Jared’s eyes opened into the suffocating dark. The nightmare’s claws slid back, leaving a cold, oily residue in his veins. A scream swallowed by the dream. He shivered, sheets twisted around his legs, skin slick with sweat that had nothing to do with the air.

The quiet voice of the Mind Flayer rustled through the folds of his mind.

It had found him in sleep, a charming, maddeningly beautiful voice woven through images of Adrian, standing in the alley, unmoving as the shadows consumed him. Jared’s own Dark had watched, pleased.

He sat up. Heart hammering. The room stretched too wide, shadows pooling in the corners. The hum of his devices, distant, hollow, meaningless. Alone. The aloneness pressed the air from his lungs.

It’s just a dream.

But fear was alive, coiled tight in his gut. He could not stay. Not in this empty dark.

He moved on silent feet, a ghost haunting his own home. The hallway stretched, a tunnel of deeper black. A sliver of light bled from beneath the guest room door. He stopped, hand raised. Frozen.

What are you doing?

A grown man. A field agent. He had faced things that would shatter lesser minds. Now, shaking outside a door, undone by a dream. Pathetic.

But Adrian, still, shadow-eaten, flashed behind his eyes. Breath caught, sharp.

He knocked. Softly. Twice.

A pause. Then Adrian’s voice, low and alert, came through the wood. “Jared?”

“Yeah.” The word was a rasp.

The door opened. Adrian stood there, backlit by a small bedside lamp. He’d stripped down to just his boxers. His hair was mussed, his face softened by the low light, but his eyes were sharp, instantly scanning Jared’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Adrian asked, his voice dropping into that calm, clinical register that usually soothed Jared. Tonight, it just made him feel more exposed.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Eyes on the floor, arms wrapped tight around himself. “Bad dream. The usual.”

Adrian studied him. Jared felt the assessment: pallor, tremor in his hands, pupils blown wide. A specimen under glass.

“Do you need something? Water? A sedative?”

“No.” Too quick. He swallowed, forced himself to meet Adrian’s eyes. Concern there. Almost worse than pity. A hook, pulling the truth up from where he’d buried it. “I just… I don’t want to be alone.”

Silence, thick and heavy. He wished the floor would open and swallow him.

Adrian didn’t move. Unreadable. Then, slowly, the tension in his shoulders eased. No smile, but the lines around his eyes softened.

“Okay,” he said, simply.

He stepped back, door opening wider. Turned, walked to the bed. It was a simple, neat double, covers barely disturbed. He pulled back the duvet on the far side, making space.

“Come on,” Adrian said, his voice a quiet rumble.

His feet carried him forward before his mind could protest. Ridiculous, cowering in his own anxiety. He stopped at the edge, staring at the space offered as if it were a chasm.

“I can take the floor,” Jared whispered.

“Don’t be absurd,” Adrian said. He was already settling back against his own pillows, making room. “Get in before you catch a chill.”

The practicality of it broke the last of his resistance. He slid into the bed. Sheets cool against his skin. He kept to the edge, back to Adrian, curling in on himself. The mattress dipped as Adrian lay back down, settling himself. The light clicked off. Darkness, shared.

Silence returned, but changed. Filled now with the sound of another breathing. Slow. Steady. Real.

Jared lay rigid. Every nerve ending screaming. The space between them: eighteen inches, a mile, an inch. Warmth from Adrian’s body radiated across it. The clean scent of soap and cotton, layered over antiseptic and old paper.

His heart wouldn’t slow. The Dark, once restless, now utterly still. Listening. Waiting.

“You’re shaking,” Adrian murmured into the darkness.

“I’m fine.”

A sigh. The bed shifted. Adrian did not touch him, but Jared felt him turn, facing him. Attention a physical pressure.

“You don’t have to be fine, Jared. Not here.”

Something tight in his chest loosened, just a fraction. A shaky breath escaped, unnoticed until now.

“The dream… it was about the alley. But you were in it. The Mind Flayer had you. And I just… watched.”

“It was a dream,” Adrian said, his voice low and certain. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

The words sank in, warm and heavy. He unclenched his hands from the sheets. Slowly, hesitantly, he rolled onto his back. Adrian’s profile, pale against the faint city glow.

“I’m sorry,” Jared whispered. “For this. For dragging you back into… everything.”

“You didn’t drag me. I chose to come.” Adrian paused. “And I choose to be here now.”

Simplicity, a balm. The tight coil of fear in his gut began to unravel, replaced by deep, aching exhaustion. Warmth of the bed, solid presence beside him, the rhythm of Adrian’s breathing; a lure his battered mind could not resist.

His body relaxed, sinking into the mattress. The space between them no longer so vast. Sleep pulling him under. His hand shifted on the sheet, almost without his knowing. Pinky finger brushing Adrian’s where it lay between them.

A spark. Not Shadow. Just simple, human contact.

Adrian didn’t pull away. After a moment, his finger shifted, just enough to hook gently around Jared’s.

Just an anchor. Just so to know it’s real.

In the dark, Adrian’s thumb stroked once, slowly, across the side of Jared’s finger. A silent reassurance.

The last thing he felt before sleep claimed him was not the cold clutch of nightmares, but the steady, grounding warmth of another holding on. For the first time in a long, long time, the Dark within him was quiet. Still. Content.