest loosen just a little.

They fall into rhythm. It’s unspoken, practiced: IV handles the heavier bags and squeezes the car back into the garage, Vessel pulls things out one by one and sorts them, III rips into packaging he isn’t supposed to yet and steals bites of sweet treats for him and Vessel, II scolds him for it but opens his mouth for one too. The counter fills with fruit and tea, with rice and bread, with stacks of bulky candles in scent combinations that make every cashier look at them funny.

At one point Vessel pauses stiff with a carton of eggs in his hands, hesitating until II looks up from the pantry.

“They’re fine,” II says, gentle, and reaches out to take them. His fingers brush Vessel’s as he sets the carton carefully on the shelf, too aware of the little furrow between Vessel’s brows and the tremble in his shoulders.

It’s nothing, just eggs, but II sees the way Vessel exhales when they’re stowed away safe, as if even the smallest break might’ve been too much.

The weight in II’s chest lingers from earlier, but so does the memory of Vessel’s hand curling around his on the handle of the shopping cart. He’ll hold onto both.

When the last bag is emptied and shoved under the counter for recycling, III and IV are already moving toward the living room, their chatter shifting seamlessly into debate over what movie to put on. Vessel leans against the counter, eyes following them, then turns to II.

“Tea?” he asks, voice softer now.

II nods. “Tea.”

The kettle hissed low on the stove, steam curling in the dim light of early evening. II stood nearby, notebook open on the counter, pen resting idle between his fingers. The page in front of him was half-filled with uneven lines: small checkboxes beside things that made no sense to anyone but him.

• walk with Ves
• stretch / porch time
• tea → chamomile, mint
• write three good things
• cinnamon gum

The handwriting slanted, smaller than usual. The pen tapped twice before he set it down, pushing his palm over the page as if to steady it.

From the living room, laughter rose — III and IV locked in another of their endless, half-serious debates about music theory, Vessel’s softer voice slipping in now and again to settle them down and add a third argument at the same time. It was domestic in a way II never quite let himself believe they’d have, once. The sound should have grounded him. Instead, his chest pulled tighter.

He poured the water into two mugs, hands steady but jaw clenched, and carried them out. Vessel looked up immediately from the couch where he’d folded himself next to III and IV, eyes catching on II’s face with that quiet attunement that had always unnerved him. He didn’t ask. He just shifted, making space for II at his side.

II sat. Set one mug down in front of Vessel, the other in front of himself. The conversation carried on without him, III gesturing wildly as IV rolled his eyes, but II let it wash over him. Vessel’s thigh pressed against his, light and anchoring.

Later, when the others had wandered off — III to his room with his guitar, IV following and muttering something about restringing — Vessel lingered. The tea had gone cold on the table. II found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor, notebook balanced on his knee again. He stared down at the new page, the neat line where he’d written:

• breathe

And nothing else.

He didn’t notice Vessel watching from the couch until the other leaned down, voice low. “You’re doing it again,” he said softly.

II’s pen stilled. “Doing what?”

“Trying to remember the easy parts instead of the hard ones.” Vessel’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but it was gentle all the same. He reached out, slid the notebook from II’s lap without effort. Closed it. “Tea’s cold. Come to bed.”

It wasn’t a command, not the way Sleep’s voice sometimes was. It was something else — quiet care, steady as the hand Vessel offered him. II exhaled, slow, letting himself be pulled up.

The house was quiet now, just the creak of the floorboards under their steps, the sound of water running faintly upstairs where IV had started his shower. Domestic life, steady life, and yet II’s chest still pulled tight with something he couldn’t name.

The sheets whispered as Vessel shifted behind him, arm snug around II’s waist, thumb brushing absent circles against his wrist. The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the radiator, stubbornly clunking along in the corner. Vessel’s breathing was uneven, the kind of pattern II had learned to recognize: not sleep, but the restless edge of it.

“You’re not out yet,” II murmured, voice low in the dark.

A pause. Vessel pressed his face into the back of II’s shoulder, muffling the answer. “Trying.”

II let it go. He always had. Even now, years later, lying together in a house that belonged wholly to them, II felt the same ache in his chest he used to when they were crammed onto Vessel’s shitty twin bed in his even shittier apartment because Ves never wanted to kick him out after dark and II would never wanted to leave.

Back then, they’d told themselves it was because the heater had gone out, because the autumn draft from the window was too much. But II remembered the truth: Vessel’s body was rigid against him, even as he burrowed closer for warmth. His hand twitched sometimes, like he wanted to reach for something but thought better of it. His eyes were open long past midnight, reflecting the faint glow of streetlights through the blinds.

At the time, II had thought nothing of it. Anxiety, maybe. Exam stress. A late shift. He told himself the shadows under Vessel’s eyes were just poor sleep. He hadn’t known — not until years later, when Vessel confessed it all. Now, with years between then and now, II could map it all too clearly.

Vessel had always told himself the job was just a job. The pay was steady, the studio clean, and the shoots were straightforward enough. Adult work was easier than scrubbing dishes for minimum wage, and most of the people he worked with were kind, professional, even protective. He could handle the way classmates and professors sometimes looked at him like they might have recognized his face from online. He could handle the occasional anonymous comment on stream and salacious quote attached to a gif or screenshot on social media.

But there was a difference between a stranger behind a screen and someone who knew where he lived.

II only pieced it together later—after the confessions, after the funeral that wasn’t a funeral, after Vessel told him in halting detail how it began. At the time, all II saw were symptoms. Vessel keeping his head down when they walked to the train. The way his hand trembled when he unlocked his work locker, how he suddenly stopped making eye contact with the guys on set.

II remembered once—weeks before everything collapsed—Vessel slipping a crumpled note into his back pocket by mistake when they traded jackets.

You’re beautiful when you smile. I wish I could tell you in person.

II hadn’t read more than the first line before Vessel snatched it back, laughing too brightly, mumbling something about “dumb fan mail.” II hadn’t pressed. Had wanted to believe him. So he did. He still hated himself for that.

But the notes kept coming. Vessel never showed him, but later he confessed, and II saw them all. The language shifted with time, creeping from flattery into obsession.

I dream of you every night. The way your lips would look around me. The way you sound when you come. I wish you knew how much I love you.

II remembered holding that page in shaking hands years later, wishing he could go back and rip it from the locker before Vessel ever saw it.

Then the photographs. Candid, invasive. One of Vessel in the break room, head bent over his phone. Another of him walking home with groceries. In line at the coffee shop. Vessel unlocking his apartment door. Then, grainier, through his apartment window at night—Vessel half-asleep on the couch, bent over a textbook. Always alone. Always unaware.

And worse still, some taken inside. One of his jacket, hanging by the door. Another of the seahorse keychain tacked to his bedpost; the first gift II had gotten him, in the 5th grade on their trip to the aquarium. 

II’s chest clenched even now at the thought: someone had been inside.

The notes escalated to match.

You’ll be ruined if you keep ignoring me.

Stop wasting time on others. They can’t love you like I do.

I could fuck you better than those whores you work with. You’d never need anyone else. You wouldn’t have to fake your orgasms with me. Just say you’re mine.

The handwriting was jagged, desperate. Sometimes whole passages of violent fantasy: what it would feel like to choke him, to split him open, to “make him beg.”

II remembered Vessel’s voice when he finally told him — small, apologetic. I didn’t want to bother you with it. It was just… my problem. My job. My fault.

Fault. As though any of it had been.

And then the last envelope. The one that made him decide.

A photo of II. Just II, stepping into his office building, to-go cup steaming in his hand, wearing the shirt he left for work in just that morning. 

A single bullet rattling beside it.

He almost wishes it was another letter instead. However long, however tortured. At least then it could just be chalked up to a deranged fantasy and not anything real.

II’s throat locked tight even now. That was the point Vessel had stopped pretending. Stopped hiding. But instead of coming to him, instead of telling him, instead of asking for help from literally anyone, he had decided on his own that there was only one way to keep him safe.

By the time Vessel told him this, months later, II could hardly breathe. All he could think of was how many times he’d asked, “You good?” and accepted a crooked smile and a shrug for an answer.

At the time, he’d thought it was stress from school. From work. From life. He’d told himself Vessel would come to him if it was serious.

But Vessel hadn’t.

Instead, every night, Vessel lay in his bed listening to phantom footsteps linger outside his door.

He’d pull the blankets tight, heart rattling in his chest, whispering into the dark like a prayer: Just a little longer. I can hold it together just a little longer.

He should have seen. He should have stopped it.

Vessel sighed and pressed his face into his shoulder, thumb still brushing against his wrist. Alive. Warm. Here.

II held his hand tighter, as if to anchor him to the bed, to the now, to him.

They both slept like shit.

The kettle whistled low in the kitchen, steam curling toward the ceiling. II stood at the counter, pouring water over loose-leaf tea in the mug Vessel always favored—blue porcelain with a hairline crack down one side. He let it steep, pressing the spoon gently against the rim, watching the swirl of color deepen.

Behind him, Vessel sat hunched at the table, notebook open, pen tapping faintly against the page before stilling. Scribbled fragments of lyrics and half-formed chords sprawled across the paper in his familiar messy hand.

II set the mug down in front of him. “Drink.”

Vessel huffed softly, amused, eyes flicking up. “You’re bossy.”

“Persistent,” II corrected, settling in the chair across from him. He nudged the notebook aside to make space for Vessel’s hands. “And you’d forget, otherwise.”

Vessel’s fingers curled around the mug. For a moment, his shoulders eased, a breath slipping out softer than a sigh. The corners of his mouth tugged up—not quite a smile, but close enough that II counted it a win.

For a while, neither spoke. The fire in the grate crackled. Outside, the trees creaked in the early morning wind. No words. Just tea cooling between them, quiet scribbles filling the silence.

And then, without meaning to, II’s gaze snagged on the way Vessel’s wrist bones looked fragile above the mug, the faint shadows beneath his eyes. He blinked, the image doubling, overlaying with something darker—something older.

The tea in his own hand soured in his mouth as the memory pulled at him.

The letter.
The bathroom floor.
The sound of his name never spoken.

II set the mug down with deliberate care, his breath steady but shallow. He could feel the old ache pressing in, the guilt that lived in the marrow of his bones. Vessel noticed—he always noticed—and tilted his head, brows pulling together slightly in silent question.

II forced a smile. “Just tired.”

But the truth clawed at him. That night had never really left him. Vessel accepted it with his usual sideways glance, obviously unconvinced but unwilling to press.

They sat with the tea until the fire in the grate burned low. Vessel’s pen scratches grew softer, trailing into absent doodles in the corner of the page. II watched the ink dry more than he watched the words, his own mug untouched on the table.

After a while, Vessel sighed and closed the notebook. “Break?”

“Break,” II echoed, and rose with him.

The two of them padded into the living room, Vessel curling up on the couch with his mug hugged to his chest, knees drawn under the blanket II tugged over the both of them. II sank into the other end, remote in hand, but never turned the television on. The quiet between them wasn’t heavy—it never was. Still, II’s thoughts pressed at the back of his skull, harder now for being contained so long.

Vessel let his head tip back, eyes half-lidded, content to simply be. After a few minutes, he pushed himself upright. “Bathroom,” he murmured, already shuffling toward the hall.

“Mm.” II hummed back, watching him go until the sound of the door clicking shut carried faintly through the house.

Alone, II leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. His fingers pressed against the bridge of his nose. The fire popped behind him, but the room felt suddenly colder, emptier.

The memory had been circling since the kettle, but now it surged—unbidden, merciless.

The image of Vessel’s wristbones in the firelight blurred into pale skin on tile.
The soft sigh over tea became a rattled, broken breath.
The sight of him walking down the hall twisted into him lying motionless behind a locked door.

II’s heart clenched. He closed his eyes, but the memory forced itself in anyway.

The bag of takeout swung warm against his leg as II climbed the familiar stairwell. He hadn’t texted ahead. He wanted to surprise him; they’d both been having a rough time recently, hardly seen each other between II working overtime and Vessel cramming through recordings and books alike for midterms. A night in with the rare treat of their favorite restaurant would help

The hallway was quiet, his own footsteps echoing. The door was locked, as usual. II balanced the bag against his chest, fiddled his lanyard for the spare key Vessel had pressed into his hand months ago with a muttered “ ‘s not just for emergencies, yeah?”.

Inside, the air was too still.

“Ves?” he called softly, nudging the door shut with his heel.

No answer.

The lights were low, one lamp buzzing faintly in the living room. On the small kitchen table sat a single sheet of paper, folded in half. His name written across the front in Vessel’s chickenscratch handwriting.

The bag slid from his hand, hitting the floor with a thud that sounded far too loud.

His pulse roared in his ears. He already knew.

II’s hands shook as he opened it.

Not a note. A letter. Pages and pages. Not explanation but confession—memory after memory, written in the rush of a hand that had never lingered this long on paper before. Every smile they’d shared, every quiet night and every morning after, every weekend trip to a concert and walk to the corner store. Everything, from primary school through to the good morning texts they’d sent this morning. Words he had never spoken aloud: love. love. Love. Love.

The edges blurred as tears pricked his eyes. He didn’t finish the last line before the sound reached him.

A faint, wet choke. From the bathroom.

“Ves—”

The letter slipped from his fingers as he ran.

The door resisted, locked. He slammed his shoulder into it once, twice. On the third, it gave, crashing open against the wall.

And there—on the tile, crumpled, pale, his chest rising shallowly, his eyes wide but glassy. A broken razor on the floor beside him, blood streaked along the porcelain sink, the trash can, the floor, his wrist. Too much of it.

For a split second, time froze. The world muted. II saw him, not as he was but as if through every memory at once: laughing in a kitchen, humming while tying his shoes, arguing over movie choices. Alive. Always alive.

Then it snapped back.

“Ves!” II dropped to his knees, hands reaching but afraid to touch. Vessel’s gaze flickered—recognition, fear, shame, pain, all tangled—but no words came. His lips parted around a soundless breath.

II pressed trembling hands to the wound, desperate, useless. “No, no, no, stay with me, please—fuck—don’t close your eyes.”

His vision blurred. He pressed his forehead to Vessel’s, near yelling in his face in panic. “I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re not leaving me like this, Ves, you can’t—”

Vessel’s breath rattled. His lashes fluttered once, twice. II thought he felt a faint squeeze against his palm, but maybe it was his own shaking.

The sirens in his head drowned out everything else.

The bathroom door creaked open.

II blinked hard, yanking himself out of the memory, the phantom weight of that night still pressing at his chest. His hands had curled into fists against his knees without him realizing. He forced them open, nails leaving crescents in his skin.

“Love?” Vessel’s voice was soft, careful.

II looked up. Vessel stood in the doorway, hair damp around his temples from washing up, a faint line of concern between his brows. He didn’t ask what II had been thinking about. He never did.

Instead, Vessel crossed the room and sat down, closer than he needed to. His body was warm, solid, smelling faintly of soap and incense. Without a word, he tugged II gently until his ear rested against his chest.

The steady thump of his heartbeat filled II’s head.

II exhaled, ragged, the tension in his shoulders loosening under the weight of that sound. Alive. Here. Not a memory, not a body on a dingy laminate bathroom floor.

Vessel’s hand stroked the back of his head once, then settled there. “You’re with me,” he murmured.

II nodded against him, eyes closed. He didn’t trust his voice not to break.

Vessel knew the calendar. He always did. He never spoke of it aloud, but he knew. And every year, when II slipped pale and haunted into himself, Vessel met him there—not with questions, not with prying, but with presence. With heartbeat and warmth and breath.

II clung tighter than he meant to, his arms wrapping around Vessel’s waist. Vessel held him just as firmly, humming under his breath, a low melody that wavered but stayed.

Alive. Here. His.

The manor always felt different in autumn. The walls seemed to hold onto the rain-slick chill, carrying it down the halls no matter how many candles they lit or how high the fire climbed in the hearth. The smell of wet leaves drifted in through the cracks of the old windowpanes, mixing with incense and the faint tang of wax.

II felt it settle deep in his bones, heavy, dragging.

The days blurred, measured less by clocks than by the household’s rhythm. Morning tea steaming on the table. The hum of Vessel’s voice drifting through the rooms, tuneless, grounding. III’s guitar clattering into chords at odd hours, filling the silence. IV’s measured footsteps as he crossed the house, steadying the air like punctuation.

They didn’t say it aloud, but they adjusted around him.

When II couldn’t rise from bed, Vessel shifted the entire center of gravity to the bedroom. He curled close, notebook balanced on his knees, writing in quiet loops. Sometimes he hummed just loudly enough for II to focus on the vibration through his chest. His thumb stroked against II’s wrist absently, over and over, until II’s thoughts slowed enough to breathe.

When II did make it downstairs, III always seemed to appear with something warm in his hands—tea, broth, sometimes a mug of hot chocolate too sweet to be accidental. He leaned over the back of II’s chair, chin on his shoulder, talking about nonsense until the tension in II’s jaw eased.

IV was quieter in his caretaking. He’d lay a hand on II’s shoulder before pressing a plate into his hands, no room for refusal. He checked the locks before bed, restocked the incense without being asked, pressed a folded blanket against II’s side when he saw him sit too still in the cold.

The house itself carried them. Candlelight flickering over carved beams, warmth pooling in the kitchen after baking bread, firelight spilling across the rug in the evenings where they all inevitably ended up tangled together. The weight of the place wasn’t oppressive. It was anchoring .

II hadn’t asked for any of it. He rarely did. But he didn’t fight it, either. He couldn’t.

The weight pressed down, but the world around him—Vessel’s warmth, III’s laughter, IV’s steadiness, the walls of the house itself—pressed back.

The rhythm of care had settled into something so natural it almost frightened him.

Dinner had been simple—roasted vegetables, bread still warm from the oven, the faint sweetness of honey butter melting across the crust. He hadn’t wanted it at first. His body felt like stone. But III pressed a fork into his hand with a crooked grin and a muttered, “Don’t make me chew it for you,” and II had managed a few bites before the heaviness ebbed.

Afterward, they’d drifted to the sitting room. The hearth glowed with a low fire, filling the air with smoke-sweet warmth. Vessel had tucked himself against II’s side on the couch, his weight subtle but deliberate. His thumb moved in small arcs over the back of II’s hand where it rested on his knee, grounding him without comment.

III and IV sat cross-legged on the rug, bickering softly over some chord progression, voices a comfortable drone. The candlelight haloed them both in shades of gold and shadow.

It should have been enough.

But in the quiet moments, when III’s voice dropped and Vessel’s breathing slowed against his shoulder, II felt the edges fray.

The taste of tea lingered at the back of his throat. The fire cracked, too loud. Vessel hummed faintly under his breath—just a thread of melody—and the sound twisted in II’s chest until he had to swallow hard, as if he could force the ache down.

He kept his gaze fixed on the flames. The crackle blurred into silence. The light blurred into the buzz of a lamp.

The warmth of Vessel’s weight against him blurred into the absence of it.

He could feel it happening, like a tide dragging him under: the pull toward memory. No amount of journaling, no amount of breathing exercises could stop the undertow once it caught him.

The fire popped. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them, it wasn’t firelight on the rug anymore. It was lamplight across an empty apartment. The smell wasn’t smoke and bread. It was metal. Cold tile.

The letter, waiting on the table.

The silence of a place where someone should be.

And II’s heart, hammering because he already knew.

The waiting room smelled like bleach. Not the sharp kind, not fresh-clean, but faint and stale, seeping out of the walls, caught in the fabric of the plastic-covered chairs.

II sat in one of them, knees too high against the molded seat, elbows digging into his thighs. The upholstery stuck faintly to the skin of his forearms where his sleeves had ridden up, tacky from the heat of his own sweat. A clock ticked somewhere—no, not ticked, clicked, a plastic sound each minute too loud against the hush.

Overhead, the fluorescents hummed in an endless drone. They weren’t white but a sickly yellow-blue, the kind of light that made the shadows under people’s eyes look deeper. It made his own reflection in the glass partition across the room look hollow, mouth pinched tight, eyes sunken.

Someone’s voice muttered low near the reception desk. A television played a news segment with the volume down too low to catch the words, only the cadence. Every sound folded over itself until the room became noise: the hum, the click, the shuffle of shoes, the rustle of a magazine page.

II bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. He thought if he kept that taste sharp in his mouth, he wouldn’t lose track of where he was.

When the door opened, it all stopped.

The doctor’s scrubs were wrinkled, the sleeves pushed up too high, pale wrist exposed where a glove snapped against skin. There were smudges—red-brown, faint, but visible. Blood. II’s eyes locked on them before he could help himself.

The doctor spoke, but for a moment II heard nothing. Just the hum of the lights, the metallic rush in his ears. He registered shapes of words only in pieces. We tried. … lost too much blood. … nothing more to be done.

The voice was steady, not unkind. But it had that practiced weight—gentle finality.

II’s hands curled into fists in his lap. His nails cut into his palms. He didn’t realize until much later that his knuckles had gone white.

The doctor kept talking. Protocol, paperwork, condolences. II caught only fragments, swallowed in the roar of his pulse. He stared at the gloves again. That faint rust smear. The wrong color for paint, too wet still to be rust.

The doctor left eventually. II didn’t remember what he said when they asked if he understood. Didn’t remember if he stood up right away or if he sat there another five minutes staring at the linoleum, following the pattern of gray flecks until they blurred.

He remembered one thing, though.

The way the air tasted in the back of his throat, dry and sterile.

The way his hands shook as if they weren’t his own.

And the words, in a voice that wasn’t quite his, echoing in his head:

He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone.

The cab driver said something halfway through the ride—weather, traffic, maybe a question—but II didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His throat felt tight, raw. He stared at the blur of streetlights, orange-white smears across the glass. They flickered like the hospital fluorescents, like the click of the clock still wedged in his skull.

When the cab stopped, he pressed a bill into the driver’s hand without looking at the amount. His legs didn’t want to move. He forced them.

The stairwell up to Vessel’s apartment reeked faintly of mildew. The bulb in the hall flickered, buzzing. He could see the police tape from halfway up—yellow and garish against the pale green paint of the walls.

Inside, the air had turned sour.

The investigators had already been through. The door stood ajar. There were muddy shoeprints on the carpet. The kitchen light was on, the table bare except for the letter he’d dropped there when he’d first found it. It had been moved. He knew because the crease was sharper, new fingerprints along the edge that weren’t his. They’d read it. They’d read every word meant for him alone.

His stomach turned. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, but nothing came up.

One of the officers asked him questions—name, relationship, when he’d last seen him, if there had been signs, if he’d attempted before. II answered automatically, the words spilling like stones from his mouth. They looked at him like they were waiting for him to crack. He didn’t. Not there.

He stared into the bathroom doorway from where he stood in the living room. Stared at the tiles. Too clean. Too white. The blood was gone. The bleach smell wasn’t. One of the cleaners shut the door when she caught him looking, nodded at him just once.

Back in the kitchen, the takeout bag sat on the floor beside the table where he’d dropped it. The grease stain had grown. It looked obscene, like a spreading wound.

Love. Love. Love.

The more he read, the less it felt like a letter. More like a ghost. Each sentence tugged something loose inside him—memories they’d lived, moments so small he’d forgotten until Vessel pressed them onto paper.

He didn’t remember getting home. Didn’t remember falling asleep. But when he woke, the dawn light through the blinds painted everything gray, and the letter was still clutched tight in his fist, crumpled at the edges.

His apartment was so quiet it hurt. No music, no kettle, no muttered complaints from the other side of the couch. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional groan of pipes in the walls.

He stayed in the same clothes for days, sweatshirt sleeves stiff at the cuffs from old sweat. The letter never left his reach. When he showered—rare, short, only when the smell of himself turned unbearable—it sat folded on the counter in a Ziploc bag, water beading on the plastic. When he slept—fitful, shallow, never long—it was in his hand, the edges bent into the shape of his grip.

The first calls came from the investigators. He answered because he had to. His voice sounded wrong to his own ears, flat, clipped. They asked about medical history, family, next of kin. He told them there wasn’t anyone else. Just him.

When he hung up, the silence was louder than before.

He didn’t eat. The takeout bag from that night sat slumped on the counter, unopened. He meant to throw it away, but couldn’t. It smelled like rot. He wondered if Vessel had eaten at all that day.

By the second day, emails came. The landlord’s message was perfunctory: lease termination paperwork attached, please return keys promptly. The dean’s email was more careful, laced with sorry for your loss and let us know if you need support. The floated idea of sending him a posthumous degree in the mail should have been sweet. He should have been there to get it himself. He closed the laptop.

By the third day, the funeral home called. He didn’t answer.

He couldn’t.

Instead, he lay on the couch with the blinds drawn and the letter pressed to his chest. His eyes burned but no tears came anymore. Only the pressure, like his ribs were iron bars around a furnace that wouldn’t stop.

For a moment—one awful, vivid moment—he thought about what it would be like to just stop. To let the silence pull him under. To follow.

But then the letter crinkled under his grip, the inked words of love, love, love cutting sharp against his thumb. It pinned him to the living, whether he wanted it or not.

The days smeared together. He couldn’t have said how many had passed, only that the light through the blinds changed shape—gold, then gray, then black, over and over until it lost meaning.

He had a funeral home’s brochure on the coffee table, creased where his thumb had pressed into it too hard. The rest sat in piles—letters unopened, messages ignored.

He told himself he’d get to it. Tomorrow. Always tomorrow.

That night, he drifted on the couch with the letter clutched in one hand. His body had grown light, detached, like he could float away if he let go of the paper. Sleep pulled at him in uneven waves, heavy then shallow, sweat gathering at his hairline though the apartment was cold.

The sound came soft at first: the scrape of a key in the lock.

His eyes snapped open. His heart lurched. For a moment he thought he was dreaming.

The door opened, hinges sighing. Someone stepped inside, hesitant, their breath catching in the quiet.

II pushed himself upright. The letter slipped from his lap onto the floor.

And there—by the doorframe, haloed by the dim light from the hall—stood Vessel.

Not Vessel as he’d last seen him, pale and still on the bathroom tile. Vessel alive, trembling, eyes too wide, swallowed in clothes that weren’t quite his. His hands shook where they gripped the strap of the backpack hanging off one shoulder.

“I—” His voice cracked, soft and uneven. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

For a heartbeat, II couldn’t move. His body locked between disbelief and rage, grief and desperate want. His chest felt split down the middle.

Then he was on his feet, crossing the room in uneven steps. Vessel flinched when II’s hand came up—too slow, too late to stop the sharp crack of palm against his cheek. The sound echoed in the apartment, louder than it should have been.

Vessel stumbled, fell hard to the floor. He didn’t get back up. Just sat there, wide-eyed, lip trembling, looking up at II like he deserved every ounce of it.

“How dare you,” II’s voice broke, jagged. “How fucking dare you. Who do you think you are coming here? You—” His throat closed, words strangled by the swell in his chest. He tried again, louder, ragged. “Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done? You left me. You made me—made me clean it all up, like it was nothing—”

His breath shook. The letter lay at their feet, a barrier and a wound.

Vessel’s eyes filled, but he didn’t defend himself. Didn’t try.

II’s knees gave out. He crumpled down in front of him, hands curling into fists against his thighs. Tears blurred everything into smears of light and shadow. “Why,” he gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me. Why didn’t you let me help. We—we were supposed to—” His voice cracked. “We were supposed to have a life, Ves.”

The silence stretched. Vessel’s breath came shallow, uneven, like he was afraid to use too much air. Finally, his voice wavered into the space, quiet, breaking:

“I was scared. I’m still scared.” His hands twisted in the fabric of his sleeves. “I fucked up so bad and it went too far and now — there’s something inside of me. I can feel it. I thought—” His chest hitched. “It said it would help us if I said yes. Protect you. Give us something better than this. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me. I just want you to be happy.”

II’s head snapped up. Vessel’s eyes met his for the first time in months—wet, raw, but steady.

“Please,” Vessel whispered. “No more lies. No more hiding. I promise. Just—just help me. Please.”

II stared at him, chest heaving. For a long, shaking moment, he hated him, loved him, wanted to shake him and kiss him both. His throat burned with everything unsaid.

Slowly, halting, he reached out. His hands hovered before settling on Vessel’s shoulders, shaking as much as Vessel’s were. He pulled him forward into a fragile embrace.

“Start from the beginning,” II rasped against his temple. “And you’d better fucking mean it this time.”

The house smelled like too many herbs when II finally stirred from where he’d been lying half-curled on the couch.

It was a simple smell, warm and domestic, almost jarring in how far it felt from the weight pressing on his chest. He blinked against the firelight — the glow had deepened orange as the logs shifted, the quiet pop of resin punctuating the low hum of music drifting from a speaker in the corner. Something easy, a loop of soft instrumentals.

Vessel was on the rug by the hearth, legs folded beneath him, sketching in his notebook with the edge of his pencil smudging faint grey along his thumb. He glanced up as if he’d felt II shift, eyes soft, his mouth curving just enough to look like reassurance.

“Food soon,” he said simply, voice hoarse with the quiet of the day.

II hummed, but didn’t answer. He didn’t trust his voice to stay steady.

From the kitchen came the sound of III narrating his every movement, exaggerating like a cooking show host. “—and now, the delicate art of cutting bread that isn’t actually stale, it just feels like it because someone left the bag open—”

“Don’t blame me,” IV cut in dryly. “You were the one who shoved it back in the cupboard without tying it.”

“Efficient storage,” III argued. “Minimal effort.”

“Lazy,” IV corrected, the thunk of a knife against cutting board punctuating his point.

Their bickering was background noise — familiar, grounding.

II rubbed at his damp face, elbows braced on his knees. He wanted to get up, to make himself useful, but his body felt like stone. Heavy, sunk with memory.

The couch dipped. Vessel had risen silently, sliding in beside him with his notebook still in hand. He leaned shoulder to shoulder, the warmth of him anchoring in a way words never could.

“Stay,” Vessel murmured, thumb brushing lightly over the back of II’s hand where it rested on his thigh. His touch was soft, almost reverent — no demand, just presence.

II swallowed, his throat thick, but let his hand turn so their fingers could tangle together.

The kitchen noises carried on: the hiss of a pan, the low hum of conversation. At some point, III leaned into the doorway, brandishing a wooden spoon dripping with broth. “Taste test. Or at least pretend to, so IV stops glaring at me.”

II opened his mouth to deflect, to retreat behind a joke, but Vessel beat him to it, deadpan: “If you give him food poisoning, you’ll be the one cleaning the floors.”

III grinned, undeterred, but retreated.

By the time bowls were set out, II found himself coaxed upright, guided by IV’s steady hand between his shoulder blades and Vessel tugging gently at his wrist. The four of them crowded around the table, not quite formal but close enough — mismatched bowls, spoons clinking, III still narrating in a way that earned him a half-hearted kick under the table from IV.

II ate slowly, each bite heavy in his mouth, but he ate. Vessel sat close enough that their knees pressed together, his own spoon moving almost automatically as if eating simply because II was.

It wasn’t until later — when the dishes were done, the fire burned low, and Vessel tugged him wordlessly back toward bed — that II realized what had happened.

Blankets piled high, the sound of III’s laugh still echoing faintly from down the hall, IV’s low reply chasing it. Vessel curled against his back, arms banded firm around his middle. His breath tickled at the nape of II’s neck, steady, grounding.

The anniversary still pressed heavy on his ribs. But unlike before, he wasn’t alone with it. The house itself, the warmth, the hands on his, the voices in the kitchen — all of it kept him tethered.

The house was quiet.

Not the kind of silence that pressed in uncomfortably, but a hush woven out of sleeping bodies and banked fires, of winter air brushing the eaves. III and IV had long since shut their doors, their muffled banter fading into dreams.

II and Vessel lingered in the sitting room, the last two awake. Vessel was curled sideways on the couch, legs tucked beneath him, a blanket pooled around his hips. He looked softer than he often let himself, watching the last of the embers shift to ash.

II knew before Vessel spoke. He’d felt it brewing since dusk — that subtle hum at the edges of the room, in his own chest, the glint in Vessel’s eye. Sleep’s summons.

Vessel turned his head, met his eyes. He didn’t have to ask.

II nodded, rising. “Come on, then.”

They went together. The old staircase creaked under their steps, but Vessel’s hand was steady where it brushed his, their little fingers twined together. When they reached the attic, the air shifted, cooler and sweeter with incense that had burned itself low, with candlewax softened against the wood. The altar waited.

For a moment, they just stood there in the hush, breathing. Then Vessel leaned in, pressing the gentlest of kisses to II’s mouth. It was not hungry or uncertain, not even romantic — just a seal, an offering, something steady.

“Stay with me?” he whispered, and eased himself down in front of the altar, guiding II down next to him. It was odd, not having III and IV in their spots, the two of them having gone to bed hours ago, but tonight’s calling was specific to II. Sacred just for him.

II’s chest ached. He smoothed hair from Vessel’s brow, lingered there as Vessel’s eyes slid shut. The tension bled out of him in increments, shoulders dropping, breath deepening. It was the most at peace he’d looked in months.

And then, not him.

Sleep shifted into the spaces between. Vessel’s chest rose and fell the same, but the cadence of his body changed — too still, too exact. His lips parted, six eyes rather than two blinking open with that double-toned depth.

“You came,” Sleep murmured, Vessel’s voice threaded with something eternal.

“I always do,” II replied, quiet, as if too loud a sound might disturb the fragile balance.

Sleep’s gaze softened as it sat upright. It tilted its head, and gave him a fond smile. Vessel’s, but not. “Tell me a story.”

II’s throat worked. “What do you want to hear?”

“Remind me how we met.”

The question was so startling in its simplicity, its humanity. It made II’s breath hitch. For a moment he almost corrected it — almost said, You weren’t there. It was him. It was us.

But he didn’t.

He swallowed, took a slow breath, invited Sleep into his lap with open arms. “Of course.”

He told the story as though it had always been all three of them, beginning to end. Of new couple moving into the flat above his, their son two years younger but half an inch taller; it had felt like miles at their tiny age. About books dropped in the rain, of stubborn glances, of a guitar he could never put down and a keyboard his own mother would have to hide the power cable to. Shooting up in height in the summer before secondary school, suddenly too tall for his coordination, too thin to be balanced, tripping over his feet and tongue in spades when he had tried to flirt with the pretty girls in class. Of laughter in kitchens and nights too long with coffee and illicit cigarettes and words unsaid.

As he spoke, Sleep leaned forward, eyes gleaming as though it was drinking in every word, as though it was truly remembering alongside him. Maybe it was.

“You loved me then, too,” Sleep murmured when he paused, lips curving.

“I did,” II said softly. “I still do.”

For a long time, they sat in that closeness. It wasn’t worship, not really. It was something else — something gentler. Two beings in one body, and him. Not quite Vessel, not quite not. But his. Always his. Sleep’s expression melted into something almost tender. It leaned closer, pressing its forehead briefly to his. 

Both of their eyes slipped shut when they leaned in for a kiss.

And when they opened, it was Vessel looking back — heavy-lidded, hazy with exhaustion and adoration all the same. His lips moved, shaping II’s old name silently. No sound came, but II felt it in his marrow.

II’s breath caught. His hand cupped Vessel’s face, thumb brushing against his cheek. He swallowed once, hard, and whispered Vessel’s old name — the one no one else spoke anymore. The one written on an occupied grave in Wales that no one but a minister had ever visited.

Nothing.

No flicker of recognition. Only Vessel’s slow blink, his weight leaning into II’s palm, too far gone into sleep to know what was asked of him.

II’s chest tightened with grief, sharp and aching — and then loosened, warmth flooding in its wake. His Vessel was gone, yes. But this one was here, and his all the same.

He gathered him close, easing his head against his shoulder, holding him steady as the night folded in around them both. “I’m here,” he whispered into his hair. “Always.”

Vessel sighed, his breath evening out, a steady rhythm against II’s chest.

And II let the ritual settle over him not as devotion, but as continuity: love, through every iteration, every loss, every return. Vessel and Sleep. One. His.

The morning came gray and slow, mist hanging over the garden. The house smelled faintly of coffee and toast — someone had been up early, though the kettle still sat steaming on the counter when II padded in, hair mussed from sleep.

III and IV were at the table, collaborating half-heartedly over a crossword. Their voices rose and fell like a familiar rhythm, not sharp enough to bite.

“Morning,” III said, though his eyes flicked over II with a careful sort of weight. Noticing the softer set of his shoulders, the absence of the haunted pallor that had lingered the last few days.

IV raised a brow. “You look less like hell.”

II snorted, grabbing a mug. “You’re looking gorgeous yourself today, babe.”

From the doorway, Vessel shuffled in, wrapped in a cardigan far too big for him, bare feet whispering against the floorboards. His eyes were heavy, but there was an ease to his movements that mirrored II’s. Without a word, he drifted to II’s side, tugged gently on his sleeve until II let himself be pulled down onto the bench beside him. Vessel tucked himself in close, cheek to II’s shoulder, like he was content to anchor him there.

Neither of them explained why. They didn’t have to.

III slid the crossword across the table toward Vessel. “Help us out. He thinks this six-letter word for devotion is ‘worship.’”

“It is worship,” IV shot back.

Vessel’s lips curved faintly, not even opening his eyes. “It’s love.”

The others looked at him. Then at each other. Then rolled their eyes but didn’t argue.

The kitchen filled with the quiet shuffle of pages, the smell of toast, the sound of the garden gate creaking in the wind. Nothing extraordinary. But it was enough.

II sipped his coffee, letting the warmth settle through him. Vessel pressed closer at his side, humming under his breath. III and IV bickered lightly again, voices weaving into the background.

For the first time in weeks, the weight in II’s chest eased, just a little.