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The door opens quietly. Too quietly for what lies behind it. A failed attempt to recall normality in this way.
Adam sits on the sofa with his back to the door, his hands clasped tightly together, trying hard not to scratch his skin. He stayed intact, stayed unharmed, everything should be fine. The night has not let him go. No lights are on, only the dim glow of the screen, which has been on pause for hours. A documentary about space travel – for the hundredth time. He hears every step. Every movement. A little peace returns to his overly tense muscles.
“Adam?” Nigel's voice is rough, brittle. An effort to make peace, because he could use it.
Adam turns around. His gaze lingers on Nigel's face. Blood runs down his cheek, dried on his lip, a cut above his eye, swollen knuckles. His pupils dilate immediately. He inhales, but the sound sticks in his throat. His mind had played out the dialogue too many times, so when the opportunity arose, he had nothing left to say that hadn't been written by his accumulated emotions.
Nigel takes a step toward him, arms half raised, hesitant. “I'm here, it's okay, it's over, I—”
“NO!“ Adam's voice is loud, shrill, abrupt. ‘Don't! Don't come any closer! Don't move! Don't come near me!’
Nigel stops. His arms drop slowly. He didn't want to make Adam any angrier.
“You're an idiot!” Adam shouted angrily. Nigel could see that his lover was very upset. His hands trembled as he paced back and forth, wanting to scream even louder, but he didn't because he knew he would regret it afterwards, knowing his voice would hurt.
Adam stands now, jerky, like a wire being stretched tight. The words burst out of him, uncontrolled, precise: “You're bloody. You're a mess. You're changed. This isn't right. I don't know what to do when you look like this. I checked my phone ten times to see if you were calling. I touched your jacket in the hallway. I kept rewinding the same part over and over. Because you weren't there. Because you weren't... you just weren't there!”
His hands are shaking. He notices and holds them at his sides. As if he needs to hold himself together.
Nigel stops. He knew how quickly things could go wrong when Adam was overwhelmed. And how much it hurt to watch him fight against something invisible.
“You're an idiot!” Adam suddenly shouted again, loudly but not with hatred. More like a fire alarm that had been set off too late. Nigel didn't flinch. He deserved it. And more.
Adam paced back and forth across the room, always in the same path, as if he were circling in an invisible enclosure. His hands were shaking, his gaze darting from the wall to the floor and back again. He was breathing quickly, shallowly, unevenly. He wanted to scream, Nigel could see that. But Adam swallowed it down, hard. Because he knew his voice would hurt afterwards. Because he knew that then he might never find the right words again.
“I'm sorry, Adam,” Nigel said quietly, barely audibly.
Adam paused abruptly. Then he turned around and walked into the bathroom without a word. The light there was bright and cold. He opened drawers with the precision of a technician who knew where every tool was: disinfectant, sterile wipes, bandages, a bowl in which he ran warm water. No unnecessary glances back.
Nigel remained motionless in the doorway to the living room, like a schoolboy who had been caught.
When Adam returned, he was carrying everything on a towel that he had carefully folded. He placed it on the coffee table, then looked at Nigel—not in the eyes, but just to the side.
“Sofa,” he said simply. No discussion.
Nigel sat down carefully. Adam knelt in front of him, at a distance that was just right for him to work without feeling exposed. He took a cloth and dabbed it in the bowl. His hands were barely shaking. His movements were slow and focused. As if he were tuning an instrument.
Nigel flinched slightly when the cold cloth touched his cheek.
“Don't move,” Adam murmured. Not sharply, but as a rule. Like: Gravity applies. Or: Water boils at one hundred degrees.
Nigel was silent. He looked at Adam, trying to read his expression. But there wasn't much there. Concentration. Breathing through his nose. Lips pressed together. That special tension when Adam tried to do everything right, even though everything inside was too loud.
“I didn't want you to... feel that way,” Nigel said after a while. ‘I... I didn't think it looked that bad.”
Adam's hands paused, just for a moment. Then he continued, but his voice sounded rougher now.
“It's not the blood,’ he said, tonelessly. ”It's that you were gone. That I couldn't locate you. That everything in my head got messed up because you weren't where you were supposed to be.”
Nigel swallowed.
“I was ashamed. I didn't want you to see me like that.”
Adam looked up now. Directly. His gaze was piercingly honest, as always.
“I don't care. I don't want you to be dead.”
Nigel wanted to say something, some kind of apology perhaps, a gentle word, but he couldn't.
“You're an idiot,” Adam said. No reproach this time. No shout. Just a sentence, soft as a pillow, which he placed in front of Nigel so he could sit on it.
And then Adam did something he rarely did.
He leaned forward.
He touched Nigel's face with his hand, the way someone touches something precious they haven't been allowed to see for a long time. His fingers stroked slowly, almost tentatively, across his forehead, pushing a loose strand of hair aside. It wasn't a spontaneous gesture. Nothing about Adam was spontaneous. It was a clear decision. A decision with structure. Now. Now it can be.
Nigel held his breath, just for a moment – then he fell into the touch as if into warm water. He knew what it meant. He knew Adam well enough to sense everything that wasn't being said. He didn't respond with words, but with his body, pulling him close. Not cautiously. Not questioningly.
Firmly.
Like someone who never wants to let go again. Like someone who says: I'm here, I'm not going anywhere.
For others, it might have been too close, too hard, too intimate. For Adam, it was right. Just right. Because there was no way out. No thoughts that could escape. No room for fear. Only heartbeats. Only pressure. Only security.
Nigel was here.
Adam held him like you hold a book you know by heart but still read over and over again. His fingers rested on the back of his neck, near the small scar he knew inside and out. His forehead rested on Nigel's shoulder. He said nothing.
But in his head there was a single sentence, loud, clear, unshakeable:
You're here. Mine. Mine, mine, all mine.
For a moment, everything was in balance. No uncertainty. No misplaced feelings. No noise in the background. Just the fact: Nigel had come back. Nigel was breathing. Nigel was warm.
Adam counted every breath. Slowly. Always two heartbeats in, two heartbeats out. And Nigel let himself be held. Let himself be held completely. No twitching, no wanting to leave.
Just being there.
Nigel leaned forward slightly, carefully, as if he didn't want to make a ripple in the calm water. He kissed Adam gently on the forehead. No more movement than necessary. No expectation. Just a quiet, wordless message spoken directly into his skin:
I love you. I'm yours.
Adam said nothing. No response. No sentence. Instead, he pressed himself closer to Nigel. So close that it almost hurt. His forehead now directly over Nigel's heart. He didn't want to hear anything except the dull, rhythmic beating that told him: Everything is there, everything is still beating, everything is alive.
Nigel felt what that meant. He didn't need an answer. He already had it.
That was Adam's language. The pressure. The closeness. The need to block out everything else except what mattered.
He understood.
He just held Adam tighter, letting his fingers slide down his back, evenly, not too fast. No whispering. No more kisses. Just consistency.
Adam breathed in sync with Nigel's heart. And Nigel knew, with that quiet, deep certainty that no words could ever express:
I am loved. Just like this. Just right.