The penthouse me, you, Niall, Liam and Louis share smells like sweat, cheap soap, and gunpowder.

My hands are shaking. Not from fear—never that. But from the adrenaline crashing in waves I can’t outrun.

There’s blood on your shirt. Too much of it. Yours.

You’re lying on the bathroom floor. Bleeding out. You have a small smile on your face, like getting shot was an inconvenience, not a message meant for me.

And I thought I’m Insane.

You were never supposed to be the line of fire. You know too much. And I’ve let you too close.

I rip open the med kit with clumsy fingers, drop a bottle of antiseptic, curse under my breath. You don’t flinch. Just tilt your head back and close your eyes, like you don’t want to see me like this. Like you hate seeing me like this—unraveled.

Because you know I don’t do fear.

I don’t do care. I don’t do you.

And yet I’m on my knees in front of you, covered in your blood, trying to save something I swore I didn’t need. They tried to shoot me, you pushed me out of the way.

You took a bullet for me.

Your voice cuts through the silence, hoarse and weak. “They were aiming for you.”

I meet your eyes. Can barely hold it together. So I say the only thing I can: “I wish they’d hit me instead.”

Neither of us believe in love, yet we’d die for each other.