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The manor is especially quiet at night, but it's not the kind that soothes, but the kind that settles behind your ribs and makes itself feel at home. Norton walks without thinking, his bare feet against polished floors, the cold biting at his skin in places he didn’t bother to cover. The silence presses down on his shoulders like a weight, and the moonlight glints off the hall’s arched windows like silver teeth.
He hadn’t meant to go anywhere in particular, as he just couldn’t sleep. And that had been a common occurrence for him ever since he’d stepped foot into this manor. Coming here, he’d imagined it would be an improvement, a relief after the biting cold of the slums or the nights he’d spent curled atop beds made of stone and resignation. But here, amid velvet drapes and polished floors, he felt no comfort—only the quiet ache of displacement. As though the walls themselves whispered that he did not belong, and that he never would.
But as he passes the open doors of the drawing room, something flickers—a low fire, a silhouette.
Orpheus sits near the hearth, one leg draped elegantly over the other, a glass of wine held with absentminded grace between his fingers. The fire casts a soft amber glow across the flawless ivory of his suit, lending warmth to a figure otherwise untouched by it. His hair is slightly mussed, as though he’s been sitting there for a while, thinking. Or maybe not thinking at all.
For a moment, Norton’s gaze remains fixed on the shadow Orpheus casts across the room, as if it were the only thing in this place he could ever belong to. He’d never really spoken to Orpheus about anything beyond the confines of their arrangement. That was expected, he supposed. The distance between a man like him and someone like Orpheus was just the natural order of things—boss and subordinate, orbiting in separate spheres. Until now, it hadn’t troubled him.
Norton had never thought of himself as pleasant company anyway. At times, even he could sense the way he leaned into his own abrasiveness, as though he were trying especially hard to be disliked. But that, to him, was simply the shape his life had taken. You don’t let yourself indulge in anything that isn’t work. People are disappointments more often than not. And in the end, the only thing you can truly count on is yourself.
So he quietly turns away, with the muted hope that even his footsteps wouldn’t betray him. And beneath that silence, a deeper, more familiar disappointment stirs, directed not at anyone, but at himself. Because even if he wanted to do something more, say something, reach out—he knows he doesn't have the courage for it. Not really.
But just as he is ready to leave, Orpheus speaks, without so much as lifting his head. One hand drapes lazily over the arm of the leather couch, fingers motionless, as though he’s been waiting for this moment all along.
“Is that you, Mr. Campbell?”
Norton considers leaving without a word. Slipping out as quietly as he came. It would be easier to let the moment pass without acknowledgement. But then again, he’s already made himself look strange enough, drifting through the week with that distant, disinterested edge. One more silent exit might tip it from aloof to unsettling.
The problem is, he has no idea what to say. A casual hello feels misplaced, juvenile. His tongue stays still, his body still frozen in the doorway like a man caught somewhere mid-intrusion.
But Orpheus speaks again, slicing cleanly through the quiet, as though the silence itself confirmed his suspicions.
“I suppose you couldn’t sleep either. Would you care for a drink?”
Norton blinks, as he is taken off guard—not by the question itself, but by the fact that Orpheus would offer him anything at all. “I might not be great company,” he says after a beat, his voice rough with sleep or hesitation—it’s hard to tell. “I don’t drink.”
His hand hovers awkwardly near the doorframe, as though still unsure whether to lean into the room or step away from it entirely. The firelight paints slow gold across his features, catching in the furrow of his brow.
Orpheus doesn’t turn to look at him. He merely reaches for the decanter at his side and pours a modest measure of dark liquid into a second glass. “That’s all right,” he replies smoothly, setting the decanter back with a soft clink. “You’re still welcome to sit.”
Norton doesn’t answer. At least, not with words. He just gives a reluctant nod of resignation, barely perceptible in the low light. He steps inside, the door clicking shut behind him like the punctuation to a thought he hasn’t yet fully formed. He chooses the chair farthest from the couch. It’s not intentional—or maybe it is—but either way, the space he puts between them feels unnecessary.
The fire crackles softly between them. Shadows bend and sway along the walls, echoing the silence that stretches just a little too long.
Orpheus doesn’t acknowledge the distance. He swirls his drink with one wrist draped elegantly over the couch arm, still not facing Norton. As if this, too, was expected.
He takes a sip from his glass, the firelight catching along the rim as he sets it back down with barely a sound. “So,” Orpheus says, finally glancing his way, just once. “What’s been keeping you up?”
His gaze stays locked on the fire, watching the wood collapse in on itself, embers hissing beneath the weight. The question isn’t invasive, but it feels like it touches something he hasn’t given permission to be touched.
Norton shifts slightly, one hand braced on his knee, thumb tracing a nervous, unconscious pattern along the seam of his jeans.
“Nothing, really,” he says finally. “Just couldn’t sleep.”
A beat passes. “Not everything has to mean something.”
His tone isn’t defensive, but it’s not exactly soft either. It’s the kind of response designed to end a conversation, but not quite sharp enough to push someone away. Across from him, Orpheus smiles faintly, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.
“If you say so.”
The silence that follows is thick, not heavy with meaning or anything but, just… awkward. It stretches between them like the space in the room, made worse by how Orpheus seems entirely unbothered by it. Norton, on the other hand, feels it pressing at the back of his neck, making him acutely aware of every second that passes.
He shifts again, leaning forward slightly, then back again, like he might stand but won’t. And then, before he can stop himself, the words leave his mouth in an almost clumsy way.
“So… what’re you doing here? This late, I mean.”
His eyes flick over, only briefly, gauging the reaction as he regrets it immediately. The question sounds too casual, like he’s trying too hard. Which, in a way, he is.
Orpheus doesn’t answer at first. His eyes stay on the fireplace, pupils reflecting flickers of gold and crimson. For a moment, Norton thinks he didn’t hear him—or worse, is choosing not to respond.
But then Orpheus speaks, his voice softer now. “Would it be strange if I said I liked the sound of things burning?”
Norton frowns slightly, uncertain if it’s a joke, a deflection, or something else entirely. There’s a rhythm to the way Orpheus speaks that he can’t follow, like a language he half-remembers but can’t quite translate.
When Norton doesn’t respond, his brow faintly creased, trying to make sense of whatever that was—Orpheus lets out a soft, unexpected giggle. Not mocking, but not quite amused either. More like the laughter of someone who realizes, belatedly, how strange they must sound.
“I’m not trying to be creepy,” he adds, lips curving just slightly, his gaze still locked on the fire. “I just find it soothing.”
The flames flicker, casting slow-moving light across his face. “It’s the crackling, maybe. Or the way it consumes everything so gently, like it was always meant to.”
His fingers idly trail the rim of his glass. Then he glances Norton’s way—not a full turn, just enough to see if he’s still listening.
Norton taps his heel once against the floor before going still. He watches the fire like it might give him something better to say, something less awkward. But nothing comes.
“Yeah… I mean, I get it,” he mutters, voice low. “The quiet helps. Makes things feel… less loud, I guess.”
He winces inwardly at his own phrasing—less loud?—but it’s the best he can do. Explaining himself never came easy. He always ends up sounding like someone who doesn’t quite belong in the room he’s standing in.
He risks a glance at Orpheus, expecting mocking amusement. But the other man just watches him.
Norton clears his throat, looking back at the fire. “I didn’t mean that to sound weird.”
Orpheus tilts his head, barely. “It didn’t.”
And for some reason, that dimple reply—makes it harder for Norton to sit still.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” His voice is soft now, without its usual edge. “How silence can feel louder than anything else when it’s your own.”
He turns his head slightly, enough that Norton can feel the weight of his gaze without fully meeting it.
“I find the fire helps with that. It doesn’t ask anything. Doesn’t talk back. It just… takes whatever it's given.”
There’s a flicker in his expression, something momentarily unguarded. Then it’s gone, replaced by a more careful stillness.
“I used to think that if I sat long enough in front of it, maybe it would burn the noise out of me,” he continues, voice barely above the soft crackle of the flames. “That the parts I didn’t want to carry would just turn to ashes and smoke.”
He gives a small, ironic smile, eyes trailing the orange glow licking the hearth. “But no matter how long I sit here, I always leave with all of it still intact.”
A pause.
“Don’t you ever wish it worked like that?”
He asks it casually, but there’s something far too personal resting just beneath the surface.
Norton studies Orpheus from across the firelight, the way the glow carves soft hollows into his face, makes his eyes look brighter and more tired at once. It’s not just the words that catch him off guard, it’s the fact that they’re coming from him.
He never figured Orpheus to be the talkative type. Not like this, anyway. Not the kind of person who sits in the dark speaking in metaphors about fire and silence and the weight of things unsaid. At least not with a man like Norton.
It puts him on edge not really because it’s unpleasant, but because it’s unexpected. And anything unexpected always makes Norton feel like there’s a trap in the room he hasn’t seen yet.
“…Didn’t think you were the type to share,” he mutters, cautiously, one brow raising as he leans forward slightly, arms braced on his knees.
Orpheus hums, not quite smiling this time. “I’m not,” he says. “Usually.”
The admission is quiet, but honest in a way that makes Norton’s stomach twist. Not with fear—he isn’t sure what it is. Discomfort, maybe. Curiosity.
“Then why now?” Norton asks, before he can stop himself. It’s more blunt than he intended, almost accusatory.
Orpheus doesn’t seem offended. If anything, he seems… amused. Or maybe a little sad.
“Because you looked like someone who might understand,”
The words land heavier than Norton expects.
He doesn’t say anything—not a word in response to Orpheus’s last remark—but his hand moves, reaching out toward the glass that had been set for him earlier. The gesture isn’t confident, if anything, it’s uncertain, like he’s doing it in spite of himself.
Orpheus just watches him with a faint crease between his brows, as though surprised that of all the things said tonight, this is what drives Norton to reach for the drink.
Norton wraps his fingers around the glass and lifts it, pausing just before it reaches his mouth. There’s a moment where he stares down into the amber liquid, his reflection warped on its surface.
He used to drink. Not often, not well. The kind of cheap stuff you only swallowed because it burned just enough to make you think something inside you was changing. But this—this is something else. He can tell by the way the scent alone catches at the back of his throat.
He takes a small sip. Immediately, the warmth floods his mouth and throat. It’s smoother than he expected, but heavier too. The kind of drink meant to linger.
He exhales sharply through his nose and leans back, the glass still in his hand, eyes fixed on the fire.
“…Didn’t think it’d be that strong,” he mutters, almost to himself.
Across from him, Orpheus leans his chin against his hand, studying him without comment.
“First time you’ve accepted something from me,” he says eventually. “Even if it’s only a drink.”
The words are soft, but they settle like a pinprick in the silence.
Norton takes another slow sip, the liquor burning less now that he’s expecting it. He swirls the glass absently in his hand, eyes fixed somewhere in the hearth.
“Well,” he mutters, “I accepted your job offer, didn’t I?”
Across from him, Orpheus’s lips curl faintly at the corners.
“That doesn’t really count,” he replies, voice light but cutting in that effortless way of his. “It’s work. Is that all there is for you?”
Norton’s jaw tightens. The remark slides under his skin before he can stop it, not because it’s intentionally cruel, but because it isn't.
He looks over, brow raised, deadpan. “You don’t realize how offensive you sound sometimes, do you?”
Orpheus blinks once, then tilts his head in that irritatingly thoughtful way. “Do I?”
For a beat, they just look at each other. Then, as if on cue, they both let out a short, breathy laugh. It’s not warm, not exactly, but unexpected and a little crooked, like neither of them is used to finding something funny at the same time.
Norton shakes his head, muttering something under his breath, and Orpheus just watches him, a little too closely, like he’s trying to figure out what part of him softened just then.
The tension doesn’t leave the room, but it changes and becomes something else.
It’s not until Norton catches the faint clink of glass meeting the table that he realizes Orpheus is already on his third drink.
He blinks, eyes flicking to the half-empty decanter, then back to Orpheus—who’s still lounging, composed, like the liquor hasn’t touched him at all. But there’s something in the way he leans back now, a bit more fluid, a little too at ease. A looseness in his posture that wasn’t there before. Not drunk, no—but pleasantly tipsy.
Meanwhile, Norton’s barely made it through half his glass, and already there’s a slow warmth settling in his limbs. It crawls up his spine, across his shoulders like a blanket thrown over him when he wasn’t looking. His fingertips feel a little numb. His chest, a little light.
He shifts slightly, grounding himself against the chair’s edge, pretending not to notice the fuzz building behind his eyes.
Across the fire, Orpheus moves as he lifts a hand and slides his monocle free, letting the chain drape loose against his chest as he eases deeper into his seat.
Norton watches the motion without meaning to. Then—quietly—he looks at Orpheus. This time, really looks.
And it hits him.
The monocle does so much for him. Without it, Orpheus looks—
Different.
His face is still striking, of course, still too symmetrical in that unsettling, almost artificial way. But something changes in the absence of that single lens. The sharpness dulls. His eyes, stripped of their usual precision, no longer cut through a room like knives—they just look. Still intelligent, still unreadable, but… gentler.
He looks like someone who could be kind.
The thought makes Norton swallow. He doesn’t know what the hell that means—or why it feels so personal. It’s just a face. Just a man.
But the intimacy of the moment presses in anyway. He finds himself sitting still in the firelight, suddenly hyper-aware of how soft his own breathing feels in the silence.
Eventually, Norton can’t help himself.
The thought’s been circling his head like smoke, growing heavier with each sip. Maybe it’s the alcohol loosening his tongue—or maybe it’s the way Orpheus looks without that polished, in-control edge. Either way, the question slips out before he’s thought it through.
“…Why do you wear that monocle, anyway?”
Orpheus’s gaze lifts lazily toward him, one brow arching. There’s a faint smirk playing on his lips—dry, but not unkind.
“To see better,” he replies, the sarcasm featherlight, “like most people, Mr. Campbell.”
Norton blinks, his eyes still fixed on him. He doesn’t even notice it until Orpheus shifts, settling further into his chair, body curling subtly into the cushions.
“All right,” he murmurs, tone quieter now, “now you’re staring.”
Norton blinks again—slowly this time—and shakes his head like he’s trying to wake himself up.
“Shit. Sorry. I wasn’t. I was just… zoning out.”
Orpheus hums. “Mhm.”
Norton brings his glass to his lips again, if only to give his hands something to do. But it’s empty now. And then, after a beat, Orpheus speaks again.
“Do you think I look better without it?”
The question hangs in the air like a wire pulled too tight. Norton doesn’t answer right away. He can’t. His throat’s gone a little dry.
Because he had thought that. He had looked. And maybe he still is.
Norton looks away.
“I wouldn’t know,” he mutters, eyes fixed somewhere near the fire. “I don’t really have an eye for aesthetic like that.”
His voice is rougher now, as though the heat in his throat isn’t entirely from the drink.
There’s a pause.
“Well,” Orpheus says lightly, “everyone has their taste.”
Norton glances at him, cautious.
“For example… I think you look much better without your silly little hat.”
That earns him a sharper look, it's not quite like annoyance, but something near it. A half-baked glare, dulled by the liquor.
Orpheus raises his hands in mock surrender, a laugh tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, okay. I’m not trying to be mean.”
Norton shakes his head, turning back toward the fire with a quiet scoff. “You just say shit like that with a straight face, like it’s nothing.”
Orpheus leans into his seat, watching the side of Norton’s face with something gentler in his gaze now. “It’s not nothing. I just don’t think it has to be heavy.”
Norton subtly turns his body toward the fire, elbow propped up just enough to lean against his palm. It’s a small movement, but Orpheus catches the way he angles his face, a clear attempt at making his face harder to see.
He doesn’t say anything at first as he watches the curve of Norton’s shoulder, the way his posture closes in slightly, like someone instinctively drawing their coat tighter in the cold.
“I really don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Mr. Campbell,”
Norton exhales, frustrated with himself more than anything—and mutters, “Then stop calling me that.”
Orpheus blinks, visibly taken aback.
“You can just… call me Norton.”
The name hangs there, stripped bare in a way that feels almost too intimate for the setting, for the night, for the fragile quiet between them.
Orpheus straightens slightly in his seat, lips parting like he wants to say something but isn’t sure how to match the sincerity he wasn’t expecting.
“…All right,” he says finally. “Norton.”
He says it slowly, like trying the word out for the first time. Like it means more than just a name.
Norton doesn’t look at him. But his shoulders loosen, just a little.
Orpheus is quiet for a moment after saying his name as if he’s still rolling the shape of it around in his mouth. Then he leans back into the couch with a quiet breath, swirling the last of his drink in the glass, thoughtful.
“Well,” he says at last, voice light again but with a flicker of something sincere beneath it, “since I’m now calling you by your first name, I suppose that makes us better… acquaintances.”
He glances to the side, toward the space beside him on the couch and gestures to it with a slow tilt of his head.
“So why don’t you sit here instead?”
Norton doesn’t move right away, his body stays angled toward the fire, his eyes fixed on the flickering embers, like he hasn’t heard.
But he has.
He feels the invitation settle into his ribs like a stone in water, sending out slow, widening ripples. There’s an instinctive hesitation in him still, something so stubborn that doesn’t want to give in just because someone asked.
Still…
“There’s no point trying to reject it, is there,” he mutters under his breath, more to himself than to Orpheus.
He rises stiffly from his chair, glass still in hand, and crosses the small space with deliberate slowness. When he sits, it’s at the very edge of the cushion, as if the act of sharing space is temporary.
Orpheus just watches him with that unreadable calm, one leg crossed over the other, fingers resting lightly on the rim of his glass.
They sit side by side now, both of them facing the fireplace. Neither speaks.
The flames dance in their reflection, casting long shadows across the floor. The silence between them isn’t cold anymore. Still, it clings to Norton like something just waiting to be disturbed.
And eventually, he disturbs it.
“So…” he begins, voice low. “What made you say that?”
Orpheus turns his head slightly, not fully looking at him. “Say what?”
“You said you thought I’d understand,” Norton says, eyes fixed on the fire. “About the noise in your head. The way you sit here hoping the fire will burn it out of you.”
His thumb slides along the rim of his now-empty glass, not quite aware of how tense his shoulders have become.
“What made you think that about me?”
There’s a long pause. And then Orpheus lets out a slow, almost inaudible sigh.
“I suppose…” he says softly, “you just seemed as stuck in your past as I am.”
Norton turns to look at him—really look at him this time, not just sideways or through stolen glances. The words catch him off guard.
“You’re stuck in your past?”
Orpheus doesn’t return the look. He’s still facing the fire, eyes unfocused, lashes casting soft shadows down his cheek.
“I suppose,” he murmurs. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Orpheus had never sounded that uncertain before.
He lifts the glass again, the edge brushing against his lower lip, but he doesn’t drink. Just holds it there like it might steady his voice, or maybe give him something to hide behind.
“I think I live in it more than I mean to,” he says. “It’s quiet there. Even the pain knows your name.”
There’s no drama in the way he says it. No self-pity. Just a quiet, exhausted sort of honesty that Norton isn’t used to hearing from him.
And it leaves Norton strangely unmoored—unsure if what he feels in that moment is recognition or dread.
Because for a second, Norton wants to scoff.
Stuck in your past? It sounds almost ridiculous coming from someone like Orpheus. The kind of man who speaks like he’s been carved out of a book, who lives in a place like this—stained glass windows, velvet-draped halls, wine glasses older than Norton’s entire childhood. He’s rich, respected, untouchable. What could he possibly need to escape from?
But the thought doesn’t make it out. Norton swallows it.
Because—somehow—Orpheus is the only person who’s been speaking to him like an equal and not just some grimy outsider. Just… him.
Scoffing now might shatter that.
So, instead of pushing away, Norton shifts just an inch, maybe less, closing the space between them as subtly as he can manage. His body stays angled toward the fire, but the motion is there.
“I guess I understand that,” he says. “But I think there’s no point in being stuck in the past anymore.”
The words feel strange on his tongue, like admitting something he’s never actually said aloud.
“I mean… sure. Something familiar always feels better than change. At least you know what you’re waking up to. But…”
He pauses, fingertips tightening slightly around the empty glass.
“I always wanted to escape mine. Not live in it.”
It comes out flatter than he means it to. He keeps his eyes trained on the fireplace like it’s safer to speak this way, shoulder just barely brushing against his.
Norton doesn’t stop talking.
Maybe it’s the liquor, loosening the edges of his restraint, or maybe it’s the way Orpheus hasn’t interrupted. The fire crackles softly in front of them, casting shadows that flicker against the walls like ghosts that won’t leave.
“I always thought the more I talked about everything,” Norton begins, voice low and unsteady, “the more miserable I’d sound.”
“Like people would start thinking I wanted to be pitied. That I was making myself into some kind of walking tragedy. But the truth is…”
He leans forward a little, elbows resting on his knees, the empty glass still loosely gripped in his hand.
“…it just spills out sometimes. Even when I don’t want it to. Like I’m trying to prove to everyone that I’ve suffered. That I’ve been through hell. And I don’t even know why.”
He shakes his head, the motion small, a bitter smile tugging at one side of his mouth.
“Maybe it’s just a way of keeping people away. Push ’em back before they can get close enough to look too hard.”
He never thought to open up like that. He’s not proud of it.
Orpheus turns toward him slowly.
“I think you’re too hard on yourself.”
Norton doesn’t expect that. He lifts his head slightly, eyes meeting Orpheus’s—and he freezes.
There’s no coldness in Orpheus’s gaze. No distant, analytical calculation. Just something unexpectedly gentle in a way that feels disarming.
“I like your company,” Orpheus adds.
It’s a simple thing to say, but it makes his chest feel tight in a way he doesn’t understand, doesn’t want to.
He turns fully toward him now, one brow lifting just slightly, the smallest ghost of a grin touching his lips.
“Maybe you just have strange taste in company.” He mutters, the smallest ghost of a grin touching his lips.
He turns fully toward him now, and Orpheus is looking at him.
Norton frowns, a touch defensive. “Now you’re the one staring.”
Orpheus’s expression is unreadable, but softened by the firelight, like it’s letting something through he didn’t mean to show.
“…Your eyes,” he says, after a beat. “They’re darker in the daytime. But here, they catch the fire a little. Almost amber.”
Norton stiffens slightly, unsure what to do with that. “What—?”
“They’re striking,” Orpheus adds, tone too casual to be entirely innocent. “I hadn’t noticed before.”
Norton shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “You always talk like that?”
Orpheus lets out a low breath of a laugh, gaze still fixed just too directly. “Forgive me. Comes with the profession.” He lifts his glass as if in mock toast. “I’m a writer, after all.”
Norton mutters something like of course you are, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. The compliment had landed on him like a rock.
“I just don’t know why you’re saying that kind of thing,” he mutters. “You don’t exactly have anything to get out of it.”
“Do I need to get something out of it?”
“I mean… I don’t know,” he says, avoiding Orpheus’s gaze. “You’re—you’re an attractive guy. I don’t know what you’d get out of complimenting someone like me.”
Orpheus, softly, with real surprise:
“…You think I’m attractive?”
Norton immediately pulls a face, scoffing under his breath. “Oh my god, just—forget about it.”
But the redness creeping up his neck doesn’t help his case. And Orpheus’s smile is impossible to ignore.
“…I wasn’t trying to get anything out of it, Norton.”
His voice is different now. “I said it because it felt true. That’s all.”
Norton doesn’t look at him, not yet. He stares into the fire like it might shield him from whatever this is. But Orpheus keeps going. Not because he’s pressing, because he desperately wants to be understood.
“I know I don’t usually talk this way with you. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked this way to you.” A faint breath of a laugh. “God knows I’m better at keeping things clean and clever and far away from where it matters. But right now… I don’t want to do that. Not with you.”
Norton’s eyes widen, stunned. He’d always known Orpheus had a way with words, sharp enough to cut, smooth enough to slip past defenses—but hearing them turned soft, tender, and aimed right at him, was something else entirely. Disarming in a way nothing else ever had been.
It still feels wrong. Norton still doesn't believe he belongs in a place like this, beside someone like Orpheus. He can't shake the quiet conviction that any attention from a man like him must be born of pity, not desire. But for now, he will let the weight of that doubt fall away.
Silently, he sets his empty glass on the table. Then, to Orpheus’s quiet astonishment, he lowers his head into Orpheus’s lap, curling his knees slightly inward, like a boy trying to make himself small in a world that has never felt safe.
He hadn’t expected this—not from Norton, not tonight. The weight of the man’s head in his lap is light, almost hesitant, like even now Norton’s not sure he has the right. Orpheus doesn’t move at first, as he doesn't even dare breathe. There’s a tenderness in it that startles him more than any bold advance could have.
He feels, absurdly, like the wrong word, the wrong gesture, might send Norton back into that armored silence he always wears.
His hand lifts, unsure, suspended over Norton’s head like a question he’s not certain he’s allowed to ask. For a moment, he considers pulling it back. Saying something clever to close the space. To return things to the distance that used to feel safer—for both of them.
But then, gently, he rests it on Norton’s hair.
The strands are coarse, slightly unkempt, and warm from the firelight. He doesn’t stroke, doesn’t pet, and just lets the weight of his palm settle there.
He doesn’t speak. He wouldn’t dare ruin this with words.
Instead, he watches the way Norton’s eyes drift half-shut, how his shoulders seem to lose just a fraction of their usual rigidity, like something deep inside him has unclenched, if only for now. And in the that quiet, Orpheus finds himself afraid.
He hadn’t prepared for the possibility that Norton might ever let his guard down so completely, even if only for a minute. And now that he has, Orpheus doesn’t know what to do with the fragile half-formed trust being offered to him.
Because one wrong word could extinguish it. One flicker of pride, one stray trace of cruelty, and Norton would vanish behind that wall again. Orpheus knows that version of him all too well. He’s seen it in every clipped reply, every averted gaze. And the thought of being the reason it returns makes something hollow twist behind his ribs.
Orpheus suddenly feels Norton moving in his lap, the tilt of his shoulders adjusting—and it’s enough to send a jolt of panic through Orpheus’s chest. For a brief, excruciating second, he’s certain he’s ruined it. That he’s crossed some unspoken line. That Norton is going to pull away, retreat into that silent fortress of his and shut the door behind him.
Please don’t leave.
The words don’t pass his lips, but they ring clear and desperate inside him. Not now. Not tonight.
But Norton doesn’t rise. Instead, he just turns his head to look up at Orpheus. And now with Orpheus looking down at him, at the planes of Norton’s face softened by firelight, at the curious, unreadable expression in his eyes. He looks more beautiful than ever.
Norton speaks so quietly, like he doesn’t want to wake the room.
“I thought it was coming from the fire,” he murmurs. “But I think your heart is beating a little too fast.”