The Accidental Fan

He reaches the car and bends to toss his duffel into the backseat. It lands with a heavy thud - clothes, probably, and a laptop, and the thousand small things he's carried through airports and hotel rooms and green rooms for weeks. He straightens, meets your eyes again, and this time his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. But close.

"Hey," you say. Soft. Simple. Just your voice, no pressure behind it.

"Hey." His voice cracks on the single syllable, and he clears his throat, looking away. He pulls the door closed, and the overhead light dies, plunging you both into the dim glow of the dashboard. The seatbelt clicks into place. The silence settles around you like something physical, something you both have to adjust to.

You don't ask how the flight was. Don't ask if he's hungry, if he needs anything, if the press tour had been brutal, if the fans at the gate had been overwhelming.

Not yet.

You just put the car in drive and pull away from the curb, merging into the airport traffic with the ease of someone who's done this route a hundred times.

Beside you, Joe lets out a breath. Long. Slow. Like he's been holding it since he stepped off the plane.

The motorway unfurls in front of you, a ribbon of wet asphalt reflecting the red taillights of the cars ahead. Streetlights pass in rhythm, casting shadows that move across his face - illuminating, then hiding, then illuminating again. His profile. The slope of his nose. The dark circles under his eyes that you can see even in the fractured light. The way his fingers rest on his thigh, motionless, not tapping, not restless - just still in a way that feels wrong on him. Joe's hands are never still. They move when he talks, when he thinks, when he breathes. These hands are dead weight.

You glance at him. Look back at the road. Say nothing.

You pass an exit for a roadside restaurant you'd been to together once, months ago, before the tour had swallowed him whole. You remember him laughing at something you'd said, remember the way his knee had pressed against yours under the table. That version of him feels distant now, like a photograph of a person you used to know.

But you don't reach for the old version. You don't try to pull him back to a memory. You just drive, letting the silence be what it is - not empty, not heavy, just a space you can both exist in without performing.

Fifteen minutes pass. Maybe twenty. The motorway gives way to residential streets, familiar turns, the oak tree with the twisted branch, the corner shop with the flickering sign. Home territory. The last mile.

Joe shifts in his seat. You feel him looking at you before you see it- the weight of his gaze on your profile, studying you the way you'd studied him.

"You're not going to ask," he says. Not accusatory. Just observant, like he's testing a theory.

"I'm not going to ask," you agree.

A pause. The heating hums.

"Why?"

You consider the question. Take the last turn onto your street, the tyres crunching over gravel and fallen leaves. The headlights sweep across your garage door - closed, waiting, familiar.

"Because you'll tell me when you want to," you say. "And right now you look like you need to not talk more than you need to explain anything."

He doesn't respond. But you hear him breathe again - that same long exhale, like you've given him permission for something he didn't know he was asking for.

The garage door creaks open as you pull into the driveway, the automatic light clicking on, illuminating the cluttered space - your bike leaning against the wall, a stack of boxes you still haven't unpacked from when he'd moved in, the dusty shelf of tools he'd promised to organise. You pull in and cut the engine.

The silence changes. The absence of the road noise, the absence of movement - just the two of you, sitting in the dark garage, the engine ticking as it cools. The garage light hums overhead, fluorescent and unflattering, casting everything in a pale, washed-out glow.

Joe doesn't move to get out.

You don't prompt him. You sit, your hands still on the wheel, your gaze fixed on the wall ahead. You can feel him beside you - the heat of him, the weight of his presence, the small sounds of his breathing. You wait.

His hand moves. You see it in your peripheral vision - his fingers uncurling from his thigh, reaching across the centre console, finding your arm. His touch lands light, his palm resting just below your elbow, his thumb brushing a slow arc across the fabric of your jumper.

You turn your hand over, palm up, an invitation.

He takes it. His fingers intertwine with yours, cold from the airport, from the hours of holding nothing. His grip tightens. Holds.

"I missed this," he says, so quiet you almost miss it. "I missed-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again. "I missed being able to just... sit. And not have to be anything."

You squeeze his hand. Your thumb finds the inside of his wrist, the place where his pulse beats steadily against your skin. "You don't have to be anything here."

He nods. A single jerky motion. His jaw is tight; you can see it now - the muscle jumping along the line of his cheek, the way he's holding himself together by sheer force of will. You don't call attention to it. You just hold his hand, letting the silence do what conversation can't.

Two more minutes pass. The garage light clicks off, sensing no movement, plunging you into darkness for a beat before clicking back on. The cycle of it. The patience of it.

Finally, you hear him unbuckle his seatbelt. The sound is loud in the quiet - a sharp metallic click that signals a shift. But he doesn't move to get out. He just sits there, his hand still in yours, his gaze fixed on the garage wall.

"I'm glad you were the one picking me up," he says. His voice is rough. Tired. Real. "I don't think I could have done the small talk. The smile-for-the-camera routine. Not tonight."

"I know."

He turns to look at you, then - really look, his hazel eyes finding yours in the dim light. There is something raw in them, something unguarded, like he's forgotten to put the mask back on. You meet his gaze and hold it, letting him see that you see it, letting him know that you aren't afraid of what he's showing you.

"Come on," you say softly. "Let's go inside."

He nods. His hand slips from yours, and the absence of his touch feels like a small loss, a thread cut. He reaches for the door handle. Pauses.

"Hey."

You wait.

"Thanks. For not-" He gestures vaguely, a motion that encompasses the car, the drive, the silence, the whole evening. "For this."

You smile. Small. Warm. "Always."

He pushes the door open, and the cold air rushes in, sharp and clean, carrying the smell of wet leaves and winter. You watch him step out, watch him walk to the back of the car to grab his duffel, watch the way his shoulders straighten as he stands - not in performance, but in preparation. The small gathering of himself before the next threshold.

You unbuckle your own seatbelt and follow.

The cold hits you the moment you step out - a January bite that finds the exposed skin at your wrists and the back of your neck. You pull your jumper tighter around yourself, the wool scratchy against your palms, and round the front of the car. Joe stands at the back, his duffel slung over one shoulder, his other hand resting on the open boot as if he needs something to anchor himself to.

The garage light hums above you, casting long shadows across the concrete floor. Your bike leans against the wall, a spiderweb glistening in the corner, the stack of boxes still waiting to be unpacked. You'd meant to organise them while he was gone. Hadn't found the energy. Now you're glad - the familiar clutter feels like proof that life has continued here, ordinary and unglamorous, waiting for him to return to it.

You walk towards him, your feet silent on the cold concrete. He doesn't look up until you're close enough to see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way his stubble has grown past careful into something rougher, less tended to. He'd stopped shaving mid-tour, probably. You've seen the photos - the carefully curated scruff that looks good under studio lights. This is different. This is neglect. This is a man who's stopped bothering with the small rituals of upkeep because he's too exhausted.

"You want me to grab anything?" you ask, nodding at the duffel.

He shakes his head. "Got it."

You don't argue. You step back, giving him room, and watch as he closes the boot with his free hand. The sound echoes in the garage - metal meeting metal, final and dull. He stands there for a moment, hand still resting on the closed boot, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. You see the crease between his brows, the one that appears when he's thinking too hard, when he's trying to solve a problem that doesn't have a solution. It's deeper than she remember. More permanent.

You wait.

His hand drops from the boot. He turns towards you, and for a second, something passes across his face - a flicker of uncertainty, as if he isn't sure what comes next, as if the script he's been following for weeks has run out of pages. You know that look. Have seen it before, in the early days, when he'd first started staying over and didn't know the rhythm of your place yet. He's learning a new space again. The space of being home.

"The light," he says, gesturing with his chin toward the automatic sensor. "It keeps turning off."

You glance up at the fixture. "Yeah. The sensor's been acting up. I keep meaning to replace it."

"I can do that."

"You don't have to."

"I know." He shifts the duffel on his shoulder. "I want to."

It's such a small thing - replacing a light sensor. But you hear what he isn't saying: he wants to do something useful. Wants to feel like he belongs here again, like he has a role to fill beyond the one he's just left. You understand. You feel it yourself, after long trips, the need to reassert your place in your own home by touching things, fixing things, making them yours again.

"Okay," you say. "We'll drive to the hardware store tomorrow."

A ghost of a smile crosses his face. There and gone. But you see it.

The garage light clicks off, plunging you into darkness for a moment before the sensor catches your movement and clicks back on. You think about how many times you've stood here alone, waiting for the light to come back, and how different it feels with him beside you.

"Ready?" you ask.

He takes a breath. Lets it out. Nods.

"Yeah."

You turn towards the door that leads into the house - the familiar wood with the scratched paint near the handle, the one you've been meaning to repaint for a year now. You read for the knob, and behind you, you hear Joe's footsteps on the concrete, following.

The key turns in the lock. The door swings open, revealing the dark hallway beyond, the faint outline of the coat hooks, the pile of mail you'd left on the entry table. Home. Waiting.

You step inside and hold the door open for him.

The door clicks shut behind him, the latch settling into the frame with a sound you've heard a thousand times but never noticed until now. The hallway light is off - you hadn't switched it on, relying on the spill from the garage through the small window near the top of the door. It casts a thin, bluish rectangle across the floorboards, illuminating the dust motes that drift in the still air.

Joe stands just inside the threshold, his duffel still slung over one shoulder, his free hand resting on the doorframe as if he needs to brace himself against the act of crossing. The garage light flickers behind him, the faulty sensor cycling through its familiar rhythm - on, off, on - before finally settling into a steady hum.

You toe your shoes off and let your keys fall into the ceramic dish on the entry table. The sound is small, ordinary, the kind of noise that belongs to this house and this life. The pile of mail you'd left there - a utility bill, a flyer for a new pizza place, a postcard from a friend travelling in Portugal - shifts slightly under the weight. You don't look at it. You look at him.

His eyes are on the floor, on the worn boards near his feet, on the spot where the finish has worn thin from years of footsteps. His chest rises and falls with a breath that seems to cost him something. The duffel's strap cuts into his shoulder, pulling his shirt collar askew, revealing the edge of a collarbone you want to touch but don't.

You turn to face him fully. The movement is unhurried, a rotation that brings your shoulders square to his, your feet planted on the cold floor. Your socks make no sound against the wood. The house is quiet around you - the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, the distant tick of the wall clock in the living room, the small settling sounds of a building adjusting to the winter night.

You open your arms.

No words. No explanation. No "come here" or "it's okay" or "let me hold you." Just your palms turning upward, your elbows bending, your chest opening in an invitation that asks for nothing in return. The gesture is simple, almost casual - the same way you might reach for him on the couch or in bed - but there is a stillness in it that makes it something else. Something deliberate. Something offered.

He stares at your hands.

For a long moment, he doesn't move. His gaze travels from your palms to your face, and you see the question in his eyes - the wariness of someone who's been performing so long he's forgotten how to accept something genuine. His jaw works. The muscle along his cheek jumps once, twice. His hand tightens on the doorframe.

You don't lower your arms. You don't fill the silence with reassurance. You just stand there, your palms open, your breath steady, your body saying the only thing that matters: I'm here. I see you. You don't have to earn this.

The duffel slides off his shoulder.

It hits the floor with a heavy thud - the sound of clothes and a laptop and the accumulated weight of weeks on the road landing in a heap on the entryway floorboards. He doesn't look at it. Doesn't reach for it. He just lets it lie there, a discarded shell, and takes a step towards you.

The distance between you closes in increments you can measure in heartbeats. One step. His hand leaves the doorframe. Another step. His shoulders curve forwards, the posture you'd seen in the airport, the one that says he's trying to take up less space than he needs. Another step. His breath hitches - just once, a small catch in the rhythm of his breathing, the kind of sound a person makes when they're trying very hard not to fall apart.

You hold your ground. Your arms stay open. Your palms stay turned towards him, empty and waiting.

He crosses the last inch of air between you.

His body meets yours with a force that surprises you - not impact, but surrender. The full weight of him falling forward, his chest pressing against yours, his arms wrapping around your waist with an almost desperate grip, his face burying into the curve of your neck. His knees buckle slightly, and you feel him sag against you, all the tension he's been carrying for weeks finally finding somewhere to land.

Your arms close around him.

The fit is familiar - the width of his back, the slope of his shoulders, the way his head fits perfectly into the hollow of your throat. You've held him a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, but this is different. This is a homecoming. This is him trusting you with the part of himself he shows no one else.

His hands press flat against your lower back, fingers spreading, gripping the fabric of your jumper as if he's afraid you might disappear. His breath is warm against your neck, uneven, coming in jagged fragments that you feel more than hear. He isn't crying - not yet - but there is a tremble in his body, a fine vibration that runs through his muscles like a current, the aftermath of holding himself together for too long.

You rest your cheek against the side of his head. His hair is soft against your skin, still carrying the faint smell of airport air - recirculated oxygen and jet fuel and the synthetic freshness of a plane cabin. But underneath it, there is him. The familiar scent of his skin, the one you've missed in the weeks he's been gone, the one you've caught yourself searching for on his pillow when you can't sleep.

Joe's forehead finds your shoulder. The gesture is instinctiv - a seeking, a settling, a final surrender of the last defences he's been holding. His nose presses into the fabric of your jumper, and you feel the warmth of his breath through the wool, a rhythmic pulse that begins to slow as the seconds pass.

Your hand moves up his spine, fingers trailing over the ridges of his vertebrae, counting them the way you've done a hundred times before. You reach the nape of his neck, where his hair grows softer, and the skin is warm, and let your palm rest there. A grounding point. An anchor.

He makes a sound against your shoulder. Not a word. A small, broken thing, half exhalation and half sob, muffled by the wool of your jumper. You feel it more than hear it - the tremor that passes through his chest, the way his arms tighten around your waist, the way his body presses closer, as if he's trying to climb inside your ribcage and live there.

You don't say anything. Don't shush him. Don't tell him it's okay. You just hold him, your palm warm against his neck, your other hand resting flat on his back, feeling the rhythm of his breathing against your palm. Letting him take what he needs.

A minute passes. Maybe two. Time loses its edges in the dim hallway, the only light the pale rectangle from the garage window, the only sound the soft rustle of his breathing and the distant hum of the fridge. The duffel lies at your feet, a dark lump on the floor, forgotten. The pile of mail remains untouched on the entry table. The coat hooks cast a long shadow against the wall, and somewhere in the living room, the clock ticks forward, measuring time you aren't paying attention to.

Joe's grip loosens. Just slightly. His hands relax from fists into flat palms, the tension draining out of his fingers in stages. His forehead stays pressed against your shoulder, but his breathing has steadied, the jagged edges smoothing into something closer to sleep than distress.

You turn your head, just enough to press your lips to his hair. The kiss is light, barely there, a brush of warmth against the crown of his head. You let your mouth linger for a moment, breathing him in, before pulling back to rest your cheek against him again.

His hand moves. The one that had been gripping the small of your back slides around your hip, his fingers finding the hem of your jumper, slipping underneath to touch the bare skin of your waist. His palm is cold - the cold of the airport, of the car, of the walk from the garage - but it warms quickly against your body, his fingers pressing into your skin with a gentleness that feels like a question.

You answer by pressing closer. By letting your hand slide from his neck to his jaw, your fingertips tracing the line of his stubble, the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the soft skin beneath his eye. He closes his eyes at the touch - you feel the flutter of his lashes against your fingertips - and lets out a breath that seems to carry the last of the tension from his shoulders.

The duffel lies on the floor. The door is closed. The garage light has clicked off, finding no movement, and the hallway is dark except for the thin seam of light beneath the door. You stand in the shadow, two bodies learning each other again, the silence between you filled with everything you haven't said and don't need to.

His thumb traces a slow arc across the skin of your waist. A single motion, repeated once, twice, three times. A pattern. A reassurance. A way of saying I'm here without using words he doesn't have.

You let your fingers drift into his hair, combing through the tangled strands, working out a small knot near the base of his skull. He leans into the touch, his weight shifting further into you, and you feel the last of the resistance leave his body - the final surrender of a man who has finally, fully, come home.

His forehead is warm against your shoulder. His breath is slow and even, warming the fabric of your jumper. His arms are loose around your waist, no longer gripping, just resting, just holding.

You hold him back.

The duffel waits on the floor. The mail waits on the table. The rest of the house stretches out behind you - the kitchen with its unwashed dishes, the living room with the blanket still draped over the couch where you'd slept some nights, the bedroom with the bed you'd made that morning, not knowing when he'd be in it. All of it waiting. All of it patient.

But here, in this dim hallway, with his weight against you and his breath in your hair, nothing else exists. Just this. Just you. Just the slow, steady rhythm of two people breathing together, the silence holding you like a room with no walls.

His voice comes finally - rough, barely above a whisper, muffled against your shoulder.

"Can we stay like this?"

Your arms tighten around him once - a squeeze, a confirmation, a promise sealed without words. Then you pull back just enough to look at him, your hands sliding from his back to his shoulders, your fingers tracing the line of his collarbone before coming to rest on his chest. His eyes are still closed, his forehead still pressed to your shoulder, his breath warm against the column of your throat. You let your gaze travel over him - the dark crescents beneath his lashes, the slight part of his lips, the way his features have softened into something almost childlike in their surrender.

"Yes," you say. The word is quiet, barely more than a breath, but it lands in the space between you like a stone dropping into still water. "We can stay like this."

Joe's hand presses flat against your lower back, a small acknowledgement, a thank-you spoken through his palm.

You let the silence hold you for another moment - one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more second of the world reduced to the warmth of his body against yours. Then your hand moves. Slides from his chest to his shoulder, down his arm, your fingers trailing over the fabric of his jacket until you reach his wrist. You wrap your hand around it - not gripping, just holding, your thumb resting in the hollow where his pulse beats steady and slow.

"Come with me," you say.

He opens his eyes. Lifts his head. Looks at you with that raw, unguarded gaze that makes your chest ache. There's no question in his expression, no hesitation - just a quiet trust, the kind that comes from knowing he doesn't have to understand where you're going, only that you're leading.

You tug gently. A small pull, an invitation. His feet move, following your lead, his hand turning beneath yours so his fingers can intertwine with yours. The duffel lies forgotten on the floor behind you, a dark lump in the dim light. You don't look back. Neither does he.

You step past him, turning towards the living room, your fingers still laced with his. The hallway is narrow - familiar, worn, the walls close enough that your shoulder brushes against the textured wallpaper as you pass. A photograph hangs crooked on the wall, a candid shot of you at a farm shop last summer, his arm around your waist, your head thrown back in laughter. You meant to straighten it. Never have. Now it feels right, that small imperfection, that proof of a life lived without posing.

Joe's footsteps follow yours, unhurried, the soft scuff of his sneakers against the floorboards. His grip on your hand is loose but present - a connection, not a restraint. You can feel his gaze on the back of your head, on your shoulders, on the curve of your spine as you lead him forwards. You don't turn around. You let him look. Let him find his way back into this space through the shape of you.

The hallway opens into the living room, and you feel the shift in the air - the change from the narrow corridor to the broader space, the warmth of the radiator clicking in the corner, the faint smell of the candle you'd burned earlier that evening. The curtains are half-drawn, letting in the pale glow of the streetlight, casting long rectangles of gold across the hardwood floor. The room is quiet in the way only a room that has been empty for weeks could be - a stillness that feels like waiting, like the furniture has been holding its breath for Joe's return.

The couch sits against the far wall, the same one you'd bought together at a thrift store two years ago, its faded blue upholstery worn soft from use. The blanket you've been using is draped over one arm, a cream-colored throw that has pooled on the cushions when you'd gotten up for water and never folded. A mug sits on the side table, cold now, a ring of coffee staining the wood. You'd left your book face-down on the armrest, spine cracked, page marked, a life paused in the middle of a sentence.

You stop at the edge of the rug - the threadbare Persian one you'd found at a car boot sale, the one with the faded medallion pattern that Joe always says looks like a target. He'd laughed the first time he saw it. You remember the sound. Remember wanting to bottle it.

You turn to face him.

He stands a step behind you, still holding your hand, his shoulders curved in that posture you've come to recognise as his default after long days. The streetlight catches the side of his face, illuminating the sharp line of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the way his hair falls across his forehead in tangled strands. His eyes are on you, soft and dark and full of something he isn't saying.

You lift your joined hands and press a kiss to his knuckles. The gesture is small, almost unconscious, but you feel his breath catch - a tiny hitch, a moment of surprise at being touched so gently, at being treated like something precious.

"Sit down," you say. "I'll get you some water."

He shakes his head. "Don't-" His voice cracks again, and he clears his throat, looking down at your hands. "Don't leave."

The words hang in the air between you. Simple. Bare. A confession of need dressed as a request.

You let go of his hand and reach up, your palms finding his cheeks, cradling his face with a tenderness that makes his eyes flutter closed. His stubble is rough against your skin, unfamiliar after weeks without touching it, but his warmth is the same, the fit of his face in your hands as natural as breathing.

"I'm not going anywhere," you say.

He leans into your touch, his hands coming up to cover yours, pressing your palms more firmly against his cheeks. A long exhale escapes him, carrying the last of the tension from his shoulders, and you watch him soften - watch the rigid lines of his posture melt into something pliant and trusting.

"Okay," he says. The word is quiet. Resigned in the best way, the resignation of someone who has finally stopped fighting.

You guide him backwards, your hands still on his face, your steps slow and deliberate, until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch. He drops onto the cushions without resistance, his hands falling from yours, his body sinking into the familiar dip of the seat you've spent hundreds of evenings on. The blanket pools against his hip, and he reaches for it instinctively, his fingers finding the edge of the fabric and holding it like an anchor.

You stand in front of him, looking down at the way the streetlight paints shadows across his features. He looks smaller here, in this room, in the context of your shared life - not diminished, but relieved of the weight of performance. The couch is too soft, the cushions too worn, and he's wearing the same band t-shirt he'd worn on the flight, the collar stretched, a small stain near the hem. He looks like he belongs here. Like he'd never left.

You move around the coffee table, your feet silent on the rug, and settle onto the couch beside him. Not too close - you give him space, let him decide how much contact he needs. But close enough that your knee brushes his, a point of connection he can choose to deepen or ignore.

He chooses to deepen.

He shifts, turning towards you, his hand finding your thigh and resting there with a weight that feels deliberate. His palm is warm through the fabric of your joggers, his fingers curling slightly, gripping the softness of your leg as if you're a fixed point in a world that has been spinning too fast.

"Can I-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again. "Can I put my head in your lap?"

The question is small, almost shy, and it undoes you in a way you don't expect. This is the same man who commands stages, who holds the attention of thousands, who has been photographed and interviewed and analysed from every angle. And here he is, asking permission to rest his head in your lap like a child seeking comfort from a nightmare.

"Yes," you say, and your voice comes out softer than you'd intended, thick with an emotion you don't try to name.

He moves slowly, the way a man moves when he's running on empty, his limbs heavy and uncoordinated. He shifts his weight, twists his torso, and lowers himself onto his side, his head finding your thigh with an accuracy that speaks of practice. He'd done this before - in the early days, when you'd spend whole Sundays on this couch, reading and talking and falling asleep in the afternoon light. His body remembers the shape of this position, the way his shoulders fit against the cushion edge, the way his spine curves to accommodate the length of the seat.

His head settles in your lap, the weight of it familiar and grounding. His hair spills across your thigh, dark against the cream fabric of your joggers, and you watch his eyes close as he lets out a breath that seems to carry the last of the day's defences with it.

Your hand finds his hair before you consciously decide to move it. Your fingers comb through the tangled strands, working through a knot near his temple with a patience that feels like a prayer. His hair is longer than it had been when he left - he hadn't gotten his usual trim before the tour, and it shows in the way it curls at the ends, brushing against his collar and falling across his forehead in waves you have to push back to see his face.

He makes a sound. A small, hummed note of contentment, the kind of sound a person makes when they're finally, truly comfortable. His hand finds your knee, his palm resting against the joint, his thumb tracing slow, absent circles on the fabric.

"I forgot what this felt like," he says, his voice muffled against your thigh. "Being cared about by someone who-" He pauses, searching for words. "Someone who isn't getting paid to do it."

You don't laugh. Don't brush it off with a joke. You just keep your fingers moving through his hair, your nails scraping lightly against his scalp in a rhythm you've learned from trial and error, from the nights he'd come home wired and unable to sleep, from the mornings he'd woken up with his head in your lap and asked you to stay there a little longer.

"I thought about you," he says. The words come out fragmented, like he's testing them as he speaks. "On the road. In the hotels. Between interviews. I'd lie in bed and try to remember what it felt like to just-" He gestured vaguely, his hand waving near his chest. "To just be held. Without the performance. Without having to give anything back."

"And?"

He's quiet for a long moment. His thumb stops moving on your knee. His breath evens out, slowing, deepening into something that sounds almost like sleep.

"I couldn't," he says finally. "I couldn't remember. I knew it existed. I knew I'd felt it before. But I couldn't-" His voice cracks, and he stops, pressing his face harder against your thigh. "I couldn't feel it."

You feel the wetness before you understand it - the warmth of a tear soaking through the fabric of your joggers, spreading against your skin. You don't look down. Don't call attention to it. You just keep your hand moving through his hair, your fingers steady, your touch soft.

"I'm here now," you say. "You don't have to remember. You can just feel it."

His hand finds yours, pulling it from his hair, pressing your palm against his chest. You feel his heartbeat through the fabric of his shirt - steady, strong, alive. His fingers curl around your hand, holding it there, keeping you anchored to the rhythm of him.

"I love you," he says. The words come out raw, scraped clean of performance, bare in a way that makes the air in the room change. "I don't say it enough. I don't- I don't show it enough. But I love you. And I-" He takes a shaky breath. "I don't know how to be the person who deserves the way you love me."

You lower your head, pressing your lips to his hair, letting the kiss linger. Your thumb traces the line of his collarbone, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath the fabric.

"You don't have to deserve it," you say. "You just have to let yourself have it."

His hand tightens on yours, and you feel the shudder that runs through him - a release, a surrender, a letting go of something he's been carrying for longer than you could know. You hold him through it, your body a container for his grief, your presence a promise that he doesn't have to carry it alone.

The clock ticks on the wall, measuring time in increments that feel both infinite and irrelevant. The streetlight shifts as a cloud passes overhead, dimming the room for a moment before brightening again. Somewhere outside, a car passes, its headlights sweeping across the curtains before fading into the night.

Joe's breathing slows. Deepens. His hand relaxes around yours, his grip loosening into something more like resting than holding. His body settles against you, his weight becoming heavier, more trusting, as the tension of the last weeks slowly bleeds out of him and into the cushions beneath you.

You watch his face in the dim light - the way his features soften in sleep, the way the lines around his eyes smooth out, the way his lips part slightly as his breath evens into the rhythm of rest. He looks younger like this. Lighter. Like the version of himself that existed before the cameras and the crowds and the constant pressure to be someone other than who he is.

Your hand continues its slow path through his hair, your fingers mapping the familiar territory of his scalp, the curve of his ear, the soft skin behind it. You don't stop. Don't slow. You keep touching him, keep proving that he's here, that he's home, that the world hadn't ended while he was gone.

Minutes pass. The clock ticks. The radiator clicks and hums. The streetlight throws its steady beam across the floor, and the dust drifts in the pale light, suspended and unhurried.

His hand moves. Not much - just his fingers curling around the hem of your joggers, holding the fabric like a child holding a blanket. A small gesture. An unconscious seeking of comfort.

You cover his hand with yours, threading your fingers together over your thigh, and let your eyes close. You don't sleep - not quite - but you let yourself drift in the warm, quiet space of having him back. The weight of his head. The warmth of his hand. The slow rhythm of his breathing, syncing with yours in a cadence that feels older than words.

The book on the armrest waits to be finished. The cold mug of coffee on the side table waits to be washed. The unpacked boxes in the garage wait for another day. None of it matters. None of it exists beyond the boundaries of this room, this couch, this man sleeping in yur lap.

You press another kiss to his hair, letting your lips linger, and feel his hand tighten around yours in response - a reflex, an acknowledgement, a small confirmation that even in sleep, he knows you're there.

"Welcome home," you whisper against his hair.

You feel the shift before you hear it - a change in the weight of him, a small tension returning to muscles that had been slack with sleep. His fingers curl against your thigh, not quite gripping, just moving, a subconscious return to awareness. His breath changes, deepens, and you feel the precise moment he surfaces from sleep into the grey space between dreaming and waking.

You don't stop the motion of her fingers through his hair. Keep the rhythm steady, your nails grazing his scalp in the same slow pattern, letting him find his way back at his own pace. The streetlight has shifted, the rectangle of gold on the floor now stretching towards the wall, and the room has grown cooler, the radiator's heat fading into the winter night.

Joe's hand moves from your knee to your shin, his palm sliding down the curve of your calf, his fingers wrapping around your ankle like he's checking that you're still there, still solid, still real. His thumb presses into the bone, a small pressure, an anchor.

You look down at him. His eyes are still closed, but there's a wakefulness in his face now, a subtle shift in the set of his jaw. His lips part, close, part again, as if he's testing whether he has words ready.

"Hey," you say. Your voice is quiet, a thread of sound in the dark room.

His eyes open.

They find yours immediately, as if he'd known exactly where you would be. His gaze is soft, still blurred with sleep, but there's something else in it now - a warmth that had been buried under exhaustion, surfacing like light through receding water. He looks at you for a long moment, his hand still wrapped around your ankle, his head heavy in your lap.

"Hey," he says back. His voice is rough, sleep still clinging to the edges of it.

You smile. Small. Just for him.

He doesn't smile back. But his hand moves - sliding from your ankle up your calf, over your knee, coming to rest on your thigh. His palm is warm through the fabric, and his fingers press into the softness of your leg with a weight that feels like intention.

You watch his hand. Watch the way his fingers spread, gripping your thigh with a new possessiveness that hadn't been there in the sleepy vulnerability of the past hour. His thumb traces a slow arc on the inside of your leg, the pressure firm enough to feel through the joggers.

You look at his face. His eyes are on your mouth.

Something shifts in the air between you. The room doesn't change - the same streetlight, the same dust motes, the same ticking clock - but the quality of the silence alters, thickens, becomes something you can lean into.

Joe's hand tightens on your thigh. A small pull, a request.

You lower your head towards him, your hair falling forwards, brushing against his cheek. You pause an inch from his mouth, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, to see the slight part of his lips, the way his eyes are dropped half-closed, waiting.

"Tell me what you want," you say.

His hand slides up your thigh, over your hip, finding your waist. He tugs, a gentle but insistent pull, drawing you down towards him. You let yourself be moved, your body bending over his, your hands finding the cushions on either side of his head.

His hand comes up to your face. His palm presses against your cheek, his fingers threading into your hair, his thumb brushing across your cheekbone. He looks at you like he's memorising you, like the light in this room is the only light he trusts.

"I want to kiss you," he says. "I want to feel you. I want to remember what it's like to want someone without performing it."

You hold his gaze. Let the words settle.

Then you close the distance.

The kiss starts soft - a brush of lips, a question asked through pressure rather than sound. Joe's mouth is warm, slightly chapped from the dry air of planes and hotels, and he tastes like the faint residue of coffee and exhaustion. You keep it gentle, your lips moving against his with a slowness that feels like reverence, your hand finding his jaw and cradling it the way you'd done earlier, in the hallway.

He makes a sound. Small. Lost. A noise that starts in his chest and escapes through his nose, a vibration against your mouth that you feel in your own ribs.

His hand tightens in your hair. Not pulling, just holding, like you're something precious he's afraid of dropping. His other hand finds your waist, fingers gripping the fabric of your jumper, bunching it in his fist.

You deepen the kiss. Press harder. Your tongue traces the seam of his lips, and he opens for you without hesitation, a surrender so complete it makes your breath catch. His mouth is warm and familiar and new all at once, a taste you'd been missing without knowing how much.

His hand slides under your jumper. His palm presses flat against the small of your back, his fingers spreading, pulling you closer. The contact is skin on skin, his hand warm against your spine, and you feel the shudder that runs through him at the touch.

You break the kiss. Just far enough to look at him. His lips are slightly swollen, his eyes dark and open, his chest rising and falling in a rhythm that's faster than before.

"Come to bed," you say.

It isn't a question.

Joe's answer is in the way he moves - sitting up, his hand finding yours, his body turning towards the hallway without letting go of you. The blanket falls away from his lap, pooling on the cushion, forgotten. His hair is a mess, tousled from sleep and your fingers, and the streetlight catches the hollow of his throat as he swallows.

You stand, and he stands with you. His hand stays wrapped around yours, and you lead him through the living room, past the coffee table with the cold mug, past the book face-down on the armrest, past the photograph hanging crooked on the wall. The hallway opens in front of you, narrow and familiar, and you feel his gaze on the back of your head, on the curve of your spine, on the way your hips move as you walk.

The bedroom door is open. The room beyond is dark except for the thin seam of light from the hallway, cutting across the foot of the bed, illuminating the corner of the dresser and the edge of the frame holding a photograph you can't quite make out. The bed is made - you'd done it that morning, a small ritual, a gesture of hope that he would be in it tonight.

You step inside, pulling him with you. The door clicks shut behind you, and the darkness deepens, the only light the faint glow from the window where the curtains haven't been fully drawn. The streetlight filters through, casting long shadows across the floor, painting the room in shades of silver and grey.

You turn to face him.

He stands in the dark room, a silhouette against the pale light from the window. You can see the outline of his shoulders, the way his hands hang at his sides, the slight forward tilt of his posture. He's waiting. Not for permission - for direction. For you to tell him this was real.

You reach for the hem of your jumper. Pull it over your head in one motion, letting it fall to the floor. The air is cool against your skin, raising goosebumps along your arms, and you stand before him in just your bra, your skin warm in the dim light.

Joe's breath catches. Audible. A sharp intake that he doesn't try to hide.

He steps forward. His hands find your waist, his palms sliding up your ribs, his thumbs tracing the underwire of your bra. He doesn't unhook it - just touches you, his fingers mapping the curve of your breasts through the fabric, his gaze fixed on the place where his hands meet your skin.

"You're so beautiful," he says. The words are quiet, almost to himself, as if he's surprised by the truth of them.

You reach for his shirt. The hem is worn, the fabric soft from a hundred washes. You lift it, and he raises his arms, letting you pull it over his head. It joins your jumper on the floor, a pile of dark fabric in the shadowed room.

His chest is pale in the dim light. Lean, the muscles defined but not exaggerated, the kind of body that comes from movement rather than the gym. A scar you remember from a childhood accident, a thin white line near his collarbone. A scatter of freckles across his shoulders. The hollow at the base of his throat, where his pulse beats visibly against his skin.

You press your palm to his chest. Feel his heartbeat beneath your hand, strong and quick. His skin is warm, warmer than the air, and you let your hand slide down, over his stomach, stopping at the waistband of his jeans.

His hand covers yours. His fingers intertwine with yours, pressing your palm against the button of his jeans.

"I want to feel you," he says. His voice is rough, the words scraping past something raw in his throat. "I want to feel all of you. I want to-" He stops. Swallows. Starts again, his hand tightening around yours. "I want to be close to you. As close as I can get."

You unfasten his jeans. The button gives easily, the zipper sliding down with a sound that cuts through the silence. You push the denim down his hips, and he steps out of them, kicking them aside, standing in just his boxers in the pale silver light.

Joe's hands find your waist again. This time, he doesn't stop at your bra. His fingers find the clasp at your back, unhook it with a practised ease that makes you smile in the dark, and the straps slide down your shoulders. You let it fall, let it join the pile on the floor, and stand before him bare from the waist up.

His hands come up to cup your breasts. His thumbs brush across your nipples, once, twice, a touch so light it makes you shiver. He watches his own hands, watches the way your breath hitches at his touch, and you see something shift in his expression - a hunger surfacing, raw and honest and unguarded.

"I missed your hands," you say. The words come out before you can stop them, a confession you hadn't meant to make.

He looks up at you. His eyes are dark, the pupils wide, the hazel nearly swallowed by black. He doesn't say anything. He just pulls you closer, his mouth finding yours, and the kiss is different this time - harder, needier, his tongue sliding against yours with a desperation that borders on bruising.

His hands slide down your back, over your ass, gripping you through your joggers. He pulls you against him, and you feel him - hard, pressing against your hip through the thin fabric of his boxers. The evidence of his desire, unguarded, unmistakable.

You break the kiss. Step back. Your hands find the waistband of your joggers, push them down along with your underwear, and step out of them. You're naked now, standing in the dark room with the streetlight painting your body in silver, and you watch his gaze travel over you - your thighs, your hips, the curve of your stomach, the dark patch of hair between your legs.

Joe's boxers follow. He pushes them down, kicks them aside, and stands before you in the same silver light, his cock hard and waiting, the tip glistening in the dim glow.

You reach out. Your fingers wrap around him, light at first, just a touch, a greeting. He's warm in your hand, solid, and you feel the tremor that runs through his body at the contact. His head falls back, his eyes closing, his hand finding your shoulder for balance.

"I want you inside me," you say.

The words hang in the air, simple and direct, and you feel the effect they have on him - the way his breath catches, the way his cock twitches in your hand, the way his hand tightens on your shoulder.

You lead him backwards to the bed. Your knees hit the edge of the mattress, and you climb onto it; the sheets cool against your skin. You lay back, your hair spreading across the pillow, your legs parting in an invitation that needs no words.

He follows you onto the bed, his body covering yours, his weight a familiar pressure. His elbows bracket your head, his forearms taking his weight, his chest brushing against yours with every breath. He looks down at you, his face inches from yours, his eyes searching your expression for something you can't name.

"Are you sure?" he asks. The question is quiet, almost fragile, the vulnerability from earlier resurfacing.

You reach up. Your hand finds his cheek, your thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, the corner of his mouth.

"I've never been more sure of anything," you say.

Joe lowers his head, pressing his forehead to yours. His eyes close. He breathes you in - a long, slow inhale that seems to fill him with something he'd been missing. When he opens his eyes, they're soft, full of a tenderness that makes your chest ache.

He shifts his weight. His hand moves between you, guiding himself, and you feel the head of his cock press against you - not inside yet, just resting at your entrance, a question waiting for an answer.

You lift your hips. A small motion, a yes.

He pushes inside you.

The stretch is familiar and new at once, the way your body opens for him, the way he fills you. He moves slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust, his forehead still pressed to yours, his breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. You feel every increment of his entry, every ridge and vein, the heat of him spreading through you like warmth through cold glass.

When he's fully inside you, he stops. Just stops, his body still, his eyes closed, his breath shivering against your lips.

"I forgot what this felt like," he whispers. "Being this close to someone. Being-" His voice cracks. "Being wanted like this."

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. Your hands find his back, your nails tracing light patterns across his skin, feeling the muscles shift beneath.

"You are wanted," you say. "You're needed. You're mine."

Joe makes a sound - a low, broken groan that seems to come from somewhere deep in his chest — and begins to move.

The rhythm starts slow, a gentle rocking that feels more like grinding than thrusting, a back-and-forth that lets you both find the pace. His mouth finds your neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses to your throat, and you feel the vibration of his moans against your skin. His hand slides between you, his thumb finding your clit, circling in time with his movements.

You arch into his touch, your fingers gripping his shoulders, your breath coming in gasps that match the rhythm of his hips. The pressure builds slowly, a warmth spreading from your core through your limbs, and you feel the familiar coil tightening in your belly.

He lifts his head. Looks at you. His eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide, his lips parted and wet.

"Look at me," he says. His voice is rough, a command wrapped in a plea. "Please. Look at me when you come."

You hold his gaze. Feel the weight of him above you, inside you, the heat of his body and the depth of his need. The coil tightens, tightens, and then breaks - a wave that crashes through you, your body clenching around him, your mouth falling open in a sound you can't contain.

He watches you. His eyes never leave yours, not even as his own climax builds, his thrusts becoming faster, harder, less controlled. He follows you over the edge, his body shuddering above you, his face buried in your neck as he comes with a sound that's half groan, half sob.

His weight settles on you. His breathing is ragged, his heart pounding against your ribs, his cock still inside you, softening. You wrap your arms around him, your hands cradling the back of his head, your fingers threading through his damp hair.

You both lay still, the only sound your breathing, the only movement the rise and fall of your chests. The streetlight casts its steady beam across the bed, illuminating the tangle of sheets, the curve of his spine, the way your hand rests on the back of his neck.

Joe lifts his head. Looks at you. His eyes are red-rimmed, not from crying but from the proximity of it, the closeness of the tears he's already shed and the ones still waiting.

"I love you," he says. The words are simple, stripped of everything but their truth.

You press your lips to his forehead. A kiss, soft and lingering.

"I love you too."

He lowers his head again, his cheek resting on your chest, his ear over your heart. His hand finds yours, your fingers interlocking, and you feel the last of the tension drain from his body - a long, slow exhale that seems to carry the weeks away with it.

The clock ticks in the living room. The radiator clicks. Somewhere outside, a dog barks, distant and irrelevant. The streetlight holds its steady watch, and the dust drifts in the silver light, suspended and unhurried.

Joe's breathing slows into the rhythm of sleep, his hand still holding yours, his body curled around you like you're the only safe harbour in a world that has demanded too much of him.

You press another kiss to his hair, let your eyes close, and hold him through the night.

dividers: saradika-graphics

The apartment feels different when you step inside.

It isn't because anything has changed. The lamp still casts its familiar amber glow across the living room, your shoes are still kicked beneath the small table by the door, and the book you'd meant to finish sits facedown on the couch where you left it that morning. The room has spent the evening waiting for you, untouched.

Only you don't feel like the same person who walked out of it.

Javi slips off his shoes beside the door without thinking about it. He's done it enough times that they end up in the same corner they always do, as your apartment has long since become another familiar stop between rehearsals, late-night takeout, and movie nights that lasted far longer than anyone planned.

He glances toward the kitchen.

"You still keeping the terrible tea in the same place?"

The question is so wonderfully ordinary that it takes you a second to answer.

"...Yeah."

"Good." He nods once, already heading that way. "I'd hate for tonight to be the night you suddenly developed good taste."

A laugh almost escapes before you can stop it.

Almost.

You shake your head as you follow him, slower than he is.

"I didn't know you drank tea."

"I don't."

He opens the cabinet above the stove without looking, reaching automatically for the kettle.

"But emotionally, it feels like the right thing to make."

That one earns the smallest smile.

He catches it out of the corner of his eye but has the decency not to mention it.

Instead, he fills the kettle at the sink, the rush of water briefly filling the apartment before giving way to the familiar metallic click as he settles it onto the stove.

Only then do you realize you're still standing near the kitchen doorway.

"You planning on supervising," he asks, "or are you just making sure I don't steal your mugs?"

You blink, looking down at Javi’s blanket that Joe put around you, still around your shoulders like you're seeing it for the first time.

"Oh."

You slip it from your shoulders and fold it over one arm, fingers lingering briefly against the soft fabric before setting it carefully across the back of a dining chair.

"I guess I forgot it was still on."

"I figured."

He says it casually, already reaching into another cabinet for two mugs, one with a faded band logo and the other chipped slightly around the handle.

Neither of you comments on the blanket again.

Javi leans against the counter, crossing one ankle over the other as he studies you for a second.

"You eat dinner?"

The question catches you off guard.

You open your mouth to answer, then stop.

You try to think back.

The evening blurs together until you honestly can't remember.

"I..." You let out a breath. "I don't know."

Javi nods once, as though that answer tells him everything he needed to know.

Without another word, he wanders toward your pantry.

Cabinet doors open.

Something shifts.

A box slides across a shelf.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

"Assessing the situation."

"My pantry doesn't need assessing."

"No?"

A moment later he appears holding up a box of pasta, raising one eyebrow.

"You sure about that?"

You squint at it from across the kitchen.

"It's fine."

He turns the box around and taps the expiration date with one finger.

You walk closer.

"...Four months isn't that bad."

Javi laughs.

"It is when it's measured in expiration dates."

Despite yourself, you laugh too.

It's brief, and it disappears almost as quickly as it arrived, but it loosens something inside your chest all the same.

"I was going to make dinner," you mutter.

"Were you?"

"...Eventually."

"Mhm."

He places the box back on the shelf and reaches for his phone instead.

"We're ordering food."

"I can make—"

"You could," he agrees, already scrolling through a delivery app. "Or you could let me buy you dinner and save innocent pasta from meeting its expiration-date destiny."

You roll your eyes. "Okay, okay."

The kettle clicks off before either of you says anything else.

Steam curls upward as Javi pours the water, filling both mugs before handing one to you.

The warmth settles immediately into your palms.

Only then do you realize how cold your hands have become.

You wrap both hands around the mug, letting the heat sink slowly into your fingers.

"Thanks."

Javi lifts his own mug in a small salute before taking a careful sip.

The kitchen fills with the quiet sounds of cooling tea, the hum of the refrigerator, and a delivery confirmation buzzing softly from Javi's phone on the counter.

Everything about the room feels impossibly ordinary.

And after everything that happened an hour ago, ordinary feels like the kindest thing either of you could have found.

Javi takes another sip of his tea before setting the mug down beside him.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," he says after a while.

The words are simple enough that they almost disappear into the room.

He rubs a thumb absentmindedly around the rim of his mug before looking back at you.

"But if you want to..." He shrugs one shoulder. "I'm here."

You lower your eyes to the tea in your hands.

"I wish I hadn't noticed it."

Your voice barely carries across the kitchen.

Javi doesn't answer right away.

He just waits.

"I wish I'd stayed in the living room," you continue. "Or... I don't know. I wish I'd gone home five minutes earlier. I wish I'd never walked into the hallway."

You let out a quiet breath, watching it ripple the tea.

"Because now I can't un-hear it."

The words hang there for a moment.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do with any of it." You shake your head, searching for language that never seems quite big enough. "Joe saying what he said. Wes..." Your voice catches briefly. "Wes not saying anything."

You stare into your mug.

"It just keeps replaying."

A small laugh escapes you before you can stop it.

It isn't really a laugh at all.

"It feels like I walked into something that wasn't mine... and somehow I left carrying it."

Javi rolls the mug once between his hands.

When he finally speaks, his voice is as even as it was before.

"I don't think you walked into it."

You glance up.

He meets your eyes for only a second before looking down again, watching the steam disappear from his tea.

"I think it was already there. you just happened to be standing where you could finally see it."

You look back down at your mug.

"I didn't want to."

"I know."

He says it so naturally that it almost sounds like the end of the sentence instead of the beginning of another one.

You stare into your tea for a long moment before speaking again.

"I keep thinking about Wes."

The words leave your mouth so quietly you almost aren't sure you said them.

Javi doesn't interrupt.

"The way he just... shut down." You trace your thumb absently around the rim of your mug. "It was like there were a hundred things he wanted to say, and none of them made it out."

You let out a slow breath.

"And Joe..." You shake your head. "Joe was the opposite. He said exactly what he meant. Like he'd already had the conversation in his head before it ever happened."

Outside, tires hiss against wet pavement somewhere down the street.

"It felt wrong," you admit. "Like I was watching something I wasn't supposed to see."

Javi sits with that for a while.

When he finally speaks, his voice is thoughtful, almost distracted.

"I've seen them like that before."

You look up.

He isn't looking at you yet.

"I've known those two a long time," he says. "Long enough to know last night wasn't the first time they've ended up standing on opposite sides of the same conversation."

Something about the way he says it makes your stomach tighten.

Not because it's surprising.

Because it means the hallway wasn't an accident.

It was history.

"Then why does it feel like I found out something I wasn't supposed to know?"

Javi smiles faintly to himself.

"I don't think you found out something you weren't supposed to know."

He looks over then.

"I think you saw a side of them you hadn't seen yet."

The distinction settles somewhere deeper than you expect.

You lower your eyes again.

"I don't know that I wanted to."

"No," he says quietly. "I don't imagine you did."

"You know," he says after a moment, "people always assume being in a band means you know everything about each other."

A small laugh escapes him.

"I wish."

You glance over.

"We know who's going to be late."

He counts them off on his fingers.

"Who forgets cables."

"Who never remembers to eat before rehearsal."

You can't help smiling.

"And who complains about loading gear every single time."

"That's everybody."

"Exactly."

The smile fades as naturally as it arrived.

"But the important stuff..."

He shrugs.

"Half the time we're guessing too."

That surprises you.

"I thought you all told each other everything."

Javi laughs outright this time.

"No chance."

He leans back in his chair.

"We've spent years in vans together. Hotel rooms. Green rooms. Airports." He shakes his head. "You learn people's habits way before you learn what's going on inside their heads."

He falls quiet again.

"Joe..." He thinks for a second. "Joe doesn't usually say something like that unless he's been carrying it around for a while."

Your fingers tighten around the mug.

"And Wes?"

Javi's gaze drifts toward the window.

"Wes has this habit."

He smiles to himself.

"When something matters, he finds about twelve other things to talk about first."

You think back.

The jokes.

The teasing.

The way he always seemed to move from one conversation to the next without ever staying in one place for very long.

The hallway.

The silence.

"Oh."

Javi nods once.

"Yeah."

You sit with that for a while.

"So what was last night?"

He doesn't answer immediately.

Instead, he reaches over and nudges your mug a little closer.

"Drink your tea."

You look at him.

"I'm serious."

Despite yourself, you take another sip.

It's gone lukewarm.

Javi smiles.

"Better."

You shake your head.

"You avoided my question."

"I did."

"So?"

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck.

"I think..." He pauses, searching for words he doesn't seem interested in forcing. "I think whatever that conversation was, it didn't start last night."

Javi watches you over the rim of his own mug before standing.

"C'mon."

He nods toward the living room.

"The couch is considerably more comfortable than these kitchen chairs."

You follow him.

The couch dips slightly under his weight as he sits, leaving enough space beside him without making a point of it.

The delivery app announces that your food will be there in twenty-three minutes.

Javi stretches one arm along the back of the couch and glances over at you.

"For what it's worth..."

You look up.

"I've known those guys a long time."

You wait.

He smiles to himself.

"And somehow they still manage to surprise me."

He doesn't say anything else.

He doesn't have to.

For the first time since the hallway, it feels like you don't have to figure everything out tonight.

Maybe you couldn't if you tried.

The apartment wakes slowly.

Morning light filters through the blinds in uneven bands, laying thin stripes of gold across the hardwood floor. Dust drifts lazily through them, visible only when it catches the sun before disappearing again.

With a quiet sigh, you push the covers back and sit on the edge of the bed.

The apartment is still.

No soft laughter from the kitchen. No cabinet doors opening. No sound of someone moving around while trying not to wake you.

Javi had left sometime before you got up.

You make your way toward the living room, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

On the coffee table sits a folded sticky note, held down beneath your television remote.

Your name is scrawled across the front in handwriting that somehow manages to lean in three different directions at once.

You smile before you've even opened it.

Inside, it reads:

Coffee's made.

There's a blueberry muffin I stole from my own apartment. It's yours now.

Eat something.

- Javi

You shake your head, folding the note closed again.

"Stole," you murmur to the empty room.

The coffee is still warm.

Not fresh, but warm enough that you pour yourself a mug anyway.

The smell fills the kitchen almost immediately, grounding in a way you hadn't expected. You lean against the counter, wrapping both hands around the mug as you look out the window above the sink.

The street below has already started moving.

A woman walks an impossibly happy golden retriever that insists on greeting every tree along the sidewalk. Across the street, someone wrestles two overstuffed grocery bags from the trunk of their car while balancing a phone between their shoulder and ear.

The dishwasher hums softly as you begin loading it, grateful for the excuse to keep your hands busy. The motions come automatically—rinse, stack, close the door. Wipe the counter. Fold the dish towel. Straighten the chair someone had left slightly crooked.

One task quietly becomes another.

You aren't cleaning because the apartment is messy.

You're cleaning because order feels possible.

Understanding doesn't.

The apartment finally looks like yours again.

Or close enough.

You carry your empty mug back toward the kitchen just as three soft knocks break the silence.

You stop.

For a moment, you simply stand there, mug still in your hand, listening.

Another three knocks.

When you pull the door open...

...you aren't surprised.

Not really.

Wes stands on the other side with his hands buried deep in the pockets of a faded gray sweatshirt. His hair is still damp, curling slightly at the ends as though he'd left the house before it had finished drying. He looks like someone who has been awake for hours, even if he hasn't been out of bed for very long.

For a second, neither of you speaks.

His eyes meet yours.

Then, almost sheepishly, he smiles.

"Hi."

You step back from the doorway.

"Do you want to come in?"

The question lingers between you.

Wes looks past your shoulder into the apartment before his eyes find yours again. He hesitates just long enough that you wonder if he's going to say no.

Then he nods.

"...Yeah."

He steps inside, closing the door quietly behind him.

Neither of you seems to know where to stand.

Finally, he lets out a quiet breath.

"I almost didn't come."

The words settle into the room.

You study him for a moment before asking, "Why?"

His shoulders lift in a small shrug.

"I figured..." He glances toward the window, then back to you. "I figured you deserved at least one normal morning."

Your eyes drift briefly around the apartment.

The empty coffee mug in the sink.

The folded blanket resting over the couch.

Javi's crooked handwriting on the note you'd left sitting on the table instead of throwing away.

You smile, though it doesn't quite reach your eyes.

"I don't think I was going to have one anyway."

Wes lets out the smallest laugh, more breath than sound.

"Yeah," he says quietly.

"I kind of figured that too."

You nod toward the kitchen.

"Coffee?"

He looks at the mug in your hand before answering.

"...Sure."

The answer surprises you.

"You drink coffee now?"

He smiles for the first time since you opened the door.

"No."

That catches a laugh before you can stop it.

"Then why did you say yes?"

He rubs the back of his neck, looking faintly embarrassed.

"I didn't really know what else to say."

The honesty of it hangs between you for a second before you turn toward the kitchen.

"Well," you say over your shoulder, reaching for another mug, "you're getting coffee anyway."

"I'll pretend."

"You'll hate it."

"I probably will."

You fill another mug, adding only a splash before setting the coffee back.

When you turn around, Wes hasn't sat down.

He's wandered only a few steps into the living room before stopping beside your bookshelf. His attention lingers on the framed photo tucked between a stack of novels and a small potted plant.

It's one the band took months ago after a show—everyone squeezed together, smiling into someone's phone camera. Javi is making a ridiculous face. Joe is laughing at something just outside the frame. Wes is looking at the camera but somehow still looks like someone caught him halfway through saying something.

He notices you watching him.

"I forgot you had this."

You glance at the picture.

"I forget it's there."

He smiles faintly.

"Javi still complains that's his worst picture."

"It is."

"It definitely is."

Wes is still looking at the photograph, one hand resting lightly against the edge of the bookshelf. His coffee sits untouched on the coaster you'd slid toward him, growing cooler by the minute.

You watch him instead.

The picture.

The bookshelf.

The window.

Anywhere but you.

A smile tugs at the corner of your mouth before you can stop it.

"What?"

His head turns slightly.

"You've looked at everything in this apartment except me."

His eyebrows lift.

"I have not."

"You've looked at the picture."

A finger.

"The bookshelf."

Another.

"The window."

"The coffee."

"I don't even like coffee."

"Exactly."

He laughs quietly, shaking his head.

"I looked at you."

"For about three seconds."

"I was nervous."

The words come out so matter-of-factly that neither of you seems prepared for them.

His smile fades first.

Then yours.

The room settles again.

"You were?" you ask.

Wes lets out a breath through his nose, looking down at the mug in his hands.

"I am."

You lean one shoulder against the kitchen counter, giving him the space to either leave the sentence there or continue.

He chooses neither.

Instead, he takes an unnecessarily careful sip of the coffee.

His face immediately twists.

You can't help laughing.

"Oh, that's awful."

"I told you."

"I thought you were exaggerating."

"You thought wrong."

He sets the mug down with a quiet wince.

"I don't know why I drank more than one sip."

"You were committed."

"I make bad decisions under pressure."

The joke hangs in the air for a second before he realizes what he just said.

"...Well."

You smile.

"There you are."

He blinks.

"What?"

"You're doing it again."

His forehead creases.

"What am I doing?"

You tilt your head, studying him for a moment.

"Talking around it."

Wes stares at you for a second before letting out a quiet laugh, dropping his head.

"Let me guess Javi told you I do that."

A small smile touches your lips.

"He didn't have to."

Wes watches you carefully.

"You kind of make it obvious."

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, laughing under his breath.

"...Do I?"

"You've talked about coffee."

"The bookshelf."

"The picture."

"My window."

He sighs dramatically.

"The window was interesting."

"It wasn't."

"No."

"It really wasn't."

Another laugh slips out of him.

This one stays a little longer.

When it fades, he looks down at the floor between you.

"I always do this."

His voice is quieter now.

"When I know what I need to say..."

He trails off.

"...I keep hoping I'll accidentally arrive there by talking about everything else first."

You don't answer.

Not because you don't have one.

Because this doesn't feel like the kind of sentence that should be interrupted.

He folds his arms loosely across his chest and leans back against the wall, eyes still lowered.

"I kept thinking about last night."

You wait.

"I kept replaying it."

Another pause.

"Not the part where you heard us."

His fingers tighten briefly where they're tucked beneath his arms.

"The part after."

You frown slightly.

"When you looked at me."

His eyes finally lift.

"I've never seen you look at me like that before."

The words aren't dramatic.

They're almost curious.

Like he's still trying to understand them himself.

"I couldn't tell if you were hurt..."

He hesitates.

"...or disappointed."

The room grows very still.

Outside, someone laughs somewhere in the parking lot below before a car door slams shut.

The sound disappears as quickly as it came.

You hold his gaze.

"I think I was trying to understand you."

Wes nods slowly.

"Yeah."

A faint smile crosses his face.

"I think that's what scared me."

The words linger between you.

You watch Wes over the rim of your mug.

"What would you have said?"

Wes laughs under his breath.

Not because it's funny.

Because, somehow, you'd managed to ask the one question he'd been carefully walking around since he'd knocked on your door.

"I don't know."

You raise an eyebrow.

"You don't?"

"I do."

He shakes his head almost immediately.

"I just..."

Another laugh, quieter this time.

"I don't know how to say it without sounding ridiculous."

You can't help smiling.

"I'll take my chances."

His eyes meet yours then.

Really meet them.

For a long moment, neither of you looks away.

Finally, he pushes himself away from the wall and begins wandering again—not pacing exactly, just moving slowly through the room until he stops beside the window.

"I've spent a lot of time convincing myself that I knew what was going on," he says, watching a cyclist disappear down the street below. "With the band. With touring. With... everything."

He slips one hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt.

"And then yesterday..." He lets the sentence trail off before trying again. "Yesterday Joe asked me a question that I couldn't answer."

You don't interrupt.

"He didn't corner me."

The words come slowly now, each one sounding like it's been turned over more than once before being spoken.

"He just..."

Wes smiles to himself, though there's very little amusement in it.

"He asked me something I'd been avoiding asking myself."

Your chest tightens.

"Hm and what was that?"

He looks out the window for another second before answering.

"Why I cared so much."

The apartment grows quiet again.

You already knew the question.

Hearing it now feels different.

Because this time it isn't coming from the hallway.

It's coming from him.

"I kept thinking," he continues, almost to himself, "that if I ignored it long enough, it'd stop being true."

His fingers curl briefly against the fabric of his sweatshirt pocket.

"It didn't."

Silence settles gently between you.

Not awkward.

Not uncertain.

Just full.

You lean lightly against the counter.

"So..."

He glances over.

"...was Joe right to ask?"

Wes closes his eyes for the briefest moment.

When he opens them again, he isn't looking out the window anymore.

He's looking at you.

"I think..." He exhales slowly. "I think Joe knew something about me before I did."

The admission hangs quietly in the morning light.

Then, almost without thinking, you ask the question that's been waiting beneath everything else.

"What happens now?"

He lets out a quiet laugh, the kind that isn't really laughter so much as disbelief.

"I've been trying to figure that out since I left last night."

His eyes drift toward the window again before finding you.

"I think..." He stops, the familiar habit almost pulling him somewhere safer.

This time he catches himself.

A small smile crosses his face.

"I'm doing it again."

You smile back.

"A little."

He nods.

"Yeah."

The room falls quiet.

When he speaks again, his voice is steadier.

"I don't know what happens now."

The honesty of it settles between you.

"I know I don't want to pretend yesterday didn't happen."

Another pause.

"I know I don't want you to feel like you have to choose anything today."

His gaze doesn't leave yours.

"And I know..."

He swallows.

"I don't want to lose you."

The words land softly.

Not as a declaration.

As a fear.

You hold his gaze, your own thoughts suddenly too tangled to separate.

Lose me.

The words echo louder than they should.

Because somewhere underneath them is another question neither of you has said out loud.

Lose me to what?

To Joe?

To the band changing?

To whatever this has become?

Wes doesn't answer the question.

Maybe he can't.

Maybe neither of you can.

The silence stretches between you, full of things neither of you knows how to name.

Then—

Three quiet knocks sound from the front door.

Neither of you moves.

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@kiwiiscar

A week slips by before I even realize it, a blur of remote work squeezed between soundchecks, late‑night bus rides, and Wes’s increasingly unhinged attempts to convince Joe that “just a few streamers” won’t kill him. By the time Michaela texts me a photo of Mira in the backseat of her rental car with the caption your daughter is en route, the bus already looks like a toddler’s birthday party. Wes and Javi hung the banner two days ago. Joe pretended to hate the idea, but I caught him this morning standing on the counter, quietly taping up the streamers he swore he’d never allow.

Adam steps onto the bus just as Joe hops down, the roll of tape still dangling from his fingers. He looks around at the pink streamers draped across the ceiling and lets out a low whistle.

“I thought streamers were banned,” Adam says, deadpan.

Joe crosses his arms like he’s preparing a legal defense. “They’re red.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Those are pink.”

Joe shrugs, refusing to break. “Dogs can see them.”

Adam snorts. “Right. Because Mira specifically requested a color‑blind‑friendly palette.”

Joe mutters something that sounds suspiciously like it looks nice, and Adam grins like he’s just caught him confessing to a crime.

By the time Michaela texts that she’s ten minutes out, Joe’s already hovering near the bus door like he’s on some kind of invisible leash. He keeps stepping outside, then back in, then outside again — pretending he’s checking the weather, pretending he’s stretching his legs, pretending he’s not waiting for a dog like she’s a long‑lost soulmate. The boys don’t even bother hiding their smirks.

Wes nudges Javi. “He’s gonna wear a groove in the pavement.”

Joe shoots them a look but doesn’t deny it. He just shoves his hands in his pockets and stares down the parking lot like he can will the shuttle into existence.

Finally, the shuttle door slides open and Michaela steps out first, sunglasses on, hair perfect, rolling her suitcase like she’s arriving for a press tour. Mira hops down right behind her — big, excited, tail wagging so hard her whole back half wiggles.

Michaela spots us immediately and grins. “There they are. Your girl is here.”

Joe lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. I feel it more than I hear it.

Mira looks up, sees us — both of us — and freezes for half a second.

Then she launches.

She barrels across the pavement, nails clicking, ears flapping, tail a blur. Joe and I both drop to our knees at the same time, and she crashes into us like she’s been waiting her whole life for this exact reunion.

She licks Joe’s face, then mine, then Joe’s again, whining with that high‑pitched excitement she only gets when she’s overwhelmed with joy. Joe laughs soft, breathless and wraps an arm around both of us, pulling us into this messy, perfect little huddle.

“I missed you,” he murmurs into her fur, and Mira wiggles harder.

Behind us, Michaela crosses her arms, satisfied. “Okay, that’s adorable. I’m not even gonna pretend it’s not.”

Joe looks up at her, cheeks pink but smiling. “Thanks for bringing her.”

“Of course,” she says. “She belongs with you guys.”

The second Mira finishes smothering us, she suddenly realizes there are six strangers staring at her like she’s the headliner of the tour. Her tail starts wagging so fast it looks like it might detach.

Wes steps forward first, hands raised like he’s approaching royalty. “Oh my god. She’s even cuter in person.”

Mira sniffs him once, decides he’s acceptable, and leans her whole body into his legs. Wes makes a noise I’ve never heard from a grown man.

Javi crouches next. “Hi, sweetheart. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

Mira gives him a polite sniff, then a single approving lick.

Adam kneels, gentle and calm. “Hey, girl. Welcome to the circus.”

Mira presses her forehead to his knee like she’s claiming him.

Sam crouches a few feet away. “Hi pretty girl. You ready to be our emotional support animal?”

Mira trots over and sniffs him, tail wagging like she’s considering the job.

Teddy stands with his coffee, smiling. “She’s perfect.”

Mira sniffs his shoe and gives one bark like she agrees.

And then Matt steady, warm‑eyed Matt crouches down and Mira practically melts into him. “There she is. Good to have you with us, pup.”

When she hops onto the bus for the first time, she pauses mose twitching, tail wagging like she can feel something waiting for her.

Then she sees it.

The little bed Joe set up.

It’s tucked into the corner across from my bunk, layered with a soft blanket and one of Joe’s old shirts — the one he pretends he doesn’t care about but definitely does. Mira trots straight to it, circles once, then plops down with a dramatic groan that makes everyone laugh.

Joe watches her settle, hands in his pockets, trying not to look too proud. “She likes it.”

I bump his shoulder. “She loves it.”

By the time evening rolls around, the bus smells like takeout the good kind, the kind that comes in too many containers and makes everyone hover like they haven’t eaten in days. Michaela insisted on paying, and now she’s standing in the middle of the bus with her hands on her hips, surveying the decorations.

“Okay,” she says, pointing at the streamers. “Who did this?”

Wes raises his hand. “Technically me, but spiritually Joe.”

Joe groans. “I said they were fine, not—”

“Joe,” Michaela interrupts, “they’re pink.”

“They’re red,” Joe mutters.

“They’re pink,” the entire bus says in unison.

Mira lifts her head at the noise, tail thumping once like she’s voting too.

Michaela beams. “See? Even your daughter agrees.”

She moves toward the table, grabbing a container. “Alright, I know Joe. The rest of you, introduce yourselves before I start making assumptions.”

Wes lifts a hand. “Wes. Drums.”

Michaela squints at him. “You’ve got that ‘I hit things for a living’ sparkle.”

Wes grins. “I mean… yeah.”

Javi raises his hand. “Javi. Guitar and keys.”

“Oh, you’re the multitasker,” she says immediately. “The one who pretends he’s chill but is actually holding everything together.”

Javi laughs under his breath. “I’ve been exposed.”

Adam gives a small wave. “Adam. Keys.”

Michaela softens. “You’re sweet. Quiet. But you notice everything.”

Adam blushes a little. “I try.”

Sam lifts his container. “Sam. Guitar.”

She points her fork at him. “You’re the one who makes sure everyone eats and drinks water.”

Sam snorts. “Somebody has to.”

Teddy raises his drink. “Teddy. Drums.”

Michaela nods like she’s confirming a theory. “You’re the calm one. The fixer.”

Teddy shrugs. “Guilty.”

Trent lifts a hand from the bench. “Trent. Bass and keys.”

Michaela looks him up and down. “You’re the quiet chaos. The 2 a.m. conversation starter.”

Trent grins. “I’ve never felt so seen.”

And then Matt, leaning against the counter, gives a small wave. “Matt. I’m… not in this band.”

“No,” she says, smiling, “but you’re the sweetheart.”

Matt’s ears go pink. “Okay, wow.”

As the night settles into easy conversation and clattering takeout containers, I catch myself watching Michaela move through the group like she’s been part of this tour for years. She laughs with Wes, teases Javi, asks Adam thoughtful questions, and somehow gets Trent talking about the weirdest show he’s ever played. Even Teddy cracks a smile at something she says. She fits effortlessly, naturally like she’s always belonged here.

Joe leans in close, his shoulder brushing mine, voice low enough that only I can hear it. “They really like her.” He glances at me then, something warm and knowing in his expression. “Makes sense. She’s your people.”

I smile warmly and it feels like everything in my life has finally clicked into place.

We spread out around the tiny table and the benches and the floor. Mira wanders from person to person, sniffing containers, accepting forehead kisses, and eventually settling with her chin on Joe’s knee.

Teddy raises his drink. “To Mira. Our newest crew member.”

Everyone cheers. Even Mira barks once.

Michaela leans back, watching all of us with that soft, proud look she gets when she thinks no one’s paying attention. “You two built something good here,” she says quietly to me. “I can see it.”

Wes claps. “Group photo. Mira in the middle.”

Everyone groans but stands anyway. Mira perks up, ready for her close‑up.

Michaela grabs Wes’s phone. “No, no I’m taking it. You boys don’t know your angles.”

Joe slides an arm around my waist and I lean into him without thinking.

Michaela catches it. Smiles. Says nothing.

For once.

The next morning Michaela’s shuttle pulls up just after sunrise, the sky still soft and pale. She wheels her suitcase toward us, coffee in hand. Mira trots beside me, tail wagging, confused but happy.

“You sure you don’t want breakfast?” I ask.

“If I sit down, I’m moving in,” she says. “And I don’t think your boyfriend wants a permanent roommate.”

Joe rubs the back of his neck. “You can stay if you want.”

She grins. “See? Sweet. But no. You two need your space.”

She hugs me tight. “I’m proud of you. You’re letting yourself be happy.”

My throat tightens. “I know.”

“And he’s good for you. Don’t argue.”

I nod.

She hugs Joe next. “Take care of her.”

“I will.”

“And Mira.”

“Always.”

She crouches to kiss Mira’s head. “Be good, baby girl.”

Mira whines.

“I know. I’ll see you soon.”

She waves at the boys, squeezes me one last time, and climbs into the shuttle. She presses her hand to the window as it pulls away. I lift mine back. Mira barks once.

Inside, the bus feels quieter. Not empty just settled.

Joe and I end up in our bed, the morning light soft through the curtains. Mira curls up in her bed across the aisle.

Joe lies on his side facing me, one arm tucked under his head, the other resting lightly on my waist.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. You?”

He nods. “Feels like everything’s right.”

I feel it too warm, full, steady.

Mira sighs, and Joe smiles. “She’s really here. You’re really here.”

I brush his hair back. “We’re here.”

His eyes flutter, heavy with sleep. He shifts closer until our foreheads touch.

“Stay with me babygirl,” he whispers. Even though we both know I’m not going anywhere.

“I’m not leaving.”

His hand slides up my back, gentle, protective, and we fall asleep like that — tangled, quiet, the bus humming around us, Mira breathing softly nearby like the whole world has finally stopped moving long enough for us to rest.

I wake to the softest thing in the world: Joe breathing against the back of my shoulder.

For a second I don’t even open my eyes. I just feel it, the slow rise and fall of his chest pressed to my spine, the warmth of his arm draped over my waist, the weight of his hand curled loosely against my stomach like he fell asleep mid‑protecting me. The bus hums beneath us, steady and low, and Mira’s quiet snuffling comes from somewhere near my feet.

It’s the kind of morning where the world hasn’t fully started yet.

Joe shifts behind me, just a little, and I feel him wake up in stages — a soft inhale, a sleepy sigh, the faint brush of his nose against my hair. Then his arm tightens, instinctive, like his body is making sure I’m still here before his mind catches up.

“Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough and warm and still half‑asleep.

I smile without turning. “Morning.”

He nuzzles into the back of my shoulder like he’s trying to hide from the day.

“You’re warm,” he mumbles, voice still thick with sleep.

“You’re sweet when you’re half‑asleep,” I whisper, smiling into the pillow.

He lets out a quiet laugh — the kind that vibrates softly against my back.

“Only then?”

I turn toward him, slow and sleepy, and his eyes flutter open just enough to meet mine. He looks so soft like this. His hair a mess, cheeks warm, expression unguarded. My hand finds his jaw, thumb brushing the faint stubble there.

“Come here,” I murmur.

I tug him gently toward me, and he follows instantly, still half‑dreaming, letting me guide him. Our lips meet in a slow, warm kiss, the kind that feels like waking up, like sunlight, like something we’ve both been moving toward without rushing.

When we part, he stays close, forehead resting against mine, breath mingling with mine in the quiet morning air.

“Yeah,” he whispers, eyes barely open. “I could get used to this.”

Mira lifts her head from her bed across the aisle and gives one soft boof, like she’s reminding us she’s awake too. Joe peeks over me to look at her.

“Hi, baby girl,” he whispers, still barely conscious. “You guarding us?”

Mira thumps her tail once, slow and lazy.

Joe smiles into my shoulder. “She’s perfect.”

He reaches up and brushes his thumb along my cheekbone, gentle, almost shy. “You look happy.”

“I am.”

He leans in and kisses me again slow, warm, unhurried.

When he pulls back, he says “I love mornings with you.”

“Me too, Joe”

“I know I’ve had a lot with you,” he says, smiling, “but I want all of them.”

I feel my heart do something stupid and soft.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering. “We should get up,” he says, but he doesn’t move.

“No,” I whisper.

He laughs quietly. “Yeah. No.”

Mira hops up onto the edge of the bunk, placing her chin on Joe’s arm like she’s joining the conversation. He kisses the top of her head without thinking.

“Okay,” he says, looking between the two of us. “This is it. This is my whole world right here.”

And the way he says it, sleepy, honest, unguarded, makes something inside me settle in a way I didn’t know it needed to.

The bus keeps humming. The morning stays soft.

And for a little while longer, we stay exactly where we are.

the unhinged souls suffering with me:

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