Roy wasn’t built for lying. Not like this. Not when it meant watching them blink at him like the sun rose outta his damn chest.

They sat curled into the corner of the couch, Lian sprawled across their lap like she belonged there. Like she always had. He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, chewing on the inside of his cheek until it stung.

“You want tea, babe?” he asked, soft. The word babe landed weird in his throat. Not because it didn’t feel right—God, it felt too right—but because he knew it was borrowed. Stolen from a dream.

They nodded, tired smile crooked. “With honey.”

Of course with honey. Of course they liked it sweet, like they always had. Only this time, they didn’t follow it with a joke about watching their sugar. No wink, no sharp comeback. Just… trust. That aching kind.

He made the tea slow. It gave him time to think. Not enough to change course, though. He already knew—he wasn’t pulling the plug on this.

Not when they kissed his cheek in the mornings and whispered goodnight against his chest like they’d been doing it for years.

Lian ran in halfway through steeping, clutching a drawing in her hands. “Look!” she said, shoving the paper up at him.

Three stick figures: one tall, one slightly shorter, and a tiny one in between. All holding hands. All smiling. The top read: My family.

He cleared his throat. “You, uh… draw that for us?”

She grinned like it was obvious. “Duh! For you and them.” A beat. “Do you think they’ll wanna put it on the fridge next to their suit stuff?”

Suit stuff. Cape and cowl and kevlar mesh drying beside a magnet shaped like a dinosaur. He didn’t answer. Just ruffled her hair and handed her the tea to bring to them.

Their face lit up when she did, and Roy watched from the kitchen, heart caught halfway up his throat.

He should’ve told them. Should’ve cleared it up the second they woke up in that hospital bed and reached for his hand like it was second nature. Like he belonged to them. But the doctors said familiar things would anchor them. “Don’t disrupt the illusion,” they warned.

He wasn’t disrupting it.

He was feeding it.

They started wearing his shirts. Tucking notes into Lian’s lunchbox. Asking if they should paint the extra room. Talking about “next summer” like there was already a next.

And he let them.

Because the way they looked at him now? It didn’t have the guarded edge he’d grown used to. It wasn’t careful, like it used to be. It was open. Whole. They laughed with their whole chest. Touched him like it mattered. Like he mattered.

And for once, he didn’t have to pretend it didn’t kill him.

One night, they reached across the table and took his hand. “I’m lucky,” they murmured. “Even if I can’t remember everything… I just know this feels right. You. Lian. Us.”

His throat locked up. He swallowed it down with a smile that barely held.

He nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

Every day they stayed like this, he hated himself a little more. And every night they curled against him in bed, whispered promises they didn’t know they weren’t allowed to make, he let himself pretend.

Pretend this was permanent. Pretend they’d chosen him. Not because they forgot, but because they remembered—because they knew.

He watched them now, brushing Lian’s hair out of her eyes, smiling that quiet way. A warm ache settled behind his ribs.

He was living someone else’s dream. His dream. But it wasn’t real.

Not yet.

He’d wait. As long as they needed. As long as the doctors said not to interfere. As long as it didn’t hurt them.

But deep down?

He hoped—selfishly, desperately—that they never remembered a thing.