The wooden floor groaned under him; traitorously loud for a man trying to sneak.

Charlie had one hand braced on the table, the other pressed to his side where the bandages sat just a little too tight under his shirt. The pain wasn’t sharp, not really. It just made everything tilt slightly, like the whole cabin was balancing on a thread and leaning the wrong way.

He was halfway to the door when he heard the creak behind him.

They hadn’t said a word, but he could feel it; the quiet weight of their stare, heavy as a dragon’s breath on the back of his neck.

He didn’t turn. Not yet.

“I wasn’t going far,” he muttered, voice scratchy from disuse and sleep. “Just out front. Little air. That’s all.”

It was a lie. His boots weren’t even on properly.

The silence stretched, long and unimpressed.

Charlie exhaled through his nose. Stubborn to the core, but not stupid. He lowered himself back into the chair beside the door—not in surrender, but because his ribs were barking louder than his pride.

They still hadn’t spoken.

“I’m not a bloody invalid,” he snapped, though it came out softer than he meant. “You can stop watching me like I’m about to tip over and crack.”

The only answer was the quiet pad of their feet approaching, steady and certain. Not angry, even worse. Calm. Controlled.

They were going to check the bandages again, probably. Or adjust the charm. Or worse, say nothing at all and just look at him like that — with those tender eyes that made his throat feel too tight.

Charlie grunted and leaned back, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re enjoying this,” he accused, eyes darting up to meet theirs. “Admit it.”

And there was a shift in the air. Not a fight, exactly. But a reckoning. One that had been coming ever since he got pulled out of the wreckage and dumped back here, into the arms of the only person who gave a damn about stitching him back together properly.

He just didn’t know how to sit still long enough to let them do it.