The darkness felt heavier than it should have, not simply the kind born of the absence of light, not the familiar, expected kind that bled into the corners of the safehouse after the last candle sputtered and died, leaving the world draped in a velvet hush, but something else—something thicker, denser, weighted with presence, like the air itself had grown viscous with intention, like the shadows that pooled around the edges of the room weren't just shadows, but watchers, sentinels, things with breath and teeth and memory. It was not the kind of dark one blinked through or adjusted to—it was the kind that stayed, pressed tight against the skin, and Theo, who had never once feared the night, who had never flinched at the idea of things lurking just beyond his periphery, who had trained himself in the art of ignoring superstition, in starving out fear before it could plant its roots, found himself now unable to breathe properly in it, unable to convince himself that what lingered in this dark was harmless or empty, because something had changed, because the dark wasn't just dark anymore—it whispered, low and curling, slipping between his thoughts like smoke under a door, and sometimes it breathed, like lungs filling just out of sync with his own, and tonight—tonight it touched.
The sting was sharp and immediate, a sudden bite of pain that tore him from the depths of sleep with a violence that made his breath catch, his chest jolt, his body recoil before his mind could catch up, before he had even remembered where he was, the jarring slam of pain against unconsciousness leaving him disoriented, trembling, limbs sluggish as if dragged from water, his breath shallow and uneven as he fought the weight of sleep still clinging to his limbs like something animate, something reluctant to let him go. His head ached, pounding with the remnants of a dream already dissolving into fragments he couldn't recall, but the pain—that sharp, burning sting on his skin—that was real, unmistakably so, far too vivid to be a lingering echo of nightmare.
His fingers twitched where they rested against the sheets, the fabric cool beneath his palm, and that was when he felt it—new cuts, fresh and burning, slashing across the surface of his forearms, thin but deep, radiating heat that pulsed with every beat of his heart, and as he blinked rapidly against the darkness, willing his body to respond, his stomach twisted in on itself, dread knotting low and cold as he pushed himself upright, breath ragged and pulse roaring in his ears, his body caught in that sick space between dream and waking where nothing felt quite real but everything hurt. He ran trembling fingertips over the raw lines, hissed softly at the sting, at the way the skin puckered under his touch, and then—before he could process it fully—his eyes caught movement.
She was sitting beside the bed.
Still. Silent. Watching.
Luna.
Her presence didn't startle him, didn't jolt him the way it might have if it had been anyone else, but it unsettled him all the same, because she wasn't supposed to be here, and yet there she was, sitting in that too-straight posture, her hands folded in her lap, her face calm in a way that didn't match the way the room felt like it was vibrating, like something unseen was coiled just beneath the surface of things. She didn't speak, didn't move, didn't even flinch beneath his startled stare, and for a moment, he thought she might not be real at all, might just be another figment conjured by a mind unraveling at the seams, but her eyes—those silver-blue eyes that reflected the low light like glass, like moonlight on the ocean's surface—were locked on his, unwavering, steady, too alive to be imagined, too aware.
His breathing was unsteady, his throat raw and dry, his skin prickling with the aftershock of pain, and for a long, suspended moment, neither of them said a word, the silence between them thick with everything that had not been said, everything that was circling overhead like a storm waiting to break. Finally, when the pressure in his chest became too much, when the moment stretched too long and frayed at the edges of what he could contain, he forced the words out, his voice rough and tired and too quiet, the sound of it scraping like gravel against the walls of the room. "How long have you been sitting there?"
She tilted her head slightly, that small, deliberate motion of hers that always felt less like a shrug and more like an invitation to listen more closely, and for a heartbeat he thought she might lie, might wave it off or distract or dodge like other people did when pressed—but she didn't, she never did—and when she spoke, her voice was soft, almost reverent, like the truth she held in her hands was fragile. "Long enough."
It wasn't enough. It was too much. It made his spine straighten, made his grip tighten on the edge of the sheets as he resisted the urge to pace or flee or demand something clearer, because the idea that she had been watching him—sitting in the dark, just watching—was unbearable, not because it was invasive, but because it was intentional, because it meant she knew something, because it meant she had seen something, and suddenly it all felt too close, too heavy, too real, and the tension in his chest became something crawling beneath his skin, something alive and circling like a trapped animal trying to claw its way out.
There was no reason for her to be here, no logical, justifiable reason why she would be sitting by his bed in the middle of the night, watching him breathe, watching him dream, watching him bleed—except there was, wasn't there, and they both knew it, even if he didn't want to say it out loud, even if the words stuck like iron in his throat. Because the whispers were louder now. Because the marks weren't fading, weren't stopping, were multiplying like something furious was trying to write on his skin. Because the thing haunting him wasn't hiding anymore.
His gaze dropped to his arms, to the angry red lines carved there like runes, still fresh enough to gleam wetly in the low light, blood gathering in beads before trailing down toward his wrist, and he dragged his thumb across one of them, watching the crimson smear, trying to convince himself it was shallow, superficial, meaningless—but it wasn't, and he knew it. He knew it.
His voice cracked when he finally spoke again, a whisper dragged up from the pit of his chest, soft and uncertain and stripped bare of pretense. "I didn't do this."
And Luna, ever Luna, didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't act surprised, because of course she wasn't, of course she didn't need him to explain, of course she had already known—maybe before he did, maybe before it even started—and she only let her gaze drop briefly to the scratches, then return to his face, calm as ever, gentle as dusk, and said only two words. "I know."
No panic, no skepticism, no furrowed brow or fidgeting hands or desperate scrabble for reason, no attempts to wrap what was happening to him in the careful gauze of logic or deny it with the brittle shield of coincidence, no need for proof or explanation or even narrative coherence, just quiet, steady certainty spoken in a voice so calm, so simple, so devastatingly assured that it cleaved straight through the noise in his mind and settled in his chest like stone, a truth that required no defense, no persuasion, a truth that had existed long before he'd even begun to question his reality, spoken with the same ease one might announce the turning of seasons or the rising of the tide, as if she were merely naming the nature of the world around them, as if she were observing gravity or breath or blood, and somehow—somehow—that made it worse, not easier, not safer, because it confirmed what he'd only dared to whisper in the back of his thoughts, what he'd been trying to bury beneath sleepless nights and unraveling logic, and if she believed him, if she had seen what he could not remember, if she had already known what was coming before he even began to feel the tremor beneath his skin, then it meant this was not random, not sudden, not fleeting, it meant something was coming for him, something ancient or cruel or intimate or unfinished, and it wasn't over, not yet, maybe not ever, and more than anything, it meant it wasn't just in his head.
It meant the weight in the dark was real, that the pressure that made his spine straighten at night and his breath catch in his throat wasn't imagined, wasn't the byproduct of trauma or fear or an overactive subconscious, but something real enough to be named, real enough to leave marks, real enough to stay, and it meant he wasn't alone in his sleep, that the stillness he wrapped himself in each night had company, that his dreams were not just his own, and that the hands dragging themselves across his skin, carving their presence into the soft meat of his arms, were not figments of fractured memory or guilt made manifest, but here, still here, watching, waiting, touching, returning.
He let out a breath that tasted like ash, slow and dragged from the bottom of his lungs, a sound more resignation than relief, his hand rising to cover his face, fingers dragging down the sharp edge of his cheekbone to the line of his jaw, grounding himself in the ache of it, in the press of his own body as if it might somehow protect him from everything happening within it, his other arm still cradling the place where the scratches stung, the nerves beneath the skin burning with memory, his entire body coiled like something preparing for a fight it didn't know how to begin, something restless and frayed and stretched too thin, and beneath it all, in the deepest part of himself, he knew he was unraveling, not slowly, not subtly, but desperately, like threads being pulled by a hand he couldn't see—and Luna knew it, of course she knew it, because she had been waiting for it, waiting with the kind of stillness that wasn't passivity but preparation, like she had read the weather of his soul and simply marked the day the storm would break.
He didn't know what unsettled him more—the idea that something was visiting him in sleep, leaving its mark on him while he was at his most vulnerable, that something was using the cover of unconsciousness to write its intentions into his skin, or the quiet, almost reverent way Luna accepted it, the way she didn't question or fear or even flinch, the way she held space for it like one might hold space for the inevitable, as if this was a story she had seen unfold too many times before, as if the ending was already known and she had simply taken her place beside it.
She hadn't moved—not from the moment she'd told him I know—hadn't shifted, hadn't stood, hadn't even broken the gaze that hung between them like a cord strung taut across a ravine, the space between them thick with unspoken things, things neither of them was quite ready to voice, not yet, and she just sat there, her silhouette outlined in dim candlelight, unmoving but not passive, watchful but never invasive, her presence too quiet to be anything but deliberate, as though her stillness was the only thing keeping the shadows at bay, and Theo, even through the thrum of fear and confusion and the sharp, bright pain in his arms, felt that strange and dangerous calm begin to creep into his bones, that sense that she knew something, that she understood something about this that he didn't yet have language for.
And then—before he could speak again, before he could drag another question out of the tangle of his thoughts, before he could demand answers or ask why she had been watching him, why she always seemed to be exactly where he didn't know he needed her, why she spoke in riddles that left no room for denial—the exhaustion that had been gnawing at the edges of his awareness since the moment he woke, heavy and merciless and absolute, finally surged forward and pulled him under again, like a wave crashing through a dam already cracked beyond repair, and no matter how he tried to fight it, no matter how wide he forced his eyes or how sharp the air in his lungs felt, his limbs began to grow heavy again, his thoughts blurring, his body sinking back into the mattress like something was pressing him down, and as his mind slipped back toward sleep, faster than he could resist, more overwhelming than before, he had the sudden, terrifying realization that he wasn't choosing to fall asleep—something had already decided for him that he wasn't done dreaming.
His breathing slowed, vision pulling at the edges, sounds dulling as if cotton had been stuffed into his ears, and just before the world went entirely dark again, just before the last threads of consciousness frayed into nothing, he felt it—the soft press of fingers against his wrist, delicate and cool, unmistakably real, grounding him, steadying him, tethering him to the moment in a way that made it clear that she wasn't trying to wake him, wasn't trying to pull him back, but was holding him just enough to make sure he didn't slip too far—and then, with a breath caught halfway through his chest, he was gone.
But it wasn't the kind of nightmare he could escape from with a gasp and a shaky breath and the comfort of familiar surroundings.
It wasn't just memory clawing its way into the present, wasn't just flashes of war or fear or grief stitched together by the subconscious, wasn't just old ghosts rattling their chains.
It was deeper.
It was other.
It was real in the way drowning is real, in the way pain is real, in the way touch is real.
There was something behind him in the dream—not beside, not beyond, but behind, close enough to press breath against the nape of his neck, close enough to reach out and draw fingers across his back in a slow, sickening drag, close enough that he felt the indent of presence before he ever saw a face, and the voice—oh gods, the voice—it whispered in a language he didn't understand but recognized, didn't translate but felt, a language made of loss and promise and something more ancient than either, something that slithered under his skin and curled there like smoke or sickness or memory, and his breath hitched, fast and sharp, his body convulsing in the dream, trying to fight, trying to flee, but the touch followed, warm now, almost loving, almost affectionate, and that was worse, that was so much worse.
Without invitation, without hesitation, without the need for permission or explanation or the brittle rituals of asking and offering, she moved with the kind of quiet certainty that made Theo's breath catch before he could even place why, with no hesitation in her limbs, no pause in her posture, no moment of second-guessing as she stood and crossed the small space between them, her footsteps silent against the floor like she belonged not just to the room but to the stillness itself, and there was no questioning glance, no tentative touch, no breath of uncertainty in the way she reached for the edge of the blanket and lifted it with slow, deliberate grace, slipping beneath the covers beside him like it had always been meant to happen, like this moment had already been written into the seams of their lives long before they ever reached it, and when her body pressed softly into the mattress, the warmth of her curling gently into the shape of the space beside him, it felt seamless in a way that sent a shiver down his spine, not out of fear or shock or even awe, but recognition, because it felt as if this had already happened in another version of time, as if she had known long before he ever dared to consider it that this was inevitable, that their orbits had always been moving toward this quiet, tender collision.
And maybe it was.
Maybe this moment had been waiting for them, coiled just outside the edges of every too-long glance and every strange conversation and every time they found themselves in the same room at the same hour without knowing how they got there, maybe it had been blooming slowly in the silence, in the breath between questions, in the way she looked at him when he said things no one else would understand, maybe it had always been waiting, this surrender, this wordless unraveling, this exact stillness in which the world outside fell away and left only the softness of her beside him, the even rhythm of her breathing brushing across his collarbone, the fragile quiet wrapping around them like gauze and shadows and something unspoken that didn't need to be named.
He didn't think.
He didn't calculate the risk, didn't rehearse the motion, didn't flinch or hesitate or weigh the consequences of reaching for her—he just moved, instinctual and aching, like his body had been waiting for this moment far longer than his mind had, like his hands had memorized the path before they ever made contact, and as she settled against him, he found the curve of her waist beneath the thin fabric of her dress, his fingers pressing into the warm line of her skin with the kind of reverence he didn't even realize he was capable of, his palm molding to her side like it belonged there, like it had always belonged there, and he pulled her in closer, not with hunger, not with force, but with the quiet desperation of someone who had been cold for far too long and had only just remembered what warmth felt like, holding her with an intensity that might have startled anyone else, that might have made another person freeze or pull away or tense in response to his need, but not her—never her—because she didn't recoil, didn't stiffen, didn't blink at the way he clutched her like he might fall apart without her, she only let herself be held, let herself become that solid thing he could grip onto when everything else around him was unraveling.
And gods, he needed her.
He needed her warmth, her steadiness, the weight of her body pressing into his like an anchor, needed something that was real, something that wasn't haunted or shifting or dissolving in front of him, something he could hold that wouldn't slip through his fingers like blood or smoke or memory, and she fit against him too easily, her spine curved perfectly into the front of his body, her legs brushing softly against his, tangling just enough to feel entwined without being tangled, the scent of her—earthy, herbal, something faintly floral with a touch of something older, deeper, something uniquely and unmistakably Luna—wrapping around him with every breath he took, burrowing into his lungs like a balm, like a spell, like a promise that he hadn't been left alone in the dark.
His fingers flexed against her waist, not to pull her closer but to remind himself that she was still there, that she was real, that he wasn't imagining this, that she hadn't already disappeared, grounding himself in the feel of her skin, in the slope of her body, in the undeniable fact of her presence, in the way she made the blur of his world sharpen into clarity for the first time in weeks, and when his voice finally broke the silence, it was rough and low and fractured, slipping from his lips like something fragile and half-formed, the sound of a man trying to hope again without knowing if he was allowed to, "This is going to pass?"—and it wasn't a question, not really, not in the way questions are meant to be answered, it was a plea wrapped in a statement, a wish spoken like a truth, something raw and aching and already bruised by the possibility of no.
She didn't pull away.
She didn't answer with logic or timelines or false comfort, didn't try to soften it with lies or soothe it with vagueness, didn't try to fix it, because that wasn't what he needed—not from her—and instead she reached for his hand, the one still trembling slightly against her waist, threading her fingers through his slowly, guiding it around herself with care, wrapping herself in the full circle of his embrace like she was choosing it, like she was claiming it, like she had always belonged here and was simply reclaiming the space, and when she finally spoke, her voice was soft, sure, steady in a way that made his heart throb against his ribs, "It will."
She didn't say when.
She didn't pretend it would be easy.
She didn't paint over the shadows with pastel reassurance or try to stuff the silence with the kind of hollow comfort that people offered when they didn't know what else to say—she simply gave him the truth she could give, the only one that mattered, and then held him tighter, her fingers curled firmly around his, her forehead pressed just slightly into his collarbone, and somehow it was enough—it should have been enough.
But he wasn't thinking anymore.
He wasn't fighting anymore.
He wasn't building walls or counting cracks or cataloguing reasons to retreat.
He was just here.
And before he could stop himself, before he could talk himself out of it, before he could remind himself of the boundary between comfort and something far more dangerous, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her neck, not forceful, not possessive, just soft and aching and full of something he didn't have the language for, something not quite desire and not quite desperation, something that had bloomed from the cracks she had never tried to fix, something that whispered of quiet longing and terrifying trust.
She didn't flinch.
She didn't pull away.
She didn't tense or shift or freeze—she only breathed, slow and deep, her chest rising against his, and then she tilted her head just enough to give him more space, to open herself to him more fully, to offer not just the line of her throat but something else, something unnamed and terrifying in its generosity, and he felt it like a second heartbeat, like a pulse of something sacred.
And gods, he wanted.
He wanted her in a way that felt like falling, in a way that felt like homecoming, in a way that terrified him because it made him realize how long it had been since he'd allowed himself to feel this much, since he'd dared to want without fearing the price, and it was dangerous, so dangerous, the way her body fit so perfectly against his, the way she didn't just let him hold her but held him back, the way their breathing had aligned without effort, slow and deep and synchronous like they had been carved from the same rhythm, and still, he didn't pull away.
He didn't stop.
His lips lingered for a second too long, his fingers curling tighter around the curve of her hip, and before he could catch the words, before he could swallow them back down where they belonged, they slipped out of him like a confession, like a truth dragged loose from the depths of his chest, "Thank you for being here."
She turned slightly, just enough that her face was close to his, close enough that her breath brushed against the edge of his jaw like a touch, like a kiss, warm and constant and steady, and when she spoke, her voice was nothing more than a whisper, but it landed in him like a promise, "Of course."
It wasn't obligation.
It wasn't burden.
It wasn't some grand declaration of sacrifice or duty—it was simply a truth, clean and unadorned, something that had always existed beneath the surface and was only now being spoken aloud, something permanent, something real, and as his grip on her softened just enough to let her settle deeper into him, as his body began to ease from tension to surrender, as the pull of sleep returned—not with fear this time, but with a strange kind of fragile peace—he realized something that shook him more than any nightmare ever could: this was the first time in what felt like forever that he wasn't afraid of what would meet him in the dark when he closed his eyes.
~~~
The first thing Theo registered wasn't the sound of wind or the soft rustle of sheets or even the familiar creak of the safehouse shifting in its sleep—it was the cold, but not the kind of cold that came from the drafty walls or the age-worn windows that didn't quite close, not the ordinary, expected chill of a winter night slipping through the cracks and making itself at home in the quiet corners of a room, but something deeper, something unnatural, something present, and it wasn't the temperature so much as the texture of it, the way it moved like breath, like thought, like intent, the way it slipped past the edges of his clothes and skin and coiled itself around his ribs, not like ice or wind or air, but like something that knew him, that had been here long before he noticed it, that had already threaded itself into the walls, into the floorboards, into the space between his breaths, and he knew, in that deep, silent way the body knows before the mind catches up, before thought forms a sentence or sense shapes into fear, that something was here, something was watching, and he didn't need to move, didn't need to open his eyes, didn't need to shift a single muscle to feel it pressing into the room like a second atmosphere, thick and wrong and deliberate, like the darkness had weight now, like it wasn't just filling the room but inhabiting it, settling over him like a second skin that didn't quite fit.
His mind was slow, still fogged by the pull of sleep, caught between the echoes of dream and the creeping awareness of something shifting in the air, but even as his thoughts scrambled to catch up, his instincts—those sharp, well-honed reflexes carved by war and blood and survival—were already screaming, were already coiled tight beneath his skin, every nerve a taut thread stretched to the breaking point, because while his body remained still, unmoving beneath the blanket, his consciousness had snapped into full alert, and he knew, without knowing how, that whatever was here wasn't waiting for permission to get closer, that this thing—whatever it was—had already crossed the threshold between observation and intrusion. The candle he'd left burning on the bedside table, the one he always kept lit now as a ward, a warning, a weak but defiant gesture against the dark, was dead—its flame reduced to a cold, silent black, no curl of smoke, no fading ember, no soft hiss of extinguishment, just a lifeless stub of wax as though the fire had been swallowed—and still, the air moved. The curtains, untouched by wind, hung still and heavy, but the air itself shifted, brushing past his skin with a deliberate slowness that had nothing to do with weather, and the shadows pooled at the edges of the room in ways that defied geometry, stretching too far, reaching too long, crawling across the floorboards like ink spilled from a source he couldn't see, and he could feel it—feel it—the shape of something standing at the edge of his bed, the presence of breath that didn't belong to him, slow and steady and waiting, like it had all the time in the world.
His fingers twitched against the sheets, not in panic but in instinct, a reflex he couldn't suppress, and the moment he moved—even that imperceptible motion, even that quiet betrayal of stillness—everything changed. The breath that wasn't his deepened, the air growing heavier around him, the darkness pressing closer, the rhythm of the inhales and exhales shifting into something more deliberate, not a predator preparing to strike, not something hesitant or unsure, but something patient, something curious, something that had been measuring him for some time and was now ready to draw near. Every part of Theo wanted to turn his head, to confirm what his body already knew, to let his eyes find the shape that lingered just out of sight, to face whatever had crawled out of the dark and into his room, but even more than he wanted to see it, he knew—knew, in that way animals know storms and infants know danger—that if he looked now, if he dared to meet the gaze of whatever stood at the edge of the bed, he wouldn't wake again.
The weight against his chest grew unbearable, not like hands or pressure or touch, but like a force, like an atmosphere being compressed into his lungs, like the air itself had thickened until it felt like drowning, and his ribs ached with the effort of not moving, of holding still, of not reacting, because some part of him believed—believed absolutely—that if he acknowledged it, it would become real in a way that couldn't be undone. But then something shifted again—not the house, not the old groan of wooden joints or the usual settling of beams and stone—but something deeper, something quieter, something that moved without sound, without form, something that didn't obey the rules of space or breath, and from just beyond his perception, from a place that wasn't quite in the room and yet absolutely was, came the whisper—not a word, not a voice, not a language, but something older, something colder, something sentient, something that slipped beneath his skin like smoke turned to wire, wrapping around his lungs, threading into his veins, pulling and twisting and claiming, and he could feel it in his skull now, feel it pressing against the walls of his mind, threading through his thoughts like it had been there all along, like it had just been waiting for him to notice.
And then—the mattress shifted.
Not a creak in the floor, not a scrape of movement from across the room, not a flicker of shadow at the edges of vision, but here, with him, on the bed, the weight of something settling into the space beside him, indenting the mattress with quiet purpose, and the breath that wasn't his brushed against his skin again—closer now, unbearably close, warm and wet against his throat, his jaw, the shell of his ear, and he wanted to scream, wanted to thrash, wanted to run, but his body wouldn't move, wouldn't break free, wouldn't obey, and his pulse hammered in his chest in a frantic staccato, slamming against his ribs like it was trying to escape him. The sheets shifted again, and then came the touch—not violent, not aggressive, but slow, measured, teasing, the brush of fingers against his throat, light and cold and too intentional, too intimate, pressing softly against the spot where his heartbeat thrummed wild and unsteady, feeling him, tracking him, as if it were counting every beat, as if it were learning the rhythm of him for later.
And then—it stopped.
Everything stopped.
The pressure, the breath, the weight, the touch.
Stillness.
Silence.
Not peace—never peace—but a vacuum, a pause, a held breath in the dark.
And then came the sound that split him in half.
A laugh.
Soft, low, amused, and unbearably close, whispered directly into his ear like a secret, like a promise, and then it was gone—all of it—the weight, the breath, the pressure, the presence—vanished in the space of a blink, and the cold shattered into heat, into panic, into the full-body jolt of release as Theo's lungs convulsed and he gasped, gasped hard enough to hurt, a ragged, desperate inhale that felt like drowning in reverse, and his body jerked upright, arms flailing, hands clawing at the sheets, at the mattress, at anything solid, anything real, needing to ground himself in the tactile, needing to believe in the bed beneath him, in the feel of his own skin, in the blood rushing through his veins like fire.
He was drenched in sweat, every inch of him slick with it, his skin burning, his chest heaving, his throat raw with breath and the effort not to scream, and he looked around the room in a blind, panicked scramble, his eyes scanning the corners, the shadows, the ceiling, desperate for proof that he had imagined it, that nothing was there, that he had dreamed it—but the candle was still out, the wax a cold, blackened stub, the shadows still too deep, still too alive, still stretching into corners they didn't belong, and the whisper—the whisper wasn't gone, not completely, not yet.
It hovered.
Just at the edge of hearing.
Fading.
But not gone.
And he knew—he knew—he wasn't alone.
Not anymore.
Not really.
Not ever again.
~~~
He didn't think—he couldn't think—not when his entire body was still echoing with the aftershock of that presence, that breath, that laugh curling against his skin like smoke made of teeth, not when the darkness in his room had stopped being emptiness and started becoming a living thing pressing against his chest with deliberate weight, whispering not through his ears but directly into his skull, not when every nerve in his body screamed in one unified, primal voice to move, to flee, to run, and so that's what he did—he ran, not in any structured or rational way, not with any clear destination in mind, not with the sense that he could escape what had just happened to him, but because every inch of him demanded distance, because staying in that room one moment longer would mean surrender, would mean collapse, would mean letting whatever had touched him claim the rest of him, and so his bare feet slammed against the hallway floorboards, the sound of each step far too loud in the silence, echoing down the corridor like a warning, like a cry for help, his breath coming in harsh, uneven pulls, his lungs tight, his throat dry, his chest aching beneath the erratic pounding of his heart as it tried to outpace the terror still clinging to his skin.
The remnants of paralysis still lingered in his limbs, his muscles heavy and half-numb as if he were trying to run through water, his vision still blurry with the imprint of something he hadn't truly seen but would never forget, and the whisper—gods, the whisper—still curled around the edges of his hearing like it was hooked behind his eardrums, fading but not vanishing, like it was waiting just beyond the boundary of this moment, like it was planning its return. He didn't stop to consider the time, didn't slow as he passed the creaking beams of the safehouse, didn't care that anyone could wake from the frantic rhythm of his footfalls or the desperate rasp of his breath, because only one person in this entire place could help him now, only one person might understand, and his shaking hands were already reaching for the handle of her door, heart hammering, the panic still loud in his head as he shoved it open without thinking, without asking, without hesitating.
And there she was—Luna—bathed in the soft, steady glow of a single candle burning low on the table beside her bed, its flickering light casting slow golden waves across the walls, across the sheets, across the line of her face, which was turned toward the ceiling in sleep, her breath slow and even, her expression untroubled, untouched by the horror that had just unraveled him, as if whatever plagued him could not reach her here, as if her world existed just slightly adjacent to his, untouched by the darkness that had crawled its way into his chest—and for a moment, just a moment, he froze there, standing in her doorway, the sick twist of fear in his stomach growing sharper because what if even she couldn't help him, what if even Luna, who whispered to things older than time and walked through shadow as if it were morning mist, couldn't reach him now?
But then she stirred, just slightly, just enough for her body to shift beneath the covers, just enough for her lashes to flutter open, her gaze lifting toward him as if she had already known he would come, as if she had been dreaming of this moment and simply needed to wake to find it waiting, and there was no surprise in her expression, no alarm, no confusion—just that same impossible steadiness, that same quiet recognition, like she saw all of him in a glance and wasn't afraid of any part of it, and he wanted to fall to the floor and sob from the sheer relief of being seen like that. His voice, when it came, cracked under the weight of panic and exhaustion and desperation, and all he could manage was her name, broken and whispered and pleading—"Luna, please—help."
She didn't ask what had happened.
She didn't ask why he was here.
She didn't ask him to explain the shadows or the breath or the cold clawing at his bones.
She only moved—soft and wordless and sure—lifting the edge of the blanket in one graceful motion, offering without speech the only thing he could bear to accept: sanctuary. She didn't need to say it aloud, didn't need to reassure him with words, because her actions spoke with the certainty of someone who had already seen this coming, someone who had made space for him long before he arrived. And Theo—numb, shaking, hollowed out by terror—didn't hesitate, didn't falter, didn't think, just stepped forward and climbed into the bed beside her, into the small space she had created between herself and the world, into the warmth that immediately pressed against his skin like balm, like safety, like something he thought he'd never feel again.
The scent of her enveloped him instantly—something grounding, earthy, faintly floral but sharper at the edges, something that smelled like the inside of apothecary drawers and fresh parchment and old stone halls, something unmistakably her—and he turned toward her instinctively, his body curling inward in a motion he didn't fully control, his arms reaching without permission to pull her in, to feel the shape of her against him, to bury his face in the space between her neck and shoulder and remind himself, with every breath he took, that this was real, that she was real, that he wasn't entirely lost.
His grip around her waist was tight, too tight, almost painful, his fingers digging into the fabric of her nightgown like he was afraid she might slip away, like she was the last anchor he had left in a sea that wanted to swallow him whole, but still—still—she let him, said nothing, did nothing to stop him, only moved into him without resistance, wrapping her arms around him without a word, one hand pressed against his back in slow, steady reassurance, the other sliding gently into his hair, her fingertips stroking lightly across his scalp in a rhythm so soothing it made something in his chest crack open, something raw and loud and panicked beginning to slowly, quietly, unravel. He shuddered at the touch, his entire body trembling with it, and her voice came soon after—soft, almost too quiet to hear, but steady and solid and real—"What happened?"
He tried to answer, tried to form words around the tightness in his throat, the tremor in his limbs, but his breath still caught in short, uneven bursts and his mouth was dry and his heart was still thundering like it wanted to tear its way out of his chest, but somehow he forced it out, just barely more than a whisper—"It's in my room." That was all he could say. That was all he needed to say.
And Luna didn't ask what it was. Didn't press him to elaborate. Didn't tell him it wasn't real. Didn't say the words that would shatter the fragile hold he had on the moment. Instead, she simply held him tighter, her arms wrapping more firmly around him, her presence bracing and warm and solid like stone carved into shelter, and her voice followed, low and certain, no fear, no hesitation, "Stay." And then, after a breath, quieter still, but with the weight of absolute certainty—"It can't come here. I have spells protecting the room."
Theo exhaled, a long, uneven breath that seemed to unspool from somewhere deep in his core, something uncoiling from the pit of his chest, because of course she had spells, of course she had thought of this, of course she had built a sanctuary for herself, not just a place of peace, but a fortress, and for the first time since the shadows touched him, he believed it—believed her—and as he tucked his face closer to her neck, breathing in the scent of sage and candlewax and Luna, letting the sound of her heartbeat guide him back into his own body, he let his grip loosen slightly, no longer the desperate clutch of a drowning man, but still firm, still needing, still grateful.
"Thank you," he murmured, the words breaking at the edges, his voice raw and frayed and low, and his lips brushed against her temple in a way that wasn't quite conscious, wasn't quite planned, but carried too much reverence to be accidental. She hummed in response, a soft, melodic sound, one of comfort and closeness, and her hands moved again, slow, mindless motions through his hair, her presence circling him like a protective charm woven into breath and skin and silence.
"This will pass," she murmured finally, her voice softer than before, less a reassurance and more a truth, less a promise and more a prophecy, the words curling in the space between them like an incantation, like something sacred.
And for the first time that night, Theo believed it.
He closed his eyes, and this time, when sleep came for him, it came not like a thief, but like a reprieve.