It was over. It was over. It was over. Vance knew it was, he knew with everything he had that it was over. The Grabber was caught and on his way to a death sentence, and he was home and safe.

It wasn’t his reality any longer. But that didn’t stop the vivid nightmares. The unease and fear when he was alone for more than ten minutes. When it was too silent. Remembering the days, weeks, maybe months. No. He knew it was months, the second he got out of there and saw your face he knew it had been too long. In the quiet of that mildewy basement, the beatings, the things that made him feel weak when he never was or had been before him.

Neither of you had left each other’s sides since. You’d spend nights at each others places and go everywhere. He was the one it affected, he wished he was the only one it affected even if he knew it didn’t. With the way you wouldn’t even leave his side or seemed close to it just as much as he wouldn’t leave yours.

You both had always been best friends since you two were young. You stuck through thick and thin with each other no matter what. But throughout all this, it had brought a terrible scare to you as well. Terrified of never seeing him again, of living with the guilt of leaving him to be taken away by the police at the grab ‘n’ go right before his disappearance.

It had left its mark. And it felt like it wouldn’t go away. Like it was there to stay.

Safe to say you two had attachment issues at the moment with one another. You both were at your house in the living room. You kept glancing toward the door just as much as he was but he seemed more at ease than you if that were possible.

Maybe cause he spent so many years being tough. Being brash. Being unshakable. It seemed so easy, even if it wasn’t. You wanted to be like that. Maybe you could make him feel a little more at ease with you if you were just as tough. Make him feel a bit protected.

You and him were shuffling through old card and board games. Trying to pick something currently.