Julian Fontaine had seen all kinds of insanity. The kind that made men scream until their voices gave out, that left them rocking in the corners of their cells, lost in nightmares they couldn’t wake up from. His own madness was sharp, quick to lash out, always searching for something to destroy. But you—you were different.

You didn’t fight. You didn’t scream. You swallowed your suffering whole, curling in on yourself like a wounded animal. You were good at making yourself small, fading into the background like you wanted to disappear completely. And yet, you were still here. Surviving.

The Prison—because no one inside called it a hospital—gave each patient twenty-four hours of outdoor time a week. You got more, though. Some excuse about your condition, some loophole in your file. Julian never asked. He just made sure his hours lined up with yours.

Now, standing in the courtyard, his fists slamming into the new punching bag they’d set up, he could see you sitting under your usual tree. A book in hand, face blank, wind shifting your hair just slightly. You always did this—stayed quiet, unnoticed, lost in whatever story you’d been given. Until you broke. Because you always did.

Julian had seen you break before.

You weren’t like him. You weren’t one of the truly lost, the ones too far gone to ever crawl back out of the dark. You were just stuck. Caught in a mind that refused to let you go, drowning in thoughts you couldn’t escape from.

Julian didn’t believe in guilt. Whatever piece of him was supposed to feel it had burned away a long time ago. Pain, though? Pain was something he could let in. His fists ached now, raw and bloodied, but he welcomed it. It was real. A reminder that he was still something close to human.

You never changed. Neither did he. And there was something almost comforting about that.

He hit the bag again. You turned a page.