You see Fontaine before he sees you. Same car. Same hoodie. Same look that never changes—except tonight there’s something fractured behind it, a blink too long, a breath too short. He’s parked outside the corner store, engine running, headlights slicing through the night like they’re looking for answers too.

You tap the glass. He flinches.

“Damn,” he mutters, unlocking the door. “You movin’ like a ghost.”

You slide in, warmth and faint cigarette smoke curling around you. “You been sittin’ here for ten minutes,” you say. “Ain’t like you to stall.”

He stares straight ahead. “Don’t feel right,” he says after a beat. “Whole block… quiet. You notice that?”

You listen. No dogs. No sirens. No bass from the apartments above the salon. Just the hum of streetlights and your own pulse. “Maybe folks sleepin’,” you offer, but it comes out uncertain.

Fontaine finally looks at you. That steady, unreadable calm you’ve known since y’all were kids—it’s cracked at the edges. His eyes flick down to your hand resting on the console. For a second, he looks like he might reach for it, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he whispers, “Had a dream I died here last night. Same street. Same time.” Then quieter: “And I woke up right back in my bed like nothin’ happened.”

You watch his reflection in the windshield, two of him split by the glass. “You don’t dream,” you say, voice careful.

“I know.” He laughs once, no humor in it. “That’s what’s messin’ me up.”

The light above the liquor store flickers, once, twice. Fontaine’s jaw tightens. “You see that?”

You nod slowly. “Yeah.”

He exhales, deep and shaky. “Thought maybe I was trippin’.” Then softer, “You keepin’ me honest out here.”

You smirk. “Somebody gotta.”

He finally looks at you full, and the air goes still. He’s always been a man of weight—words, presence, everything deliberate. But now he looks lighter and heavier all at once, like he’s floating inside his own skin. You want to touch his arm, tell him he’s real, tell you are too—but you don’t. You just breathe, same rhythm as him, and the silence between you hums.

A car passes slow, windows tinted black. Fontaine’s body tenses; his hand finds yours without asking. Warm, rough, real. The streetlight flickers again, but this time it stays on.

He doesn’t let go.

You feel him steady under your palm, pulse syncing to yours like muscle memory. “If I start losin’ it,” he says, voice low, “don’t let me forget who I am.”

“You Fontaine,” you answer, thumb brushing over his knuckles. “You ain’t anybody’s copy.”

His mouth twitches into something like a smile. The kind he used to hide behind bravado. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Guess I needed to hear it.”

The quiet rolls back in, the kind that feels almost holy. The city hums wrong, the air too clean, the night too still—but for one breath, the only real thing left on this block is the heat of his hand in yours.

You don’t move. Neither does he. And somewhere deep in the dark, the glitch pauses.

Like the world itself is watching to see what you’ll do next.