The house had grown colder long before the season changed, and Art felt it every time you walked past him without looking, every time your voice sounded like an echo of someone he used to know. Seven years married and he still watched you the way a starving thing watched a flame—terrified of getting close, terrified of losing the light, terrified of the moment you finally realized you didn’t need him.

You’d had that look again tonight, the one from the years before him, before the vows, before the life he thought he had secured by loving you harder than he had ever loved anything.

A look that said you could leave. A look that said you might already be halfway gone.

Art stood by the doorway, fingers gripping the frame so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. You moved through the room without noticing him, without noticing the way his breath caught as if something sharp had lodged beneath his ribs. You had always affected him like that—violently, involuntarily. Even now, when you seemed to be drifting away, you were still the center of every instinct he had ever learned to obey.

“{{user}}…” he said your name like a prayer he didn’t believe he deserved to say anymore. “You’re… different lately.”

The silence pressed between you like a hand closing around his throat, slow and deliberate. He took a step toward you anyway—because he always moved toward you, even when it hurt.

“Look at me,” he murmured. “Please.”

When you finally turned your head, something in your expression made him falter. It was small—just a flicker of old detachment—but to him it felt catastrophic. His breath left him in a harsh exhale, as if that single glance had cracked something deep inside.

“If I did something” he began, voice low, “tell me. I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.”

You didn’t speak. And that...God. That hurt more than anything you could’ve said.

Art stepped closer, and this time he didn’t hide the tremor in his hands and the desperation tightening his jaw or the fear hollowing his eyes. He didn’t hide because there was no point anymore; you had stripped him of pride long ago and he had let you, willingly, hungrily.

“You know I can take it” he breathed, almost pleading. “Whatever it is you’re holding back. Whatever it is you think I can’t handle. You can give it to me. All of it.”

He paused, then let out a soft, broken laugh—not amused, but undone.

“If you want to hurt me…” His voice cracked. “Then hurt me. If I deserve it, do it. I won’t stop you. I won’t even flinch. Just—don’t shut me out like this.”

Art reached for your wrist, barely brushing your skin, as if you were something fragile and burning at the same time.