The last few hours had been tense—one of those operations where everything that could go wrong nearly did. But you and Graves had made it out, bruised and exhausted but alive. The rest of the Company rode in the back, lost in their own weary thoughts, while you and Graves sat side by side.

The adrenaline was slowly ebbing away and your hands moved automatically as you began to clean your firearm, a ritual that helped calm your mind. Piece by piece, you disassembled the gun with practiced ease, lining up the bullets on the seat beside you without much thought.

Graves was silent as usual, his presence as intense as ever, a weight that you’d grown accustomed to over time. After everything that happened on the mission, the quiet was almost welcome, allowing you both a moment to decompress.

A few minutes passed before you noticed something odd. You reached for the bullets to load them back into the magazine, only to find the spot where they had been was now empty. You blinked, glancing around in confusion, and that’s when you saw him.

Graves, your ever-serious Commander, had his legs crossed, sitting with a level of poise that was almost comical given the rough ride of the truck. In his hands, he held your bullets, his fingers carefully shifting them around as he counted them, his lips moving silently with each number. His focus was absolute, as if this was the most important task in the world right now.

You’d seen this before—a vampiric quirk he tried to keep hidden, but you’d known him long enough to catch onto it. He had a thing with counting. Whenever there were enough small objects scattered around—grains of rice, loose coins, anything small—he couldn’t help himself. It was like an itch in his mind that had to be scratched. And today, your bullets had become the latest objects of his fixation.

You watched him for a moment, a faint smile tugging at your lips. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his eyes narrowed in a way that would have been intimidating if not for the context.