words: 1.6k
warnings: kissing?
pairings: jameson hawthorne x avery grambs
summary: averyjameson wedding as god intended
note: the whole set-up and scenario thing is @averygrambsswife's idea #ourjavery but its lowk kinda buns sori
It filtered through the church's stained glass windows, scattering amber, crimson, emerald and gold across the worn stone floor. Light bled over ancient pews and climbed weathered walls, turning the little chapel into something almost unreal.
A fitting stage.
Jameson Hawthorne stood beneath the wide archway, Avery's hand laced with his. Electricity hummed where their fingers met. Not nerves exactly. Rather…anticipation. The delicious kind that came just before everything changed.
He curled his fingers around hers, earning the smallest shift in her expression. Most people would've missed it. Jameson didn't miss her tells. Her pulse fluttered once beneath his thumb.
She was nervous.
The realisation tugged the corner of his mouth into something dangerously close to a smile. Avery Kylie Grambs had outplayed billionaires, murderers and Hawthornes. She'd survived riddles designed to break people. Yet somehow, standing in a tiny church with him was what made her heartbeat stumble.
His Avery had an infuriating habit of being adorable without the faintest idea she was doing it.
She looked up at the altar, then back at him and corner of his mouth lifted. Without a word, they stepped forward together.
One step.
Then another.
Then Avery laughed. And, naturally, that was all it took.
Dignity became collateral damage as they broke into a run, hand in hand, racing down the aisle of the tiny church with the reckless joy of two people who'd spent far too long cheating death to bother bleakly walking toward forever. Their laughter echoed off the ancient stone, bright enough to rival the stained glass overhead.
Jameson would've bet every last penny of the Hawthorne fortune on that sound.
They reached the altar far sooner than either of them seemed prepared for. Two shallow stone steps lifted them onto the platform, and then there was nowhere left to run. Jameson turned to face Avery, their hands still linked between them, and for a long moment, all he did was look.
He'd looked at her a thousand times before. Across crowded rooms and deserted rooftops. Covered in dust, soaked through with rain, grinning because she'd beaten him at one of his own games. Yet, none of it compared to this.
The breeze slipping through the open chapel doors caught in her ash brown hair, lifting the loose waves so they framed her face in effortless disarray. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, spilling over her jade green dress in fractured colours that shifted every time she breathed. Green suited her. Always had. It brought out the gold hidden amongst the hazel of her eyes. Eyes fixed on him with a softness that still had the power to knock the air from his lungs.
Jameson had never put much faith in angels. They sounded far too well behaved.
But if heaven had ever decided to make an exception, he imagined it might've looked something like the deity standing before him.
And somehow, against impossible odds, against fate, against every version of his life that should have ended differently, she was here.
With him.
"You know," his heiress said, her voice pulling Jameson from the dangerous territory of staring a little too long, "I'm starting to get a bit pissed off that I can't kiss you yet."
A cheshire cat smile snaked its way across his face.
"Patience, Saint Avery." He lingered on the title with all the sincerity of a sinner.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, shut it, you-"
"Ahem!" The pointed interruption echoed through the little chapel. Both Jameson and Avery turned towards the open doorway in perfect unison.
An elderly woman stood framed beneath the arch, scarcely taller than five feet. Deep lines softened her face, and a simple cream coloured robe hung loosely from her slight frame.
"Siete voi due i ragazzi che hanno chiesto un celebrante per il matrimonio?" She spoke, and Avery looked at Jameson with silent confusion scattered across her face as his brain quicky went into translate mode.
"Sì, grazie per aver dedicato del tempo a celebrare il nostro matrimonio, signora," he replied politely.
The woman smiled, though there was the faintest flicker in her expression that made Jameson wonder if his pronunciation had wandered somewhere it shouldn't have.
He chose not to dwell on it. Italian had never been his strongest language, anyway. German, on the other hand...
The woman made her way towards them at an unhurried pace. Before she reached the steps, Avery was already moving. Of course she was.
She released one of Jameson's hands and offered the woman her own, steadying her as she climbed the steps. Avery did it so naturally she probably didn't even realise she'd moved. The woman thanked her with a warm smile before taking her place behind them, positioning herself between their shoulders, ready to begin.
Alright, Jamie, his own voice spoke in his head. This is it.
He remembered the rush of adrenaline that had flooded his veins the night he'd dropped to one knee on Avery's 25th birthday. At the time, he'd thought there was no greater high, no greater risk.
He'd been wrong.
This eclipsed it.
As he joined his hands with Avery once more, their officiant began to speak.
"I vostri nomi sono... Avery e Jameson, giusto?"
"Sì," the word left his mouth automatically.
Jameson glanced at Avery, his fingers tightening around hers before he realised how hard he was holding on. His pulse battered against his ribs with reckless insistence, each heartbeat louder than the last. Heat prickled behind his eyes, his vision threatening to blur.
He was getting married.
HE WAS GETTING MARRIED!!!!!!!
To Avery. His Avery.
The absurdity of it, the sheer impossibility, hit him square in the chest.
This was real.
He caught the unmistakable shimmer of tears gathering in Avery's eyes, and something inside him gave way.
The signora's English was a bit choppy, every sentence shaped by a thick Italian accent. Jameson barely registered the words. He knew them already. They'd been spoken in a thousand churches, on a thousand beaches, beneath a thousand skies.
None of those vows had ever belonged to him.
Until now.
"Jameson," the woman said warmly, "do you take this lovely lady standing before you to be your best friend, your lover, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?"
His throat tightened. It was only two words. Two impossibly simple words. Two words that cost him nothing but meant everything.
A couple of tears escaped despite his best efforts. He didn't bother wiping them away.
"I do." The words sounded like a prayer falling from his lips.
"And Avery," the woman continued, "do you take this gentleman standing before you to be your best friend, your lover, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?"
Avery let out a watery laugh that dissolved into a sob.
"I do."
Jameson smiled so hard it hurt.
"It is my great honour to pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss-"
He didn't hear the rest.
His hands reached out and cradled her face as he closed the distance between them, crashing his lips against hers with every ounce of love he'd spent years fostering.
She kissed him back just as fiercely.
His wife.
It didn't even sound real.
She was his wife.
His best friend. His favourite person. The love of his life. The woman he got to have and to hold, for better or for worse, and whatever else the signora had said.
As they breathlessly thanked her before dashing out of the chapel, they burst onto the sunlit grass hand in hand, shouting things like, "WE JUST GOT FUCKING MARRIED!" at absolutely no one before crashing into another kiss, and then another, laughing so hard neither of them could breathe.
Jameson found himself absurdly, overwhelmingly grateful that it had been just him and Ave - his wife - in that tiny chapel, tucked away from the rest of the world.
Of course, they'd have an official wedding. There'd be enough champagne to bankrupt a small country, enough guests to make any socially awkward person physically recoil (cough, cough, Grayson) and somewhere amongst all of that, they'd deal with the legal paperwork once they got back to the States.
But this?
This had been theirs.
No cameras. No photographers. No paparazzi. No headlines. No carefully curated images of the heiress and the Hawthorne.
Just them.
Just the memory of her hands clasped tightly in his, of sunlight bleeding through stained glass and painting impossible colours across their faces as they chose each other. As they tied themselves together for life.
He already knew Nash would give him the lecture of a lifetime. Libby would probably do the same through a flood of happy tears. Alisa would have around seventeen opinions.
And every single one of them would cry.
Yes, they'd done it behind everyone's backs.
Yes, they'd slipped away from the paparazzi, denying the world the spectacle it would've expected.
Yes, it had been impulsive.
Reckless.
But he couldn't bring himself to regret a single second of it.
All that mattered was the girl running beside him, smiling so hard her cheeks had to ache, tears spilling freely down her face as his own laughter mingled with hers beneath the Italian sun.
And as they disappeared into the evening, hand in hand, the words she'd spoken so long ago found their way back to him.
word count: idk but its short :D
pairings: lyra kane x grayson hawthorne (quick act surprised)
warnings: uhhhh, pregnancy? and a test? sort of?
summary: lyra and gray find out they're having a kid
little note: guys im feeding myself and yall dw I will keep lyrasonism alive also im so proud of myself im uploading shit everyday go me
God, what am I doing?
The thought circled endlessly through Lyra’s head as she quietly walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her with shaky hands. It felt ridiculous, honestly. Irrational. But she just really, really wanted to be sure.
Because if she was pregnant…
Everything would change.
Not necessarily in a bad way, which almost made it scarier, but in a permanent way. Their entire life would shift around someone else. Their quiet mornings in the apartment would turn into sleepless nights and crying at three in the morning. There would be tiny shoes left near the doorway, doctor appointments cluttering up calendars, baby-proofing sharp corners in Grayson’s painfully expensive apartment furniture. Spontaneous weekends away would disappear. Lazy mornings tangled in bed until noon would disappear. Even the smallest things like grocery shopping, sleeping, going out to dinner, existing peacefully, would suddenly require planning around another human being.
And the biggest part of all was her career.
Lyra genuinely didn’t know what it would mean for her dancing.
She knew plenty of ballerinas came back after having children. Her friend Elena had literal twin boys and still showed up to rehearsals every other day like some terrifying superhuman woman, and she’d performed in The Nutcracker just last month looking completely flawless while doing it. Women did this all the time.
Didn’t they?
Still, Lyra couldn’t stop herself from spiraling a little. What if pregnancy changed her body too much? What if she lost flexibility or strength or stamina? What if she came back and suddenly couldn’t dance the same anymore? Ballet wasn’t forgiving. The industry practically fed on youth and perfection, and Lyra had spent years fighting to earn her place in it.
What if she lost that?
What if she loved the baby so much she didn’t even want to come back, and then resented herself for it later?
What if she did want to come back, but everyone else had already moved on without her?
Her life wouldn’t belong entirely to her anymore. And neither would Grayson’s.
Because they wouldn’t just be husband and wife living in their stupidly expensive New York apartment anymore. They would be parents.
To a literal tiny human being.
No, worse.
A fucking baby.
A small, crying, fragile thing that would depend on them for absolutely everything.
Okay. Okay, it would be fine.
If the test was negative, then nothing changed. She would keep dancing, keep living exactly the way she always had.
And if it was positive…
Well.
Then she was apparently having a child.
Shit.
Lyra had never been one of those people who swore they never wanted kids. She’d thought about it constantly because of her career, because dancers didn’t exactly get maternity leave in the graceful, romantic way movies pretended they did. But deep down, there had always been a small part of her that loved the idea of it someday.
A little hellion running around with her eyes and her husband’d golden blonde waves. A family raised with the same overwhelming love and warmth her own parents had given her.
God, she needed to stop spiraling.
Taking a slow breath, Lyra reached for the part of herself that had gotten her through almost every terrifying decision she’d ever made, the impulsive little voice in her head that had to hell with it tattooed on his entire being in pitch black ink.
And she found it.
So she locked the bathroom door, opened the goddamn box, and took the fucking test.
Two lines.
Two very clear, very unmistakable red lines.
Fuck.
Lyra stared at the test as her vision blurred almost instantly, tears filling her eyes so quickly it was honestly impressive. Within seconds they were spilling down her face uncontrollably, like her body had decided to completely short-circuit before her brain could even process what was happening.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
How the hell was she supposed to tell Grayson?
“Hey, Gray, surprise! We made a baby!”
Absolutely not.
Her mind spiraled violently as she pressed a hand over her mouth, staring at the tiny plastic stick like it had personally betrayed her.
What the fuck had happened?
Okay, no, she knew what had happened, unfortunately.
Still.
A baby?
An actual baby?
The realisation hit her all over again, hard enough that her knees physically gave out beneath her. Lyra slid down against the wall of the massive bathroom until she was sitting on the cold marble floor, tears pouring down her face as sob after sob tore out of her chest. She didn’t even know why she was crying so hard. She wasn’t unhappy. But she wasn’t calm either.
Everything inside her felt tangled together - fear and shock and confusion and something dangerously close to excitement twisting into one giant emotional catastrophe.
And through all of it, one completely insane thought kept repeating itself inside her head.
There is a human inside of me.
THERE IS A HUMAN INSIDE OF ME.
“Oh god…” she choked out, which only made her cry harder for some reason.
Then came a knock at the bathroom door.
“Lyra?” Grayson’s voice called softly from the other side. “Sweetheart, are you in there?”
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
“Uh, yeah,” she squeaked out, frantically wiping at her face even though he literally could not see her. “I’ll be out in a second…”
A pause.
“Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.”
“Liar.”
The response came immediately.
“I can hear you hyperventilating at a concerning pace, you don’t get panic attacks, and you sound congested. So you’re crying.”
Even through the emotional breakdown currently consuming her, a tiny part of Lyra was offended by how terrifyingly observant her husband was.
“Lyra,” Grayson said again, quieter this time, concern slipping fully into his voice now. “Is everything okay?”
“Y-yeah,” she lied horribly. “Of course it is.”
Another pause.
Then, gently: “Can I come in?”
Lyra didn’t answer.
Outside the door, she heard him sigh softly.
“Lyra,” he murmured, voice careful now, tender in that way that always broke her apart a little. “If something’s wrong, just tell me. Open the door, sweetheart. Don’t make yourself go through whatever this is alone.”
And somehow, that sentence gave her enough courage to actually stand up.
Her legs felt weak as she pushed herself off the bathroom floor and walked toward the door, one trembling hand reaching for the handle. But the second her fingers touched it, she froze again.
What if he didn’t want kids?
What if he thought they weren’t ready? What if he panicked? What if he got overwhelmed? What if she had somehow just destroyed the peaceful little life they’d built together?
No. We are not doing this, Lyra Catalina Kane-Hawthorne.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, forcing herself to breathe.
Because this was Grayson. Her Grayson.
The same man who held her through nightmares without complaint, who memorised the exact way she took her coffee despite pretending he didn’t care about things like that, who kissed her forehead every single morning like it was instinctive. The same man who loved quietly but completely, with a kind of steadiness that had rewired her entire understanding of what love was supposed to feel like.
Grayson was patient. Gentle. Understanding in ways that still caught her off guard even after all these years.
And if there was one person in the world she could tell anything to, every ugly fear, every terrible thought, every life-changing truth, it was him.
Because no matter what happened, he would be there. No matter what. He’d promised.
And that was why Lyra finally turned the knob and opened the door.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. They just stood there looking at each other.
Grayson was dressed in a dark green knit sweater and jeans, socks sliding slightly against the hardwood floor, his blond hair adorably messy like he’d been running his hands through it while waiting for her. His grey eyes immediately swept over her face, scanning every inch of her with quiet concern the second he saw the tears.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly, stepping closer almost instantly. “Are you alright?”
His hand came up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing gently across the freckles the summer sun had painted onto her skin.
And that almost made her start crying again.
“Uhm…” Lyra laughed nervously, which sounded far too close to a sob. “Okay, uh, I have to tell you something, but you have to promise not to freak out - wait, no, actually, feel free to freak out because this is definitely a freak out worthy situation and honestly I’ve been breaking down for, like, the past twenty minutes straight so it would actually be kind of unfair if I was the only one suffering here-”
“Lyra-”
“And before you say anything, I just want to clarify that this was not planned, obviously, and I know our apartment is absolutely not safe and I’m pretty sure we still have wine glasses sitting on the floor beside the couch from last night and-”
His expression softened immediately. “You’re pregnant.”
The fucker didn’t even phrase it as a question.
Lyra froze.
Actually froze.
Her mouth fell open slightly as she stared at him in complete betrayal. “How did you…?”
Grayson sighed softly, though there was obvious amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth now.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured gently, “you’ve been nauseous for two weeks, you cried because we ran out of cookies three days ago, and yesterday you fell asleep cuddling ani yet you’ve never napped a day in your life.”
Lyra blinked at him.
He continued, still holding her face carefully in his hands.
“And,” he added softly, “you’ve been staring at pregnancy tests online for the past four nights thinking I wouldn’t notice because you were lowering your screen brightness.”
“Oh my god-“
“And then tonight,” he added softly, “my wife locked herself in the bathroom crying while holding a pharmacy bag like it contained classified government documents.”
“Oh.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth then, small and warm and unbelievably gentle.
“I didn’t say anything because I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
And then, humiliatingly enough, the sobbing started all over again.
One second Lyra was standing there trying to hold herself together, and the next she was crying so hard she could barely breathe properly as Grayson immediately pulled her into his arms.
Every single time he held her like this, Lyra genuinely became convinced there was no safer place on earth.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other rubbed slow circles against her spine, grounding her so effortlessly it almost made her cry harder. She buried her face into the warmth of his sweater, clutching onto him like he was the only stable thing left in the universe.
Which, honestly, he probably was.
“It’s okay,” he murmured softly against her hair, over and over again. “Hey, it’s okay. Breathe for me, sweetheart.”
“I’m trying,” she hiccuped dramatically.
“I know.”
“I’m literally growing organs right now, Grayson.”
That earned a startled laugh out of him, warm and breathy against the top of her head.
“You are,” he agreed quietly, sounding oddly awestruck by the realisation.
Another sob escaped her before she could stop it. “Everything’s gonna change.”
His arms tightened around her slightly.
“Maybe,” he murmured quietly. “But that doesn’t mean it’ll be bad.”
Lyra let out a shaky breath as he continued stroking a hand through her hair, slow and soothing.
“You’re not doing this alone,” he whispered. “Not any of it. I’m here, alright? I’m not going anywhere.”
And something about hearing that, hearing him say it so simply, so certainly, made the panic inside her chest loosen just a little. Because Grayson sounded completely serious. Like there wasn’t a single universe where he wouldn’t stand beside her through this.
No matter what.
That’s what he’d promised her on their wedding day.
Lyra let out another shaky sob before mumbling miserably into his chest, “Oh my god…we’re having a baby.”
For a second, Grayson went completely still.
Then his arms tightened around her almost instinctively as he let out the softest, shakiest laugh she’d ever heard from him.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
His voice cracked slightly.
“Yeah, we are.”
Lyra pulled back just enough to look up at him, and her heart physically ached at the sight waiting for her.
Because Grayson Hawthorne was crying.
Not fully, not dramatically, but his eyes had gone glassy, emotion written all over his face in a way she had rarely ever seen from him. He looked overwhelmed and terrified and awestruck all at once, like the reality of it had finally hit him too.
A baby. Their baby.
“Oh my god,” Lyra whispered again, this time almost laughing through her tears.
Grayson let out another breathless little laugh as he pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes slipping shut for a second.
“We made a whole person,” he murmured weakly, sounding genuinely stunned by the concept.
And somehow that was the thing that finally made Lyra start laughing through the tears too.
word count: idk
pairings: Lyra Kane x Grayson Hawthorne
summary: they pick a baby name
note: I’m so peak I’m uploading sm
Being five months pregnant was not easy.
Lyra was tired all the time now. Not normal tired either, but the kind of exhaustion that settled deep into her bones no matter how much she slept. Her back hurt constantly, her ankles had started betraying her, and her emotions were so violently unpredictable that she’d cried for ten minutes last week because a pigeon outside their apartment window “looked lonely.”
And the baby kicked.
Constantly.
Not gentle little flutters anymore either. No, this child moved like he was personally training for the Olympics inside her stomach.
Currently, Lyra was lying sideways across the massive couch in their apartment, wearing one of Grayson’s sweaters and staring blankly at the ceiling while one hand rested over the curve of her stomach.
There was another kick.
“Oh my god,” she groaned dramatically. “Grayson, your son is attacking me again.”
Yep. It was a boy.
They hadn’t done some huge gender reveal or posted one of those terrifyingly elaborate announcements people on the internet seemed obsessed with. They’d wanted the moment to stay theirs, quiet and intimate and untouched by everyone else’s opinions.
So it had just been the two of them sitting in the doctor’s office, Grayson holding her hand so tightly she’d nearly lost circulation while the technician smiled and said, “Looks like you’re having a little boy.”
Lyra had cried.
Grayson had cried too.
From somewhere in the kitchen, Grayson immediately appeared like he’d been summoned through supernatural means.
“Our son,” he corrected automatically as he walked over, carrying a glass of water and the cookies she’d wanted approximately seven minutes ago.
Lyra narrowed her eyes. “No. Right now he is exclusively your son.”
That made the corner of Grayson’s mouth twitch upward slightly as he sat beside her.
“You said that yesterday too.”
“Because yesterday he kicked my ribs.”
“He’s energetic.”
“He’s violent.”
Grayson let out a quiet laugh before gently placing his hand over her stomach, his entire expression softening almost instantly the second he felt movement beneath his palm.
And Lyra swore she would never get used to that look on his face.
That quiet sort of awe.
Like even now, five months later, he still couldn’t fully believe this was real.
“Well, we have to think of names at some point,” Lyra mumbled, absentmindedly tracing shapes against the fabric of Grayson’s sweater while his hand rested over her stomach.
“True, true.”
She tilted her head slightly to look at him. “Any ideas?”
“Well…” Grayson dragged the word out thoughtfully, his thumb brushing lightly over the curve of her stomach. “I feel like we should avoid making him sound like a nineteenth century aristocrat.”
Lyra snorted. “You mean you don’t want to name him Bartholomew Montgomery Hawthorne?”
“I was actually considering Augustus.”
“Oh.”
A quiet laugh escaped him as she stole another strawberry from the bowl beside them.
“I’m serious, though,” Lyra said after a moment, softer now. “I want something that feels…warm.”
Grayson glanced over at her. “Warm?”
“Like home,” she explained quietly. “Not something intimidating or overly perfect. I don’t want him growing up feeling like he has to live up to the whole Hawthorne thing all the time.”
Something in Grayson’s expression shifted at that, growing gentler somehow.
“He won’t,” he said softly.
Lyra gave him a look. “Gray, respectfully, your family starts solving cryptic puzzles before they can legally read.”
“That’s fair.”
“I just…” She looked down at her stomach, her voice quieter now. “I want him to feel loved more than pressured.”
For a second, Grayson didn’t say anything.
Then he leaned down slightly, pressing a soft kiss against her forehead before murmuring, “I think we’re already doing a pretty good job at that.”
And because pregnancy had completely destroyed her emotional stability, Lyra instantly felt her eyes sting again.
“Oh my god,” she groaned dramatically. “If you make me cry one more time today, I’m actually divorcing you.”
“You threaten me with divorce at least twice a week.”
“And yet you continue being emotional.”
For a moment, Grayson stayed quiet, his hand still resting against her stomach as though he’d grown attached to the feeling of their son moving beneath his palm.
Then, softly, he said, “What about Theodore?”
Lyra blinked. “Theodore?”
“It means ‘gift from God,’” he explained, glancing down for a second before looking back at her. “But we could call him Theo. Or Teddy when he’s little.” A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “It’s still fancy enough to sound believable coming from us, so I think it works.”
Lyra stared at him for a moment. Because somehow the name felt exactly like everything she’d wanted.
Theodore.
Soft, but timeless. Sweet without sounding childish. The kind of name that belonged equally to a little boy clutching stuffed animals and to a grown man standing confidently in the world.
Theo. Teddy.
Her heart physically ached.
“Theodore Hawthorne,” she murmured quietly, testing the name out loud.
It fit.
When she looked back at Grayson, she caught something strangely vulnerable hidden in his expression, like he’d been nervous to say it out loud in case she hated it.
Which was ridiculous, because Lyra was pretty sure she’d never loved a name more in her life.
“I really like that,” she admitted softly.
The smile that appeared on Grayson’s face after that was small. But real. And somehow that made it feel even more special.
word count: its short idk
pairings: Lyra Kane x Grayson Hawthorne (mild)
summary: meet theodore
note: I’m so peak I’m uploading sm
He was perfect.
Tiny, warm, and sleeping soundly against Grayson’s chest, completely unaware of the way he had just permanently altered the course of Grayson’s entire existence.
Theodore Hawthorne.
Their son.
Even thinking the words felt unreal.
Across the room, Lyra slept peacefully in the hospital bed, utterly exhausted after hours of labor, her face softened by sleep while the dim hospital lighting painted gold across her skin. Grayson’s chest tightened painfully at the sight of her.
She had done this for them and he didn’t think he would ever stop loving her for it.
The hospital room had gone quiet hours ago, the chaos of nurses and machines and hurried voices finally fading into silence. Now there was only the distant hum of New York outside the windows and the soft little breaths coming from the baby asleep in Grayson’s arms.
Teddy shifted slightly against him, his tiny hand flexing weakly near Grayson’s chest.
Immediately, Grayson looked down.
“Hello,” he whispered softly.
The baby continued sleeping.
“That’s alright,” Grayson murmured. “I wasn’t expecting much conversationally from you yet.”
A tiny smile tugged at his mouth as he adjusted the blanket wrapped around him more securely.
“You scared me today, you know that?” he said quietly. “Your mother too. Although she’d probably argue she had significantly more reason to be upset than I did.”
Still asleep.
Grayson glanced toward Lyra again, his expression softening immediately before he looked back down at Teddy.
“She’s amazing,” he whispered. “You’ll figure that out pretty quickly.”
The baby made the faintest sleepy noise.
“Exactly,” Grayson nodded seriously. “That’s what I thought too.”
A quiet laugh escaped him under his breath before he carefully brushed his thumb against Teddy’s tiny hand.
And then, after a long moment of silence, his expression shifted.
Softened.
“I’m going to try really hard, Teddy,” he admitted quietly. The words felt strangely fragile leaving him.
“I didn’t really have parents growing up. Not properly.” He swallowed once before continuing softly, eyes fixed entirely on the tiny baby sleeping against his chest. “So I don’t really know what this is supposed to look like.”
Teddy remained peacefully unconscious. Grayson let out the faintest breath of a laugh.
“But I swear to god, I’m going to love you the way I never was.” His voice cracked slightly around the words. “You’ll never have to earn it. You’ll never have to wonder if you’re good enough for it either.”
Emotion tightened painfully in his chest as he looked down at his son.
“I’ll give you everything I never had growing up, Okay?” He whispered. His throat tightened. “I’ll be there for every nightmare and every bad day and every stupid school project you panic about at two in the morning.”
Another tiny sleepy breath escaped Teddy.
“And your mother,” Grayson continued softly, glancing briefly toward Lyra again, “is going to love you so much it’s honestly going to become a medical concern. She already talks to you like you’re a grown man with opinions.”
A small smile appeared on his face again.
“You’re very lucky to have her.”
Then quieter: “So am I.”
For a long moment, Grayson simply stood there holding him, gently rocking back and forth without even realising he was doing it. And somewhere in the middle of that quiet hospital room, with his wife sleeping nearby and his newborn son asleep against his chest, Grayson Hawthorne realised he had never felt more terrified in his life.
I'd known Dean for a little over a year now, which wasn't actually that long when you thought about it, it just felt longer, because it felt like he'd somehow always been there.
He was a year older than me, taller by an amount he never let me forget, and built like somebody who actually enjoyed working out a shit ton instead of treating it like a punishment invented by Satan. Which summed him up pretty well.
Even asleep he looked unfairly pretty.
His stupid halo of golden hair was falling into his face, catching what little light filtered through the curtains. Honestly, it was ridiculous. Nobody should be allowed to have hair that nice. His eyes were closed now, but I knew exactly what they looked like.
Warm brown.
The colour always reminded me of those expensive chocolate truffles Celine and I used to nick from buffet tables at charity galas when we were kids. The ones wrapped in shiny gold foil. We'd stuff our pockets full of them when nobody was looking and spend the entire time gobbling them up like greedy gremlins, pretending we'd gotten away with it.
A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed hard. Dean shifted in his sleep, mumbling something completely incoherent before rolling onto his side. I almost laughed.
Idiot.
For the first time since I'd woken up, the room didn't feel quite so dark.
word count: idk
warnings: possible character death implied kind + talks abt the mafia
pairings: roman davenport x luca russo
summary: they have a nice talk then roman disappears then bad things happen
pov: luca russo
previous chapters: chapters
IMPORTANT: both mmcs belong to ana huang.
ps. this is NAWT proof read and yes the end was basically copied from tgb but like wtv
I loved dating Roman Davenport.
Yep. You heard me. Dating. For almost 3 months now.
It still felt surreal to say out loud. Surreal, but absolutely fucking amazing too, because somehow this impossibly beautiful, permanently grumpy man had looked at me and decided, against all reason and common sense, that I was somebody he wanted to build a little life with. He was my boyfriend. Somebody I got to hug and laugh with and tell pointless stories to at two in the morning, somebody I got to share pieces of myself with until, little by little, our lives started weaving together.
He was mine.
Unfortunately, we lived apart.
Roman's...job (I guess you could call it?) took him everywhere, and even when it didn't, he insisted on spending most of his time in that godforsaken building because he needed to keep an eye on his people and make sure everything was running smoothly. And, of course, there was Morana, whom he absolutely refused to admit he loved despite the fact that every single person around him could see straight through the act.
The longest we'd been apart was a week. A full week.
And I learned very quickly that I was absolutely terrible at long distance.
On day one, I managed to act like a normal, well-adjusted human being and called him once in the morning and once before bed. By day two, I'd started sending him completely meaningless texts and a concerning paragraph explaining why I thought at least half the animals in Central Park were government spies. Days three and four somehow evolved into me sending him pictures of things that reminded me of him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. A crow sitting on a fence. A particularly dramatic cloud. A motorcycle that was vaguely the same shade of black as his. By days five and six, I had completely lost the plot. I was sending him voice notes, pictures of Yves, updates on what I'd eaten for lunch, and detailed complaints about strangers who had mildly inconvenienced me.
Then, finally, day seven rolled around and I got him back.
Turns out I was completely, hopelessly, embarrassingly attached to the cute little fucker.
But being with Roman had done something else, too. It had helped me understand him. Not just the version everybody else saw, but the person underneath all of that.
His mental conditions especially started making more sense the longer we were together, because I realised that his mind wasn't cruel to other people nearly as often as it was cruel to him. The first time I saw him having a really bad episode, I didn't know what to do. I'd only known him for so long before then, and seeing somebody who always looked so composed suddenly overwhelmed by his own thoughts was terrifying, not because he scared me, but because I could see how much he was hurting.
Since then, I'd seen it happen a couple more times.
The mania ones hit hardest. The ones where his mind raced. They were always the hardest to watch because he looked like he was trying to outrun something only he could see, getting frustrated with himself because he couldn't seem to quiet the noise in his own head. The quieter days hurt too, though, because that was when he withdrew into himself and convinced himself he was a burden, or that he was somehow too broken for anybody to stay.
At first, I thought I needed to fix it. Then I realised that wasn't what he needed. Most of the time, Roman didn't need perfect words or clever advice. He just needed somebody who stayed. So I'd sit beside him, even if he insisted he was fine. I'd make sure he ate something, or got some sleep, or simply had somebody there while the storm in his head settled down. I'd let him know, over and over again if I had to, that he wasn't facing it by himself anymore.
I think the days when his mind wasn’t trying to convince him that the world was ending were my favourite.
Not because I loved him any less on the bad days, because I didn’t, but because the good days let me see the version of Roman that I was pretty sure almost nobody else got to know. The quiet, awkward one who never really knew what to do with himself when he was happy, the one who followed me around my apartment pretending he wasn’t, the one who would stand in the kitchen with his arms folded while I cooked and somehow act like he wasn’t waiting for the exact moment I looked away so he could steal a piece of half-cooked pasta straight out of the pot.
And he always did it.
Every. Single. Time.
I’d hear the lid move behind me, spin around, and there he’d be, holding one pathetic little piece of spaghetti between his fingers like he’d been caught stealing state secrets instead of uncooked dinner.
The idiot.
Then there was the day he decided he wanted to make dinner himself.
I came into the kitchen because it had gone suspiciously quiet, which, in my experience, usually meant either Roman had fallen asleep somewhere or something had gone wrong.
He was standing over the pot with the box of spaghetti beside him.
The spaghetti...which was in pieces.
Little broken pieces.
I actually just stood there.
He looked at me. He looked down. Then back up.
I’m not joking when I say I think my soul left my body for a second.
I had to sit down.
He should’ve been grateful nobody from my family had seen that, because I’m almost certain one of my relatives would’ve materialised out of thin air just to slap him.
But those quiet evenings were my favourite.
Or those nights at his place where we'd sit on the roof with our legs dangling over New York, the two of us sewn together by Roman's ancient pair of wired headphones while we listened to something one of us wanted the other to hear. Usually, it was me introducing him to stuff, because Roman had absolutely zero ball knowledge when it came to good music, which I found deeply concerning.
It was kind of sad.
So far, I'd only managed to get him hooked on sombr, because he vibed hard with we never dated, and I'd slipped a few Conan Gray songs into the playlist too. He also liked escapism by RAYE and 070 Shake, which basically confirmed my suspicion that underneath the scary face and all the tattoos, my boyfriend loved sad people music.
I'd work on fixing his music taste later.
Also, unfortunately, I still had nightmares. I still had therapy.
I still had moments where something stupid, a smell, a sound, a scream that wasn’t roman’s, would drag me somewhere I didn’t want to go, back into memories I tried to forget. But the difference now was that I didn’t have to claw my own way back out every time. Roman always noticed. Sometimes before I did.
He’d pull me onto the couch and put on one of those movies I loved and he thought were absolutely ridiculous, or make me hot chocolate that somehow always tasted slightly different because he never measured anything, or just sit there beside me until my breathing settled down.
And sometimes I was the clingy one.
Actually, most of the time I was the clingy one.
I’d practically glue myself to him for entire evenings, following him from room to room until he finally gave up and accepted that whatever he was doing was now a 2 person activity. Sometimes he’d be lying in bed reading, completely absorbed in one of his books, and I’d just crawl over and flop down on top of him with my head against his chest, peeking up at him from underneath the pages. He never complained. He’d shift the book a little so I could still see his face if I wanted to, then one hand would find my hair almost automatically, his fingers running through it slowly while he kept reading like this was the most normal thing in the world.
With me.
With Yves.
With Josie, who had somehow managed to reduce one of the most dangerous men in New York into a human climbing frame.
With Morana.
Actually, speaking of her, we'd gotten to know each other a lot better over the last few months, mostly because she kept showing up whenever I was at the building and immediately deciding that whatever I was doing was now her business too.
She was...a lot.
She had this energy about her that made it feel like she'd walk into a room and immediately become the centre of it without even trying. She was loud and hilarious and had absolutely no filter, and I don't think I'd ever met somebody who could switch so effortlessly between threatening to stab somebody and then going out shopping because, apparently, her wardrobe was "a humanitarian crisis."
One afternoon we'd ended up getting coffee together while Roman was working, and somewhere between her insulting my shoes and stealing half my pastry, she'd admitted that she didn't actually want to stay in the Brotherhood forever.
She wanted out eventually.
She wanted more.
She wanted parties and runways and fashion shows and stupidly expensive clothes, she wanted fame and drinks and red carpets and everything. Roman had apparently offered to just give her the money to leave and start over about a thousand times, but she'd refused every single one.
She wanted to earn it.
She wanted to build something that was hers.
Honestly, I couldn't even argue with that.
There was something kind of incredible about watching a 22 year old assassin talk about how she’d gotten scouted by modelling agencies so many times with the exact same passion most people talked about falling in love.
Right now, it was raining like hell outside, and somewhere in the last twenty minutes the rain had started turning into snow, the little white flakes spinning through the air before disappearing against the wet black streets below. It was the middle of November, and New York had reached that weird point where the whole city looked cold enough to break.
We were at my place because Roman hadn't been over in a while. And Roman wasn't with me.
He was outside on the balcony, the hood of his hoodie pulled over his head and his headphones tucked over his ears, leaning against the railing while he looked out over the city. I couldn't hear what he was listening to from inside, but considering I'd spent the last three months aggressively educating him on what constituted good music, I was choosing to believe it was one of my playlists.
Contrary to what I'd yapped about earlier, I did actually leave Roman alone when he wanted to be alone.
It took me a while to understand (and an even longer while to stop taking it personally) that as much as Roman needed somebody beside him, he also needed to be alone every now and then, to just sit with his thoughts and let his mind settle. At first I'd always wonder if I'd done something wrong, if I'd annoyed him or said something stupid, but eventually I realised it had nothing to do with me.
It was just introvert bullshit. Very dramatic, very mysterious, introvert bullshit. But I respected it anyway.
I poured some hot chocolate into two mugs and wandered over to the door, giving the glass two little knocks. Roman looked over his shoulder. I held one of the mugs up. His eyes dropped to it for a second, then back to me, and after a moment he pulled one side of his headphones off.
"...For me?"
I blinked.
"No, baby, I made two mugs because I thought it'd be fun to drink both."
He stared at me.
"...That's fair."
I laughed so hard I nearly spilled the hot chocolate.
He took the mug from my hands and had a sip, and after a second he let out this tiny little hum of approval that most people probably wouldn't have even noticed.
I did.
I'd gotten pretty good at translating Roman by now.
That little noise was basically the Roman Davenport equivalent of awarding me three Michelin stars and declaring me the greatest chef to ever walk the Earth.
"It's really good," he said after a moment.
"Thanks."
He took another sip, both hands wrapped around the mug because it was freezing outside, and I watched him over the rim of mine while the snow slowly settled in his hair where his hood had slipped back. He didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did and just didn't care. Roman had a habit of forgetting about little things like the weather once he got lost in his own head.
For a little while, we just stood there, our shoulders brushing every now and then whenever one of us shifted.
Then he held the mug out towards me. I frowned. "What?"
"Try it."
"Roman, I made it."
"Try it anyway."
I took a sip.
"...It tastes exactly the same."
"No."
"No?"
"It cooled down."
I looked at him for a second before I started laughing.
"You dragged me into the freezing cold to tell me my hot chocolate got cold?"
"I didn't drag you anywhere."
"Right, sorry. You stood out here looking mysterious until I voluntarily followed you."
He didn't answer. He just looked back out over the city again, but I caught the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. I bumped his shoulder with mine.
"You know, normal people say things."
"I am saying things."
"No, you're saying three words every five minutes and expecting me to piece together the rest through divine intervention."
"You manage."
"I do manage," I admitted, taking my mug back from him. "It's kind of concerning how good I've gotten at understanding you."
“Really??”
"Now I just assume you thought the cocoa would taste better if I had some too."
He looked down at his own mug.
"...It did."
The words came out so quietly that I almost missed them. I didn't say anything after that. I just smiled into my hot chocolate while the snow drifted down around us, and after another minute or so Roman reached up, pulled one side of his headphones off, and held it out towards me without even looking.
I slipped it over my ear.
The Exit by conan gray was playing, one he'd claimed was "alright, I guess" before accidentally listening to it enough times that he knew all the words.
"I thought you said you didn't like this one."
"I don't."
"Roman."
"It's...fine."
I looked at him. He kept his eyes fixed on the skyline.
"You made a playlist, didn't you?"
Silence.
“Baby.”
A longer silence.
Then, without even a hint of embarrassment, he muttered,
"You put too many songs in the one you made me."
I think my heart actually melted a little. "So your solution was to make your own?"
"The good ones are easier to find now."
I stared at him. "You are officially the cutest person I've ever met."
That finally got him to look at me.
"Don't call me cute."
"Why not?"
He smirked. “I have a reputation."
I snorted. "Oh yeah? The scary assassin reputation?"
"Yes."
"The same guy that's currently standing in the New York chill, sharing headphones and hot chocolate with his boyfriend because he made a playlist?"
His ears turned the faintest shade of pink.
"Shut up."
I bumped his shoulder again.
"Make me."
He looked at me for a long second, completely unimpressed, before quietly taking my mug out of my hands and holding it with his own so I wouldn't spill it while I laughed.
Honestly, I don't think either of us noticed he'd done it. It just sort of happened and somehow that made me happier than anything else.
“So, uh, I’m going out tonight,” he said.
I immediately perked up, my eyebrows shooting up so quickly they practically disappeared into my hairline.
“Where?”
He looked away for a second, taking a sip of his hot chocolate before answering.
“Uh... Brotherhood stuff. I might stay at mine tonight then.”
I blinked.
“Can I come?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate, not even a second of thought, not even the courtesy of pretending to consider it.
“Why?”
Roman sighed softly and stared into his mug for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone completely flat and detached, like he was discussing grocery shopping instead of something that was clearly bothering him.
“Look, I’ve managed to keep you away from danger so far, don’t make me risk it. Sure, people know you’re my boyfriend but that puts a huge target on your back. Just stay here. I’ll send you a text if I'm not that tired afterwards.”
Have I mentioned he could be really annoying sometimes?
“Roman,” I said, exasperated, straightening up properly. “I’m your boyfriend. We've been dating for, like, almost four months now. You can't keep me out of your business forever.”
His expression changed almost immediately. It was just the slightest tightening of his jaw, the faintest crease appearing between his eyebrows as he looked away from me and out towards the snow gathering on the balcony.
“Luca...” He exhaled slowly, sounding exhausted already. “Look, I know it’s unfair, I know. But I really don't want you getting hurt again. I can't survive a second time. It fucking broke you. Do you think I'd really risk that happening again?”
My mouth slowly fell into a thin line.
Not because I was angry. Honestly, I didn't even know what I was.
Because one part of my brain was immediately screaming that this was unfair. We were dating, for fuck's sake. I knew he was dangerous. I knew about the Brotherhood. I knew his life was complicated and messy and occasionally involved disappearing for hours without explanation. He couldn't keep me tucked away from an entire half of his existence forever.
But the other part of me understood exactly where he was coming from. Because he wasn't saying this to punish me. He wasn't saying it because he didn't trust me. He was scared. And that made it infinitely harder to argue.
Because the thing about Roman was that he remembered everything. Every nightmare I'd had. Every zone out episode. Every time I'd frozen while we were fucking or gone quiet because something had reminded me of that basement. He remembered every bad day with horrifying accuracy and carried them around with him like little ghosts.
And apparently, despite all of my progress, despite the fact I was doing better now, he was still terrified of seeing me become that version of myself again.
I sighed.
“Can you at least tell me what kind of gathering this is?” I asked eventually, deciding I was willing to take literally any scrap of information he was prepared to throw my way.
Roman looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.
“It's a... ceremony.”
I stared at him. A ceremony. Very fucking vague.
He kept looking at me, though, and after a few seconds something in his expression softened. It was subtle, so subtle that somebody who didn't know him probably wouldn't have noticed, but I did. I'd gotten good at noticing.
He took my mug from my hands, then handed it back again a second later after adjusting his grip on it for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
“Listen,” he said quietly. “I have to go back home and get ready and then head out, okay? But when I'm done, I'll call... maybe we can watch a movie or something. Yeah?”
I looked at him. He looked...tired. Distracted. Like his mind had already left the balcony and was halfway to wherever he needed to be.
“Okay,” I said.
Some of the tension left his shoulders.
“Okay,” he repeated softly.
He took a small step backwards towards the door.
“I gotta go, though.” Then he paused for a fraction of a second and added, almost absent-mindedly, “Love you.”
And then he left.
The door clicked shut behind him, I didn't move. I just stood there, holding my mug and staring at the door.
Because that...That was another thing currently eating away at my sanity.
We hadn't said I love you.
Well, we had, technically. We'd said love you before hanging up the phone sometimes or when one of us was half-asleep. We'd used the word love casually in sentences and jokes and teasing comments. It existed between us comfortably enough.
But neither of us had ever looked at the other and actually said, I love you.
Not seriously, not in a way that meant I am completely and entirely in love with you and I need you to know that.
But I shouldn't have been complaining. God knew I'd had opportunities. Plenty of them.
There had been nights where he'd been reading in bed while I used his chest as a pillow, one hand absent-mindedly stroking through my hair for an hour straight. There had been mornings where he'd made me breakfast because I'd had a nightmare. There had been moments on rooftops and balconies and in kitchens and in the quiet spaces between conversations where I had looked at him and felt my chest get so painfully full of love that I thought I might explode.
And every single time, I'd chickened out.
Because I just...I wasn't sure. I knew he cared about me.
I knew that.
I knew he'd protect me with everything he had and that he'd hold me after diassaocisating and let me steal his too-small-for-me hoodies and somehow put up with me talking for 40 minutes straight about something stupid.
But loving me?
Being in love with me?
I didn't know.
And now he'd casually thrown a love you over his shoulder while leaving for some mysterious Brotherhood ceremony and disappeared before I could even process it.
I looked down at my mug. Then back at the door. Then back at my mug again.
I was going to lose my fucking mind.
Also, just for confirmation, I did love him. So fucking much. Though, to be fair, I'd only realised it last week.
We'd been lying on the floor of his living room after having the fuck fest of our lives, too comfortable to bother moving, the city humming quietly outside while we existed in our own little pocket of silence. Roman had been tracing absent-minded patterns against the carpet with his fingertips before he turned his head to look at me, those sage-green eyes softer than I'd ever seen them, and after hesitating for just a second too long, he'd asked, almost so quietly I could've convinced myself I'd imagined it,
“Are you, uhm... around? For Christmas?”
It wasn't a big question. To anyone else, it probably would've sounded ordinary. But Roman didn't ask ordinary questions.
Every word he spoke was chosen carefully, held in his mouth for a while before he decided it was safe enough to let it exist, and somehow that tiny, hesitant question held more hope than a thousand love letters ever could. He wasn't asking about Christmas.
He was asking if, when he pictured the winter, I could be in it too.
And when I looked into those impossibly gentle sage green eyes, I realised something that made my chest ache in the nicest way imaginable.
Somewhere along the line, without either of us noticing, he'd become my favourite place.
Not his apartment.
Not his arms.
Just...him.
The sound of his voice after a long day. The little crease between his eyebrows whenever he was concentrating. The way his hand always found mine without thinking about it. The quiet moments where we didn't need to speak because simply existing beside each other somehow felt like enough.
I loved the extraordinary parts of him, of course.
But I loved the ordinary ones even more.
I loved the version of Roman Davenport that the rest of the world never got to meet.
And as I laid there looking at him, I remembered thinking that if someone had offered me every beautiful thing the world had to give in exchange for never hearing him ask another shy little question like that again...
I would've turned them down without a second thought.
Because I didn't want a grand life anymore.
I just wanted one with him in it.
Anyway.
Enough yearning and standing in my kitchen like the world's most pathetic Hallmark protagonist.
I had a mystery to solve.
Roman Davenport thought he was being slick. He thought he could hit me with the incredibly informative explanation of "Brotherhood stuff" followed by an even more incredibly informative "it's a ceremony," and disappear into the night and expect me to just...accept that.
Absolutely not.
Curiosity had been one of my defining personality traits since birth. My mother probably popped me out and I immediately started asking where we were going.
Which meant a plan was already beginning to bloom inside my head, growing bigger and more questionable by the second, and like every spectacularly terrible idea I'd ever had, it depended almost entirely on one very specific person.
One very important young woman with an untamable halo of brown curls, enough confidence to tell the devil he was being dramatic, and an attitude sharp enough to go head to head with Roman's without either of them backing down.
Morana Caldwell.
If anybody was going to accidentally - or intentionally, depending on how much she liked the chaos that day - tell me what the hell was going on tonight, it was her.
So, I dialled her number.
By the third ring, she picked up, and before I even had the chance to say hello, her voice came through the speaker with enough confidence to make it sound like she'd been expecting my call all along.
“Hello, dearest and most probable future brother-in-law.”
I snorted, shaking my head as I wandered aimlessly into the living room.
“Woah, calm down. For someone who claims to despise Roman so much, you seem awfully determined to remind me that I'm dating your best friend.”
“He's not my best friend, and we're not friends,” she corrected immediately, sounding genuinely offended by the accusation.
Yeah. Right.
They were about as convincing as Roman pretending he didn't enjoy cuddling. Those two bickered with enough commitment to fool anyone who didn't know them, but I'd seen the way Morana quietly checked whether he'd eaten after disappearing for three days, and the way Roman always somehow knew when she needed picking up after a job without her ever asking.
They weren't friends. They were siblings who'd forgotten they weren't actually related.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I laughed. “Anyway... I need to chitchat.”
There was a pause. A you definitely want something pause.
“Oh?” she hummed, amusement dripping from every syllable. “And does this delightful little chitchat happen to involve my emotionally constipated roommate, or have you suddenly decided you enjoy my sparkling personality?”
“Well...”
“It involves Roman.”
“It might involve Roman.”
“So it definitely involves Roman.”
I sighed dramatically.
“I hate how quickly you figured that out.”
“Luca,” she said with a laugh, “you've called me exactly 2 times since we met, including now, and the first time was to see if my number worked. You're about as subtle as a marching band.”
“…That's a little hurtful.”
“And yet true. Now, shoot.”
“So…” I started, trying very hard to sound casual and absolutely not like I was fishing for information, “I’ve been made aware that there’s some sort of special ceremony happening today?”
“Luca.”
“What?”
“You are so bad at pretending you’re not trying to get information.”
I frowned, even though she couldn't see me.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You called me out of nowhere, started with a suspiciously sweet greeting, and now you’re bringing up a mysterious ceremony that Roman definitely didn’t explain properly.”
I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Because, unfortunately, she was right.
“Okay, first of all, I object to the word suspiciously. I’m always sweet.”
“Sure.”
“I am.”
“Luca.”
“Fine, maybe not always.”
She laughed quietly on the other end of the phone, and I could practically picture her rolling her eyes.
“So Roman told you about the ceremony?”
“Technically.”
“What does technically mean?”
“It means he told me there was Brotherhood stuff happening and that he might stay at his place afterwards, and when I asked what kind of gathering it was, he looked at me like I’d asked him to reveal state secrets and said it was a ceremony.”
Morana was quiet for a second.
Then I heard her sigh.
“That man.”
“Exactly.”
“He really does think giving people the tiniest amount of information possible counts as communicating.”
“THANK YOU.”
“I didn’t say you were right.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I really did.”
“Anyway,” I said, ignoring that, “what is it?”
“Luca…”
“Please.”
“You’re doing the voice.”
“What voice?”
“The one where you sound like a very determined golden retriever who has discovered a locked door.”
I gasped.
“Thats incredibly specific.”
“Because it’s accurate.”
“Wow. Rude.”
“Accurate and rude are not mutually exclusive.”
I tried not to laugh and I failed.
“Okay, so are you going to tell me or are you going to let me sit here and dramatically suffer?”
“You’re already being dramatic.”
“Yes, but now I’d be dramatically informed.”
Morana sighed again.
And I knew I had her.
“So you want to know what the ceremony is.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“Luca…”
Immediately, my joking faded, because there was something different in her voice now. It was weirdly careful.
“It’s not just a Brotherhood thing,” she finally said. “Not really.”
I stayed silent, letting her continue.
“The Brotherhood is connected to a lot of people. A lot of powerful people. The kind of people who don’t need to announce they have power because everyone already knows.”
A small chill ran through me.
“And the ceremony is…”
“It’s a meeting.”
I frowned.
“A meeting?”
“A meeting between families.”
The way she said the word families made it sound nothing like the way normal people used it.
Not warmth or Sunday dinners or childhood memories.
These were names.
Legacies.
Organizations built on reputation and fear.
“What kind of families?”
Morana was quiet for a second before answering.
“The Allisters. The Caines. A group coming in from Brazil. A representative from the Bianchi family is supposed to be there too.”
I stopped moving, because even I knew enough to understand that those names weren’t being thrown around casually.
These weren’t random people meeting for drinks. These were people who carried histories behind them. People whose names meant something.
“So basically…” I started slowly, “this is a crime meeting.”
Morana didn’t correct me.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“That’s never a good sentence.”
“No, it usually isn’t.”
She sighed.
“Think about it like this. These families have been around for years. Decades. They have businesses, connections, influence. Some of them have legitimate power, some of them have power that exists in the shadows, and most of them have both. The ceremony is where certain things are discussed, where alliances are maintained, where everyone reminds each other who they are dealing with.”
The room suddenly felt quieter. There was something unsettling about realising that Roman’s world wasn’t just dangerous because of the things he personally did. It was dangerous because he existed inside something much bigger. Something old that had survived because people protected it. Because people feared it.
“And Roman has to be there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Morana didn’t hesitate. “Because Roman is one of the people they pay attention to.”
That answer landed harder than I expected. I knew Roman was respected and I knew people feared him, but there was a difference between knowing someone was dangerous and realising there were rooms full of dangerous people where his presence actually mattered.
“He hates that, doesn’t he?”
Morana laughed quietly.
“Oh, he hates almost everything.”
“Fair.”
“But yes. He hates being seen as important because he knows what comes with that.”
“And what comes with it?”
“Expectations.”
Her voice softened.
“People think Roman is cold because he doesn’t care. They’re wrong. He cares too much, and that’s why he’s careful.”
I looked down at my phone.
Because suddenly I understood why he hadn’t told me, not fully, but enough. Roman wasn’t keeping me away because he thought I was incapable. He was just keeping me away because in his mind, loving me meant making sure the darkest parts of his world never touched me.
Which was very Roman.
UGH.
“So,” I said after a moment, trying to bring back some of the lighter mood, “you’re telling me my boyfriend is secretly attending terrifying mafia meetings while I’m sitting at home drinking cold hot chocolate?”
Morana hummed.
“When you say it like that, it sounds dramatic.”
“It is dramatic.”
“It’s also accurate.”
“Great. Love that for me.”
“You chose him.”
I sighed.
“I know.”
And the worst part was, I really did.
“So... what exactly am I supposed to do then?” I asked, trying, and failing, to keep the hopeful edge out of my voice. “Can you, like...sneak me in, or-”
“NO.”
The answer came so fast and so loudly that I instinctively pulled the phone a few inches away from my ear.
“Jeez,” I muttered with a sheepish laugh that disappeared almost as quickly as it'd come. “Sorry.”
My shoulders slumped, and I found myself absentmindedly staring out into the distance as the disappointment settled in my chest a little heavier than I'd expected. It wasn't even that I desperately wanted to attend some terrifying gathering of organised criminals (I absolutely did not) but I hated the feeling of standing outside a door that seemed determined to stay locked.
Morana sighed, and when she spoke again, the firmness in her voice hadn't disappeared, but it had softened around the edges.
“Luca, listen to me, okay? This isn't me being dramatic, and it isn't Roman being overprotective just for the sake of it. This is a really big deal, and it's dangerous enough that the only people Roman is bringing with him are me and the two heads of the defence section. Meetings like this can turn ugly without warning, and if they do, nobody gets time to react before everything goes to shit. I know you're frustrated, but if you were there and something happened, you could get hurt, and neither of us is willing to take that risk.”
I stayed quiet.
“I promise I'm not trying to keep you out just because it's easier,” she continued. “It's genuinely because we'd rather have you annoyed at us than caught in the middle of something you should never have had to see in the first place. If I get the chance, I'll take a few pictures before everything starts and show you later, but that's honestly the best I can do. So... just trust me. Trust Roman on this one.”
I let out a long sigh through my nose.
“…Fine.”
“Thank you.”
There was a small pause before her voice brightened ever so slightly, like she was deliberately trying to steer us away from a conversation that had become heavier than either of us wanted.
“In the meantime,” she said, “maybe spend your evening figuring out what you're getting Roman for Christmas.”
My eyebrows knitted together. “…How do you know we're spending Christmas together?”
“Don't sound so offended,” she laughed. “I only know because he told me he isn't staying with my mum and I this year. He normally does. But I don’t care. I got tickets for me and mom to go to London for 5 days anyways.”
She said it lightly, almost carelessly, but there was something underneath it that caught my attention, a tiny thread of disappointment she'd buried so quickly that I probably wasn't supposed to hear it at all.
“Oh,” I said quietly. “...Okay.”
“So,” she continued before the silence could linger, “find him something good while you wait. This whole shitshow should be over by around ten-thirty, maybe eleven if everyone behaves themselves, and then either he or I will call you from the hospital and you can come pick us up.”
I blinked.
“…Why would you be calling me from a hospital?”
“Because somebody always ends up there.”
Then the line went dead.
After waiting, and waiting, and waiting and waiting….my phone finally rang.
ROMAN.
“Baby?”
“Luca.”
He sounded...broken. Anguished. Tired. Exhausted. Scared.
What happened?
I could hear faint screams in the background, glass shattering, gunshots-
“Things went south,” Roman's rasp cut through the chaos. “I'm okay, but Morana's stuck and-”
“You're going back for her.”
A beat of silence.
“…I have to, moya dushka.”
I froze.
“You... you gave me a nickname...”
A quiet, breathless chuckle reached me through the speaker, somehow surviving all the noise around him.
“Better late than never.”
“Listen here, you little shit,” I said, my voice already cracking despite how hard I was trying to keep it together. “You are going to be okay, okay? And when you get back, I'm making you all the hot cocoa and pasta in the world, and you're going to complain about the marshmallows like you always do, and you and Morana are both going to get out of there okay and it’ll all be fine and we’ll all be-”
“I love you, Luca.”
What.
The.
Fuck.
“I think...” he whispered, the words almost disappearing beneath another burst of shouting somewhere behind him, “I think I have for a long time. Longer than I knew how to admit to myself. I just...I needed you to hear it.”
My eyes burned.
“Roman...”
“You walked into my life and somehow made it feel... lighter,” he continued, his voice trembling in a way I'd never heard before. “You made me laugh when I didn't think I could. You made ordinary days feel worth surviving just so I could see the next one with you. Every time you smile at me, every time you ramble about something I know absolutely nothing about, every time you fall asleep on top of me because I'm your favourite mattress...” He let out another tiny laugh. “...I remember what it feels like to live instead of exist.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, tears spilling over before I could stop them.
“Don't cry,” he murmured.
“You're literally in the middle of a shooting!”
“I know.”
“So don't tell me not to cry!”
Another soft laugh.
“I just...wanted you to know that I'm yours, dushka, just as much as you're mine. Thank you...for making me happier than I ever thought I was allowed to be. I need you to know what. To remember that if I-”
“Don’t. You. Dare! You tell me all of this when you get home,” I said immediately, wiping furiously at my face. “Not over the phone. You hear me? You get Morana, you both get out of there, and then you come home and tell me again!”
A pause. I could hear him running.
“Alright,” he said, his voice rough with exhaustion, “I'll tell you again later. As many times as you want.”
“You better.”
“I will.”
Another crash erupted somewhere behind him, followed by overlapping voices shouting orders that dissolved into static before I could make out a single word.
“Roman...?”
“I have to go.”
“Be careful.”
“I always-”
BANG!!
The gunshot cracked through the phone so violently that I instinctively yanked it away from my ear. Glass exploded somewhere nearby, people were screaming over one another, more shots rang out in quick succession, and for a split second all I could hear was the deafening chaos swallowing everything else.
“Roman!”
My own voice sounded tiny against the noise.
“Roman, answer me!”
There was a burst of static, footsteps pounding across what sounded like broken glass, someone shouting his name in the distance, that I recognised as Morana.
word count: idk
warnings: none
pairings: none
summary: roman and dominic finally talk
pov: roman davenport
previous chapters: chapters
IMPORTANT: both characters belong to ana huang.
This was the worst idea I’d had all week, which was saying something considering I’d spent most of the last month making consistently terrible decisions and then refusing to acknowledge them afterward like that somehow made them less real.
Still, there wasn’t really a version of this where I turned around.
I stood outside the window of Dominic’s room for a moment longer than necessary, watching through the glass as he slept beside his wife, his breathing slow and even in a way that looked almost insulting when compared to how loud my own head had been for days, like his body had the audacity to function properly while mine couldn’t seem to decide what it was doing from one minute to the next.
He wasn’t my biological brother, not technically, but that had never really mattered in the ways that counted, because we’d grown up under the same name, the same system, the same expectations, and somewhere along the way we’d started treating each other like the only reliable constants in a life that didn’t have many.
So I picked the lock on the window. Quietly. Carefully.
Like I hadn’t done this exact thing a dozen times before for reasons I never fully explained.
And then I climbed through the window without thinking about it too much, landing softly inside the room with all the precision of someone who’d done far too many things like this in far too many states of mind, before making my way over to the bed where Dominic was still asleep.
I stood there for a second. Just looking at him.
Because there was something about seeing other people sleep that always made everything feel a little too still, a little too normal, like the world outside my head was continuing without me in a way I couldn’t quite access properly anymore.
Then I reached out and shook his shoulder gently.
“Dom,” I muttered. “Wake up.”
It took him exactly half a second to process that something was wrong and then another half a second to scream like a man whose entire existence had just been personally insulted.
“Calm down,” I hissed immediately, stepping back slightly as he shot upright in bed. “It’s just me.”
“Roman what the fuck!” he snapped, fully awake now, already reaching for something that I sincerely hoped was not a weapon.
Behind him, Alessandra shifted in the sheets, groaning softly as she sat up, hair messy, blinking at the scene like she’d already accepted that her life was just like this now.
When she saw me, she didn’t even look surprised. Just tired. She gave me a small wave.
“Hi, Roman,” she said calmly, like I was a mildly inconvenient piece of furniture that had wandered into the wrong room. Then she turned slightly toward Dominic. “Can you boys take this to the kitchen? I need to sleep.”
“Of course, Amor,” Dominic replied instantly, voice softening in a way that made me want to be slightly sick.
And just like that, like nothing had happened at all and he hadn’t just been violently awakened by an intruder through his window, he climbed out of bed, grabbed me by the sleeve, and started dragging me out of the room while I didn’t resist nearly as much as I should have.
We moved through the hallway in silence for a few seconds before he finally spoke again, still half-whispering so as not to die at the hands of his wife.
“You broke into my house,” he said flatly.
“I prefer ‘entered urgently’,” I replied.
“You picked my window lock.”
“It was already half unlocked.”
He stopped walking for a second just to look at me. I could feel it.
That pause where he was deciding whether or not I was currently stable enough to be worth arguing with.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered eventually, dragging me into the kitchen and letting go of my sleeve like I was someone else’s problem now. “What happened?”
And for a second, I didn’t answer. Because my brain felt…wrong.
Too loud and too quiet at the same time, like everything was happening behind glass and I was just watching it instead of participating in it properly, like I was here but not fully here, like I’d been functioning on instinct alone for so long that actual conversation felt like something I’d forgotten how to do correctly.
I leaned back against the counter slightly.
“I need advice,” I said finally, voice flatter than I intended, “or help. Maybe both. But first decide if you want to kick me out because if you don’t, you’re going to have a lot of information unloaded on you in the next few minutes.”
Dominic stared at me again. Longer this time. Then he rubbed his face with one hand like he was physically trying to reset his entire existence.
“Fantastic,” he muttered. “So it’s one of those nights.”
I didn’t respond, just leaned back against the counter, arms folded loosely because I didn’t know what else to do with them, watching the kitchen tiles like they had answers I was missing.
Finally, he pulled out a chair and sat down opposite me, slower now, more serious in a way that made the air shift slightly.
“Alright,” he said carefully. “Start talking.”
And for a second, I didn’t because starting meant making it real. But then my mouth opened anyway, like it had decided before I did.
“I met someone,” I said.
Dominic didn’t interrupt, didn’t even react, just waited. And that, annoyingly, made it worse.
So I kept going.
“I met someone,” I admitted, fidgeting with my fingers so badly it was actually irritating me, because apparently my body had decided the best time to lose all motor function was during the most humiliating conversation of my life.
Dominic just looked at me from across the kitchen table, tired but attentive.
“Okay…”
“And, uh,” I continued awkwardly, already hating every second of this, “it wasn’t supposed to be anything, but it became something. I ended it because my world isn’t safe for them and they deserve better and I don’t want them getting hurt for knowing me again.”
That last part came out quieter, more honest than I intended. Dominic’s expression shifted slightly.
“Oh.”
“And I don’t know what to do,” I added quickly before I lost momentum entirely, “because I really, really, really like him, but he isn’t safe with me. Or around me. Or near my life in general.”
Dominic blinked once.
“…Him?”
Shit.
I went completely still.
For one awful second all I could hear was the refrigerator humming behind us while my brain attempted to evacuate my body entirely.
“…Uhm,” I started intelligently.
Dominic’s eyebrows lifted slowly.
I looked away immediately, rubbing aggressively at the back of my neck.
“So,” I muttered, voice dropping lower with every word, “I recently discovered I’m queer.”
Silence.
Why did saying it out loud feel like stepping off a building.
“Late,” I added weakly. “I know. In my defence, I had other things going on. And I’m probably aroace or demi since ive only like 2 people and one guy.”
Dominic continued staring at me with the deeply focused expression of someone trying to process how the conversation had escalated this quickly at three in the morning.
“But uh,” I continued awkwardly, because apparently I believed digging myself deeper into this conversation would improve it somehow, “I love-shit-” I pressed the heels of my hands briefly into my eyes. “I like this guy a lot.”
A pause.
Then Dominic leaned back slightly in his chair.
“Oh,” he said again, calmer this time. “Alright.”
I frowned immediately. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked flatly.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Maybe act slightly more shocked.”
“You broke into my house through a window tonight,” he replied. “My standards for surprising behaviour are already very high.”
I stared at him. He stared back.
Then, somehow managing to sound completely normal after I’d just accidentally come out in his kitchen, he asked, “Anyway, first of all, what’s his name?”
And for some reason that made me infinitely more nervous than the actual coming out part.
I looked away again immediately.
I looked away again immediately, rubbing at the back of my neck like I could physically smooth the embarrassment out of myself if I tried hard enough.
“He makes me want things,” I admitted quietly.
Dominic’s expression softened slightly. “What kind of things?”
I stared very hard at the kitchen counter.
“Normal things,” I muttered. “Domestic things. Stupid things.”
A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. “Such as?”
I groaned softly because unfortunately now I actually had to elaborate.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Like…coming home to somebody. Making food together. Listening to him ramble about whatever insane thing happened during his day while he follows me around the apartment.” Despite myself, I felt my mouth twitch slightly. “I wanted to buy him things whenever I saw something he’d like. I wanted him sleeping in my bed all the time. I wanted him around my people.”
Dominic stayed quiet, listening carefully.
“And I actually wanted to be around him,” I added awkwardly, like that part offended me personally. “Like all the time. Which was weird.”
“That’s usually how liking someone works.”
I ignored him.
“I liked taking care of him,” I admitted more quietly. “And I…” I hesitated briefly, already regretting where this sentence was heading. “I actually wanted to fuck and enjoyed it-”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed immediately.
“Roman.”
I grimaced. “I’m trying to explain this properly.”
“You absolutely do not need to explain that part properly.”
“I’m just saying,” I muttered defensively, “I’d never actually wanted that with somebody before. Not really. And then suddenly there’s Luca and apparently my brain decides that’s the person we’re attached to now.”
Dominic rubbed a hand over his face slowly.
“I did not need to hear that.”
“You asked.”
“I asked about feelings, Roman, not your psychological awakening.”
I frowned slightly. “Well they seem connected.”
He pointed at me without looking up. “Stop talking.”
For the first time that night, I laughed properly. Small and brief and tired, but real enough that Dominic immediately noticed.
And annoyingly, his expression softened again because of it.
“What's so funny?” a soft voice asked from the doorway, warm and honey-sweet with sleep.
I looked up to see Alessandra walking into the kitchen wearing one of Dominic’s old t-shirts and a pair of white sleep shorts, her hair slightly messy from bed and one eye still half closed like she’d only woken up enough to investigate whether her husband was dying or just being dramatic again.
Okay. This was a bit weird.
Dominic looked over at her immediately, his entire expression softening in that quiet instinctive way it always did around her.
“Roman figured out he’s queer,” he summarised calmly, like this was a completely normal family discussion to be having at an ungodly hour, “and he’s in love with Dante’s brother, but since he’s an asshole he broke it off because he thinks his world is too dangerous for Luca.”
“Dominic,” I muttered flatly.
“What?” he replied innocently. “That’s what happened.”
Alessandra’s brows lifted slightly as she walked over to him, slipping an arm around his waist automatically while he rested a hand against her hip without even looking, like their bodies had memorised each other a long time ago.
“Oh?” she said softly, glancing toward me with immediate curiosity rather than judgment. Then her expression gentled further. “Roman…”
I immediately looked away because for some reason being perceived kindly by women always made me feel vaguely ill.
Alessandra and I didn’t know each other too well, not really, but she was…good. Genuinely good in that terrifyingly sincere way some people were. Warm without being fake. Soft without being weak.
The first time I met her, she’d smiled at me like she already knew me and said so this is my little brother without hesitation.
I’d genuinely never recovered from that.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted quietly after a moment, staring down at the counter again because somehow it felt easier than looking at either of them directly. “I just know I miss him all the time now and my brain won’t shut up about it.”
Alessandra’s expression softened immediately.
“And he loves you too?” she asked gently.
I laughed weakly through my nose.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “That’s kinda the problem.”
Dominic snorted quietly under his breath while Alessandra looked like she physically wanted to shake both of us.
“Oh, you poor emotionally constipated men,” she sighed softly.
“That feels targeted,” I replied.
“It was,” she said sweetly.
Dominic nodded in agreement. “Very accurate assessment, actually.”
I glared at both of them slightly, which unfortunately only seemed to amuse them more. Then Alessandra looked back at me, softer now.
“Roman,” she said carefully, “do you really think Luca would rather lose you completely than have the choice to stay?”
That made me go quiet, because unfortunately that question hit somewhere uncomfortable immediately.
I frowned slightly at the counter.
“I don’t know,” I admitted after a long pause. “I just know I couldn’t stand something happening to him because of me again.”
Alessandra’s face softened in that painful understanding sort of way that made me feel strangely exposed.
“So instead,” she said gently, “you hurt both of you preemptively.”
Ow.
I visibly grimaced.
Dominic looked at me sympathetically for about half a second before immediately betraying me.
“She’s right.”
“You are both deeply irritating people,” I informed them flatly.
And for the first time in weeks, the warmth that followed the words didn’t feel entirely fake.
I leaned back against the counter, then forward again, then just gave up trying to act like standing still was something my body knew how to do anymore, because every nerve in me felt restless lately, like my brain had been stuck between static and exhaustion for weeks and my body didn’t know which one to follow anymore.
Dominic noticed immediately.
“How are you actually doing?” he asked quietly, all the teasing from earlier gone now as he watched me carefully from the kitchen table, that steady older-brother concern settling over his face in a way that instantly made me want to avoid the conversation entirely.
I let out a slow breath through my nose.
“I don’t know,” I muttered honestly. “One of those…periods again.”
That got an immediate reaction from him, not confusion or surprise, just recognition.
“Oh,” he said softly.
I glanced at him briefly.
He leaned back slightly in the chair, looking tired now more than anything else, like hearing that answer exhausted him because he’d heard versions of it from me my entire life.
“Is it too loud?” he asked gently after a second. “Or too empty?”
I went still for a moment before giving a reluctant nod.
“…Both,” I admitted quietly.
Dominic sighed softly through his nose and rubbed a hand over his jaw while Alessandra, who’d stayed tucked against his side the entire conversation, looked at me with immediate concern.
“Roman,” she said gently, “how long has it been bad this time?”
I shrugged one shoulder weakly.
“A week.”
“Which means too long,” Dominic translated flatly.
I frowned at him. “You’re very irritating tonight.”
“You broke into my house through a window.”
“Details.”
Dominic ignored that entirely.
“I told you years ago to get it checked properly,” he said instead, calmer this time, not lecturing me, just sounding tired of watching me force myself through the same cycles over and over again. “You’ve been like this since you were a kid.”
My jaw tightened immediately.
“No,” I said too quickly. “I don’t need all that.”
Alessandra tilted her head slightly. “Why does the idea upset you so much?”
I looked away immediately.
“It just does,” I muttered. “I don’t want somebody analysing my brain and deciding there’s something wrong with me.”
“Oh, honey,” Alessandra said softly, and God, that tone alone nearly made me want to crawl into traffic. “Finding out something’s wrong doesn’t create the problem. It just gives the problem a name.”
I rubbed a hand down my face tiredly.
“I deal with it.”
Dominic raised a brow slightly. “By not sleeping for three days and then barely functioning afterward?”
“…Possibly.”
“That’s not dealing with it, Roman.”
I exhaled sharply through my nose, annoyance flaring mostly because they weren’t being cruel about any of this, which made it much harder to dismiss.
“I don’t want pills,” I muttered stubbornly.
Neither of them laughed at me.
Dominic just leaned forward slightly, forearms resting against the table now.
“It’s not about forcing medication on you,” he said carefully. “It’s about maybe making things easier for you instead of harder all the time.”
“And if medication did help,” Alessandra added softly, “that wouldn’t mean you failed somehow.”
I frowned slightly at the counter.
“It feels weak.”
Immediately both of them looked at me like I’d said something genuinely ridiculous.
“Roman,” Dominic said quietly, “if somebody had a heart condition and took medication for it, would you think they were weak?”
“No.”
“Then why are you applying different rules to yourself?”
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it again.
Because annoyingly, I didn’t actually have an answer.
The kitchen fell quiet for a moment after that, warm and still around us while my brain kept moving too fast beneath my skin.
“I just don’t want to become…” I hesitated slightly. “Different.”
Dominic’s entire expression softened then.
“You’ve been carrying this alone since you were a kid,” he said gently. “Nobody’s trying to change who you are, Roman. We just want things to stop hurting so much for you.”
Alessandra reached over then, resting her hand lightly against my wrist for a second.
“You deserve help too, you know,” she said softly.
I stared down at her hand quietly.
Then after a long pause, I exhaled slowly through my nose.
“…What if they tell me it’s something bad? Like, what if I’m a psycho?” I asked, voice quieter now.
Dominic didn’t hesitate for even a second.
“Then we deal with it,” he said simply.
We.
Not you.
We.
And somehow that tiny difference made something tight in my chest loosen just a little.
I looked away quickly after that, jaw tight again.
“…Fine,” I muttered eventually.
Dominic raised a brow slightly. “Fine as in you’ll actually go?”
“I said fine, didn’t I?”
A small smile tugged at Alessandra’s mouth while Dominic looked so relieved it was honestly irritating.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. That’s all I wanted.”
