The room holds its breath.

Not the silence of emptiness. The silence of something waiting. Something watching.

I sit on the edge of the bed beside Silas. And I’m doing something I never imagined myself doing.

I’m patting his head.

My fingers move through his hair—slow, almost clumsy, like they’re learning a language they were never taught. The strands are soft. Too soft. Brown silk slipping between my knuckles before falling back into place like water closing over a stone.

I don’t recognize myself in this moment.

How did I end up here?

The question drifts through my mind like smoke—impossible to hold onto for long.

I should have left. Called his secretary. Walked away and let someone else deal with him. Let someone else sit in this dim room, patting the head of a boy burning with fever and refusing to be saved.

But I didn’t.

I glance at him from the corner of my eye—just enough to look without fully turning.

He lies beside me curled slightly inward, knees drawn up, his body folded like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible. His eyes are closed. His breathing is still uneven—catching on something invisible, stumbling beneath a weight only he can feel.

I didn’t leave because he was crying.

Not the loud, desperate kind. The quiet kind. The kind where tears fall without permission, where a body shakes silently, where someone clings to you not because they think you’ll save them—but because they’re terrified of being alone.

Like a child.

Clinging to me in the dim light. Refusing to let go. As if I were the only solid thing in a world that keeps shifting beneath his feet.

His body still burns.

I can feel it—the heat radiating from him in relentless waves, seeping into my skin, making the air between us thick and difficult to breathe. His warmth presses against my side like something alive that doesn’t know how to stop burning.

How long does he plan to stay like this?

Making me sit here. Making me touch him. Making me stay.

Refusing the hospital. Refusing anything that might actually help.

My voice comes out flat when I finally speak. Hollow. Drained of everything I’m feeling so nothing leaks through.

"Are you sleeping?"

Silas’s eyes open slowly.

His lashes are still wet—clumped together, glistening in the dim light spilling through the gap in the curtains. His cheeks are flushed, faint tear tracks still visible against his pale skin.

He looks at me. And in his eyes—brown, deep, shining with something I can’t name— I hold his gaze.

"I did what you asked."

My voice stays quiet. Measured.

"I stayed. I sat here. I patted your head." A pause. "Now you do what I ask."

The silence stretches thin between us.

"Get up. We’re going to the hospital. Your body isn’t cooling down."

Silas shakes his head.

No.

Just that. A small movement. A quiet refusal. His head turns slowly from side to side like someone who has already made up their mind and won’t be moved.

Like a child afraid of needles.

Like someone who has learned—through grief, through loss, through too many small tragedies—that hospitals are not places of healing.

They’re places where people go to disappear.

My expression tightens. Just slightly. Enough for something sharp to slip through the cracks.

He’s making me angry.

My brows twist. My jaw tightens.

"What is your problem?"

The words come out colder than I intended. Sharper. Edged with something I don’t want to examine too closely.

"Why are you being so stubborn?"

Silas blinks. Calmly. Simply.

As if my anger is just weather. Something to wait through rather than fear.

I stand up from the bed. Suddenly.

The mattress shifts beneath me, releasing my weight. The air stirs around me, disturbed by the movement, carrying the faint scent of him—fever-sweat and something cleaner beneath it.

My voice drops lower.

I look down at him—this impossible, infuriating, silent boy who has somehow turned my life into something I barely recognize anymore.

"Fine."

The word hangs between us, heavy as stone.

"You don’t want to go to the hospital?"

A pause. I let the silence stretch. Let him feel the weight of what’s coming.

"Fine."

I grab his wrist.

Not gently.

A sharp jerk—quick, deliberate, efficient. I pull him upright. His body rises from the bed like something dragged from deep water—heavy, reluctant, trembling.

Confusion flickers across his face, brief and dazed, before disappearing again.

I pull him to his feet.

Turn. Walk toward the bathroom. Dragging him with me.

Silas follows.

Obedient. Always obedient.

His bare feet stumble against the cold floor—weak, unsteady, the steps uneven beneath him. His body sways slightly behind me, exhausted from the fever but still following without resistance.

I push the bathroom door open. It glides inward in complete silence, making the space between us suddenly feel smaller.

I shove him against the wall. His back meets the marble behind him. A soft thud. Nothing violent. Nothing cruel. Just enough to stop him from moving away.

My hand slams against the wall beside his head. Caging him. Trapping him in the narrow space between my arm and the cold marble.

My other hand reaches for the shower controls. I twist the handle. Cold water spills down from the rainfall shower above us.

Cold.

Not the soft cold of rain in summer. The biting kind. Winter against bare skin. Ice sinking into flesh. Breath turning sharp inside your lungs.

It pours over us in cold sheets—merciless, shocking, stripping the warmth from the air around us.

The water crashes against his shoulders. His chest. His face. It slicks his hair to his temples, darkening the brown to something almost black. It drips from his chin, from the tips of his lashes, from the curve of his parted lips.

Silas flinches.

A small gasp escapes him—soft, involuntary, caught between his teeth like a secret he didn’t mean to reveal.

He tries to move aside. To escape the bite of the cold. His body shifts just slightly, enough to show he hasn’t completely surrendered yet.

But my hand finds his waist.

Pins him in place.

My voice comes out cold.

Steady. Final.

"Don’t move."

His body trembles.

Not with fear. Something deeper. Something that starts in the bones and works its way outward—shaking his shoulders, his hands, the delicate line of his jaw.

His fists clench at his sides. Knuckles pale. Hands hovering uncertainly, as if they don’t know what to hold onto.

The water runs over his pale skin. Over his closed lips. Over the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his throat, the hollow at the base of his neck where his pulse beats too fast beneath flushed skin.

His eyes shine beneath wet lashes. Wide. Glass-bright. Unsteady. His cheeks are flushed red, fever burning stubbornly beneath the cold water.

My eyes stay on him. Sharp. Unforgiving. His gaze locks with mine. Trembling.

The sound of water fills the bathroom, rushing endlessly around us until the world narrows to this—the cold, the water dripping between us, the space separating his body from mine.

His lips tremble.

Then—

He steps closer.

Not a lunge. Not a collapse. A slow, deliberate movement—one step, then another, closing the distance between us carefully, almost cautiously.

His hands rise. Slow. Hesitant.

They wrap around me—fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, pressing against my back, pulling me closer.

His body presses against mine. Still burning. Even beneath the cold water pouring over us, even with the fever that should be breaking—he burns. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

He hugs me.

His chin rests against my shoulder. Slowly. Hesitantly.

Like he’s asking permission with every inch of movement. Like he’s afraid I’ll push him away. Like he’s learned to approach every touch expecting rejection.

I feel the trembling in his body. The fine, uncontrollable shaking that comes from fever and something deeper I can’t name.

The twist in my brows softens. Something in my expression breaks open. His heartbeat presses against mine through soaked fabric and cold water.

A strange sensation spreads through my chest—warm and unwelcome, tender and terrifying.

What the hell is this?