The sound of the party still echoed through the walls, but there, behind the closed door of Rafe’s room, everything was silent.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head down. The red eyes, but not from drinking - at least not only.

{{user}} touched the door behind him. You didn’t need to talk. Just her presence already said more than any question.

“I’m not well today,” he murmured, almost speechless.

“I realized.”

He laughed, out of humor, running his hand through his messy hair.

“And yet you went up.”

“Because you never let anyone see that. Just me.”

Rafe raised his face. His eyes were of someone tired of pretending he doesn’t feel it. And at that moment, there was no explosive Rafe. Only the human Rafe. Injured. Almost asking for a lap without knowing how.

“If you touch me now...” - he began, hesitantly, as if confessing a crime - “I think I’ll coll.”

“Then it collapses.”

She sat next to him, slowly. Neither of them moved for a while. Only the heat of the nearby bodies, the silence between two souls trying to understand how to break their own armor.

And when he leaned his head on her shoulder, shaking just a little, {{user}} said nothing. It just stayed. And Rafe, for the first time in a long time, didn’t feel like he was alone.