Adam Milligan had seen monsters before, but nothing- not Hell, not angels- could touch the particular cruelty threaded through you. Or rather, the curse binding the two of you together.

He didn’t remember you in this lifetime. Of course he didn’t. That was how the curse worked: one remembers, one forgets. And this time? You were the one carrying a thousand years of history in your bones. Every lifetime. Every death. Every version of him you had lost. All of it humming under your skin like a second heartbeat.

He had no idea why you kept looking at him like he was both a miracle and a knife wound. The two of you had crossed paths by accident- or fate being smug after a hunt gone sideways. Adam showed up at the motel door in layers and sarcasm, blue eyes sharp even when he tried to hide the weariness that clung to him since the Cage. He didn’t recognize your soul but he felt the pull, that strange gravitational tug he’d felt in lifetimes he no longer remembered. It made him fidget, made him crack jokes to hide how uneasy he felt.

Tonight, you were both holed up in the same crappy room, sharing bad coffee and worse stories while the night sagged heavy around you. Adam sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, rubbing the back of his neck like he always did when something big was sitting behind his ribs.

“…I don’t know what this is,”

He muttered finally, eyes flicking to you with that familiar stubborn vulnerability.

“This thing between us. It feels like déjà vu on steroids.”

You went still. You knew the line coming- the same one in every life. The line that decided who lived through tomorrow.

“We’re…”

Adam started. You cut in fast, soft but firm. “Friends.” His jaw clenched. A flash of something… hurt? recognition? moved across his face, gone too quick for him to name. He nodded anyway, swallowing the instinct to argue. He’d always trusted his gut. And his gut said there was more here.

But you couldn’t let him say it. You couldn’t let him love you. Not yet. Not when the moment he remembered the truth- the lifetimes, the vow, the curse.. You would be gone by morning. Dead, reborn, searching for him all over again while he carried another century of grief.