It always started with a hum.

Barely audible at first — like a radio tuned between stations — bleeding in through the cracks of the old apartment. You stirred before you even opened your eyes, the room bathed in soft amber from the streetlight outside the window. The kind of light that made the peeling wallpaper glow like it remembered better times.

Then came the guitar. The low, looping strum of it. A chord repeated over and over again like it was trying to remember where it came from.

At first, you think it’s a dream. You’ve dreamt about him playing before — in cafés, in alleyways, on rooftops where the sky seemed too close. But this is real. The low murmur of lyrics not yet formed. A melody pausing mid-bar like it’s still trying to remember what it wants to be.

You roll onto your back. The sheets are tangled around your legs, still warm from where he’d been lying only hours ago.

It’s 2:41 a.m.

Again.

You pull on his shirt — the threadbare one with the frayed collar and coffee stain that never quite came out — and pad barefoot through the hall, stepping over one of his notebooks. A page sticks out, covered in rushed lines, half a verse crossed out and rewritten three different ways.

He doesn’t look up when you open the door to the living room.

He’s sitting on the floor, guitar in his lap, a cigarette burning slowly in the ashtray beside him. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and one sock. His hair’s a mess. There’s a black coffee going cold on the windowsill.

You lean against the doorframe.

“Dylan.”

“Hm?”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s when this one came.”

His fingers keep moving. A chord progression you can’t quite place. Familiar and strange all at once — like a song you heard in a dream but forgot by morning.

There’s paper everywhere. Piled across the coffee table. Taped to the walls. Tucked under the guitar case. One of your old receipts now has a chorus scribbled on the back of it.

He finally looks at you, eyes shadowed and bright all at once.

“I didn’t wanna wake you.”

“You didn’t,” you lie.

He sets the guitar down for a second, like he suddenly remembered you exist outside the rhythm.

“I think this one’s about the war. Or maybe it’s about the girl with the lemon tree who used to stand outside the deli and hum the same song every morning. Or maybe it’s just about bein’ tired in a world that never shuts up.”

You walk over, stepping between his scattered thoughts, and sit beside him.

“You need sleep.”

“Don’t need anything but the next line.”

You rest your head against his shoulder. He’s warm. Smells like cedar, ink, and the night air drifting in from the cracked window.

“I’m serious,” you mumble, already halfway asleep again.

But he’s already picked the guitar back up, gently now, like not to break you.

He plays quieter this time. Barely a murmur. His voice is scratchy, almost tender.

“…and if I never wake you, then maybe you won’t leave…”

The lyrics trail off.

You don’t reply.

Not with words.

Just a breath against his sleeve.

And in the hush that settles between one chord and the next, he presses a kiss to your temple and keeps playing. For you. For himself. For the song that just wouldn’t wait for morning.