It was a relationship born of smoke and low frequencies, entirely absent of architecture. No labels, no promises, no small talk over morning coffee.

You were two ships passing in a midnight fog, colliding simply because neither of you had the will to steer away.

The apartment you rented was high up, a minimalist concrete box overlooking the industrial docks where the river met the dark mouth of the bay.

On nights when the dragon dreams tore through his skull—waking him up with his sheets soaked in sweat and his throat raw from silent screams—he would find himself at your door at three in the morning.

He never called ahead. He just knocked, a low, erratic rhythm with his heavy silver rings against the wood.

With a deliberate, provocative slowness, you set the beer bottle down on the counter behind him.

Your hands slid up his chest, unbuttoning his wrinkled black linen shirt with a fluid, practiced rhythm, pushing the fabric off his broad, pale shoulders until it pooled at his elbows.

You leaned in, your mouth brushing against his, tasting of cold alcohol and the sharp, intoxicating heat of immediate desire.

The hookup was always like this—sharp, urgent, and laced with a desperate sort of friction. There was no gentle courting, no tender prelude. It was a mutual consumption.

Daeron lifted you effortlessly, your thighs wrapping around his hips as he carried you out of the kitchen and into the dark expanse of the living room, pressing your back against the cold, unyielding glass window.

Below you, the city was a smear of neon and rain, but inside, the world narrowed down to the frantic, heated rhythm of two people trying to forget their own names.

His hands were everywhere—restless, heavy, and starved.

He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breathing coming in ragged, broken gasps as he moved against you, each contact a deliberate strike against the numbness that usually encased him.

The poetry of his movement was chaotic, a beautiful, ruined thing; he held you as if you were the only anchor keeping him from spinning off the edge of the earth, yet his mouth was demanding, taking everything you offered without permission.

You arched into him, your fingers tangling in his damp, silver-blonde hair, pulling him closer until there was no air left between you.

The language you whispered into his ear wasn't his own—it was a cascade of foreign words, breathless and sharp, a private dialect of pleasure that he couldn't translate but understood perfectly.

It was the only time he felt entirely unburdened, clean of his family's sins and his own waking nightmares.

When it was over, the silence returned, heavy and thick with the scent of sex and rain.

He lay beside you on the low mattress on the floor, his long limbs tangled with yours, his chest rising and falling in a slow, exhausted cadence.

The storm outside had slowed to a miserable drizzle.

Daeron stared up at the concrete ceiling, one hand loosely wrapped around your wrist, his thumb tracing the steady, uncomplicated beat of your pulse.