Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He needed a moment. Just one moment. Then he could go back out there and pretend like nothing was wrong. Harper didn’t need to know about this. She didn’t need to see him like this. He needed to be the strong one in her life, who held her when the nightmares were too much and was at her side when her breathing quickened and the world felt like it was falling apart. 

That was what a father was, even one that wasn’t your blood. It wasn’t what he was now, leaning over the sink, feeling like he would vomit at a moment’s notice, shaking as the single eye of his reflection stared back at him from the mirror. God, why did he have to look at himself? Even with the facade of being well put together, he hated that image. Now, tears streaming down his face, expression crumpled, tremor visible where he braced his hand against the porcelain, this was never how he wanted to look again. 

He eased himself away from the sink, swallowing the tightness in his throat and wiping the tears away with the back of his hand. Just a moment. One more moment. 

Harvey eased himself down, the open shower curtain providing a small amount of cover when he settled behind the edge of the fabric and let the tub cradle his back. He barely felt the sting of the shallow cut on his arm. 

It wasn’t him, he tried to assure himself. Not every flash of a knife was Gerald Cotton. It was just some asshole looking for an easy mark. He saw a guy with one arm, a cane, and one eye and tried his luck, not knowing that Harvey had enough mass to easily put him on the ground. Then he scampered away with his tail between his legs, and Harvey, likewise, had scrambled back to his apartment. 

Still the thought of a flash of the blade in the streetlight overhead made his stomach clench and his body shake. He didn’t feel like a man who had just fended off an attacker. Shouldn’t that have made him feel good? Strong? Confident that he could prevent himself from ever being hurt again?

Instead, he was a shaking mess sitting in an empty bathtub fully clothed with the lights off as if the darkness would hide him from some unseen threat. 

He took a deep, trembling breath, splaying his limbs out across the bottom of the tub, good arm dangling over the edge. God willing, Harper wouldn’t notice. The lights were off. He’d come in quietly. 

She too was quiet. Was she sleeping? Surely she was alright. If she was hurt, she’d have been making noise, right? What kind of father was he if he couldn’t pry himself out of this hole he’d made and go check on his foster child? Yet his body refused, feeling too heavy and shaky to support him. 

He leaned his head back and looked up at the darkened ceiling, breath still coming out in short puffs, no matter how he tried to focus. He shut his eye, feeling the unwelcome but familiar sensation of tears re-emerge and slip down his scarred cheek. 

“Mn–!”

He flinched at the sound, his head hitting the back of the tub. His company likewise fell backwards and hit the floor behind them with a small “oof!”

Of course he’d know his own child, even in the dark and panicked as he was. She scooted to the edge of the tub, eyes wide, catching the light filtering in from the kitchen. He never shut the door. God, and now she had to see this. 

“H-Harper,” he said, voice trembling despite him trying to keep it steady. He turned his 

face slightly away from her, hoping to shield her from what he had seen of himself moments earlier. His voice was barely more than a whisper as he spoke. “It’s alright. I’ll be out in–”

The sound of small feet hitting the bottom of the tub met his ears. He dared to glance up and was met with a wall of fabric. 

“Is that…the blanket from the couch?” he mumbled. 

She eased it closer to him, kneeling until she could drop it over his entire body, head included. He tensed briefly, then relaxed into the warmth. Why this? Why–

“It’s okay, you can hide under here if you want.”

That moment at the hospital. Giving her the option to hide from the world.

He felt himself slowly dissolve into the warmth, breath evening, tremor stilling. This shouldn’t have been how it was. She was fourteen. She shouldn’t have been taking care of him. Yet here, now, here presence overshadowed the guilt of making his child look after him. 

A deep breath. Another.

He felt the cool air as his hand emerged from beneath his hideaway. 

“Come here,” he said softly. 

The reaction was immediate and without question. Even weak as he was, her trust in him was absolute. That alone was almost enough to wrench a sob out of him. 

He found her arm, gripped it gently, and guided her beneath the folds of fleece. Beneath, it was too dark to see, but he felt her, his hand wandering up until he found a shoulder, hair, a head. With a soft gesture, he pulled her forward, lowering her head until he felt it rest against his chest, her breath warm and even. Only then did he allow his eyes to drift shut. 

“You don’t have to help dad, honey,” he whispered. “That’s not your job.”

She shifted against him, drawing herself as close as she could. God, what did he do to deserve this much trust?

“But you’re here now,” he continued. “So shut your eyes for a little while.”

Harper stilled in his arms. He felt his body relax in the comfort of knowing that someone else was there. Someone cared, and even if she was too young to make this her responsibility, all he needed was that warmth as the two of them drifted towards the haze between waking and sleep surrounded by a blanket in an empty bathtub.

Chapter Text

When he got into the car to see the doctor, the radio kicked on. A news report. Not crime, not politics, art. Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan. In his mind’s eye, he saw her, draped in blue, hair like fire, standing with her city burning at her back, cursed to speak what she saw but never to be believed. 

To see is a curse. Harvey never understood the phrase “ignorance is bliss” quite as well as he did after Gerald Cotton had his way with him. There was an envy that bordered on rage for those who remained unexposed to the horrors of the world. It was a certainty in life, and inescapable. There wasn’t a street he walked down or a face he looked at that didn’t serve as a reminder to a simple fact: he would never be understood. 

Children walked hand in hand with their parents, young adults sat in cafe windows, absorbed by their phones, and everywhere the sense that everyone else’s world keeps turning even when yours ends. 

He could barely pass someone in the street without wondering if they were blissfully ignorant, or if they were another monster. How many people did he unknowingly brush past who were the same as him? Had he ever stood in line at the store behind someone with another human being chained in their basement? Had he ever made brief but polite smalltalk with a barista who looked at his face and wanted to rip him limb from limb. 

Paranoid. That was the word they used to describe the feeling. Not “reasonably concerned,” not “collapsing under terrible truths.” Paranoid. 

A year after everything, a kicked drinking habit, and a fairly clear head, and yet it remained, because some paper they’d written on before he started to come together again said that he couldn’t trust his own mind. The doubt that crossed faces when he spoke made him feel like nothing. Like he might as well have had his tongue carved out in that basement. 

“I think the neighbors in the apartment next door watch to see when I’m leaving,” he told his psychiatrist. 

“What makes you say that?” the doctor asked. 

Harvey took a shaky breath. “I catch them looking out the window when I leave,” he said. “Their eyes follow me.”

The doctor scribbled something on his paperwork. “Are you sure they’re looking at you specifically?” 

Harvey swallowed back the urge to raise his voice. “Of course I am,” he said. “You ever just feel eyes on you?”

The look on the doctor’s face spoke forth all the doubt he feared, even before he opened his mouth. Harvey felt the hot flush of humiliation sweep over his cheeks.

“No,” he mumbled. “You’re right. It’s nothing.”

On his tongue were warnings of impending disaster, fear for the security he clung to so tightly, all burned away by that look of skepticism. Was he sure that was true? Maybe he should reevaluate.

Another pill. Up his dosage. Get his mind working right. Get him good and numb so he stopped having these thoughts. Everything would be just fine then. 

Harvey clutched the pharmacy bag in his hand as he made his way up to his apartment, door ajar, knob removed. Peering inside, anything that wasn’t of value lay strewn across the floor. He took a trembling breath and allowed the bag to drop to the ground.

Chapter Text

Harper’s legs ached, but she didn’t so much as twitch. She held herself under the safety of the bed, curled up tightly, the four wooden legs of the furniture creating her makeshift fortress. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t six. Fourteen was too old to be crawling under the bed during a power outage. Still, even when chiding herself for it, she couldn’t force her body to move. 

She was old enough to know better. The darkness wouldn’t hurt you. Still, what was in it might. It was the memories of the door at the top of the basement stairs creaking open before the lights flickered on that kept her in place. If it was dark, the best thing to do was hide, so hide she did. When the world was unsafe, you found the darkest corner of it and made a home for yourself. That way, nobody could see you. People couldn’t hurt what they didn’t see. 

It was the door slipping open that sent the first jolt of movement through her. It was a bone, deep flinch that rocked her body and snatched her breath. A pair of feet drew closer, illuminated by the crackle of lightning outside. 

Harper yelped as Harvey knelt by the bed and his face came into view, causing the man to flinch back himself. 

“Whoa!” he said, holding his good hand up where she could see it. “Easy, baby. Just checking on you.”

Harper let out a sigh, allowing her limbs to unfurl from their positions tucked against her body. She slid herself closer to the edge of the bed. That was better. Much better. Everything was safer now. 

“What are you doing under the bed now?” he said, voice barely above a whisper. He brushed a stray bit of hair out of his face, then extended his hand and gestured her towards himself. “Come on. S’alright. I have candles in the kitchen drawer.”

Her movement felt sluggish in the fading panic. She found his hand with hers, allowing him to envelop it and pull gently as she shimmied out from under the bed. Now, both of them sitting on the floor, his arm circled around her and pulled her in. 

The scent of vanilla clung to his shirt. The world grew warmer when he settled her against him, arms wrapped around her and rocking gently. 

“Just a little spooked, yeah?” he said.

 His chin rested on top of her head. She felt the dull scratching of his beard. She took a deep breath, feeling herself relax into him. A crack of thunder loud enough to shake the apartment made her flinch. She felt him do the same, bodies jumping in unison. He tightened his grip around her. 

“Alright,” he said. “You want to help dad off the floor, kiddo? We’ll light those candles and find something to watch on the iPad or something.”

She nodded, reluctantly parting from his grasp and rising to her feet. He took her hand and eased himself off the floor. Harvey let out a soft sigh and gave her a small smile. 

“Getting old, kiddo,” he said, tucking his arm around her and guiding her out of the bedroom. 

Chapter Text

The sound the blow made against his ribs was like a baseball bouncing off a tin roof. He choked, gasping, spit dripping to the concrete below him as the reverberation of the strike stunned him too much to close his mouth. Harvey felt his legs go weak and crumble beneath him. The ropes around his wrists bit into him as his weight slumped against them. 

“You're so dramatic, mouse,” Cotton said, rolling his eyes. He examined the length of pipe casually, like he was looking under his nails for dirt. “It was just a tap.”

Harvey felt like the room was spinning as the short, sharp gasps rattled his body. The man standing before him drifted in and out of focus. Yet somehow those eyes remained, dark and lifeless, piercing even the fog of semi-consciousness. 

“Not this again,” Cotton said. He bent at the knee and snatched up the bucket at his feet. Steadying it with both hands, he tossed a shower of ice and water over his victim. “Wake up.”

Harvey's body jolted. The icy shock brought him back to life and ice cubes pelted against his face. The yelp he let out was like a kicked dog. 

The cold settled into the fabric of his ripped clothing and seeped into his bones, nestling within the cracked ribs. His hair dripped, falling into his face, water streaming across his skin until he couldn't tell how much of it was tears. He choked on a sob that wrenched its way out of his throat and left the broken bone singing in its wake. 

“You should be happy. After all, I'm giving you a little break here.” Cotton seized his dripping hair roughly with one hand and yanked his head back. Harvey's wide blue eye met those of his captor. “If you want the knife again, you can just tell me.”

Harvey gasped at the sudden fire surging through his scalp as Cotton pulled on it. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, body still shuddering with sobs. Every motion caused the fingers snarled in his hair to pull tighter. 

“Then stay awake,” Cotton said, voice gentle, like he was talking to an animal or a small child. “Or I'll have to find ways to keep you awake.”

Harvey felt the terror burn hot beneath his skin at the threat, almost overshadowing the pain. 

“No…” he said softly, voice thick with tears. “No please…”

“Then look at me,” Cotton said, releasing his grip and allowing Harvey's head to drop. It hung limply, eyes cast to the floor, vision blurring with tears. “Come now. It can't last but so long. After all, if I want you alive, there's only so many times we can do this dance.”

Cotton straightened his posture, spinning the pipe in his hand like a baton twirler, grip loose and unbothered.

“Now that we understand each other, where were we?”

Chapter Text

Working with one hand could be difficult for him. There were so many things that Harper had never considered difficult. Using both hands was instinct. Seeing him hunched over the counter trying to work the can opener or chop vegetables for dinner brought things into perspective. 

There was a guilt that came with being happy she'd kept both hands. She didn't want to look at him like he was broken. He didn't look at her like that. He didn't make her feel like that. Relief in having something he didn't made her feel dirty. 

Often she asked if she could help, trying to frame it as an interest in what he was doing. She had a feeling that he knew, but he never made her feel ashamed. To be fair, she had learned a lot about cooking and baking since she'd started helping him in the kitchen. 

Her interest wasn't disingenuous. Or at least, after the first few times it wasn't. Now knowing that he was going to show her how to pipe the frosting perfectly, settle jam between layers of cake they'd be enjoying later, and swiping his finger across her nose when she got a little too overzealous while locking the spoon, it was perfect.

He waved her over from the couch when he started dinner. 

She set her sketchbook aside and hopped off the cushion. 

A pot roast. Something warm and heavy to hold the approaching chill of winter at bay. Good comfort food to share with someone you cared for. 

Since living with him, she was eating better than she had in over a year. She never left the table hungry. He never stopped her from sitting down to eat, even on the rare occasion he scolded her and she could tell he was actually upset. He had remarkable patience for her. Patience felt strange. 

“Alright, I need bay leaves,” he said. “You know which ones those are?”

She nodded and turned to the cabinet. 

“Good girl,” he said. “Grab the rosemary while you're up there, love.”

A small praise, but always welcome. God, it had been so long since someone had just told her she was doing something right or treated her like she was worth something. She would have done anything for him if he’d just tell her she was doing well after. 

“And while you’re over there, I’m going to need a kni–”

His body jolted when he turned to her, eye widening. The way he shrank back made her chest tighten. 

She had just done what he’d asked. Still, it felt wrong. It felt like she had hurt him. Harper turned to the counter and set the knife down. Should she try to say something? Try to do something? It was always something else or someone else who upset him like this. When it was her, it made her feel like she’d betrayed him somehow. 

He put a hand on his chest and let out a deep breath. His gaze softened as the tension ebbed from him. With a long stride, he crossed the kitchen and guided her to him with his good arm, holding her there for a moment. “Oh honey, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispered. He smoothed her hair back with his hand softly, fingers weaving through the orange curls. “Let’s just let dad handle the sharp things from now on, alright?”

She nodded, inching back against him and wrapping her arms around him before parting. As she drifted away, she studied his expression, looking for any hint of the fear that had lit his eye moments before. There was none. 

Chapter Text

Coming to, she felt the thick film of sleep heavy in the corners of her eyes. She tried to raise her arms to rub her eyes, but found that they would only budge an inch or two before they met resistance. Her eyes shot open, breath emerging hard and fast. 

No. No, not this again. She thought it was real. How stupid could she be? Of course nobody had come down those stairs. Of course that soft, calm voice hadn’t spoken to her. There was no gentle hand on her head. No being lifted from the floor and feeling her heart begin to race, hoping for freedom, but fearing the worst. 

She jerked against the restraints, letting out a hoarse complaint as her body ached in response. The pain was shallower than the bone-deep hurt that she had come to know. She didn’t dwell on it. A brief reprieve didn’t matter. Nothing was real. None of it was real, and if she was strapped down, that meant whatever rest there had been was now over. 

She twisted her head to the door as she heard it open, still fighting the restraints, tears running down her face. There was something heavy and sticky on her left cheek. She shook her head, trying to shake whatever it was off. 

“Oh shit–!” the stranger said. Footsteps quickly approached. “Honey, honey. Calm down.”

A hand drifted into view. She snapped at it, teeth clacking together like a warning shot as it darted out of biting range. 

“Ah!” the stranger yelped. “Can I get a sedative here? She’s awake!”

The sounds became sharper through the haze of fear. There was a persistent beeping off to the side. Every beat it counted set her teeth on edge with its annoying rhythmic drone. 

She flashed the newcomers a warning look as they entered, like a small, injured animal puffing itself up to look bigger than it was. It did nothing to halt them in their approach. She twisted her body against the padded restraints as one grew too close for comfort. 

Everything inside of her that was trained to expect a blow tensed. None came. 

There were too many people here. Too many voices. She wished someone would shut that goddamn beeping up.

Seconds ticked by and the room tilted and grew blurry. The voices, the beeping, all of that faded to the background as heavy eyes and equally heavy limbs overtook her fight or flight. She slumped back on the pillow, the steady beeping of the monitor now seeming distant, and growing more so with every passing second. 

“You’re going to be just fine.”

That’s what she thought she heard. Though maybe, like her rescue, that too was just a dream. 

Chapter Text

It was in these moments when he truly realized that he’d never had far to fall. Poor Harvey Harvington. The doormat. The yes man. Someone who would look down and mutter apologies if someone ran into him while walking. How far was the drop from there to bleeding and crying on the floor. 

The anger was the further fall. The rage that he tamped down with expertise whenever someone got under his skin a bit too much. The simmering heat that a shaky smile and an awkward laugh couldn’t cover, nor could the shaking sob and the way he lay with his face pressed to the cold floor. 

The foot pressed against the other side of his face shifted, grinding skin against pavement. The rough cement tearing at his skin brought forth a hot spark of pain. He gritted his teeth, eyes brimming with tears. 

This man would slice him open in an instant. The urge to bow, to take it just to keep the worst at bay, lingered. Still, there echoed that small sense of pride that all humans felt when terribly mistreated. The one that began with “I’m human too,” and slowly unfurled itself into a venomous “how dare you?”

A sharp kick made his vision swim. The ringing in his ears muffled whatever taunt the man above him directed at him. Harvey felt hot blood drip over his lips from his nose, the copper taste in his mouth serving as a devastating reminder that he was, indeed, still alive. 

Cotton’s hand seized him by the front of the shirt. He hung there stunned. The dim light in the basement burned his eye. The room tilted. 

Get it together. 

Harvey wasn’t sure where the thought had come from. He was hardly the master of giving himself pep talks while under duress. Nevertheless, he raised his head, eye catching the dangerous glint of the blade clutched in his assailant’s hand. 

His breath quickened. He felt his arm collide against Cotton’s face with solid force. The fingers on his shirt released their grip, sending him sprawling to the floor. Dizzy, but still urged forward by a kind of breathless fight that told him that if he stopped now, it would be so much worse, he staggered to his feet. 

Harvey took a limping step towards Cotton, pushing through the pain of old injuries and the beating he’d just taken, and hurled himself shoulder-first at the taller man. There was a jolt of disorientation when he landed on top of Cotton. 

Concussed, the small voice in the back of his head warned. 

He shoved it aside, his hands fumbling for purchase, finding it on his captor’s throat. He dug his fingers deep. His grip felt weak even to him as his thumbs beared down on the monster’s windpipe. His hands shook. He needed to press harder. Harder. 

Cotton gave him a hard shove. He hit the floor with a gasp, their positions now reversed. The hands around Harvey’s throat crushed tighter. His breath came out in wheezing gasps. 

“Is that how you want to play, mouse?” Cotton snarled. 

His vision was fading. Shadows crept into the edges of his vision. Then, just as he felt himself on the edge of unconsciousness, they released him. He coughed and gasped, stunned and barely aware of the sensation of being dragged along the rough floor. A blow against his cheek rocked his head to the side. His teeth tore the inside of his mouth. 

A rope tightened around his wrist as he struggled to recover, environment swimming in his concussed vision. A second restraint tightened around the other wrist. 

Cotton drifted into view, blade held with the point pressed to the end of Harvey’s nose. He looked flat, unbothered. Somehow the fact that he didn’t seem the slightest bit angry or concerned about his victim fighting back hurt more than the punch to the face. 

“You’re getting too bold, Mouse,” Cotton said. 

He drifted from his vision and Harvey felt the blade tease his wrist, arms pulled tightly to the sides, restricting any form of movement. 

“And I’m going to make sure you never do that again.”

Chapter Text

“God, why can't you ever give a fuck?” he said. 

He leaned back in the living room chair, letting the soft cushions hug him close. At least they were holding him. His voice was heavy and slurred. He took a large gulp of his drink, feeling it burn as he swallowed.

“I do!” Eun-mi snapped. 

That was a joke. Since he'd gotten released from the hospital, he'd been taking care of his own affairs. Occasionally she'd remind him of an upcoming appointment, but that was it. They slept back to back. He didn't touch her. She didn't touch him. And that was just fine with him, because he wasn't sure he wanted her to touch him anymore. 

There was never an embrace. Never words of encouragement. He was always a burden. A failure. First he'd lost his job, now he couldn't work. Or he was drunk. Or he forgot something important. On and on and on, and he couldn't fucking focus. 

God forbid that after being ripped from that hellish chamber, he expected his wife to reassure him every so often. 

“Well you sure have a funny way of showing it, don't you?” he said.

She glared at him, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I can't talk to you when you get like this.”

“Like what?” he said. “Upset? Emotional? You wouldn't know much about being emotional, would you?”

She gave him a dangerous look, gaze sharp enough to kill him. “Drunk!”

“Oh, I’m drunk?” He leaned forward in his chair. The glass in his hand sloshed its contents onto the carpet. “I wonder why I’m drunk. Couldn’t be that my fucking life is falling apart, and you’re just standing there!”

“Don’t blame your problems on me!” she snapped. “You’re the one holding the glass. I didn’t give you the thing!”

Harvey took a deep breath. The room swam in front of his vision. Eun-Mi sounded like she was talking to him from the other side of a barrier. His breath shuddered, and he tried to get a grip on himself even in his drunken state, but any control over his emotions evaded his grasp. The first ear flowed freely. 

“And now you’re going to start crying?” Eun-Mi asked. “Don’t make me feel like the bad guy just because–”

“Shut up!” he shouted. 

The glass in his hand slammed onto the surface of the coffee table. Sharp pain pierced his palm, causing him to gasp. Turning his hand from the shattered mess, several shards of glass jutted from his palm, blood and whiskey mingling on the surface of the table and in the wounds. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a choked sound of pain. 

 “Eun-Mi,” he gasped. “Eun-Mi, I need a bandage. I need–”

His gaze flicked to her in time to see her snatch the roll of paper towels off the countertop. It sailed towards him and hit him in the shoulder. He winced, staring after her as she turned away from him. 

“Clean up your own mess,” she said, walking out of the room and shutting the door behind her. 

Chapter Text

She felt like she would vomit the moment she sat up. It took several breaths, final note fading into the darkened room and throat still dry with sleep, before she realized that she had been screaming. 

She fell out of bed and hit the carpet in her desperate bid to get up. The familiar sense of confinement as the blankets refused to release their tangled hold on her legs made her kick like a rabbit in a net trap. 

The light flicked on. The sudden brightness caused her eyes to ache. Someone was saying something, but it was muddled, like a familiar song on the radio playing at a volume that you could barely hear. 

There was a tug on the snarl of blankets at her feet. She kicked herself free, feeling her foot collide with something solid. Whatever it was grunted. 

Now free, she wasted no time darting from the room, bare feet sliding on the faux wooden floor. She skidded into the bathroom, not bothering to shut the door, and heaved until her stomach was empty. The illness left an unpleasant flush and sour taste in its wake. She sank to the linoleum and laid down. 

“Harper.”

She let out a small groan, cracking her eyes open. The room drifted into focus, his body outlined faintly by the light streaming into the doorway from her room. 

“Can I come closer?” he asked.

“Ungh…” she grunted and shut her eyes again. The verbal equivalent of a shrug. 

His bare feet tapped the linoleum and came to a rest beside her. She sighed when she felt his hand rest on her head, venturing to open her eyes again.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “I know.”

She sighed, feeling the first tears form in the corners of her eyes. When did it end? When did she just get to forget that any of it had happened? 

“I know,” he said. “Let's get you off the floor.”

She didn't protest when she felt herself lifted from the ground, his bad arm supporting her legs, and his good one behind her back, hand resting on her shoulder and thumb rubbing slow circles. She turned her face against him.

The cane could be deceptive to most. He'd start aching if he did this too much or held her for too long, but he was still strong. Solidly built. It felt safe. 

“Alright now,” he said.

He carried her back to her room. She could see the change in lighting even from behind closed eyelids. The overhead light burned through. She tucked her face closer to him, the soft cotton of his sleep shirt pressing against her forehead, nose, and cheek. He shifted her in his arms. The light flicked off. 

When he laid her back on the bed, she grasped his arm with shaking fingers, nails blunt from biting digging into him. 

“Alright, move over,” he said. “I didn’t say I was going anywhere.”

She slid herself closer to the wall. The mattress dipped as he settled in beside her. He shouldn’t have to do this for her. He’d already done so much already. Now she was waking him up and making him uproot himself for her comfort. 

Still, she found a guilty sense of gratitude in the fact that he was beside her. 

His bad arm encircled her shoulders, guiding her closer to him. Her face came to rest as it had been before, against his chest. He lay with his back to the room, forming a broad, comfortable barrier between her and the rest of the world. 

She shut her eyes, feeling the pounding of her heart tapering into something slower and more consistent. His breath rose and fell beneath her cheek, the end of his arm resting against her back. 

“You’re alright,” he said. “Dad’s gonna sleep right here for the rest of the night.”

A deep exhale rustled her hair as he bowed his head to rest his chin on top of her own. 

“Nobody ever gets to touch you again.”