They moved through the room the way people do when they already know where everything belongs, even if they have not said it out loud. He set the bread on the counter. She nudged the apples into the bowl with a hum that sounded like approval. He placed the honey beside the tea. She shifted the little bottle with the pressed thistle until it caught the light just right. None of it took long, but each small gesture felt like a sentence being written in a language they were both learning.
Luna slipped out of her coat, dropped it beside the sofa, and unwound her scarf. She shook it once and let it fall into a heap that would have made past versions of him twitch. Now it only made his throat warm.
She picked up a book from the table, holding it the way people hold something familiar and beloved. She settled on the sofa, folding her legs beneath her, the pale blue throw pooling around her like a tide coming in.
He recognised the book at once.
He had debated that book into the ground.
She read it like it was offering her something rather than begging to be defeated.
"Do you like that one," he asked before he could stop himself.
She looked up, surprised but pleased. "It is stubborn," she said. "I like stubborn books."
"It is infuriating," he said.
"That too," she replied, turning a page. "Keeps me company."
He lingered near his chair, the old outpost that had kept him a safe distance from warmth for years. He could have sat there. He could have slipped back into the shape of his old habits. Instead, he crossed the room, heart thudding with a quiet sort of bravery, and sat on the far end of the sofa.
The cushions dipped. The air shifted.
She pretended to keep reading. He pretended not to watch her pretend.
Her fingertip brushed the paper each time she turned a page, slow and deliberate, as if the book needed reassurance. A strand of hair slid across her cheek. She ignored it. He did not.
"You know you can tuck it back, right," he said quietly.
She blinked at him. "You may."
He froze. Then, very carefully, he leaned in and brushed the hair behind her ear. His finger grazed her skin. She exhaled the smallest breath, not startled, only aware.
He sat back as though nothing had happened. She kept reading, but the corner of her mouth lifted in a way that did things to him he would not admit.
He tried to look at the shelves. Too organised.
He tried the plants. Too opinionated.
He tried the apples. Too shiny.
Everything seemed marked by her presence, as if she had rearranged the light without touching a single lamp.
The silence grew thick with meaning.
"You can talk, you know," she murmured, eyes still on the page.
"I am talking," he said.
"You are breathing very loudly."
"That is also talking."
She glanced at him, amused. "Only if you want it to be."
He let his head fall back against the cushion. "I do not know what to do with myself."
"You could sit closer," she said, so casual he nearly choked.
He did not move. She did not look up.
He stayed perfectly still for five slow heartbeats.
Then she turned a page and added, "Or we can stay like this. I do not mind. You look comfortable pretending that end of the sofa is your fortress."
"It is not my fortress," he said.
"It is absolutely your fortress."
He shifted an inch closer. Just one. Enough for her knee to brush his thigh.
She kept reading. He forgot to breathe for a moment.
"Tea," he said suddenly, grasping at the illusion of composure. "I could make tea."
"You could," she agreed. "But then you would leave."
He froze again.
She turned another page. "Stay."
It was not a demand. Only an offering. The softest kind.
His body obeyed before his mind caught up. He stayed.
Her eyes flicked up once, brief and warm. "Good," she said, and returned to her book as though she had not just rearranged the gravity of the room.
He settled back, hands loose in his lap, heart unsteady in the best way. He let the silence grow around them, no longer a barrier but a bridge. The fairy lights above the hearth glowed like a line of tiny promises. The room smelled of mint and books and apples. Something new was being built out of the same walls, the same furniture, the same air.
It was enough to make him believe the room had been waiting for this all along.
And when she turned another page, she did not hide the small smile that followed.
The day settled into him slowly, the way heat enters bone after walking in the cold. Each moment had left a mark. The stall with its jars of linden honey. The baker who insisted on calling his heart angry before handing him two loaves with a grin. The boy who brushed Luna's arm and the way Theo's hand had risen, sharp, protective, ready for a wand it did not need. The singer in the square whose voice made strangers hold their breath. The rain that considered falling and thought better of it. Her hand, quiet in his, a simple truth he had not realised he could touch.
By the time they reached home he was tired in a way that made him clumsy. He tried to drown it in small rituals. Straighten this. Fold that. Pretend the kettle needed him more than she did. But the room was too quiet in the wrong places, too warm in the right ones. It left him exposed.
Luna sat on the sofa with the soft sprawl of someone who trusted the walls. Her coat lay in a heap on the armchair. A book rested on her knee. She looked like she had always been there.
Theo stood by the counter, fingers wrapped around a mug he had not filled. He tried to think of something clever or safe.
Instead he said the truth.
"I am starting to dread the days you do not knock."
He heard the words leave him and wanted them back immediately. His voice had come out low and steady, not dry or dismissive or anything he could hide behind. He had meant it as an offhand joke. It did not land like one.
Luna lifted her eyes, calm and warm. No pity. No surprise. Just recognition.
"You dread them," she repeated.
He opened his mouth, closed it, looked anywhere but at her. "I simply meant that... well... the flat is quieter when you are not here."
"The flat is quiet all the time," she said.
"Exactly," he muttered.
She tilted a little toward him, enough that her shoulder brushed his. The contact was deliberate, not a question, simply an answer.
"You could have led with that," she said.
"I tried," he said. "It sounded too honest."
"Most good things are."
He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. His shoulders dropped an inch, then another.
Her shoulder stayed next to his. Her stillness wrapped around him like a blanket he had not earned. His breath naturally found hers, falling into the same rhythm without permission.
He stared at the book on her lap because looking at her directly was becoming hazardous. The words blurred. The curve of her cheek didn't. The faint crease near her mouth threatened to undo him completely.
"How long have you been reading that," he asked.
"Since you started panicking," she said, turning a page.
"I am not panicking."
"You are," she replied. "You have been wiping the same mug for five minutes."
He looked down. The mug was spotless.
He set it down with quiet dignity. "It needed attention."
"It needed release," she said.
He stared at her. "Stop reading me."
"I am not reading you," she said. "You are simply loud."
"I am never loud."
"You are loud inside yourself," she said, tapping her temple. "It echoes."
He swallowed and looked away. She watched him without pressure.
After a moment he said, "What if I meant it."
"You did," she said, soft as breath.
"That was not a question."
"It was," she said, turning another page. "Just not a very brave one."
He let out a low groan and leaned back against the cushion. "Why do you say things like that."
"Because you want me to."
"You do not know that."
"I absolutely do."
He shut his eyes because she was too close and too gentle and too certain.
When he opened them again she was watching him with that slow, steady attention that could either rebuild a person or dismantle them. She did not blink away. She did not apologise for the truth she saw.
"I dread the days you do not knock," he said again, quieter, as if testing how it felt to say the entire truth at once.
Luna closed her book, marking the page with her finger. "Then you could ask me to come without knocking."
His pulse stumbled. "I could," he said, trying for neutral and missing by a mile.
"You could," she repeated. "But you have not yet."
"Perhaps I am waiting for a sign," he said.
"You are talking to a woman who put a peppermint plant on your windowsill because she thought your kitchen needed company," she replied. "What more of a sign are you looking for."
"That was not a sign," he said. "That was botanical sabotage."
"That was affection."
He blinked. "Affection," he echoed, as if the word were a riddle.
"Yes," she said. "You handle signs very slowly."
"Why are you so patient with me," he asked, almost without meaning to.
She touched her shoulder to his again. "Because you are worth the wait."
He made a small, startled noise. "Do not say things like that."
"Why not."
"Because I do not know what to do with them."
"You do not have to do anything," she said. "You only have to hear them."
She returned to her book, but her shoulder stayed against his, warm and certain. Her presence held the silence steady, not heavy, not demanding, simply shared.
The room felt different. The fairy lights glowed like they knew a secret. The apple bowl caught the lamp's reflection like a quiet applause. The plant unfurled a new leaf as though offering witness.
Theo swallowed once more. "I really did not plan to admit any of that."
"I know."
He frowned. "How."
"You look less tired when you speak the truth," she said. "You look less lonely."
He stared at the floor. "I do not like being read."
"You are not being read," she said. "You are being seen."
He let the words settle inside him. They hurt in a way that felt right. He did not move away from her shoulder. He did not straighten the room to distract himself. He let the quiet soften.
Tea drifted into his thoughts, safer than the truth but no longer enough to hide behind.
"I could make tea," he said.
"You could," she said softly. "Or you could stay here for one more minute."
He stayed.
He did not intend to, but he stayed.
And that small choice felt more dangerous than anything he had done all day.
It also felt better.
If he stood, if he broke the small balance between them, the moment would vanish. The warmth would scatter into the corners and when he came back with tea she would be gone. He would find only the dent her body left in the cushion, a ghost of softness he would have to pretend was company. So he stayed. She stayed. The book resting on her lap continued its slow journey toward the chapter he knew word for word.
He noticed the exact second she reached it. Her lips moved, soundless, as if tasting the sentence. Her eyebrows drew inward, then softened, and the expression settled into that gentle surrender she gave only to truth. She did not speak. She did not need to. The sentence had already filled the space between them, steady and clear.
Theo inhaled slowly. He felt his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, felt every pulse as if his hands were remembering how to live. He pressed one palm to his knee, needing the confirmation that his body still belonged to him. The warmth there brought back the whole day in fragments. Rain on stone. The singer. Her hand in his. The market. The boy brushing her sleeve and the instinct that rose up in him like an old weapon he no longer trusted himself to carry.
He thought the memory would make him restless. Instead, his nerves settled like obedient birds. Calm no longer frightened him. Not when it sat beside him like this.
A few minutes passed. Then she tilted her head, small and unhurried, letting it rest on his shoulder. Not a collapse. Not a question. A simple choosing. A shared leaning.
He turned slightly toward her, careful, conscious of every breath. His cheek did not touch her hair, but he could smell it. Rain and rosemary and the faint warmth of skin. Something stirred in him, something old and shy and wanting.
"I should say something clever," he said quietly.
"You should not," she answered. "You could let clever rest."
He gave a small laugh, almost startled by it. Clever had saved his life more than once. Clever had built the walls, the escape routes, the armour. Clever had been the part of him that survived.
But clever had never managed to give him peace.
Her shoulder pressed softly into his arm. A question. A check. A silent, thoughtful, are you still with me.
He matched the pressure. Still here. Still yes. A small language of consent he had never learned properly until her.
He thought again of mornings. He thought of the silence when she did not knock. The hollow feeling disguised as routine. Then he imagined a knock he expected, a knock he wanted. He pictured himself not rushing to the door. Not bracing. Not preparing a mask. He imagined himself smiling into his tea before rising, opening the door and saying her name like a sentence he had been saving.
It was not a frightening thought. It was warm. Ridiculously warm.
Luna breathed. The movement shifted the book slightly, rising and falling with the rhythm of her ribs. He watched the movement as though it might instruct him in something new, something important. How to sit without guarding the exit. How to be held in a room without preparing to flee.
"I am glad you knock," he said softly.
"I am glad you open," she answered without lifting her head.
He let his eyes close for a moment. His chest expanded. It felt like stepping into deeper water and realising the water would hold him after all.
The room had shifted. Not visibly. Not dramatically. Just enough that he could feel the difference. The fairy lights along the mantle glowed softly, like they knew exactly what role to play. The apples in the bowl gleamed with quiet pride. The thistle stood dignified in its glass. The peppermint plant on the sill tilted toward them as if trying to eavesdrop.
"You make this place feel different," he murmured, not meaning to speak the thought aloud.
She turned a page. "So do you."
He frowned. "This is my flat."
"It was," she said gently. "Now it is ours in places. Not all at once. Slowly."
He swallowed. "Is that what you want."
"It is what you are already doing," she said. "You just have not noticed yet."
"How do you know."
"Your shoulders have dropped," she said. "Your jaw has unclenched. And you are breathing without trying to hide it."
He sat back. "You watch too much."
"You make it very easy," she replied.
He tried to scowl. It failed. The scowl softened into something almost honest.
Her shoulder still rested against his. Her hair brushed his sleeve. Her presence held the silence the way cupped hands hold water, gently, without trying to grip too tightly.
"I did not mean to say any of it," he whispered.
"Yes, you did."
He opened his mouth to argue, saw the calm certainty on her face, and closed it again. She was right. He had meant every word. He just had not meant to speak them.
The clock shifted. The building settled. Somewhere downstairs a kettle sang and then quieted, as if even other people's homes were trying to soften themselves around this moment.
He glanced down at her book. The line he loved waited on the page like a door left ajar. He could have leaned forward and asked her to tilt it so he could read it. He didn't. He let her read it first. He watched her face instead. Watched the small change when the line touched something in her. It moved through her features like a tide, gentle but sure.
He understood then why people stand before paintings and say nothing. Words sometimes bruise what feeling has already made perfect.
Eventually she stopped reading. The book stayed open in her lap. She drew in a long, slow breath and let it out softly.
Theo felt that breath move through her, into the air between them, into him. It made something inside his ribs ache in a good way.
"You will knock tomorrow," he said quietly. Not quite a question. Not quite a plea.
"I will," she said.
He let the answer rest. She did not say it lightly. She never said anything lightly.
He turned his head, just a little, until his temple almost brushed her hair. He did not lean the last inch. He wanted to. He did not. Wanting without taking felt holy.
The idea of standing to make tea drifted back into his mind. He realised for the first time that he could actually do it. He could stand, boil the water, and return to the sofa without losing her. She would still be here. The moment would not break.
Not tonight. But one day. He would try it.
The lamp glowed low. The fairy lights shimmered. The apple bowl held its small hill proudly. The thistle stood tall. The room felt forgiven for every year he had made it cold.
He felt forgiven too, quietly, without ceremony.
He stayed exactly where he was.
She stayed exactly where she was.
When the chapter ended, she slipped her finger beneath the page and turned it with the same care she used for small animals and fragile spells. The mantle clock gave a soft click as another minute passed. He shifted closer, only a breath, and let his cheek rest against the crown of her hair. The acceptance in the gesture startled him with its simplicity. She did not move away. Instead she edged in, letting the top of her head find the quiet curve beneath his jaw.
The adjustment was small but deliberate, and the meaning behind it hit him with a force he did not know how to carry. He did not cry, although the feeling arrived with the same pressure. He let the warmth settle instead, tucked it into the place behind his ribs where he kept things he was afraid to name.
"You know," she murmured without looking up, "you breathe louder when you are trying to be calm."
He blinked. "Do I."
"You do," she said, closing the book halfway. "It is almost sweet."
"Almost," he repeated, trying to scowl and failing.
"You can manage sweet," she said lightly.
"I would argue that."
"You would be wrong."
He breathed out, and the breath caught against her hair. She seemed to feel it. She eased her head more firmly under his jaw, as if giving permission for something he did not yet know how to allow himself.
"You are very quiet," she said softly.
"I am trying not to ruin anything."
"You are doing the opposite."
"Which is what."
"You are making the room softer."
He closed his eyes for a moment. "I do not know how to do that."
"You do not have to know," she said. "It is happening anyway."
The room dimmed with the calm certainty only late evening carried. Lamps softened themselves. The air thickened with that particular stillness that arrives when the day has run out of words.
Theo felt the shift. The day had come to its end. The moment, delicate and warm, asked to be stood up from gently.
He rose slowly, as if obeying something quiet. Luna closed the book with the patience of someone who does not break a feeling out of rush or carelessness. She placed her palm over the cover for a second, almost like sealing a spell, then set it down on the table as if making a promise to return to it later.
When he crossed the room, he found the coat already in his hands. He had not thought about moving. His body had simply done it. For once, he did not pretend it was manners. He held the coat open for her, steady, a small act that felt far too important for such a simple gesture.
As she slid her arms into the sleeves, his fingers brushed the inside of her wrist. Just the faintest touch. Enough to leave him breathless. Enough to make her glance up. Her expression had softened in a way that made him feel both seen and chosen.
"Good night," he said. The words came out warm, almost shy.
"Good night," she replied, her voice brushing against him like a hand.
She turned the handle. The corridor smelled faintly of rain on warm pavement, a hint of green from someone's kitchen garden upstairs. He stepped forward instinctively, then stopped himself. He watched her walk down the hall, quiet steps, soft movement, and the small sway of her coat as she turned the corner.
He did not press his hand to the door when it closed behind her. He let it hang loosely at his side. His body needed time to learn that letting her walk away was not the same as losing her.
He didn't make tea. He thought about it, then shook his head. The kettle could wait. The room felt too full, too fragile for clattering cups and boiling water. Instead he crossed back to the sofa and lowered himself into the place where she had sat.
The cushion still held her warmth.
He placed his hand there, palm open, letting the heat seep slowly into his skin. It was nothing dramatic. Nothing cinematic. A small, human imprint. A reminder that a person had chosen to be close to him, chosen to stay for longer than necessary.
He sat with that warmth for a long time.
The fairy lights blinked softly above the mantle, shy as small stars. The peppermint plant on the windowsill lifted one leaf toward the moon as if trying to listen to it. The tiny bottle with the pressed thistle caught the low light and glowed faintly.
Theo whispered the word tomorrow under his breath. It sounded different now. Less like a threat. Less like a deadline. More like a door he might actually want to open.
He stood only when his body felt ready. He checked the window. The square below was settling down, a few late customers leaving the bakery, footsteps fading along the pavement. The lamps along the street hummed lightly. Someone laughed in the distance.
He turned off the lamp but left the fairy lights glowing. The flat felt changed. Not dramatically. Not loudly. Just unmistakably.
As he walked past the table, his hand paused on the spine of her book. He traced the faint dent her thumb had left in the cover. He closed his eyes for a moment and let that detail warm him.
In the hallway, the air felt softer. Even the silence seemed to have gained weight, not heavy, just fuller, as though it expected company and had been proved right.
He undressed without hurry. Folded his clothes neatly. Lay down in the bed that had always been too large for one person. The pillow smelled faintly of apples and wool or perhaps he simply wished it did.
He let his body sink. He let the thoughts of the day drift slowly through him. Her shoulder against his. Her breath moving with his. The quiet sound of her page turning. The moment she leaned in. The calm certainty in her voice. The small smile he had not earned but she had given anyway.
He felt something inside him unclench.
He fell asleep like a man who had stopped gripping his own life so tightly. The flat breathed with him. The quiet was no longer hollow. It felt like a home learning how to recognise joy.
The story of the day ended without drama, without a kiss or a confession or a promise wrapped in ribbon. It ended simply. Truthfully.
Two people had shared a room, a silence, a breath, and a kindness.
Tomorrow would come and knock.
He knew he would open the door.
⋆.˚🦋༘⋆
Rain thickened its music against the windows, a steady hush that made the whole flat lean inward. Luna kept reading, her voice threading through the room like warm silk, the words rising and falling with a subtle patience that made even the rain quiet down as if listening.
Theo leaned against the counter for a moment, unable to pretend he was doing anything as sensible as preparing tea. He watched the way she traced a line on the page with her finger, the way her lips shaped each sentence with a kind of reverence that made the book look newly written. He watched her tuck the throw around her legs, watched a strand of hair slide down her cheek and cling there stubbornly.
"You read like you are speaking to someone," he said finally, unsteady.
She did not look up. "I am."
"Who."
"You," she said, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
His breath caught. Not loudly, but enough for her to hear it. She smiled at the page.
He crossed the room before he could give himself a chance to retreat. The kettle hummed as if relieved to be left alone. He stopped a few feet from the sofa, unsure whether sitting down was something he needed permission for.
Luna lifted her gaze. "You do not have to hover. You look like a moth trying to approach a candle without being caught in the heat."
"That is a dramatic comparison."
"It is accurate."
He exhaled, slow. "May I sit."
"You may sit wherever your courage allows."
He hesitated, then chose the place beside her. Not too close. Not far. Enough that the warmth from her shoulder drifted over to him like a quiet invitation. She shifted a bit, a subtle move that gave him more space and less space at the same time, as if to say he could take the comfort he wanted without needing to ask twice.
The throw slid and brushed his knee. He could feel the imprint of her earlier warmth beneath it.
"What are you reading," he asked, because his voice needed work.
She angled the page so he could see. "The part where the author stops pretending he knows everything."
"I always liked that chapter."
"I can tell."
He let out a breath that sounded suspiciously close to a laugh. "What does that mean."
"You relax when people admit they are guessing. It makes you feel less alone."
He looked at her quickly. "You cannot say things like that."
"Why not."
"Because I have spent years hiding that fact, and you say it like you are commenting on the weather."
She shrugged lightly. "Rain announces itself. You do not. But you are both equally obvious if one listens."
He stared. "You are impossible."
"Thank you," she murmured, and turned another page.
The room felt different now. Something in the air between them changed shape. The rain softened its rhythm, falling in gentler strokes against the glass.
He let his head rest back against the sofa. "You meant it," he said quietly. "About staying."
"Yes."
"You are not worried about the sofa being uncomfortable."
"No."
"You are not worried about the noise from the bakery at dawn."
"No."
"You are not worried about me."
Luna closed the book fully this time. She turned to face him with both feet tucked beneath the throw, her knees brushing his thigh, close enough to undo him if he let himself think too much.
"Theo," she said softly. "If I were worried about you, I would not be here."
He swallowed. "And you are here because."
"Because you look like someone who has been waiting for the rain to give him permission to rest." She reached out and touched the cuff of his sleeve, a light brush, nothing more. "And because I wanted to see what your flat feels like when it stops apologising for being lived in."
He felt heat climb his throat. "It is not apologising."
"It was," she said. "But it is learning."
He stared at her for a long moment, trying to decide if he was supposed to laugh, argue, or simply believe her. The last option terrified him. So he stayed quiet.
Luna unfolded a corner of the throw and tugged it over his knee. "You are cold."
"I am not cold."
"You are," she insisted.
He glanced down at the blanket she had pulled over him, then back at her. "You are aware that this counts as staying the night. Not just visiting."
"Yes."
"And you are sure."
"Yes."
"You cannot just declare things, Luna. There are implications."
She tilted her head. "Such as."
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing arrived. His mind offered several possible sentences, all of which sounded like confessions.
She smiled, gentle and far too knowing. "You are thinking very loudly."
"Am I."
"Yes."
"How loudly."
"Loudly enough that I can hear you wondering where I will sleep," she said, settling back into her corner of the sofa.
He froze. "I was not wondering that."
"You were."
He ran a hand over his face. "You cannot read minds."
"No. But I can read yours."
He let out a quiet groan. She laughed, absolutely delighted.
"We will decide later," she said, closing the book properly this time and placing it on the table. "If you are brave, you will choose. If you are tired, I will choose."
"And your choice would be."
She looked at him with maddening gentleness. "The choice that lets you sleep."
He stared at her, throat tight. "You keep doing this."
"What."
"Making everything sound easy."
"It is not easy," she said. "It is simply real."
He lowered his gaze. "Real is dangerous."
"Real is worth learning," she answered quietly.
The rain eased to a whisper. The lamp hummed. The flat breathed.
She tucked the throw around both their legs and leaned her shoulder into his once more. This time he let himself lean back. Not much. Just enough to show he understood.
"Stay," he whispered, almost reflex.
"I was planning to," she replied, warm and steady. "You will have to get used to that."
He shut his eyes for a moment, letting the truth of it settle.
He could get used to that.
He wanted to.
Theo sat down on the other end of the sofa in the careful way a man sits in a place that already means too much. He did not explain himself. He didn't need to. The rain had already explained everything.
"We are adults," Luna said, settling deeper into the throw. "We are careful with each other. If the rain tells us to stay, we stay. That is what sensible people do."
"Sensible is debatable," Theo muttered. "This sofa has opinions."
"So do I," she said, lifting her cup as if making a toast. "And I am staying."
He brought her tea first. He did not trust himself to hand her the wrong cup and brush against her by accident. He placed it in her palms deliberately, watching the warmth rise between them in a way that made his stomach tighten.
She watched him over the rim while she sipped. "You are fidgeting."
"Not fidgeting," he said. "Adjusting."
"You have adjusted the same bookshelf three times," she replied, still with that maddening calm. "It is about to develop a complex."
He leaned back and tried to breathe like someone who understood relaxation. "You can have my bed."
"No."
"It is the proper thing."
"The proper thing for whom."
"For… society."
"Society is not here," she said. "And if it were, it would be told to wait in the corridor. I like the sofa."
"It is small."
"So am I."
He frowned. "It creaks."
"So do you when you stand up too quickly."
Theo choked on his tea. "That is slander."
"That is truth," she said. She tucked the throw around her legs, perfectly unconcerned. "This sofa and I will be fine."
He dragged a hand through his hair, a gesture that usually meant he was bargaining with himself. "I could transfigure something more comfortable."
"You could," she said, "but you would overthink it. Then you would judge the outcome. Then you would undo it. Then we would be sleeping on the floor."
He grumbled something impolite under his breath.
She turned a page. "Do not pretend you have not considered it."
"Considered what."
"Sleeping on the floor so you do not disturb me."
He set his cup down a little too firmly. "I was not going to do that."
"You were," she said, unfazed. "But you won't. Not tonight."
He looked at her properly. "Why."
"Because you want someone to stay," she answered, simple as breath. "You want that more than you want rules."
He swallowed so sharply he felt it in his chest.
The rain tapped harder against the glass. The fairy lights hummed quietly. The room folded itself around them like something sentient.
He reached for another book because his hands needed a task. He opened it somewhere in the middle and stared at the page as if the words might decide to do their job and distract him. They refused.
Luna glanced at him. "You are reading upside down."
He blinked. "I am not."
She smiled. "You are."
He turned the book the right way. "It is a technique."
"No," she said with enjoyment. "It is panic disguised as literacy."
He let out a helpless laugh, soft and almost embarrassed. "You are impossible."
"Correct."
A gust of wind pushed the rain sideways. The windows rattled. Luna looked toward the sound with a little spark of delight, the kind children have during storms before they learn caution.
"It sounds like someone drumming on the roof," she said.
"It sounds like the gutters are about to fail," Theo answered.
"That is because your mind needs new hobbies."
He snorted. "You think my mind needs hobbies."
"Yes. Preferably ones that do not involve planning for the apocalypse every time a cloud passes."
He stared at her. "I do not do that."
"You do," she said kindly. "You just call it preparation."
He covered his face with one hand. "Why do I let you speak."
"Because you like it," she said, leaning a little closer, enough that he could feel the warmth of her knee beneath the throw. "And because no one else tells you the truth gently."
The room shifted again, quiet and warm, as if waiting.
He stood too quickly, then immediately regretted it. "I will get you another blanket."
"I am not cold."
"You might be."
"I am not."
He hovered, defeated. "Then… something else. A book. A hot water bottle."
"Theo," she said. "Come back."
He returned to the sofa like a man obeying an invisible leash. She lifted the edge of the throw, wordless invitation, and he sat without thinking. Their legs brushed. Just a brush. Nothing dramatic. But it lit every nerve he possessed.
She kept her gaze on the book. "Better."
His throat tightened. "You cannot just say things like that."
"Why not."
"Because you make them sound ordinary."
"They are," she said. "You make them frightening."
He stared at her profile, the calm set of her mouth, the softness in her eyes. "Staying is not ordinary for me."
"I know," she said. "Which is why I said it plainly."
He let out a breath he had been holding all evening. "I am not good at this."
"You are better than you think," she said. "You sat down without running. That is progress."
He managed a faint smile. "You always assume the best."
"No. I see the best," she said. "You assume disaster."
"I am familiar with disaster."
"You are allowed to learn something else."
Rain swept across the windows in a long, rolling shiver of sound. The lamp flickered. The room breathed.
Luna set her book aside and shifted, turning so she faced him a little more fully. "Are you actually worried about where I sleep," she asked gently, "or are you worried about what it means that I am staying at all."
Theo looked down at his hands. "Both," he said honestly.
She nodded. "Alright. Then we answer the second question first."
"What is the second question."
"The one you have not said aloud yet."
He went still, every muscle waiting, bracing.
She reached for his sleeve, barely touching, her fingers brushing once, light as a thought. "You want to know whether staying tonight means I will stay tomorrow."
He swallowed. "Yes."
"It means I will knock," she said. "And you will open the door. The rest can wait."
He nodded slowly, as if the air had changed gravity and he needed to relearn how to move through it.
She leaned her head back against the sofa. "You may sit closer," she added quietly. "If you want."
He did not speak. He didn't trust his voice. Instead he shifted an inch, then another. Their knees touched fully now under the throw, warm and steady.
Luna breathed out, soft and relieved. "There," she whispered. "That is better."
Theo closed his eyes for a moment. He let the storm speak for them. Let the room settle. Let the tension ease its teeth.
When he opened his eyes again, she was looking at him.
Not curious. Not amused.
Just present.
It nearly undid him.
"You will stay on the sofa," he said, voice low. "I will not argue that. But if you wake in the night and the rain is loud and you hate it, you can knock on my door."
She smiled, small but sincere. "Alright."
"And if you hear me pacing, ignore it."
"No," she said. "I will come find you."
He blinked. "That is not how this works."
"It is now."
He stared at her helplessly. "You are going to ruin me."
She smiled into her tea. "Only the bits that need ruining."
He let out a breathless laugh, warm and real.
For the first time in years, the night felt like something he might actually want.
And he stayed.
"You can work if you like," she said, eyes half closed as she settled deeper into the throw. "I don't mind the sound of a pen. It reminds me the world is still being made somewhere."
"I don't want to work," he said, and the honesty startled him more than her. "I want to sit here and pretend the city is only rain."
"Then do that," she murmured, as if giving him permission to breathe.
He did. He let the muscles in his back relax one by one. He softened his gaze until the room blurred at the edges. He watched her lashes lower and lift in a slow rhythm, each blink a little longer than the last. It struck him that the first time she sat on this sofa he had hovered at a distance like a man guarding a museum piece. Now she fit into the room as if the place had been built with the memory of her shape.
"You will need a toothbrush," he said eventually, because some part of him refused to let the night slip by without insisting on one practical matter.
"I have one," she said, already rooting in her bag.
She produced a wrapped travel brush and held it up like a magician revealing the final card.
Theo stared at it and laughed under his breath. "Of course you do."
"I am not as dreamy as you think," she said, smiling sleepily. "I came prepared for emergencies."
"What sort of emergencies," he asked.
She considered. "This one. An emergency of softness."
He repeated the phrase so quietly she almost didn't hear him. "An emergency of softness."
The room seemed to absorb the words with approval. Even the kettle had the good grace to stay quiet, as though it understood the scene did not need another sound.
Night thickened. The rain pressed itself against the windows like a patient visitor. The street surrendered its lights one by one until the buildings outside were silhouettes, softened by mist. He switched off the lamp. The fairy lights held the room easily, their soft gold turning the sofa into something tender. The throw became a shallow shore where her body curled like a small tide. The cushion dipped slightly when he shifted, as if acknowledging him.
"You are sure," he asked, though his voice was quieter now. It was not a request for reassurance. It was closer to reverence.
"I am sure," she said. Her eyes lowered, then lifted again, as if she wanted to watch the meaning land. "Go do your rituals. Brush your teeth. Set your socks out like the disciplined man you are. I will be here when you return. And when you wake."
Her tone was light, but something beneath it felt anchored, something steady and deeply certain. It slid beneath his ribs before he could defend himself.
He stood, and for the first time in a long while, he felt the quiet thrill of being told what to do in a way that carried no threat. Only care.
In the bathroom he looked at his reflection under the soft light. His eyes had gone strangely warm. His mouth looked unguarded. He rinsed his toothbrush and laughed quietly when he realised he was standing straighter, like someone who expected good news.
He watered the plant on the sill because she always noticed these things. He adjusted the curtain because it tapped against the window frame and he did not want the sound to wake her. He set his socks out neatly and blushed at himself for doing it with pride.
When he returned, she had tucked her hands beneath the throw, eyes half shut, her body gone loose with the promise of sleep. She was not fully asleep. She was letting the night carry her the rest of the way. The book lay open on her lap like a sleeping creature.
He lingered in the doorway longer than he meant to, caught between the urge to speak and the fear of breaking the softness that had settled over them.
He found the words he needed. Simple ones, modest ones, the kind that could survive the moment without collapsing.
"Good night, Luna."
She shifted enough to see him, her eyes warm with that strange clarity she always carried. "Good night, Theo," she said, voice drowsy, as if the words themselves had softened her.
He stood there a beat longer, letting the sound fix itself inside him. Then he turned toward his bedroom.
⋆.˚🦋༘⋆
The night had reached that hour when even the street outside seemed to forget it existed. Rain slipped down the glass in long ribbons, quiet and persistent, as though it meant to sew the dark together. Theo slept lightly, never fully surrendered. His dreams had turned strange, too many rooms, too many doors, too many versions of himself trying to walk in opposite directions at once. Something cold threaded under his ribs. He rolled onto his back, reached for the surface of waking without opening his eyes, and just as he dragged himself toward clarity, he heard it.
Three soft taps against his bedroom door.
Not a knock. Something gentler. Something practiced. A rhythm that asked to be welcomed.
His eyes opened at once. The flat stilled with him. He waited. The taps came again, identically spaced, the sound of someone with enough presence of mind to be polite even when frightened. His breath left him in a long, steady line. He sat up, let the blanket fall into his lap, and placed his feet on the floor. The shock of cold against his soles chased the last of the dream away.
His hand reached for his wand by instinct. He froze halfway. Shame warmed his neck. Whoever was outside had already given him the answer. That kind of knock belonged to someone who hoped he would open the door, not someone planning to harm him.
He stood, crossed the small space, and opened the door a careful inch.
The hallway glowed with borrowed light. The fairy lights from the living room reached that far, a thin wash of gold that turned the corridor into a quiet river of warmth.
In that glow stood Luna.
Her hair was loose around her face, wisps curling where the rain had touched it earlier. She wore the blanket from the sofa, gathered around her like a piece of midnight sky she had wrapped for protection. Her eyes were open but soft-edged, held by whatever dream had chased her into the hall. Her hands clutched the blanket at her collarbone. He saw the faint tremor in her fingers, as though some part of her had not yet untangled itself from fear.
"I am sorry to wake you," she whispered, barely above breath. "I had a dream that would not let me stay. I tried to go back, but it would not have me. May I sit here for a while? Just until it passes."
His chest tightened. He had not planned for this. He had planned for tea, for quiet conversation, for the pleasant ache of her presence near him earlier. He had not planned for Luna standing in his doorway asking for safety without apology.
Refusal rose on habit alone. The instinct to protect his space. The old rule that no one entered this room. But the refusal fell apart the moment he truly looked at her.
"Yes," he said, the answer rising from somewhere he did not question. His voice came out low, thick at the edges. "Come in. There is space. Of course there is."
He opened the door wider. She stepped past him with careful grace, bare feet silent against the floorboards, the blanket trailing behind her like a tide drawing in. She moved to the far side of the bed without hesitation, lifted the cover, and slid beneath it with the precise motions of someone trying not to disturb a sleeping animal. She faced the wall, her shoulders rising and falling too quickly at first, then slower as the room convinced her it meant no harm.
Theo remained standing for a moment, not sure where to put his hands, his breath, his thoughts. His room had never held another body. It felt different already, as if the walls had softened to make room for her.
He shut the door quietly. The click sounded like a boundary breaking.
He returned to the bed, each step measured. He lifted his side of the blanket, slid beneath, and lay on his back, the distance between them careful, respectful, huge and intimate all at once. The mattress dipped under their combined weight. The ceiling above him felt unfamiliar, as if it had been watching him for years and only now realised it had competition.
Luna's voice came after a long pause, soft but certain.
"I did not want to wake you, but I did not want to sit alone with it."
He turned his head slightly on the pillow. "You do not need to apologise for that."
"I was not sure," she said. "People often want solitude more than honesty."
He let out a quiet breath, a sound halfway to a laugh. "Not tonight."
Another pause. Rain softened at the window, quietening as if to listen.
"What did you dream?" he asked, the question gentle, without intrusion.
She shifted slightly beneath the blanket. Her voice, when it came, was faint. "Someone knocked. I opened the door and it was no one. The wind came in instead. It asked for my name and when I could not remember it, it began to pull."
He felt something cold move along his spine. "You woke before it reached you."
"I think so," she said. "I woke standing. I must have walked in my sleep again."
"Then I am glad you woke," he murmured. "And glad you came here."
Her breath trembled once, then steadied. "Thank you."
Theo stared at the ceiling for another moment, then turned onto his side, slow and cautious, so that the shift of the mattress would not startle her. She did not pull away. She even inched back slightly, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps with intent. Her warmth reached him across the short distance. It felt like the first soft light of morning.
"We do not have to speak," she whispered. "Not if speaking feels like too much."
"It does not," he said. "But silence is welcome too."
A small, grateful sound escaped her, not quite a hum, not quite a sigh.
Her hand adjusted beneath the blanket. He felt the dip of the mattress, the faint movement of air. She did not reach for him, but her presence filled the bareness of the room in a way that left him almost undone.
"You may sleep," he said quietly. "You are safe."
"Are you?" she asked, surprising him.
He hesitated, then answered honestly. "Safer than I was an hour ago."
A gentle breath. Then, "Good."
Their eyes closed. Not at the same time, but close enough to sit beside the same thought. Her breathing slowed. His followed. The rain softened into something that sounded almost like approval.
The silence thickened but never threatened. It rested over them like a warm quilt that someone had shaken out carefully. Rain softened in intervals, gathering itself, falling again, then waiting. A pipe sighed twice above them, as if testing its own patience. The blanket rustled every time she breathed out. He placed both hands over his chest as if they were children who might misbehave if left unsupervised.
He tried to breathe evenly. He tried to borrow the rhythm of the flat. Neither attempt matched what his body wanted. He turned his head a little toward her. Her shoulder was a faint pale shape in the dark, the slope of it unbothered and steady. The ordinary beauty of it made something new knot in his throat.
"Do you want some water?" he asked quietly. He did not want to break the peace, but his mouth felt dry with worry.
"No," she answered, her voice steady but carrying the soft aftertaste of fear. "It was only a dream with terrible manners. If I refuse to entertain it, it will sulk and go away."
He blinked in surprise, then let out a breath that almost counted as a laugh. "All right. Stay for as long as you want."
"I will leave when morning remembers us," she murmured, the smallest note of humour tucked into her tone. That tiny upward curl in her voice loosened something inside him in a way gratitude never had.
They lay side by side in a careful open space that did not truly feel like distance. The mattress listened, then adjusted itself, distributing their weight with shy familiarity. Every sound mattered. Every movement became significant. He could hear the quiet drag of cotton whenever she shifted. He heard the soft, fragile catch in her throat when a shadow of her bad dream tried to return. Her breathing steadied itself, dipped once, then found a new rhythm.
He did not relax at the same pace. His body had survived too many years by preparing for a whisper of crisis in the dark. His shoulders stayed tense. His breath stumbled in odd places. His thoughts kept circling the idea of her being here, her choosing here, and the weight of that choice felt strange and precious.
He thought about the nights he had spent alone in this bed, teaching himself to sleep like a soldier who expected a summons he did not want. Nights when he slept upright in the chair because lying down made him feel too exposed. Nights when he kept the lights on until dawn because the dark felt hunger in his direction. He realised he did not know how to lie next to another body without feeling like a visitor.
He looked at the ceiling and told himself quietly that nobody was grading him for this. If anything, the room seemed relieved. As if it had been waiting for something, or someone, to break the monotony of his rehearsed solitude.
"What woke you," he asked, instantly regretting it. He had no claim on what frightened her.
"A door," she whispered. "It was closing. It is closing still. If I wait here, it will lose interest."
He accepted that answer without reaching for more. He did not hunt the dream. He did not interrogate her fear. He held its outline gently and moved no closer. He knew enough about nightmares to recognise that interrogating them only keeps them fed. He chose to be the quiet that let them starve.
He shifted slightly, enough to make the mattress sigh but not enough to reach her. His back found a softer place. Now he could see the faint line of the blanket running along her arm, folding neatly at her hip. He could not see her face. Somehow that made the thought of her face heavier. He wanted to shift closer and offer warmth. He did not allow himself the smallest inch.
"Thank you," she whispered, words pressed into the pillow as if she trusted the fabric to carry them to him.
"You do not have to thank me," he murmured. His voice betrayed him, turning his relief into a soft confession. "You are safe here."
"I know," she said simply.
And that one steady sentence tied itself around his heart. Something inside him loosened. Something else tightened. He could not tell which was which, only that the shape of himself felt different.
They drifted in and out of breathy half-silence. His old habit of counting in fours started, faltered, and fell apart entirely when his body chose her breathing pattern instead. He surrendered to that without meaning to. He let himself sleep lightly, wake lightly, sleep again.
Once, when he woke briefly, the soft creak of the building sounded almost like a second heartbeat. The room no longer echoed. It held them instead.
A car passed outside, sending a stripe of light under the curtain and across the wall. The stripe grazed her hair for half a second, catching on pale strands and making them glow. It vanished as quickly as it came. He stared at the space where the light had been and felt the room relax around him.
His mind made one last feeble attempt to reach for shame or propriety, that old instinct so sharp it had once been a blade he lived by. But shame did not fit the shape of this night. Guilt had no place to land. The only rule that mattered was simple. Do not leave someone to face a corridor alone.
He cleared his throat, barely enough to stir the air. "If you wake again," he murmured, "you can wake me too."
"I will not," she answered. "You are keeping time for both of us."
The sentence struck him like something gentle and heavy at once. A quiet responsibility. A gift disguised as trust. He felt a warmth bloom behind his ribs, surprising in its softness.
He lay still. He let that feeling settle, as if it needed a moment to decide whether to stay.
The rain changed its voice, softening into something finer, more like mist. The building's breathing followed. He closed his eyes and did not force them open. His jaw unclenched. His hands relaxed. His back eased into the mattress as if it had been waiting for permission.
He slept. Lightly, but cleanly. Not the kind of sleep that erases a day, but the kind that promises the next hour can be managed without armour.
His dreams shifted. No corridors. No doors. Only the sense of rain falling politely so people could find each other in the dark.
He woke again some time later, the dimness still kind, the air still carrying that faint trace of rain. The shape beside him had not changed. Her breathing held its steady rhythm. He stayed still and simply listened.
She stirred, barely. A small sigh, no fear in it. Only comfort.
He answered with a low breath. Nothing more. A conversation made of air.
After a long moment, she whispered, "Are you asleep?"
He smiled into the pillow. "Nearly."
"Good," she murmured, soft enough to blur into the dark.
And that was that. No more words. To speak again would have broken the hour. Both of them knew the night had settled into its final shape.
Theo turned his cheek into the pillow just slightly, a small, deliberate movement that felt like claiming space rather than fleeing it. He let his eyes close. He did not keep one ear awake. He allowed morning to come in its own time.
He slept. Not deeply, not wildly. Just safely. Which was new.
When he woke again, morning had begun to breathe behind the curtain. Rain had become a memory on the window. The bed held both their shapes without argument. And for the first time in a very long time, the first thought he had was simple and startling.
He hoped she stayed until he opened his eyes fully.