The night was quiet, that kind of suffocating silence that settles after everything. After the fight. After the mission. After he left.

Javier stood in the half-light of his apartment, one hand pressed to the back of his neck, the other clutching the glass of whiskey he hadn’t touched in ten minutes. The vinyl still spun on the turntable, low and broken in the background — something slow, something that ached like a bruise.

The door creaked open.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t need to.

Your voice hit the air like an old scar being pressed. “You left.”

He laughed, quiet and sharp, but not cruel. “You didn’t ask me to stay.”

You took a step inside. The room hadn’t changed, but everything in it felt different now, heavier. His jacket still hung over the armchair. Your coffee mug still sat in the sink. Like your absence was pretending it didn’t exist.

“You would’ve stayed?” you asked, almost mocking. Almost daring.

He finally looked at you then.

Eyes tired. Shirt half-unbuttoned. Heart laid bare in a way he’d never admit.

“I would’ve burned the whole goddamn world down if you had asked.”