Chapter Text
You’re the rulers of distorted idioms in a little pocket of hell. There is no eureka, just solar flares that burn sclera bright red. This isn’t a hill, but you’re going to die down here.
Taking a leaf out of his book’s a little too easy, Doctor Devorak sews self-loathing into the soles of his shoes, he hides in in the notch between his collarbone. When it’s too late, you’ll wonder if you should’ve wondered louder about how his number got so high.
Yours is even higher. Seventy sounds suspiciously final, a little too round and it will not occur to you where the unsettling nature of it lies. It is the absolute minimum, the smallest number of bleached skeletons that Valdemar is personally responsible for.
They don’t, after all, number the patients.
“I can’t watch,” you say, too terrified to disclose even to yourself who you’re speaking to. You just talk, sometimes he answers.
But more often, he holds your hand. Both are black-gloved and one is substantially bigger, you press your palm to his and his fingers fit between yours well enough.
“Then don’t,” he tells you. Your eyes close in a slow mockery of a blink, blocking out the sight of bloodless wrists being freed from wholly unnecessary restraints.
At least you hope they’re unnecessary this time, you missed the start of the show. Praying that a patient is already dead is definitely new.
The dissected corpse is mostly bone, little skin. Not much left in the way of organs, it swims in front of your closed eyes. You open them, hoping that no one notices when they close again for a longer period.
Picking and choosing what nightmare to witness is something that could be studied all on its own. Freeing the body is terrible, but not as bad as listening to the way it scrapes on the ground when it’s dragged towards the pit. But the pit is the worst part, nothing can compare. Julian’s next to you, he squeezes your hand. He won’t let up until it’s over.
Without him, it’s harder. You’re far from alone in your disgust, with your gut-wrenching terror. But the sounds of beetles chewing on skin, of doctors groaning in distaste are only partial clues.
There’s silence for a beat, enough to make you wonder if it’s safe. But your hand is still tightly clasped in Julian’s, it’s beginning to go numb. That’s your trial, isn’t it? You tell him without opening your mouth to squeeze if it hurts. But he has to watch and even though you’re losing feeling in your hand, you still can’t help but think he’s been cut a raw deal.
When you can absolutely bear it no longer, the pressure subsides and he drops your hand. You don’t know if he sensed your discomfort, the show’s over or it’s both. When you open your eyes, however, the pit’s been closed off and the only remnant of the body is the long blood smear from the operating platform.
The tension, coiled like thick smoke subsides fairly easily after that. Doctors fall into the lull of conversation and turn away from this grim reality. You long to do the same, to fall into the safety that washing your hands of a murder can bring.
“Are you all right?” You ask Julian, now turning to him. Things are more solid when bodies aren’t involved. But the horror is still wallpapering his eyes.
“Mm?” He hums, those terrified eyes drop to yours. A smirk that looks like a gash cuts his lower face. “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”
He’s a fool but so are you. Your smile looks less like an open wound, more like an objective lie. It’s much easier to hide behind professionalism when the assets have been liquidated and all that’s left to do is begin afresh.
Over and over. You only touch him when someone is dying.
“Thank you,” you decide to acknowledge the grim fact today. You might never do it again and he seems to be aware of it. His eyes widen.
“Don’t mention it,” he replies. Julian doesn’t have to continue, at the end of his sentence is a sharp and unspoken ever.
“For the book, I mean,” you half-lie in the face of a wandering eye. A flash of off-colour skin and bandages breezes by, smelling like death. “it was an interesting read.”
“Oh, you’ve finished it,” he says, turning his face a fraction and following your line of sight just enough. The caution is pure vanity, Valdemar doesn’t care that you’re queasy.
“Yes, last night. I couldn’t put it down.” His smirk is less offensively false in that moment.
“Do you spend many of your nights reading?” Julian asks, you nod.
“The worst of us refuse to sleep, the best simply forget.” The common area’s mostly cleared, now, enough that the echo is more pronounced. You hear his laugh a few times, it bounces off the stone walls. “Although I may be running out of candles.”
“I might steal that, fair warning.” He tells you. “But if you're done with it---” you cut him off.
“I can give it back to you now, before I go out,” you say. You motion towards your office with a flick of your head. “I wasn’t kidding about needing more candles.”
“Wonderful,” he says, “of course---” interrupting him is a bad habit. You can’t remember if you’ve ever grabbed him without a sinister sight before your eyes. But you put your hand on his arm before he can finish and start towards your door.
“Sorry,” you chime, “you were saying?” Julian looks like a floundering fish, gaping down at where you touch him and then back up at your eyes.
“Right, hm---” he finds his thought easily enough, “if you wouldn’t mind the company, there are a few things I need at the market.”
“Mind?” You ask, dropping his arm and fishing around in your pocket for the key. The door unlocks with a creaking sound. The enthusiasm in your voice is a little much, even you can admit that. You step into the room and make for your desk. Your tone’s comfortably indifferent. “No, I don’t mind.”
The decoration’s a little sparse in here, lacking Devorak’s homey charm. You’ve stood in his doorway before, the way he stands now in yours and you find your space wanting.
A few books, mostly journals clutter your desk. Spilled ink stains the unfinished wood a ruddy-black. Diagrams and anatomical drawings are tacked onto the slightly damp walls.
There isn’t much light, and you feel a sense of dread that is more potent even than what lies outside. You snatch up the book he gave you, the one that inspired a few of the drawings now clinging to the stone.
“I had no idea you were an artist,” Julian muses, leaning against the doorframe and studying an accurate drawing of a human heart. It’s so cast in shadow that it’s a wonder he can see it.
“Copying’s easy enough, no real skill involved.” You shrug. Brushing past him and out of your office, you press the book into his hands. His eyes do a final sweep of the room, of the slap-dash nature of how you live before he lets you close the door.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he says. You don’t know how to respond. Julian steps to the right, standing in front of his own door. And with very little care, he drops the book through the bars and into his room. You’re not particularly fond of the iron bars, but you’ve never told anyone that. They remind you too much of a prison.
You haven’t the faintest idea how right you are to fear them.
But Devorak is the very definition of a handsome distraction. He turns and, with a flourish, holds out his hand. He knows how to coax a true smile from you, a sense of security that has yet to be proven false.
There’s an immediate, unfortunate response to accepting him. Your insides turn to wriggling maggots and it is several minutes before they begin to subside. It’s unpleasant that they rear their sightless heads in search of a decomposing patient and not because someone brings you joy.
You’re quiet as you walk with him, waiting for the fear and desire to shut your eyes to pass. His hand held at your side, you let him open doors and lead you up flights of stairs. To leave the dark behind is an odd sensation, like feeling returning to a sleeping limb.
The pressure in your chest, the weight of all this dying has severed the connection between your brain and your body. But you the top-side palace, pink and gold and eerily quiet in places.
“What do you need up here?” You ask Julian, looking at him because when you do your eyes can never be sad.
“I haven’t a bottle of ink to my name,” he begins. He takes long strides down the castle corridor towards the entrance. You’ve spent so long in the darkness that you’ve almost forgotten how to find the sunlight. “you’re not the only one to take advantage of the sleeping hours.”
“Well, if you’re not the best of us---” it’s shocking how quickly this could become an insult. Quickly but not easily, you have no desire to tack on something terrible. He is the best of the current crop of doctors, the best of the ones left, that is.
“Flatterer,” he says, but you can tell he likes it.
“What do you write?” You ask. “I can’t help but hope it’s a delicious memoir with all the stories you tell.”
“Not a memoir, no,” he says. “letters, for the most part.” It doesn’t surprise you that a man like him should have enough correspondents to run out of ink. But you can’t shake the feeling he’s hiding something.
“A pity, I guess I’ll just have to listen for the raven-talk.” Julian stops very suddenly, right before the vaulted exit to the outside world.
“The what?” He looks so stricken all of a sudden, you wander a step further before turning to him.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, of course. Raven-talk is what my sisters and I would call things that sounded very impressive.” You smile sheepishly and neglect to mention that it also meant things that were fabricated.
“Oh, I---” he cuts himself off this time and begins to walk again. “in that case, yes. You’ll have to.”
You trail after him, down palace steps and past guards. The security at the gates is like a chokehold. Count Lucio fears riots but you think it foolish. The sick, you know from too many dissections, barely have the energy to stand.
The whirring in your brain goes unspoken and Julian’s kind enough to remain silent in the face of widespread panic. The two of you work so hard to end it, after all and you sincerely doubt you could handle making things much more concrete.
Because the suffering is terribly solid. It’s in the walls, in the water. You could reach out and touch it, draw your hand back and find your fingers coated slick and dark with oil.
Everywhere you look is a new kind of horror that is blissfully absent even in the darkest of dungeons. You take Julian’s hand again, him having let you go when you startled him with raven-talk. He seems to understand.
Oh, it was a mistake to come here. Like the sun, you’d forgotten the pain and the smell of death that rocks around the inside of your head. It’s inescapable, the decay. You want to go now, you want to tug on his arm and apologize. You want to pull him back into the deep, dark hole and give thanks that at least you’ll have a grave to lie in.
So many don’t.
The sunshine can’t hide the flames. It’s the only way to stop the rising pile of corpses and the column of dark, grey smoke from the Lazaret rises high over the tallest buildings. The urge to run seizes you again, before you can imagine too clearly what fuels the fires.
“Stay close to me,” the doctor hisses at you, navigating side streets to find the fastest way to your destination. Leaving your masks was a good idea, they do very little and only attract false hope. All your years, all that you know and you still have no idea how to help these people.
You’re ignored for the most part, people are drowning in their grief and too busy to notice.
The marketplace looks tired and grey, the sun doesn’t eclipse the ugly here either. People are afraid of crowds, of catching something they can’t shake. Vendors are still set up, but they refuse to disturb the peace with unanswered cries.
You mill about at a few stalls, locking your arm around Julian’s and keeping him close. He doesn’t seem to mind. The sorrows are uncountable, unknowable but being near him is one less.
“I used to---” you start, but talking feels strange. It is, however, apparently something he was looking for.
“What?” He insists, looking down at you with an expression that could be described as gently encouraging. Julian’s voice stays low. “You used to what?”
“When I was a little girl, my mother used to pull me through the market by our home. It was like this one.” You reply, your tone matches his in volume. Sounding so wistful should be a criminal offence. “And I’d dream about all the things I’d buy when I was grown. Gowns, crystals, books---”
The maggots in you, the ones feasting on butterfly carcasses have never stopped moving. Not really, you only ignore them. But as you circumnavigate the market with Julian on your arm, you might’ve sworn they were put to rest for a moment, if only you’d noticed it. You don’t, you’re watching his face.
“But now I am,” you say. You stop where you have to, your hip bumping gently against the stall counter, “and all I want is candles.”
You buy three tallow candles, dreading already the smell of the acrid smoke they’ll produce. Until you came to the palace, you’d never known of an alternative and you stare with thinly-veiled longing at the ones made of beeswax.
But you steel your resolve and remember that sickness has its boot to Vesuvia’s throat and that the woman selling to you will be dead in three days if her eyes tell you the truth. Spending money, having beautiful candles to watch burn feels like wanton excess.
Julian leads you towards the paper-seller and you think no more of the real reason your money stays in your purse. It isn’t the excess that disturbs you, it’s the wastefulness. The fear that you’ll be dead before you can set fire to something beautiful.
“Perhaps I’ll shake things up a bit,” he says, peering at bottles of coloured ink. You stand with your back to one of the stall pillars, watching with a forced smile as he browses more thoroughly than you did.
“I dare you to buy the lilac,” you say as your eye catches something far-off. “or the pink.” You continue, trailing off without meaning to. What Julian says after that, you don’t hear.
A shop’s caught your eye, not just a stall. The sign shows a mortar and pestle with a snake wrapped around it, the door feels so familiar. You walk towards it, wondering what’s inside and if it’s open. It’s been so long since you went to a magic shop, you had no idea this one was here.
There’s a tugging sensation in your chest, a forcefulness that’s similar to being dragged by the bones of your ribcage. You look up at the little snake, the sight gives you a strange feeling of comfort.
You grip the door handle and turn it, but it won’t budge. The lantern outside is unlit, you should’ve suspected this. Stepping back with a frown, you momentarily wonder why it isn’t open today. In the span of a few seconds, three things happen.
One, you remember with a startling clarity that most of the city is dead. Two, you’re suddenly very aware of the absence of constant, gnawing anxiety when it swiftly returns. And three, you hear your name called out by a familiar voice.
You turn your head, looking in the direction of the shout and you see Julian walking over to you. He says your name again, seeing something in your eyes that clearly worries him. It’s like stepping out of a warm fog, you blink and find yourself smiling through the familiar, twisting fear.
“Sorry, I got distracted,” you say. His eyes are steel-coloured and they gaze up at the shop sign for a moment. “what colour did you pick?” Your boots crunch on the dirty cobblestone as you start towards him as well. You meet him half-way, lost now in his own fog.
“What?” He asks, shaking his head. He looks down at your face.
“What colour of ink did you buy?” The question serves as an air-light distraction. The two of you turn and begin to work back through the pin-drop-silent market, away from the shop. Neither of you look at it again.
Julian pulls a paper bag out of his pocket and shows you the little bottle of lilac ink. You beam broadly.
“If anyone asks, it’s because you dared me.” He says, trying to coax a smile from your otherwise distant expression. It works.
“Oh, yes, of course. It’s not at all because it goes well with your eyes.” Julian’s smile is no longer a foil to your own, sharp and pained where yours is rounded and false. It’s a mirror, a lovingly-made replica of how much he puts you at ease.
“At least we’ll know the truth,” he says it like it’s a secret. The walk back to the palace is necessarily quiet. Julian can read an atmosphere easily enough and has no desire fill the silence with stories, you have no desire to listen to them.
The dead situation is managed with decreasing efficiency as the life is strangled from the city. You walk by corpses floating up the cut and shrink against Julian’s side. He goes a step further than just taking your hand. He wraps his arm around your shoulder and pulls you further away from the water.
“Let’s try a different way.” He mumbles, you can tell he doesn’t mean for you to hear it and you’re thankful all the same for his decision. The two of you trudge through back-alleys and by boarded-up houses. You want to ask him if he knows whoever owns that magic shop. Something stops you.
You won’t be able to forgive yourself if he knew the one who owned it.
The only place that’s remotely hospitable is the pub nestled between two abandoned buildings. Julian stares at the boisterous fun with an almost aching expression. You slip your arm around his waist and he turns his head in your direction.
“Almost home,” you say softly, “I’ll buy you a drink when it’s over.” He seems to understand, to admire your restraint. He lets you take something of a lead, pulling him from where he could best forget his duties.
The guards are changing shifts when you re-enter palace grounds. Julian’s arm seems determined to keep you near as possible, you decide you’re all right with it.
It’s always harder to walk back into the dark. There’s a voice at the back of your mind asking you why you have to return, why you want to. Nothing is down there, nothing will come of cutting up corpses and not-corpses. You know what some of these people think, not Julian, but other’s. They don’t see life and breath, they see the opportunity for cruelty.
Even a close proximity to someone good can’t stop the shiver that tears through you. The walk to the library won’t be long enough to rid your mind of the image. Valdemar stoking the fires of the pandemic, seeing weeds where there’s only human life. What if none of you ever find the cure? What if someone does? It’s a horrible thing to wonder if history will consider their genocide as generous.
And you’re right along with it, unready to be vilified but accepting all the same. History will not be kind to anyone in the dungeon, you have to hope that the ends will not justify the means.
You squeeze yourself into the rickey lift with Julian, the contraption shuddering and sinking down, down, down. He knows that you don’t like taking the trip alone.
Just like that, the adventure is over. You have what you needed, a few crooked, yellow candles and a deep-set confusion. You’ve spoken to Julian at length before, but his close proximity continues up until you’re stood outside of your office again. Things have come full-circle.
“That was nice,” you lie. It was nice for a little while, without the smell of the dead and the bodies in the canal. Julian nods, but you know he doesn’t buy it. “thank you for the company.”
But he doesn’t retreat. After you’ve unlocked your door and waved him goodbye, he still follows you a little way’s inside.
“Do you need anything?” You ask, unable to keep a soft smile off your face. He reaches into his great coat before saying,
“No, I just---” he pulls from his pocket a wrapped shape which he holds out to you. Your brow furrows and you take it from him. “consider it a gift.”
“A gift?” You ask, that gnawing feeling in your stomach becomes unbearably intense as you begin to unwrap it. It’s a beeswax candle, unadorned but tall with a long wick. You slow your hands, pulling away the brown paper with more care.
“In memory of the little girl in the market who wanted to be a spendthrift.” Julian says. “Who’s instead one of the best of us.”
Your neck snaps up, eyes finding Julian’s with an expression you can’t regulate. Words spin around in your head, they bubble in your throat but none can claw their way past each other. None can be said.
“You don’t like it?” He asks, sounding on the edge of mortified. “I saw you staring at them and---” he cuts himself off again. “you bought the tallow, I didn’t think that you might just prefer it over---”
“I hate tallow candles,” you say with such a surprising seriousness. It stuns Julian to silence. “they’re dreadful and they smell like dead animals. I hate them.” You set the partially unwrapped candle on your desk and lunge at him.
He doesn’t have enough time to step out of the way if he doesn’t want to be embraced. You hug Julian tightly, your cheek pressed against the buttons on his uniform. The lump in your throat worsens but you refuse to cry over a candle. There’s a hand on your shoulder-blades, his hand patting your back before his arms wrap around you. He’s made a decision, you’re sure of it. He hugs you with the strength of a bear.
“Thank you, Julian. Again.” You squeeze his middle tightly and, after a moment, his arms settle more naturally around your shoulders.
“You’re welcome.” He sounds unsure, you have to wonder if he considered how something so small might affect you. Your eyes close for just a moment, applying affectionate pressure to his middle. The fear you live with is constant, harrowing and at least for tonight it won’t surround you.
"I’m sure you have a lot of work to do,” you start, loosening your grip and pulling back. Julian looks dazed, but nods firmly.
“Plenty of notes to pore over, yes,” he replies. You pat his arm and let him go, immediately you begin to fold in on yourself. Your arms cross over your chest like a nervous protective barrier.
Julian nods, he turns and opens the door. He leaves your office with a last, little wave. You don’t know if the world you’re living in is conducive to fun but he feels right. He feels safe, and it’s a sensation you can’t help but note has always been worth chasing.
---
You think of him in the coming days, although you see him significantly less. Each of the doctors in the dungeon is necessarily solitary. If one shakes the wrong person’s hand, one knows they’ll trade a comfortable office for a vertical, impermanent grave.
The distance fostered by hostile working conditions and crushing ennui breaks after nearly a week. It isn’t often that someone in your ranks dies suddenly with scarlet sclera but it does happen.
Julian held out his hand this time, a gesture of solidarity that uniquely did not involve words. You took it. And now, even hours after, you can still hear the beetles in the pit gnawing on bones when you retire for the night.
Shivering in the dark and the cold, you turn your eyes from your book and look instead to the bright-burning candle. Your room smells like honey and the light bathes the space in a warm glow. It’s almost painless in here, it’s almost home.
It’s a bit of a distraction from the skittering bugs and the sound of crying. You can barely hear it from your office, it’s a few doors down, but the loss has hit someone you’re unfamiliar with very hard. To be a healer is to be naturally empathetic, at least in your opinion it should be, your heart twists in your chest.
The sound is swallowed by a low knocking sound outside your door.
“Hm?” You ask, rising from your chair. You can see a shape behind the bars, a face with no real definition in the dark. But as you approach, it becomes perfectly clear that there is only one person it could be. “Julian.” It’s not a question this time.
“Her office is so close to mine,” he says in reference to the source of the tears not twenty feet away. “I can’t---”
How many times has he offered you a lifeline when it’s become too much? You unlock your door and it swings open with a soft creak.
“Come here,” you’re not sure why your instinct is to open your arms but Julian wastes no time. He steps inside and you’re engulfed by the shape in the dark. He’s still wearing his uniform, he hasn’t tried to sleep yet.
Poor thing, you think. To say it out loud would be counter-productive. He’s as tense as you are when admitting weakness, warm but shaky and holding on to the last belief that he’s not in need of help.
“It’s all right,” you say, closing the door with a free hand behind his back. It shuts noiselessly and Julian sags back against it. He uses the strong, wood panel like a kind of support, pulling you with him.
You know by now to take strength from him when you need it. He doesn’t, he’ll learn.
Holding him like you did after leaving the market is easy as breathing. It’s natural, you carry no great opinion either for or against it. He fits well against you, however, you can admit. He’s warm and solid and a little on the thin side.
There’s an even greater ease, you suppose in the dim light of your room, now than before. Holding him like no one’s around is very different than when no one is. And save for the sounds of breathing, of quiet weeping, there is no indication that other souls exist in your periphery.
You hope the sounds of mourning fade from his mind as readily, he looks so upset.
Julian’s pressed against you and the door, swimming in the sensation of human contact. You fumble for the interior lock and bolt it with a practiced hand. The light of the beeswax candle dances over his chiselled face and you have the strongest desire to snuff out the flame. You like it dark, you like knowing that oncoming act is for him and you alone.
He’s clear with his intentions, tilting his head back and pressing the base of his skull into the iron bars. Hugs aren’t enough, your instinct has a plan of its own.
Julian’s looking down in the half-light, his eyes closed. Without really thinking, you incline your head and give him the kindest kiss you can. It’s a brief, delicate reminder that he is not alone in the dark.
He makes a noise at the back of his throat, a sound like crumbling resistance. His eyes don’t open but he seeks out your lips again, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth before finding his intended target.
This feels like the logical end to your thoughts about him, regardless of if you were aware of their romantic nature. Julian says your name and your arms tighten around his middle.
You’re unaware of how much you’re guiding this interaction until your grip takes a dramatic shift. Your arms move from his waist to his neck, firm enough to send Julian reeling forward for a deeper kiss. It’s easier than you striving to match his towering height, in your opinion.
The necessity of staying quiet to avoid personal embarrassment is an unsaid understanding. You grab at Julian’s back all the same, replacing touch with verbal communication.
You don’t know what he’s here for, other than that comfort. You’re not sure of his intentions, or if he has any idea either. He touches you with a lack of purpose that denotes desire but no real rush.
When the kiss breaks, you feel lightheaded. Julian’s in shambles, his mouth hanging open and his eyes are wide. The skin underneath them is a sickly-purple colour from exhaustion, you know it too well.
“Can you hear it now?” You ask. The crying seems to have quieted and he shakes his head.
“All right. We should both get some rest,” after a long moment, he nods. If he weighed his options in that moment, anything more than sleep came up short.
It would be disrespectful, you suppose. He must think the same. But he knocked, you won’t soon forget that. He knocked and you opened the door to a specific brand of intimacy.
“All right, cot’s big enough for two.” No it’s not, but he doesn’t refuse the opportunity to be close to another for a few hours before dawn. You take his hand, guiding him further into the candlelit room than he has before.
You take a moment to close your book, to right your affairs and then you’re unbuttoning the front of your uniform and tugging off gloves. You leave your shift on, and the skirt of thick, black wool and set the rest over your chair.
Julian’s staring instead of doing the same, you’re not sure if he does so on purpose. Either way, you let him do his looking. His eyes flit to your chest and then his cheeks go scarlet.
“Here,” you say, beginning to unbutton his gloves. His hands are like pale, spindly birds that flutter when he speaks. Julian’s flair for the dramatic is quite subdued this evening.
He stands still and allows you to undress him. First, gloves. Then you push his outer coat off his shoulders and focus on the interior buttons. His inner coat is not the final layer, he wears a cotton shirt underneath that gives you a fine view of his chest. He looks a bit like a pirate, you tell him so.
“Have I ever told you about my adventures at sea?” You look up at him with a cocked brow. “I was a ship’s physician.”
“Willingly?” You ask.
“What do you think? Of course not,” the sound of his voice, less gripped with fear and anguish makes you smile.
“Poor thing,” you say out loud this time. “surrounded by scary pirates.” He smiles, too.
“On the contrary,” he dips his head and, inexplicably, kisses your forehead. “I was the scariest on board.”
“Likely story,” you mumble, returning to the act of stripping him to something suitable to sleep in. He kicks off his boots and lets you move around him to lie down.
Call it intuition, but you know before he says a word how he’d like to spend tonight. You lie on your cot with your shoulders partially braced against the wall. Julian looks at you with an expression that could be very thankful or very unsure.
He lies on top of you without saying another word. Part of you would be grateful for a quip or a smirk to tell you he’s fine, but you know that nothing is. Julian’s gangly but aware of his limbs, it doesn’t take long for him to find a comfortable position.
The sigh he lets out is one that you feel in your own chest. It speaks of fear and anxiety, of the wriggling sensation in your gut that keeps you from knowing peace. Things will get worse before they get better. More people will die.
Your arms fold around him, rubbing his back and waiting patiently for the tension to slowly ebb away. It never fully does, but he comes so close to it.
“I forgot to put out the light,” you start. Julian lifts his head a fraction.
“I don’t mind it,” he tells you. You understand. Sometimes lying in the dark is too much to ask of someone. You won’t sleep regardless.
After that, there isn’t much to say. Julian’s eyes close after a while, you try to comfort him as best you can with gentle touches that make him melt.
You hold his face to your neck, touching his cheeks and the mop of red curls that fall where they may. His chest moves against yours, breathing in such a way that you’re certain he’s he’s really fallen asleep.
So when you speak, when you find the words welling in your throat cannot remain unsaid, you’re confident he doesn’t hear you.
“Thank goodness,” you whisper. It’s the first real sound you’ve allowed yourself to make since he stumbled into your room. “thank goodness,” you kiss his head and think of all his death-defying stories, of his heart’s tendency to eat itself. “that the universe cares so much for your existence.”