Artemis➴

You roll your eyes but sit anyway. It’s easier than protesting. Music hums softly from the radio on the counter – something orchestral and sparse, not insisting on any words. The morning light comes through the window soft and low. In the glass, you catch sight of yourselves reflected: you sat at the table, him moving with a kind of absurd domestic purpose.

‘How’s your side?’ he asks.

‘Fine,’ you say, pressing your palm just below your ribs. The skin there is most smooth now, but it still feels like something’s lodged beneath it. Not pain, exactly, but more like a shadow of it. Spencer watches the movement. You drop your hand reflexively before he can comment.

‘I barely notice it,’ you add quickly.

He nods. It’s hard to tell whether he believes you or not. He slides one of the mugs toward you, then starts buttering toast with slow precision. This is how most mornings go. When he sits across from you, his knees bump yours under the table, and he smiles.

You eat quietly. He refills your cap without asking, pushes the butter closer, all part of a simple routine. You feel almost embarrassed by how much care surrounds you. When you’re done, you push back your chair and reach for the plates. He rises at the same time.

‘I’ll do it,’ he says.

‘You cooked,’ you counter, even though “cooked” feels too generous a word for toast and coffee. ‘It’s my turn.’

‘You’re supposed to be resting.’

‘I’m not an invalid, Spence.’

He folds his arms and tries not to smile. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

‘You’re not a medical professional,’ you tell him, taking the plates anyway.

He tries to intercept the plates from your hand, and suddenly you’re both at the sink, shoulders brushing in the small kitchen. Your kitchen is small enough that it doesn’t allow for distance.

‘Spencer,’ you say, turning on the tap. ‘Go sit down. I’ll be fine.’

You begin rinsing them. The motion feels good and grounding, despite the simplicity. You haven’t done much of anything lately that hasn’t involved being horizontal. The restlessness has been gathering under your skin for weeks.

‘I really don’t mind washing them,’ he says again. He leans against the counter beside you, body warm like the water. ‘You don’t need to rush into things.’

‘I’m not rushing. I’ve recovered. I’d like to start feeling normal again.’

‘Normal’s overrated,’ he says lightly.

‘Easy for you to say,’ you mutter, reaching for the sponge. ‘You’ve been getting up at six every morning like a functioning adult. I can barely make it through a cup of coffee without wanting to crawl back into bed.’

He watches you, more serious now. ‘You don’t need to try and prove yourself, you know?’

You hum faintly in acknowledgement. His eyes remain on you. You focus on the plates, on the sound of water hitting the porcelain, not wanting to admit what you’re really thinking.

Then he leans forward and presses a kiss to your shoulder. Light, almost absentminded. It knocks the air from your lungs all the same. You exhale slowly, shaky. He doesn’t linger on it, doesn’t even perform an acknowledgement of it. He steps away, giving you space and retreating to the sofa. You keep washing until the sink is empty. The apartment smells entirely of butter and coffee, and you feel marginally more human.

You dry your hands slowly, dragging the towel between your fingers until it’s damp. In the living room, Spencer has put on a documentary – something about whales, the muted colors of migration maps filling the screen while a man narrates patiently. His face is lit in the pale light. One of his hands curls loosely around his mug.

It’s almost comical how easily he’s slipped back into your space, how seamlessly his things have found their way back amongst yours. His charger is plugged in beside the bed, some of his books on the coffee table, his coat hanging beside yours. You thumb the seam of the towel and watch him with a familiar ache – not from your side this time, but from somewhere lower and quieter.

He should’ve gone back to Quantico weeks ago. You both know it. Instead, he’s been here, working from your living room, finding reasons to stay close. Whenever you’ve asked, he’s said, ‘We just haven’t had any new cases,’ which you know is a total lie. You’ve heard him consulting across the phone. The guilt tugs at you, even though he never does anything to make you feel it.

Spencer sips his coffee and tilts his head, something the narrator has said catching him.

 Spencer sips his coffee and tilts his head slightly, something the narrator has said catching him. His hair’s still slightly mussed and his bare feet rest against the cold floor. He looks over, catches your gaze, and smiles. You automatically cross the room and sink down beside him. He lifts his arm without even thinking. You tuck yourself under it. You slip your feet under his legs to warm them. He doesn’t comment, just shifts a little to make room. He combs his fingers absently through your hair.

On screen, the narrator is talking about humpbacks, their annual migration, how they travel thousands of miles only to return to the same waters again. For a while, neither of you speaks. The documentary moves from one ocean to another, projecting slow underwater footage.

You watch the shapes moving under the surface, the whales enormous and weightless, and say, ‘It’s kind of sad.’

‘What is?’

‘That they leave. They have to go so far away. Even if they come back, it’s never exactly the same place, is it?’

He shrugs lightly. ‘It’s just how they live. Leaving and returning. It’s part of their biology.’

You hum. You think it must feel strange, to always be drifting. You watch them glide. Your throat feels tight. It takes you a moment to realize what’s happening; the sadness is suddenly too large, and you find yourself crying soundlessly. You wipe at your cheek quickly.

Spencer notices and tilts his head, concern cutting across his features. ‘I didn’t realize you were so sentimental about whales.’

You let out a shaky laugh. ‘I’m not.’

He doesn’t push. He reaches out and brushes his thumb gently beneath your eye. He nods as if to say it’s okay. You nod back, though you’re not sure what you’re agreeing to. Maybe it’s just confirmation that the melancholy has little to do with whales at all.

After several minutes he says, carefully, ‘Do you want to go back to bed?’

You swallow. You don’t even know what emotion you’re crying about anymore.

‘Yes. I’d like that, thank you.’

The second night back home was the worst.

You woke to heat pressing against your skin, damp and stifling. For a moment you didn’t know where you were. The room felt unfamiliar, off-balance, too dark and too quiet. Your head felt heavy with fever, your mouth dry. Sweat clung to your neck and your hair curled against your jaw. The sheets were twisted around your legs, your shirt sticking to your back. Whatever they’d given you at the hospital had clearly worn off.

You reached blindly for a glass of water on the bedside table – instinct from the hospital – but your fingers met empty space.

That’s when the panic started – small at first. A pulse under your ribs that spread through your chest until it reached your limbs. The ceiling looked all wrong, too white and clinical. The shadows on the walls bent in strange directions. The radiator hummed with a mechanical monotony too close to the sound of hospital monitors.

You touched your hand to your side, feeling the press of bandages. Beneath, it stung. The pain was sharp, like you were being stabbed all over again. Your body hadn’t forgotten what it was like to hurt that way.

‘Spencer?’ you croaked. He’d been there when you went to bed – you remembered that. Now there was no answer.

You could almost feel the cold vinyl under your ribs again, the metallic taste of blood. You sat up too fast. The room tilted; dark spots flickered at the edges of your vision. Air wouldn’t move through you properly. It caught, or stuttered, or felt too thick. You pressed both hands over your ears to block out phantom noises – the shuffle of nurses’ shoes, the beep of machines.

The bed dipped under your movement, and for a dizzying moment you expected to see white walls and wires and blood spilling from your side.

Then the door opened. Light spilled across the floor, yellow and soft, and his voice came before his face did.

‘Hey, hey,’ Spencer said, stepping into the room. He had a damp cloth in one hand, a fresh glass of water in the other. ‘It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here.’

He set both things on the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed.

‘Can you look at me?’ he said. His palm found your cheek, guiding your gaze to his. His face was close and unblinking. ‘That’s it. Hi. You’re okay. Stay with me.’

You found yourself obeying. You fixed your gaze on the small, familiar, real details of him – the slope of his nose, the shape of his mouth, the faint line between his eyebrows that only appears when he’s worried. Gradually, your breath began to return, jagged at first, then steadier.

‘You were burning up,’ he murmured, taking the cloth and smoothing it across your forehead. ‘You scared me for a second,’ he admitted. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I was just getting something for your fever.’

You let him guide you upright, even though the motion made your side ache. You drank the water and swallowed two painkillers, the tablets catching in your throat. He took the glass when you were done and went to refill it. When he came back, you were lying on your good side, face turned toward the wall, the plaster cool against your forehead.

He sat again. He asked if you wanted to drink some more. You shook your head. You thought you’d be sick. He set the glass on the nightstand and folded his hands in his lap. He watched your breathing – counted it, probably, trying not to worry out loud.

The heat came in waves, spreading under your skin like it wanted to hollow you out from the inside. You could feel sweat pooling at your hairline, dampening the pillowcase.

‘You’re alright,’ he repeated. ‘The painkillers will kick in soon. Do you want anything else?’

‘No, thank you.’ A pause. ‘Well, maybe your hand, actually. If that’s okay?’

He didn’t hesitate. His hand found yours beneath the sheet, fingers cool against your fever-warm skin. He didn’t comment on how tight you were gripping him. His thumb moved slowly over your knuckles like he believed measured touch could regulate temperature, like he could smooth out the heat himself. You matched your breathing to his without meaning to. Your little finger linked with his and stayed like that for a while.

‘I hate this,’ you said, your voice barely audible.

‘The fever?’

‘No. The fact that everything feels like it’s happening again.’

He nodded once, not asking what you meant. You were grateful for that. He only said, ‘It isn’t,’ in that same quiet tone. The words helped enough.

You squeezed his hand tighter and breathed through the heat. He moved after a moment, just enough to lie down beside you. His had stayed in yours. He didn’t crowd you but positioned himself close enough so that he could remain a point of reference in the dark.

‘You should sleep.’

‘I’m afraid to.’

He didn’t tell you not to be. He didn’t tell you that the worst was over.

Instead, his hand shifted slightly, resting against your back through the thin fabric of your shirt. His palm moved in slow, steady circles that acted as a constant anchor. You felt the tremor in your own breathing starting to even out. The heat under your skin still pulsed and burned, but it no longer felt like it was swallowing you whole.

After a while, you said, barely above a whisper, ‘Can you—Can you touch my back? Properly. Under the shirt. Your hands are cold.’

He hesitated only for a moment and then his fingers brushed the hem of your shirt, lifting it just enough to slip his hand underneath. The shock of his cool hands made you shiver, but then the relief came. He traced slow, meaningless shapes across your back.

‘Better?’ he asked.

You nodded. ‘Yeah.’

His hand stayed there, moving lazily until your body began to loosen. You could feel yourself slipping under the surface of sleep. The last thing tethering you to consciousness was the cool rhythm of his hand against your spine.

Some part of you recognized the danger in how safe it felt. The soft, impossible sense of peace that only came from him always seemed to lead to heartbreak. You thought, vaguely, that you should resist it and keep yourself from leaning too far. But no.

If you were going to sink, you decided, you’d rather sink here. If you had to drown again – in memory, or fever, or in everything you were trying so hard to keep down – then at least you’d drown in him.

‘Can you tell me what’s on your mind now?’ Spencer asks, looking at you.

You’re lying on your back, legs stretched up against the wall, toes tracing idle patterns in the air. The sheets are warm beneath you. The room smells of coffee and clean laundry. Spencer had been half-sprawled across you for a while before shifting to give you space, and is now on his side beside you, one elbow propped against the mattress, fingers moving idly along the inside of your arm.

‘I’m thinking about how weird my legs look.’

He lets out a soft laugh. ‘Your legs look fine,’ he says. ‘I mean what’s really on your mind. I want to know.’

‘It’s nothing dramatic. Just—tomorrow.’

‘Ah,’ he says, without much drama.

‘I don’t feel ready,’ you admit. ‘Or, like, I do physically. I’m healed. Cleared. Fine. But every time I think about walking into that building again, I get this… sense of foreboding. Like everything’s going to fall apart.’

Spencer’s fingers pause, then continue tracing the length of your arm. ‘It won’t fall apart,’ he says.

‘You sound very sure.’

‘I am sure.’

‘Okay, maybe “falling apart” is dramatic,’ you say. ‘What I mean is: things will go back to usual, or whatever usual means for us. You’ll go back to work, and I’ll be back at work. And this—’ you gesture vaguely between the two of you, ‘—this month, will become something that never really happened. You’ll stop staying over. Or I’ll stop asking you to. And then we’ll be back to square one.’

Spencer looks at you, cataloguing every flicker of your expression. The room is warm and dim. The radio is still playing something soft in the kitchen, barely audible from here.

‘You think this is temporary,’ he says at last.

You stare up at the ceiling. Your legs are starting to tingle where they’re pressed against the wall, but you don’t move.

‘I think everything is temporary,’ you say quietly. He doesn’t try to disagree with the philosophy of it. He just shifts closer, keeps touching your arm. ‘It’s just—’ You sigh. You aren’t going to explain this well. ‘The last time things were good, they didn’t stay good. It never stays good. Life always happens, and then we… I don’t know. Fall out of sync.’

You lower your legs, bending at the knees. He moves aside to make room for you, and you roll onto your side, facing him.

‘And don’t promise that “everything will be fine,” or whatever,’ you add.

‘I won’t.’ His voice is calm and steady. ‘I know we’ll have moments where things are hard, or distant, or messy. That’s just how it goes. But I can tell you that I’m not planning on leaving if things become tricky.’

Your throat tightens. You swallow. The words feel like they’re dragging out of you, raw and uncomfortable.

‘I’m worried that once I’m better, you won’t know what to do with me.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been—’ You gesture vaguely toward him, toward the apartment, toward all of this, ‘—here. And attentive. And really, really great. But I keep thinking that once I go back to work, and I’m not… recovering, or fragile, you’ll realize there’s no reason to stay.’

There’s a long pause. He doesn’t look away. He barely even blinks.

‘You think I’m only here because you were hurt?’ he asks.

Your silence answers for you.

Spencer exhales slowly, like he’s being careful not to turn this into an argument. He sits up, folding his legs in front of him, and steeples his fingers together.

‘That night in the hospital,’ he says, ‘when they first told me you were stable, I couldn’t feel anything. Not relief. Not fear. Nothing. I was sitting in the waiting room and I was just—blank.’ His voice is quiet. He’s simply recounting, not performing. ‘And I realized it was because I didn’t know what I would do if I lost you. There wasn’t a version of my life that made sense without you in it.’

Your chest aches. Not in the physical way. Something older than that.

‘I didn’t stay because you were hurt,’ he says. ‘I stayed because I don’t want to do any of this without you.’

You look down, pressing your lips together, trying to steady something inside yourself. But it keeps unsteadying.

His hand slides up, warm and sure, to cradle your jaw. You close your eyes. His thumb moves slowly along your cheek.

‘I know you’re convinced that people leave,’ he says. ‘I know this time of year is immensely difficult for you. I know you think history will repeat itself, that it’ll be like your parents all over again. But you’re not them, and neither am I.’

‘I know. It just doesn’t feel like something I can logic myself out of.’

‘I’m not asking you to logic your way out of it. I’m just asking you to let me stay through it.’

Your voice breaks when you say, ‘Okay.’

He leans forward and presses his forehead to yours. It’s not dramatic. It’s not cinematic. It just feels like something real and ordinary and enormous. You stay like that, breathing the same warm air, until your chest stops trembling. Eventually, you lie back down. He fits himself behind you, arm slung loosely around your waist, his hand resting gently over your side. You hold his hand there.

For a while neither of you says anything.

In the other room, the whales keep moving. The morning keeps unfolding. And the world does not fall apart. Not today.

── three weeks later | december

The world does end on a Tuesday evening.

It’s raining, though it wasn’t meant to. The forecast promised a clear night, but instead the sky has opened without warning and now the street looks unfamiliar in the wet – like a place you’ve passed through in a dream but can’t quite recognise in waking life. The pavement gleams under the streetlights as you pass his car, unnervingly bright.

You’re already shivering when you reach his building, water dripping from your sleeves. You didn’t bring an umbrella. You didn’t think to. The moment the train doors opened, you stepped int the downpour and walked until you reached his street, your pulse beating a harsh, arrhythmic warning into your throat.

Spencer’s building looks different in the rain. You climb the stairs to his apartment, and the metal railing is cold beneath your hand. You haven’t been here in so long that it feels like someone has rearranged things in your absence. The hallway is too quiet. You wipe your palms against your jeans, but they stay damp.

You knock once. Then again, a little harder.

Silence.

You swallow and knock once more, calling out: ‘Spence?’

Nothing.

Your hands are shaking. You lean your forehead against the door. It feels cool and indifferent beneath your skin. The whole building feels as though it’s holding its breath, strangely quiet, as if Spencer’s presence was the only thing keeping this space alive.

Your breathing comes unevenly. You try to steady it, pressing your palm to your sternum as if you can physically force calm into yourself, but you body is already in motion. Spencer would know how to calm you down, but he isn’t here anymore.

You’ve been here before. Not here literally, not at his door, or in the depths of a panic attack, but in this headspace. The sickening sense of having gone too far without realizing it, of having stepped over a line you couldn’t see but should have known was there.

Your brain jumps to the worst possible place with the kind of speed that feels cruel: he’s inside. He can hear you. He’s choosing not to answer.

The thought hollows you instantly and then you’re knocking again, rapidly. Your knuckles sting at the impact, but you barely register it. You imagine him standing in the middle of his living room, motionless, listening. Deciding. Turning away. The image is so vivid that you feel like you could throw up.

Your phone is slick in your hand from the rain. You’re shaking so badly you almost drop it. You swipe at the screen, and his name is the first on the list. For a moment you hover over the call button, thinking: don’t embarrass yourself, don’t make it worse.

But then you press his name.

The phone starts ringing immediately, painfully loud against your ear. Each buzz feels stretched out, elongated past a reasonable point. Your breath stutters. You press the phone harder to your ear like you can force the connection through sheer will.

The hallway spins very slightly around you. Your heart keeps trying to fight its way upward, into your mouth. Your other hand grips the doorframe. Hard. As if the building might tilt and you’ll fall if you don’t anchor yourself to something solid.

Please pick up, you think. Please, please pick up.

Six days ago, Spencer had left for Delaware on a case. On his second night there, you were on the phone with him, ling sideways across the couch. His voice, even through the distortion, made the apartment feel less empty. He sounded tired – slow and soft, simultaneously working on the case whilst speaking to you.

He complained that the hotel bed wasn’t as comfortable as yours; you complained that the place felt too quiet without him there.

‘I hate calls,’ you muttered eventually, in a lull. The words fell out of you lazily. You flipped onto your back, so you were staring at the ceiling.

‘You can’t hate calls,’ he said. ‘Technology is literally your job.’

You let out a small laugh. ‘Mm. I can hate them,’ you said. ‘But I guess it’s better than nothing. It’s nice to hear your voice.’

‘You spoke to me yesterday morning.’

‘Exactly. It’s been over twenty-four hours. I’m well within my right to miss you.’

He laughed quietly, too tired to hide how fond he was. Then he went silent again, and you listened to him move around faintly on the other end of the line. The rustle of paper. The soft scrape of a chair leg. He was always like this when he was deep in a case: mind separated into small, precise compartments.

When he spoke again, his voice had softened. ‘Well, I miss you too. We should be wrapping up here by Monday. I can’t wait to see you then.’

You smiled into the phone. You felt warmth blooming in your chest, a pulse of uncomplicated affection. Then, without warning, something tightened in you.

‘Oh,’ you said. ‘I won’t be around Monday. I’ve got that trip.’

The line went quiet. You couldn’t tell if it was poor reception, or if he was distracted, or if something in him was shutting down. You prompted: ‘Spence?’

‘Hey, yeah. What trip was that again?’ he asked.

‘The seminar thing,’ you said. ‘The one in South Elroy. You know, the one me and Milo are presenting at. It was planned months ago. I’m sure I told you.’

‘Right. You did mention that.’

‘Yeah,’ you said, even though suddenly you weren’t sure you had.

He went quiet again. Then he said, ‘So you’re going with Milo.’

‘Yeah. It’s just two days. It’s work.’

Another pause. You could hear him shifting faintly on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sound of him thinking. You wished you could see his face. Calls were impossible – too full of gaps where assumptions rushed in to fill the space. You read his silence as loaded.

You had, in fact, forgotten to mention the trip. Not because you were hiding anything, not because it meant anything. It had simply slipped through your fingers while your life had been rearranging itself – between the breakup, and the aftermath, and getting stabbed, and trying to behave like a normal person again.

But Milo had been a quiet thorn between you for months. Neither of you had said much about it. At work, Milo made comments and little jabs about your relationship and had even tried to flirt with you the day you came back from medical leave. You could see how this might sound to Spencer: you, travelling with an ex, even for work. It was the optics of it. You knew this might feel like a betrayal.

‘It really isn’t a big thing,’ you said, which made it sound worse.

There was a faint rustle of movement from his end of the line. It sounded like someone getting up from a chair, papers shifting again.

‘No, yeah, I know,’ he said. ‘Hey, I—uh, I actually need to go.’

‘Oh. Okay. Sure.’

‘I’ll call you when we wrap up, alright?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

He said goodbye in a quiet, automatic sounding way, and then the lined clicked dead. You kept the phone pressed to your ear for a few seconds after the call ended, listening to the flat tone. It felt abrupt, like he’d reached the end of something and decided not to explain why.

You thought about sending a text, something small and neutral, but everything you drafted felt wrong. Eventually, you gave up and tossed the phone aside.

The seminar itself ended up being both uneventful and awful.

The conference room was small and drafty. Barely anyone showed up – maybe ten people in total. Milo, undeterred, behaved as though he were presenting at a global summit. He clicked through his slides with theatrical confidence. He kept touching your shoulder when talking about the Bureau. You shifted your chair an inch away, wishing for invisibility.

When it was over, you helped tidy cables, answered a few technical questions, tried to stay busy. Milo bragged nearby about his “innovation-first approach,” the phrase sounding emptier each time he said it.

Only one moment cut through the monotony: a tall, broad-shouldered Texan detective approached with sharp, incisive questions – about bias, liability, the moral architecture of the system. He seemed genuinely interested. He thought they could use a system like yours. You promised to send over some documentation. You were halfway through a debate on facial recognition when Milo tried to interject.

The detective left immediately. You felt a flare of satisfaction at Milo’s defeat.

On the way back to the hotel, Milo took the opportunity to engage in “proper” conversation. He remained clumsy and self-involved. In the lobby, he said, ‘You and that guy still doing that weird not-together-but together thing?’

You told him to drop it. He grinned.

‘You always liked a challenge, didn’t you?’

You, reluctantly, followed him into the elevator. He stood too close to you the entire time.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he said.

‘What question?’

‘You and—what’s his name?’ He knew the name. ‘Spencer? Still doing that, ambiguous thing?’

‘We’re together,’ you said, though the word felt fragile in your mouth, as if it might shred itself on the way out.

‘Right. Together. Sure.’

The elevator doors opened with a dull chime. He stepped out first. You wanted to let it go. You should’ve let it go. But you couldn’t quite swallow the defensive impulse.

‘What does that mean?’

He stopped in front of his door, keycard in hand, and shrugged like he was humoring a child.

‘Nothing. Just—he’s kind of neurotic, isn’t he?’ He slid the card into the reader. ‘And you… well. You’re you.’

You stared at him. Your stomach dropped in a familiar, nauseating spiral. You’re you. You knew what he meant. You’d heard variations of it your entire life – too sensitive, too reactive, too unstable, too something.

‘I don’t know why you say things like that,’ you said, just tired.

‘I meant it as a compliment,’ Milo said. ‘It’s just how you are. You pick the ones who need you. You go for the ones who are a little… volatile. Makes you feel wanted, right?’

Your stomach tightened. Milo went on, undeterred.

‘Which is fine. No judgement,’ he added. ‘It’s a personality type. You like to feel needed.’ His shrug was light, indifferent. ‘I was steady. Reliable,’ he tapped his chest with mock modesty, ‘though to you, that meant boring. But Spencer? He’s—what’s the word—mercurial. A little broken around the edges. And you get to be the thing that keeps him together. Makes you feel more necessary.’

You felt heat rising in your face. A humiliation you couldn’t quite place. It was like being seen and misunderstood in the exact same breath. You didn’t need Milo – Milo who didn’t know Spencer, who didn’t even really know you – picking apart your personality.

‘I’m going to my room,’ you said, and he simply smiled like he was indulging you.

He might’ve made another comment, but you didn’t hear. You felt something inside you locking up, hard and sharp and immediate.

Inside your room, you leaned against the door and breathed too quickly. Everything was unfamiliar. You felt vaguely unreal.

In the dark, you imagined Spencer in Delaware. You pictured him on an unfamiliar bed too, thinking about you and Milo, and what that meant, and what it didn’t. You pictured his hands curled loosely in the sheets, jaw tight. You pictured the quiet hurt of it.

You showered and crawled into the stiff hotel sheets. The hair was damp against your neck. You tried not to think about the work you had to complete tomorrow. Tried not to think about Milo’s words, also. They had started repeating themselves in the tone of your own thoughts, becoming as much your own analysis of yourself as his.

Your phone buzzed close to nine.

Spencer had messaged: Hey. Can we talk?

Just that. Those four words tightened around you like a fist. “Can we talk?” meant endings. Meant he had already made up his mind. Meant the thing you had predicted was finally happening.

You didn’t answer. You turned your phone face-down on the pillow beside you, like it made a difference. You tried to reason with yourself in that quiet, babbling way you do when panic pretends to be logic. But beneath every thought was something simple, old and familiar:

If you don’t open the door, no one can walk out.

You closed your eyes and pretended you didn’t feel the world shifting.

‘Hello?’ Spencer says, answering the phone now. His voice is warm with surprise.

‘Spencer—hi.’ You hear yourself, high and thin, like your voice is coming from somewhere outside you. ‘Can you let me in? I’ve been knocking. I know you probably don’t want to see me and you’re probably mad. I should’ve texted you back. I know I messed up again, with the trip—’

He cuts in, gentle but confused. ‘Wait, I didn’t hear you knocking. Hold on,’ he says, and you hear him moving around. ‘Did you say something about me being mad?’

Your throat tightens so suddenly it hurts. You squeeze your eyes shut, pressing your palm to the painted wood of his door as if you could will him to open it faster.

‘Yeah. Sorry. I should’ve mentioned about the trip. I didn’t keep it from you on purpose, I just… everything with Milo, and I spiraled, and—’

‘Okay. Hey. Slow down, I can’t tell what you’re saying,’ he says softly. ‘I can’t see you. Are you down the hall?’

‘No. No—I’m right in front of your door.’

A pause. ‘At my apartment?’ he says slowly.

‘Yes. Literally right outside.’

You hear a breath on the other end – half sigh, half surprise, and something else you can’t quite name. A beat passes. Then, quietly:

‘Honey.’ Your knees nearly give out. ‘I’m at your apartment.’

You blink. The hallway wavers slightly in your peripheral vision.

‘What?’

‘I’ve been here for the past day. I came when I got back.’

You pull the phone away from your ear and stare at the door like it’s personally betrayed you.

‘But…’ Your voice is small. ‘Why would you be at my place?’

There’s a real laugh from him now. Soft, disbelieving, affectionate in a way that makes your chest ache. ‘Because that’s where I’ve been living.’

And the thing is: he’s right. He’s been there every night for a month.

Most of his stuff is there. The rhythms of living together had become so natural you hadn’t even noticed the shift from “staying over” to “being home.”

You sit down right there in the hallway, back to the wall, dripping rainwater onto the floor. You make a noise that sounds like oh. It’s quiet and embarrassed. You feel wrecked in a way that has nothing to do with shame, but everything to do with relief. You’re quiet for a long moment, and then you let out a soft laugh.

Spencer asks, ‘Are you crying?’

‘No. I’m laughing,’ you say. ‘Because I’m stupid.’

‘You’re not stupid. Want me to come and get you?’

Your voice cracks as you nod. ‘Yes please.’

‘Okay. Give me twenty minutes.’

He finds you exactly where he said he would: sitting on the floor in the hallway, back against the wall, coat still damp. You look up when you hear his footsteps in the hall, and there he is, hair slightly windswept, pinks cheek from the cold. He takes one look at you and huffs out a laugh – not unkind, not mocking. A soft, incredulous oh, sweetheart kind of sound.

‘Hi,’ he says.

You let out a humiliated sort of groan and bring both hands up to your face, as though you could hide inside your palms. ‘Don’t.’

He crouches in front of you and gently pulls your hands away. His expression is warm and affectionate. A little bewildered, but there’s no distance in it, no hurt.

‘I can’t believe you came here,’ he says, smiling faintly.

You shrug helplessly. ‘I wanted to fix things before they got worse.’

‘Fix what?’ he asks, genuinely. ‘I was confused about what you were saying on the phone.’ He sits down beside you on the hall floor, the cold radiating up from the tiles. His shoulder touches yours. It’s light but it steadies you instantly.

‘You were upset. About the trip. And then you sent that text—’ You do a vague, spiraling gesture with your hands.

‘What text?’

‘The “Hey, can we talk?” text.’ You look at him like the words should be self-explanatory. ‘You don’t send that if everything’s fine. That’s a breakup text. I’ve used that before to break up with people.’

Spencer blinks. Then: ‘I literally meant can we talk? As in, were you free to call.’ He says it so plainly you almost want to press your face into your hands again.

‘Oh. Well, you shouldn’t send texts like that,’ you instruct him. ‘It’s ominous. I thought you were going to end things.’

‘Okay. Noted,’ he huffs a laugh. ‘Still, I don’t understand why I’d be mad at you.’

‘Because of Milo.’

His face scrunches, like he’s questioning if you’re serious. ‘God forbid you go on a work trip with… someone you work with.’

‘You should not be this forgiving.’

‘Forgiving you for what? You didn’t do anything wrong.’

You open your mouth. Then close it again. It’s painful how ridiculous you feel.

‘I thought you would be bothered by Milo. After the whole thing this summer. Plus, I did ignore you.’

‘Mm. Well, I didn’t think much of the text considering your technology aversion. And I know you don’t like Milo. You don’t even pretend to like him. I wasn’t worried. Should I have been worried?’

‘No! God—no. He’s so stupid.’ Against your will, you laugh. ‘I can’t believe you ever let me date him.’

‘I’m pretty sure I made my views on the situation quite obvious. But, hey, that’s all in the past, right?’ He gives you a soft look, nudging his shoulder against yours. ‘I’m sorry if anything I did stressed you out.’

‘It’s okay.’

He bumps your shoulder and takes your hand, and says something about getting you out of the hallway. He unlocks the door, and the moment it swings open, you’re hit with the stillness of a place that hasn’t been lived in. The air is slightly stale, and a fine layer of dust covers the kitchen counter. One lonely mug sits in the drying rack.

He takes your coat from your shoulders, shaking off the cold and damp. ‘Go shower,’ he says. ‘Warm up.’

The shower takes longer than it needs to. The tiles are familiar, exactly as you remember them, and it strikes you that you haven’t stood here in almost a year. The water takes a while to heat. You turn off the tap when the steam makes it hard to breathe and stand there for a moment, simply feeling the warmth.

Wrapped in a towel, you pad barefoot through the apartment. The air is cool against your damp skin. He’s sitting cross-legged at the end of his bed, a faint smile on his face that is the same as the one from the hallway but loosened, eased of confusion.

‘Hi,’ he says again, looser this time.

‘Stop saying hi,’ you murmur, laughing under your breath. ‘It’s making me feel like an idiot.’

You sit beside him, towel tucked lightly around you. There’s a moment of silence. You think you could leave it there – remain in the warmth of the present moment – but the thought sits wrong in your chest. Something in you resists it, the same old reflex that says you don’t get to just have this.

‘I don’t think you should forgive me,’ you say.

‘Ah,’ he says, slow and amused. ‘We’re still talking about this.’

‘Not just about the trip. I mean, everything. All of it. You shouldn’t let me back in so easily.’

Spencer looks at you the way someone looks at a puzzle they’ve already solved.

‘I thought we’d already gone over this,’ he says gently. ‘I forgive you. I’ve already forgiven you. And I’m going to keep doing that, probably. Because I know you. And I want you.’

You whisper, ‘I don’t understand why.’

‘You don’t have to. You just need to accept it.’

You let out a quiet, frustrated breath.

He watches you for a moment, then shifts closer, close enough that his knee touches yours.

‘Come here,’ he says.

He lifts one hand and touches your cheek with the backs of his fingers. Then he leans in a presses a kiss to your temple. Then another, just beside your eye. Then one at the corner of your mouth.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Proving it,’ he says, and his voice is light but his eyes are very serious.

He kisses your cheek, and your jaw. And the space just beneath your ear. It’s not urgent or claiming. Just… close. Just there. You can feel laughter building in your chest – not because it’s funny, exactly, but because it feels impossible to be wanted so tenderly.

‘Okay,’ you say, huffing a soft laugh. ‘Okay, I get it.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ he murmurs, smiling into your skin, and he keeps going. Slow, deliberate, almost methodical kisses.

You lean forward, resting your forehead against his. The towel slips slightly, and his hands come up to hold it in place. You breathe out his name without thinking, because it’s the only sound that fits, that needs to be said. The only thing you want. He looks back at you like there’s nothing complicated here, like it really is that simple: wanting and being wanted, can be easy, if you let it.

Something in your chest finally, finally loosens.

This time, you kiss him first. It’s soft, just like before, but more certain. Your hand slides to the side of his neck, his hair brushing your wrist. He responds immediately, fingers tracing your jaw, your shoulder, the warm skin of your collarbone. You can feel the heat of him through his shirt. The rhythm of his breathing matches yours almost perfectly. Your lips part slightly, and he leans into the space, kissing you while leaving room for you to lead and follow at once.

The towel falls completely at some point. His hands trace your sides and the small of your back. You shiver, a soft involuntary sound escaping your throat – relief, desire and affection all folded into one. The tension you’ve been carrying, the panic that chased you to his apartment, the fear of losing him again, it all seems to ebb a little with each press of his lips, replaced with a consuming closeness.

You straddle him, letting instinct draw you close. The world narrows until its just the two of you. You move together without rush, without urgency. Everything is quiet except the sound of your breathing, the give of the mattress beneath you, the soft laugh that slips from you when he accidentally bumps noses with you and apologizes into your mouth.

You guide him out of his shirt. His skin is warm under your palms, his heartbeat steady beneath your fingertips. You kiss along his jaw. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for months. Your hands wander over his chest, memorizing the familiar angles and planes you’ve loved before. His fingers trace circles at your waist, along your ribs, brushing your skin lightly, intentionally, as if every touch is a promise. Every time your lips part to catch his, his mouth is there, patient and sure, and it works, the way it always did.

You break for air, foreheads pressed together, hearts thudding in tandem. His hand drifts into your hair, tangling gently at the nape of your neck, and you press into him without thinking, letting the quiet heat of your bodies speak for you both. You move against him in tiny shifts, testing the space, adjusting.

The next few moments unfold almost wordlessly. The air between you grows heavy, close. Every motion feels deliberate: the slide of skin against skin, the careful rhythm you fall into together. His hand finds your hip, anchoring you there, and you lean into the touch. The room feels too small for how much space he takes up inside you.

It’s not rushed. There’s nothing frantic about it. The world narrows to a pulse, a pattern of movement you both understand without speaking. His fingers tighten briefly at your waist; you tilt your head back, eyes closed, the quiet sound of his name leaving your mouth before you can stop it. You stay like that for a long time, moving in sync, the kind of closeness that blurs the edges of everything else. It feels less like an act and more like an answer to a question neither of you had known how to ask.

You murmur his name when it’s too much, when the warmth and closeness feels overwhelming in the best possible way. He responds with a soft sound, a quiet laugh, pressing you closer, forehead to forehead.

When it crests, when the heat and intimacy become almost a physical pulse, he holds you through it. Fingers tangling in your hair, palms flat against your back, he anchors you. Your heart thuds against his chest; you press into him without hesitation. He whispers your name, and it vibrates through you.

The room is quiet and warm when it ends. Your cheek rests against his chest, the steady thrum of his heartbeat under your ear like an anchor. Your breathe in the faint scent of him, and for the first time in what feels like forever, you let yourself believe it: you can be loved. Fully. Without conditions. Without hesitation.

Your fingers trace idle patterns on his chest feeling the rise and fall with his breaths. You close your eyes, letting the silence settle around you, letting it seep into your bones. The panic, the self-doubt, the old reflex to push away – it’s still there, somewhere in the edges, but it feels smaller, manageable. He is here. He is steady. And he wants you.

You’ve said I love you before – but always at the wrong times. In arguments, when things were slipping, when you were frightened of losing him, when you didn’t know what else to say and just needed words. You said it like a rope you were throwing across a widening distance. But now you tell him with intention:

‘Spencer. I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ he says. The words come easy.

You smile, and add, ‘You called me honey earlier.’

He goes very still. His ears are already turning pink. He clears his throat, looking anywhere except directly at you. He mutters something about trying to be comforting. You grin and tell him that it was comforting, just unexpected.

‘Now you’re making me feel like an idiot,’ he says, nudging your knee lightly.

‘Aha.’

He considers you for a moment, thumb rubbing your shoulder, then asks, voice quieter now, the way people speak when they’re admitting to wanting something: ‘Did you like me calling you that?’

‘Yeah. I did.’

Spencer’s smile grows slowly, starting in his eyes first. He shifts closer, hand coming up to the side of your face, thumb brushing gently at your cheek. He kisses you once again, soft and close-mouthed.

‘Can I keep calling you that, then?’

‘If you want to. I’d like that. It was nice.’

For the first time in a long time, there is no panic. No anticipation of loss. No rehearsing of disaster.

Things are not perfect, but they are good.

a/n: wooooooooooooooweee if you made it here congrats, i feel like this one was a mouthful. i always finding myself being like more will be explained in future chapters and i feel like i need to stop doing that because that is quite literally how stories work.

ANYWAY, even though i created the character i am president of the milo haters club i swear this is the end of him (physically, at least). i don't think i have anything more to say, but i hope you enjoyed (and again sorry for how long this took good lord)