The healers came in waves.
The first morning, a woman with silver-threaded hair and hands that glowed faintly amber. She knelt beside the cot where Kaelen lay, pressed her palms to his chest, and stayed there for an hour. When she finally stood, her face told Robin everything before she spoke.
"His body is fighting." She washed her hands in the basin by the window, slowly, like she was stalling. "But the damage runs deeper than flesh. Whatever shattered inside him—it wasn't bone."
Robin didn't ask what she meant. He already knew. The lighthouse. The vision. The future version of Kaelen who had lost everything. Something in him had broken that night, and Robin didn't know if you could heal a crack in someone's soul with amber light and poultices.
She left instructions. Tinctures. Rest. Signs to watch for. Robin nodded at all of it, the way you nod at instructions you know you'll follow to the letter because following them is the only thing keeping you from coming apart.
Day two brought a man with a kind face and a satchel full of herbs that smelled like rot. He changed the bandages on Kaelen's ribs, where the worst of the physical wounds had settled—bruises so deep they had turned black, spreading like ink under pale skin. Robin watched from the corner of the room, arms crossed, jaw locked.
He watched the healer's hands press and probe. He watched Kaelen's face for any sign of pain, any flicker of awareness. There was nothing. Just the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
"These healing properties found in the cliffs, they help with vitality," the healer said, not looking up. "But he needs to want to come back. No amount of medicine can replace that."
Robin's throat closed. He waited until the man was gone before he let himself breathe.
Day three. Day four. The healers blurred into a single shape—different faces, different hands, the same careful way they touched Kaelen's skin and the same way they looked at Robin afterward. Like he was a man standing on the edge of a cliff. Like they were waiting for him to fall.
He didn't fall. He just stopped leaving the room.
Lucien brought food. Left it on the windowsill. Didn't try to make him eat, just left it there, like a line thrown into dark water. Bramble would pad in at sundown, lower his massive head to the floor beside the cot, and stay. His warm breath ghosted over Kaelen's still hand, and Robin watched the fur between his ears twitch, the slow blink of those enormous brown eyes, and thought—he's praying. Bramble is praying.
Robin didn't pray. He couldn't. Every time he tried, the words caught in his teeth and came out as blame.
Day five.
The room smelled like herbs and sweat and the salt that clung to everything in this cliff house. Robin had stopped noticing. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, knees drawn up, watching the rise and fall of Kaelen's chest the way a drowning man watches the surface.
His hand was still wrapped around Kaelen's. He didn't remember reaching for it. Didn't remember the moment his fingers had found Kaelen's and refused to let go. But there they were, knotted together like roots, like something that had been growing underground for years.
Kaelen's fingers were cold.
Robin pressed them harder, like he could force warmth into them through sheer stubbornness.
"You're supposed to wake up now." His voice came out rough, scraped raw from hours of silence. "That's how this works. I sit here long enough, and you open your eyes and make some stupid joke about how worried I look."
Nothing. Just the shallow breath. The faint flutter of pulse under Robin's thumb.
"You always do that." Robin's voice cracked. "You always wake up."
He remembered the last time. The river. The way Kaelen had gone under and Robin had pulled him out, screaming his name until his throat bled. Kaelen had coughed up water and laughed—laughed—and said "You look terrible" before passing out in Robin's arms.
He'd woken up the next morning. Bruised, hoarse, alive.
Robin had let himself believe that was how it always went. That Kaelen would always come back.
Day six.
The healers stopped coming.
Lucien stood in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed. He didn't say anything for a long time. Just watched Robin sitting there. Watched the untouched food on the sill. Watched the way Robin's hand never left Kaelen's.
"You need to sleep," Lucien said finally. Not a suggestion. A statement of fact, delivered in the flat tone of someone who knew it wouldn't matter.
"I am sleeping."
"You're passing out from exhaustion. That's not the same thing."
Robin didn't answer. He couldn't argue. His body felt hollowed out, like someone had scooped out everything soft and left only the shell. His eyes burned. His hands trembled if he moved them too fast. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw Kaelen falling. Saw the lighthouse. Saw that future—the older, hollow version of Kaelen sitting alone in a room that had no windows, no warmth, nothing.
He couldn't sleep. Sleeping meant letting go of Kaelen's hand, and letting go felt like giving up.
"Bramble's got a fire going in the main room," Lucien said, softer now. "There's stew. I didn't burn it this time."
"That's a first."
"I'm learning." A pause. "Robin."
Robin looked up.
Lucien's face was unreadable. That careful mask he wore when he was holding something too heavy to say. "He's still breathing."
"Barely."
"That's more than yesterday."
Robin wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe that Kaelen was fighting his way back, that every shallow breath was a victory, that the healers had said his body was fighting and fighting meant winning. But all he could see was the stillness. The way Kaelen's face looked younger in sleep, softer, like the weight of everything he carried had been lifted off him. And all Robin could think was—he looks like he's ready to let go.
"I'm not leaving him," Robin said.
Lucien held his gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded once, pushed off the doorframe, and walked away. A few minutes later, Bramble appeared in the doorway with a folded blanket in his massive jaws. He padded over to Robin, dropped the blanket in his lap, and pressed his cold nose against Robin's cheek.
Robin's eyes stung.
"Thanks," he whispered.
Bramble huffed softly. Then he curled up on the floor beside the cot, his enormous body a warm wall against the draft, and closed his eyes.
Day seven.
Robin woke to darkness and the weight of something wrong.
He was on the floor. Had he fallen asleep? He didn't remember lying down. His neck ached, his spine screamed, and his hand—his hand was still wrapped around Kaelen's, and Kaelen's hand was warmer than it had been.
Robin jerked upright.
The room was dim, lit only by the pale blue glow of moonlight through the salt-crusted window. The fire had burned low in the hearth. Bramble was a dark mountain in the corner, snoring softly.
Robin looked at Kaelen's face.
Still. Quiet. The same shallow rhythm of breath.
But his hand was warmer.
Robin pressed his palm flat against Kaelen's, feeling the heat of him. He leaned forward, close enough to see the faint flutter of eyelid, the almost-imperceptible shift of muscle.
"Kaelen."
Nothing.
"Please." The word came out broken, cracked down the middle. "Please, I can't—I can't do this again. I can't watch you—"
His voice broke. He pressed his forehead to Kaelen's hand, felt the warmth of his skin against his brow, and let the silence fill the space between them.
He didn't cry. He couldn't. Crying meant admitting there was something to cry about, and if he admitted that, the whole fragile structure of hope he'd built over seven days would collapse. So he just sat there, breathing, listening to Kaelen breathe, and tried not to think about what came after.
"You told me once," Robin whispered into Kaelen's palm, "that you didn't believe in destinies. That you'd rather break fate over your knee than let it take anything else from you."
He lifted his head. Kaelen's face was peaceful in the moonlight. No pain. No fear. Just stillness.
"I think about that a lot." Robin's voice was hoarse. "I think about you. The way you looked at me that night in the lighthouse. Like you were saying goodbye."
He swallowed.
"I can't let you go. I don't care what the prophecy says. I don't care what that future version of you saw. You're here. You're alive. And I'm going to sit here until you wake up, even if it takes—"
He stopped.
Kaelen's fingers moved.
Just a twitch. Barely there. A muscle spasm, maybe. A nerve firing without meaning.
But Robin felt it.
He held his breath. Watched Kaelen's face. Waited.
Nothing. The stillness settled back like water closing over a stone.
Robin exhaled slowly, forcing himself not to hope. Not yet. Not until he was sure.
But he didn't let go of Kaelen's hand.
He stayed there, on the floor, his head bowed, the blanket Bramble had brought draped over his shoulders. He stayed until the moonlight shifted and the gray light of dawn crept through the window. He stayed until he heard Lucien's footsteps in the hall, the soft murmur of his voice to Bramble, the click of the kettle being set on the stove.
And then, just as the first pale fingers of morning touched Kaelen's face, Robin felt it again.
A squeeze.
Weak. Barely there. The ghost of pressure against his palm.
Robin's breath caught. He looked up—really looked—and found Kaelen's eyes open.
Just barely. Just slits. Dark blue, glassy, unfocused.
But open.
"Hey," Kaelen whispered. His voice was dust. Ash. A wind through dead leaves. "You look terrible."
Robin laughed. It came out as a sob, a jagged, broken thing that tore through his chest and left him shaking. He pressed Kaelen's hand to his forehead, his mouth, his cheek—pressed it against his skin like he was memorizing the shape of it, the warmth, the proof that it was real.
"You're an idiot," Robin said. His voice cracked. "You're the biggest idiot I've ever met."
"Missed you too."
Robin lifted his head. Kaelen was smiling. Barely. A ghost of his usual smirk, stretched thin over exhaustion and pain. But it was there.
"Don't." Robin's voice shook. "Don't you ever—don't you dare leave me like that again."
Kaelen's eyes drifted closed, then open again, like it took all his strength just to keep them that way. "Can't promise that."
"Try."
A long pause. Kaelen's thumb brushed across Robin's knuckles. Barely a movement. Barely anything. But it was there.
"I'll try."
Robin let out a breath he'd been holding for seven days. He lowered his head to the edge of the cot, still holding Kaelen's hand, and let himself cry.
He cried until his shoulders shook and his throat ached. He cried until he felt a hand—weak, trembling—settle on the back of his head. Fingers threading through his hair. A touch so gentle it broke him open all over again.
"I'm here," Kaelen whispered. "I'm still here."
Robin pressed his forehead against Kaelen's hand and let himself believe it.
Outside, the sea crashed against the cliffs. Somewhere in the house, Lucien was making tea and pretending not to hear. Bramble's tail thumped once against the floorboards, a low, resonant sound that felt like a blessing.
And Robin stayed right where he was, his hand in Kaelen's, his heart beating in time with the shallow breath that somehow, impossibly, kept going.
Day eight came slowly, like it was afraid to arrive.
The first thing Robin noticed was the sound. A low, steady rhythm beneath the crashing of the waves. He lifted his head from the edge of the cot, neck screaming, eyes crusted with dried salt, and realized it was Kaelen's breathing. Steadier than it had been. Deeper.
He looked at Kaelen's face. Still pale. Still marked with shadows that seemed carved into the bone. But his lips had a faint flush of color—not much, but more than the gray-white they'd been for days.
Robin didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched the slow rise and fall of Kaelen's chest, counting each breath like a page turned in a book he'd thought was already finished.
Kaelen's eyes opened.
It was slow this time. Easier. His lashes fluttered, caught the light, and then his gaze found Robin's. Dark blue. Tired. But lucid.
He didn't speak. Just looked at Robin for a long moment, and then his hand—the one Robin was still holding—tightened once. A squeeze. A question.
Robin answered by not letting go.
"You're still here," Kaelen said. His voice was rough, barely audible, but it was whole. It was his.
"Told you I wasn't leaving."
A ghost of a smile touched Kaelen's lips. "Told you I wasn't worth staying for."
"You're wrong."
The words came out flat. Hard. Robin didn't soften them. He meant them like he meant his own name, like he meant the ground under his feet, like he meant every breath he'd held for seven days.
Kaelen's smile flickered. His eyes went distant, and Robin saw something there—a shadow that didn't belong to the room, to the morning light, to the warmth of their hands intertwined. He saw the future again, the one Kaelen had described: alone, cold, a room with no windows.
Robin leaned forward.
"I don't care what you saw." His voice was low. Fierce. "I don't care what the prophecy says, or what that older version of you believed. You're here. I'm here. And I'm going to keep choosing you until you stop trying to convince yourself that you're not worth it."
Kaelen's breath hitched. His eyes shimmered, and he looked away, but Robin caught the tremor in his jaw, the way his throat moved as he swallowed.
"You can't fight fate with stubbornness."
"Watch me."
A long pause. The sea crashed outside. Somewhere in the house, Bramble's heavy footsteps creaked on the floorboards, followed by the murmur of Lucien's voice—soft, scolding, affectionate.
Kaelen turned his head back. Looked at Robin. And for the first time in seven days, there was something in his eyes that wasn't pain.
"Okay."
Robin's heart stuttered. "Okay?"
"Okay." Kaelen's thumb traced a slow arc across Robin's knuckles. "I'll try to stop convincing myself."
Robin let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He pressed his forehead to Kaelen's hand again, felt the warmth of him, the steady beat of life beneath the skin, and let himself believe that maybe—just maybe—they were going to make it through this.
Outside, the morning light painted the sea in shades of gold and amber, and the waves kept crashing against the cliffs, relentless and alive.
Day eight. Then nine. Then ten.
Time blurred at the edges, soft and shapeless as the fog that rolled in each morning off the sea. Robin stopped counting the hours. He measured time in other ways now—in the rhythm of Kaelen's breathing, in the flicker of his eyelids, in the way his fingers would twitch against the blankets like he was reaching for something only he could see.
Kaelen's lucid moments came in fragments. Ten minutes here, maybe fifteen there. His eyes would open—dark blue, hazy, struggling to focus—and Robin would be there, hand already reaching, already saying his name before Kaelen could forget where he was.
"Hey." Robin's voice came out rough from disuse. "You're back."
Kaelen blinked slowly, his gaze traveling across Robin's face like he was reading a language he'd almost forgotten. His lips moved, but the sound took a moment to arrive. "How long?"
"Few hours. Maybe less." Robin lied. It had been nearly two days since the last time Kaelen had woken, but he wasn't going to say that. He watched Kaelen's throat move as he swallowed, watched the way his fingers curled against the mattress like he was testing whether they still belonged to him.
"Hurts," Kaelen said, and it wasn't a complaint. It was an observation, a fact he was reporting like the weather outside the salt-crusted windows.
"I know." Robin's hand found his, careful, light. "I know it does."
Kaelen's eyes drifted closed again, and Robin felt the brief window of consciousness closing like a door swinging shut. He tightened his grip, just barely, trying to hold him here a moment longer.
"Stay," he whispered, and hated himself for asking.
But Kaelen's eyes opened. Just a crack. Just enough to find his.
"Trying."
The word was barely a breath, but it was enough. Robin pressed his forehead to Kaelen's knuckles and held on.
And then the door swung shut again, and Kaelen's breathing went ragged, and Robin watched the pain settle back into his features like a familiar coat.
The fevers came at night.
Robin learned to read the signs: the flush that crept up Kaelen's neck, the way his breathing turned shallow and quick, the restlessness that made him shift and moan even in the deepest unconsciousness. Robin kept a basin of cold water beside the cot, a stack of cloths folded neat, and he'd sit there for hours pressing damp cloths to Kaelen's forehead, his wrists, the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat too fast.
"I'm here," Robin murmured, over and over, a litany, a prayer. "I'm here. You're not alone. I'm here."
Kaelen's lips moved sometimes, forming words that never quite reached sound. But Robin caught them anyway. His name. Always his name. Robin. Robin. A thread pulling through the dark, something to hold onto, something to follow back.
Once, in the middle of a fever spike that made Kaelen's whole body tremble, his hand shot out and grabbed Robin's wrist. Hard. His eyes were open but not seeing—fixed on something beyond the ceiling, beyond the house, beyond the world Robin could reach.
"Don't," Kaelen gasped, and his voice was raw, desperate, a sound that cut through Robin like glass. "Don't leave me there. Robin—please—don't leave me there."
Robin's breath caught. He gripped Kaelen's hand with both of his, pressed it to his chest, let him feel the beating of his heart. "I'm not leaving. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
But Kaelen wasn't hearing him. He was somewhere else—the vision, the future, that cold room with no windows. His grip on Robin's wrist was bruising, and Robin let it bruise, let it hurt, because at least Kaelen was holding onto something real.
Day eleven, and Robin was learning new things about brokenness.
He learned that Kaelen's jaw would clench when the pain peaked, teeth grinding together until Robin could hear the strain. He learned that Kaelen's hands would curl into fists when Robin changed the bandages, even when he was unconscious, like his body remembered the hurt even when his mind couldn't. He learned that Kaelen would cry out when Robin touched certain wounds—not loud, not dramatic, just a sharp exhale of air, a bitten-off sound that made Robin's chest ache with a guilt that had no end.
"I'm sorry," Robin whispered, for the hundredth time, as he eased a fresh bandage around Kaelen's ribs. "I'm sorry, I'm trying to be gentle, I'm so sorry—"
Kaelen's eyes fluttered open. Unfocused at first, then slowly tracking to Robin's face. His lips parted, and for a moment Robin thought he was going to say something about the pain, about the bandages, about anything.
Instead, Kaelen said, "You stopped sleeping."
Robin's hands stilled. The bandage hung loose in his fingers. "That's not—"
"Your eyes." Kaelen's voice was a thread, thin and fraying, but his gaze was sharp. Sharper than it had any right to be. "Red. Dark underneath. You stopped."
Robin opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. There was no point. Kaelen had always seen too much.
"I sleep," Robin said, which was technically true if you counted the minutes he spent slumped against the cot with his hand wrapped around Kaelen's, his eyes closed but his ears open, ready to wake at the smallest sound.
Kaelen's hand moved. Slowly, painstakingly, he lifted it from the mattress and touched Robin's cheek. His fingers were cold. Trembling. But they found their way to Robin's skin like they'd been navigating toward him their whole lives.
"You look tired," Kaelen said.
Robin laughed. It came out broken, wet, nothing like humor. "You almost died."
"Almost."
"That's not—" Robin's voice cracked. He turned his face into Kaelen's palm, pressed his lips to the heel of his hand, and let himself feel the warmth of him for a long moment. "That's not better. That's not okay."
Kaelen's thumb moved across Robin's cheekbone. A slow, unsteady arc. "I know."
"I keep thinking—" Robin stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I keep thinking about what I could have done differently. If I'd moved faster. If I'd seen the collapse coming. If I'd pulled you back sooner." His voice dropped to a whisper. "If I hadn't let you go."
Kaelen's eyes held his. Dark blue. Tired. But clear.
"You didn't let me go."
"You fell."
"You caught me."
Robin shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion. "Not fast enough. Not—"
"Robin." Kaelen's voice was barely there, but it cut through the spiral like a blade through fog. "You caught me."
Robin's breath shuddered out of him. He pressed his forehead to Kaelen's chest—carefully, so carefully, mindful of every bandage and bruise—and let himself feel the slow, steady beat of Kaelen's heart beneath his ear. Alive. Still alive. Still here.
"I don't know what I'd do if I lost you," Robin whispered into the fabric of Kaelen's shirt.
Kaelen's hand found his hair. Stroked through it, weak but deliberate. "You won't."
"You can't promise that."
"I know." A pause. "I'm promising anyway."
Day twelve, and Kaelen woke screaming.
Robin jolted upright from where he'd been slumped on the floor, his hand still locked around Kaelen's, and found Kaelen thrashing against the cot, his body arching off the mattress, his mouth open in a sound that wasn't quite a word and wasn't quite a sob. His eyes were open but not seeing—fixed on something terrible, something that had followed him out of the dream.
"Kaelen—Kaelen, hey—" Robin grabbed his shoulders, tried to hold him still, tried to ground him. "You're safe. You're in the cliff house. You're safe."
Kaelen kept fighting. His hands clawed at the blankets, at Robin's arms, at anything within reach. His breath came in gasps, too fast, too sharp.
"I'm here," Robin said, louder now, his voice cracking. "I'm here. Feel me. Feel my hands. You're not there anymore. You're here."
Kaelen's eyes snapped to his. Wild. Lost. For a long, terrible moment, he didn't seem to recognize Robin at all.
Then something shifted. His breathing hitched. His hands found Robin's shoulders, gripping hard enough to bruise, and he pulled himself forward until his forehead pressed against Robin's.
"Robin," he gasped, and the word was wrecked, devastated, a life raft in a storm. "Robin, I saw—I was—there was no one—"
"I know." Robin's arms wrapped around him, careful of the wounds, careful of the healing bones, but firm. Solid. Present. "I know. I'm here. You're not alone. You're never going to be alone again."
Kaelen shook against him. His fingers twisted in the back of Robin's shirt, clutching like he was afraid Robin would dissolve if he let go. And Robin held him, rocked him, whispered promises into his hair until the shaking stopped.
Lucien appeared in the doorway at some point, a cup of tea in his hand, his face drawn with worry. He took one look at them—Kaelen wrapped in Robin's arms, Robin's eyes closed, their breathing slowly syncing—and backed away silently. A moment later, Bramble's massive head appeared in the window, his warm brown eyes watching, guarding, and then he too retreated, leaving them to the quiet.
When Kaelen finally pulled back, his face was wet. He didn't apologize for it. He just looked at Robin with those dark blue eyes, raw and open, and said, "Stay."
"Always."
Kaelen's hand found his. Held on.
And in the silence of the cliff house, with the sea crashing against the rocks below and the morning light creeping across the floorboards, Robin let himself believe that maybe—just maybe—they were going to make it through this.
Not because the pain was gone. Not because the visions had stopped. But because Kaelen was still reaching for him. Still choosing him. Still holding on.
And Robin was never going to let go.
Robin's hand closed around Kaelen's wrist, stopping the motion of his thumb across Robin's cheekbone. The touch was gentle, but the grip was iron—a man who had spent twelve days watching someone he loved slip through his fingers, and needed to feel proof that they were still here.
He lifted Kaelen's hand and pressed it flat against his own chest, right over his heart.
The beat was fast. Too fast. A hummingbird trapped in a cage of bone.
"Feel that?" Robin's voice was rough, scraped raw by sleepless nights and the scream still echoing in his memory. "That's real. I'm real. This is real."
Kaelen's fingers curled against the fabric of Robin's shirt. His eyes were still too bright, too wet, but they were focused now—locked onto Robin's face like he was the only fixed point in a world that kept tilting sideways.
"I know," Kaelen said, but the words came out wrong, like they'd gotten lost on the way out of his throat.
Robin shook his head. "No. Listen to me." He pressed Kaelen's hand harder against his chest, forcing him to feel the rhythm, the rise and fall of his breathing, the solid warmth of a body still alive and still here. "This isn't a vision. This isn't one of your futures. I'm here. I'm breathing. I'm not going anywhere."
A beat of silence. The sea crashed against the rocks below, steady and infinite.
"How do you know?" Kaelen's voice cracked on the last word. "How do you know this isn't another—another dream I'm going to wake from?"
Robin's jaw tightened. He reached up with his free hand and guided Kaelen's fingers to his own throat, pressing them against the pulse point beneath his jaw. "Feel that?"
Kaelen's breath hitched. His fingertips pressed deeper, feeling the thrum of blood beneath skin. His eyes searched Robin's face, desperate and afraid and so painfully young in the grey morning light.
"I'm here," Robin whispered. "I'm not a vision. I'm not a memory. I'm the boy who's been sleeping on your floor for twelve days because I can't stand to be more than an arm's length away from you. I'm the boy who's going to make you breakfast even though I can't cook, and I'm going to burn the eggs, and Lucien is going to make fun of me for it, and you're going to laugh." His voice dropped, breaking at the edges. "You're going to laugh again, Kaelen. I need you to believe that."
Kaelen's hand trembled against his throat. His eyes were wet again, but he didn't look away. "And if I can't?"
"Then I'll believe it for both of us until you can."
The words hung between them, heavy and raw and undeniably true. Robin saw something shift in Kaelen's expression—a crack in the armor, a fracture in the wall he'd been building since the lighthouse fell.
"Robin."
"Yeah?"
"I'm tired." It wasn't a complaint. It was a confession. A surrender. Kaelen's shoulders sagged, and for a moment he looked like he might collapse entirely. "I'm so tired of fighting. Of running. Of seeing all the ways I end up alone and not knowing how to stop them."
Robin caught him before he could fall, pulling him forward until Kaelen's head rested against his shoulder, his face pressed into the crook of Robin's neck. He wrapped his arms around Kaelen's back, careful of the bandages, mindful of the wounds, but firm. Solid. Present.
"Then stop fighting," Robin murmured into his hair. "Rest. I'll carry the weight for a while."
"You can't carry all of it."
"Watch me."
The morning light crept across the floorboards, casting long golden rectangles across the worn wood. Somewhere in the cottage, a kettle began to whistle, followed by Lucien's muffled cursing and the clatter of a stove lid. Bramble's massive shadow passed by the window, a silent guardian making his rounds.
And in the corner of the room, two boys held each other while the world kept turning.
---
The days blurred together after that.
Day thirteen. The village healer came again, an old woman with steady hands and kind eyes. She changed Kaelen's bandages, checked his ribs, listened to his breathing, and pronounced him stubborn enough to survive. "But only just," she added, fixing Robin with a look that said she knew exactly how many sleepless nights he'd spent. "He needs rest. Real rest. And so do you."
Robin nodded, took note of her instructions, and immediately ignored the part about his own rest.
He slept in fits and starts, curled on the floor beside Kaelen's cot with one hand wrapped around Kaelen's, ready to wake at the first sign of a nightmare. He woke to Kaelen's screams more nights than he didn't, and each time he pulled Kaelen back from whatever void had swallowed him, whispering reassurances until the trembling stopped.
Day fifteen. Kaelen managed to sit up on his own for the first time. He lasted ten minutes before his arms gave out and Robin had to catch him, but the grin that split his face—exhausted and triumphant—made Robin's chest ache with something too big to name.
"I told you," Kaelen said, his voice hoarse but warm. "Stubborn."
"Annoyingly so," Robin agreed, and pressed a glass of water into his hands.
Day seventeen. Lucien cornered Robin in the kitchen while Kaelen dozed in the other room. The prince's face was serious, his usual humor buried beneath something heavier.
"You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up."
Robin didn't look up from the pot he was stirring. "I'm fine."
"You're not eating. You're not sleeping. You've worn the same shirt for three days."
"It's a comfortable shirt."
"Robin."
The spoon stopped moving. Robin set it down carefully, his hands braced against the counter. "What am I supposed to do, Lucien? Leave him alone? Go get a full night's sleep while he wakes up screaming and there's no one there to—"
"I'm not saying leave him." Lucien's voice was soft, gentler than Robin was used to hearing from him. "I'm saying you can't pour from an empty cup. If you break, who's going to hold him together?"
Robin's jaw tightened. He hated when Lucien was right. He hated it almost as much as he hated the way his hands shook when he picked up the spoon again.
"He almost died," Robin said quietly. "I keep seeing it. The rocks. The water. His eyes closing. I keep thinking—" His voice broke. He pressed a hand over his face. "I keep thinking about what would have happened if I'd been a second slower."
Lucien was quiet for a long moment. Then he crossed the room and rested a hand on Robin's shoulder. "But you weren't. You caught him. And he's still here. That's what matters."
"I know." Robin's voice was muffled behind his hand. "I know. But knowing it and feeling it are two very different things."
Lucien squeezed his shoulder once, then let go. "One hour. That's all I'm asking. Take an hour to eat something, wash your face, breathe. I'll sit with him. Bramble will sit with him. He won't be alone."
Robin wanted to argue. Every instinct screamed at him to refuse, to stay within arm's reach of Kaelen's cot, to never let him out of his sight again. But his body ached with exhaustion, and his eyes burned with the weight of too many sleepless nights, and deep down, he knew Lucien was right.
"One hour," he said reluctantly.
Lucien smiled, a faint echo of his usual grin. "I'll even make sure Bramble doesn't drool on him."
"That's a lie and you know it."
"A prince is allowed to exaggerate."
---
Robin stood under the shower until the water ran cold. He changed into clean clothes—a soft linen shirt that smelled like salt and herbs, borrowed from the cottage's meager wardrobe. He sat at the kitchen table and forced himself to eat half a bowl of stew while Lucien watched him with barely concealed satisfaction.
And then he went back to Kaelen's room, because an hour was an hour, and he'd already pushed it to seventy-three minutes.
Kaelen was awake when he walked in. Sitting up against the pillows, his hair still damp from whatever gentle wash Bramble had given him, his dark blue eyes tracking Robin's movement across the room. He looked tired—bone-deep tired, the kind of tired that came from fighting something invisible for too long—but there was a softness in his expression that Robin hadn't seen before.
"You left," Kaelen said. Not accusatory. Just observational, with a thread of something almost like confusion beneath it.
"Lucien's orders. Apparently I smelled."
"You did."
Robin snorted. He crossed to the cot and sat down on the edge, close enough that his knee brushed Kaelen's leg through the blanket. "How are you feeling?"
Kaelen considered the question longer than it deserved. "Like I got crushed by a building."
"Accurate."
"And like I haven't slept in a week, even though I've done nothing but sleep." He paused, his brow furrowing. "The nightmares are getting worse."
Robin's chest tightened. "Tell me."
"They're not just visions anymore. They're—" Kaelen stopped, his hands clenching in the blanket. "I see people I don't recognize. Places I've never been. Faces that feel familiar but I can't place. And every single one of them ends the same way."
"Alone."
Kaelen nodded. His throat moved as he swallowed. "I see myself, older, standing in a room that's too quiet. No one beside me. No one waiting for me. Just... silence."
Robin reached out and took his hand. Kaelen's fingers were cold, but they curled around Robin's like they belonged there.
"That's not going to happen."
"You don't know that."
"I do." Robin's voice was steady, certain, absolute. "Because I'm going to be there. In every single one of those rooms. Standing right beside you. And if the silence gets too loud, I'm going to talk until it goes away."
Kaelen's breath shuddered. He looked down at their joined hands, at the way Robin's thumb traced absent patterns across his knuckles. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you keep doing this?" Kaelen's voice cracked. "Why do you keep choosing me? I'm broken, Robin. I'm covered in scars, and I see things I can't explain, and I wake up screaming, and I can't promise you that any of this is going to get better. So why—" He stopped, pressing his free hand over his eyes. "Why do you keep staying?"
Robin was quiet for a long moment. The sea crashed against the cliffs below. A seagull cried somewhere in the distance. The afternoon light slanted through the window, catching the dust motes floating in the air, making them look like tiny stars.
"Because you're worth staying for."
Kaelen's hand dropped from his eyes. He stared at Robin, vulnerable and raw and utterly defenseless.
"Every scar," Robin continued, his voice low. "Every nightmare. Every broken piece of you. I want them. All of them. Not despite them—because they're part of you, and I want all of you." He lifted Kaelen's hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles, soft and deliberate. "I love you, Kaelen. I've loved you for so long I don't know how to stop. And I don't want to."
The words hung in the air, fragile and enormous.
Kaelen's lips parted. His eyes glistened. For a long, terrible moment, Robin was afraid he'd said the wrong thing, pushed too hard, broken the delicate thing growing between them.
Then Kaelen pulled him forward by the collar of his shirt and kissed him.
It was clumsy and desperate and tasted like salt—from tears, from the sea, from both of them—but it was real. So painfully, beautifully real. Robin's hand found the back of Kaelen's neck, cradling him like something precious, and he kissed him back like he was relearning how to breathe.
When they broke apart, Kaelen's forehead pressed against Robin's. His eyes were closed. His breath came in shaky waves.
"I love you too," he whispered. "I think I always have."
Robin's laugh was wet and broken and the most beautiful sound Kaelen had ever heard.
"Took you long enough," Robin said, and Kaelen laughed too, bright and startled and full of relief.
And in the golden afternoon light of a cliff house by the sea, surrounded by bandages and half-empty cups of tea and the distant sound of Lucien arguing with a kettle, two boys who had been dancing around each other for years finally, completely, fell into each other's arms.
Outside, Bramble's massive head appeared in the window. His warm brown eyes took in the scene—Robin curled around Kaelen, their fingers tangled together, their breathing slowly syncing—and a low, rumbling sound escaped his chest. Not quite a growl. Not quite a purr. Something in between.
Contentment.
He settled down outside the window, his tail thumping once against the ground, and kept watch.