The rain started without warning.
It drummed against the windows in uneven rhythms, soft at first, then heavier, as if the sky itself had finally lost patience. The city blurred beneath the glass, lights bleeding into one another, sharp edges softened by water and distance.
I stood there longer than I meant to, watching it fall.
Elias was behind me. I didn't turn, but I felt his presence was always like that, quiet yet unavoidable, like a hand resting at the base of my spine even when it wasn't there.
"You're running again," he said.
Not accusing. Not gentle either. Just honest.
I exhaled slowly. "I'm standing still."
He didn't accept that. He never did.
"That's how you do it," he replied. "You stay in one place and pretend you're not moving away."
I turned then. Slowly. Deliberately.
He was barefoot, sleeves rolled up, hair slightly damp from the steam of the shower earlier. He looked comfortable here too comfortable. As if he belonged in my space. As if he had already decided this wasn't temporary.
That thought made something twist painfully in my chest.
"You think I don't notice?" he continued. "The way you pull back when things feel too real? The way your voice changes when you're scared?"
"I'm not scared," I said automatically.
Elias tilted his head, studying me with that infuriating calm. "You're terrified."
Silence settled between us, thick and heavy.
I laughed once, quietly, without humor. "Careful," I said. "You're getting very good at reading me."
"That's what happens when you stop hiding," he said.
I didn't respond. Because the truth was I hadn't stopped. Not really.
He stepped closer. Not enough to touch. Just close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, the pull of him, the dangerous gravity that had been undoing me piece by piece.
"You don't trust calm," Elias said softly. "You trust chaos. Control. Risk. You don't know what to do when something doesn't ask you to bleed for it."
The words landed hard.
"You think this doesn't cost me anything?" I asked quietly.
His eyes softened not in pity, but in understanding. "I think it costs you everything. That's why you keep one foot out the door."
Rain streaked down the glass behind him, like something trying to escape.
I closed the distance between us then. Not abruptly. Not violently. Just… honestly.
"You don't understand what it means," I said. "To build a life where weakness isn't an option. Where attachment is leverage. Where loving someone is an invitation to be destroyed."
"I understand," Elias said. "I just don't accept it."
My hands clenched at my sides.
He reached for me.
I didn't stop him.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist gentle, grounding, steady. He didn't pull. He didn't demand. He waited.
That was always how he won.
"You don't have to disappear when it gets hard," he said. "You don't have to punish yourself for wanting something real."
"I don't know how to want you halfway," I admitted. "And I don't know how to survive wanting you fully."
His thumb brushed my pulse point, slow and deliberate. "Then want me anyway."
The room felt smaller suddenly. Warmer. Charged.
I leaned down before I could think better of it, pressing my forehead to his. Our breaths mingled. His was steady. Mine wasn't.
"This is dangerous," I murmured.
He smiled faintly. "So are you."
Our lips met not rushed, not desperate, but heavy with everything we weren't saying. It wasn't hunger. It was recognition. The kind that leaves no room for denial.
When we broke apart, neither of us moved away.
Elias rested his forehead against my chest, eyes closed. "I don't need you to be fearless," he said. "I just need you to stay."
The words cracked something open in me.
I wrapped my arms around him, slowly, like I was afraid he might vanish if I moved too fast. He fit there
against me as if the space had always been shaped for him.
Outside, the rain fell harder.
Inside, something settled.
Not peace. Not certainty.
But choice.
And for a man like me, that was everything.
I pressed a kiss into his hair, lingering. "I'm not leaving," I said. "Even when I want to."
He looked up at me then, eyes dark and unwavering. "Good. Because I'm not letting you."
We stood there like that for a long time, holding each other while the storm raged on two men who had learned to survive alone, choosing, against every instinct, not to anymore.
And somewhere between the rain and the silence, I realized the truth I had been avoiding:
This wasn't the calm before the storm.
This was the moment before everything changed.