Archive of Our Own

Wemmbu had developed a highly sophisticated system for surviving emotional intimacy.

It was elegant, efficient, and had never once prevented a disaster in his life.

Step one: say something funny.

Step two: if the funny thing did not work, say something mean in a charming way.

Step three: if the other person looked at him with that terrible, unbearable softness as if they could see beneath the cleverness and the noise and the carefully curated collection of mildly alarming coping mechanisms set something on fire.

Metaphorically, usually.

Tonight, unfortunately, Flame was looking at him like that from across the empty diner booth.

The diner was the kind of place that seemed permanently caught at two in the morning, even at ten-thirty. The overhead lights were too bright. The vinyl seats stuck to the backs of Wemmbu’s thighs. A tired song played from somewhere behind the counter, all soft piano and regret. Rain tapped at the windows in steady, insistent fingers.

Flame sat opposite him with his shoulders folded around a mug of tea he had not touched in ten minutes.

That alone was alarming.

Flame did not abandon tea. Flame made tea like a man conducting a ritual: kettle heated to precisely the correct point, leaves measured with quiet concentration, mug warmed first because apparently ceramic could be emotionally neglected. There were people who had hobbies. Flame had reverence.

Wemmbu stabbed a fry hard enough to make it collapse.

“Stop staring at me,” he said.

Flame blinked once. “I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

“I was thinking.”

“Worse.”

A tiny, reluctant smile moved over Flame’s face.

Wemmbu’s internal organs attempted a coordinated leap out of a window.

This was inconvenient. He liked his organs where they were. Mostly. His liver, for instance, had been giving him a lot of attitude lately and could probably be replaced by a more cooperative model.

“You didn’t eat dinner,” Flame said.

There it was.

The thing beneath the thing.

Wemmbu shrugged with the full-bodied casualness of a man trying to hide a minor house fire behind his back. “I had a granola bar at some point this week. Nutritionally, I’m practically a goat.”

Flame’s smile faded.

Damn it.

There were rules. Wemmbu could make jokes about being feral, sleep-deprived, emotionally bankrupt, and one poorly timed inconvenience away from dissolving into dust. Flame was supposed to laugh. Flame was supposed to tell him he was impossible. Flame was not supposed to look wounded, as if Wemmbu’s skipped meal had happened to him.

So Wemmbu grinned wider.

“Relax. If I pass out, you can carry me home. Very romantic. You’ll look devastatingly heroic. I’ll look tiny and mysterious.”

“You’re not tiny.”

“I’m smaller than you.”

Flame lowered his gaze to his untouched tea. “You don’t have to turn everything into a joke.”

The words did not land loudly. That would have been easier. Loud things could be fought. Loud things gave him somewhere to put his hands.

They simply slipped under Wemmbu’s ribs and sat there, sharp and cold.

He leaned back, smile still nailed to his face. “I don’t. Sometimes I turn things into elaborate performance art. There’s a difference.”

Flame did not laugh.

Of course he did not.

Flame had never been good at pretending not to care. That was the problem with him. He moved through the world built like a threat, all dark clothes and blunt answers and a face that made strangers apologize for standing too close to him. But he cared with his entire terrifying body. He remembered Wemmbu’s coffee order. He waited outside in the rain when Wemmbu worked late. He silently replaced the broken lock on Wemmbu’s apartment door because Wemmbu had mentioned, once and offhandedly, that it stuck sometimes.

Flame did not protect people with speeches.

He just showed up.

It was disgusting, frankly.

Wemmbu picked up another fry, mostly to give his hands something to do besides reach across the table and make a catastrophic life choice. “You know, if you keep being sincere at me, I’m going to have to start charging by the hour.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

The joke came out thinner than he meant it to.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The diner hummed around them: the hiss of the grill, the low murmur of a late-night waiter talking to the cook, rain against glass. Flame’s hand rested on the table near Wemmbu’s.

Not touching.

Never demanding.

Just there.

That was the worst part.

If Flame had demanded, Wemmbu would have known what to do. He could have snapped. He could have stormed out. He could have become bright and loud and impossible until Flame decided he was too much trouble.

But Flame only waited.

And Wemmbu had spent so long testing whether people would leave that he had become extraordinarily skilled at creating the exits himself.

“Anyway,” he said briskly, because he had no survival instinct and apparently had decided to prove it in public. “You got slower. I almost fell asleep waiting for you.”

Flame’s eyes lifted.

The lie sat between them in the shape of the truth he would not say.

I missed you.

Flame’s expression changed, painfully small. “I’m sorry. I got held up.”

Wemmbu hated himself immediately.

Not enough to stop, obviously. He had standards. But enough that something sour rose in his throat.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he said, careless as a thrown knife. “You can leave whenever.”

Flame went very still.

It should have felt like victory.

There. Test administered. A clean little invisible question tucked into a casual sentence: Would you stay if I made it easy for you to go?

Instead, Flame looked down at his untouched tea and said, “Okay.”

Wemmbu’s stomach dropped.

Not because Flame had agreed. Flame had not, really. He had only accepted the terms Wemmbu handed him, as if Flame’s own want had no place at the table.

As if Wemmbu was allowed to hurt him and Flame was required to make it convenient.

Wemmbu looked away first.

Flame had always thought loving Wemmbu was like trying to hold sunlight.

It was not a reasonable thing to do. Sunlight did not need holding. It arrived on its own. It lit every room it entered. It made people turn their faces toward it without realising they had been cold.

Wemmbu did that.

He walked into spaces and turned discomfort into laughter. He found the ridiculous angle in every disaster. He could make a room full of people feel like they were sharing a private joke, and somehow no one ever seemed to mind when the joke was gently at their expense. He made Flame, who had spent most of his life being considered too intense, too quiet, too visibly built for violence feel as though perhaps he was not difficult to stand beside after all.

Wemmbu had looked at him once, on their first real conversation, and said, “You know, you look like you could kill a man with a breadstick.”

They had been at a crowded work event neither of them wanted to attend. Flame had been standing beside a table of catered sandwiches, holding a paper plate he had no intention of eating from, and trying to disappear despite being six feet of broad shoulders in black.

He had not known what to say.

Wemmbu had grinned at him, eyes bright with mischief. “I mean it respectfully.”

Flame had stared.

Then, impossibly, he had laughed.

It had startled them both.

Wemmbu’s expression had shifted. Not softened. He almost never softened in ways that could be caught. But something in his face had gone still, as if Flame’s laugh were a rare bird he had not expected to see up close.

“That,” Wemmbu had said, pointing at him, “was worth coming here for. I can go home now. Social event complete. I have made the scary man laugh.”

“You’re not leaving,” Flame had said before he could stop himself.

Wemmbu had looked at him.

The room had been loud. Someone had dropped a glass. A woman near the bar had laughed too hard at something that was probably not funny.

And still Flame remembered the exact small tilt of Wemmbu’s head.

“Bossy,” he had said.

Then he had stayed.

That had been the beginning of everything, although neither of them had known enough to call it that.

Flame learned Wemmbu in fragments.

He learned that Wemmbu drank coffee so sweet it made Flame’s teeth hurt in sympathy. That he loved terrible action movies but complained through every single one. That he carried peppermint gum, two pens, three receipts from places he could not remember visiting, and a tiny screwdriver in the pocket of every jacket because, according to him, “Civilization is one loose screw away from collapse.”

He learned that Wemmbu flirted when he was nervous.

He learned that Wemmbu joked when he was sad.

He learned that Wemmbu got quiet only when something mattered enough to frighten him.

And he learned, eventually, that being allowed close to Wemmbu did not always mean being allowed to ask for more.

When Wemmbu made cruel little jokes, Flame understood.

When he vanished for three days after being too honest at two in the morning, Flame understood.

When he cancelled dinner, forgot plans, answered concern with sarcasm sharp enough to cut through bone Flame understood.

Or he told himself he did.

Wemmbu was brilliant. Wemmbu was busy. Wemmbu was frightened, probably, though Flame did not know of what. And if Flame was hurt, that was not Wemmbu’s fault. Flame’s feelings were too heavy, too needy, too much of a burden to place in Wemmbu’s clever hands.

Wemmbu deserved someone easy.

Someone polished. Someone funny enough to keep up. Someone who never looked at a cancelled plan and felt as though the floor had quietly vanished underneath him.

So Flame made himself smaller.

“It’s okay,” he said every time he wanted to say something else.

When Wemmbu forgot dinner: It’s okay. You probably had a lot going on.

When Wemmbu cancelled plans: It’s okay. You’re busy.

When Wemmbu disappeared: I understand.

He did not understand, not completely. But love, Flame thought, was not supposed to be a list of demands. Love was supposed to be shelter. It was supposed to be a place someone could come back to when the rest of the world had been too loud.

So he made himself into a place with the lights on.

He just did not ask whether Wemmbu knew he was allowed inside.

Across the diner table, Flame watched Wemmbu fold in on himself behind his smile.

Flame wanted to say: You never have to earn care from me.

He wanted to say: Please eat something. Please let me take care of you without making it a joke. Please stop speaking as though I’m a door you expect to close.

Instead, because he was a coward in a very large body, he picked up his tea and drank it cold.

Wemmbu’s eyes flicked to the motion. He noticed everything, even while pretending he did not.

“Your tea is ruined,” Wemmbu said.

“It’s fine.”

The words were instinct.

Wemmbu flinched so quickly Flame almost missed it.

Then he smiled again, a sharper thing. “Wow. Your catchphrase. You should get it embroidered on a pillow. ‘It’s fine.’ In very sad cursive.”

Flame’s hands tightened around the mug.

“Wemmbu.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to fight.”

Something moved through Wemmbu’s face. Fear, maybe. Or relief. Flame could not tell. The problem was that Flame had become so accustomed to accepting whatever little piece of Wemmbu was offered that he no longer trusted himself to ask what any expression meant.

“I don’t either,” Wemmbu said, too quickly. “Fighting is so ugly. I prefer passive aggression and dramatic exits.”

“Don’t do that.”

The joke died.

Flame had not meant it to sound sharp. He rarely meant to sound sharp. His voice simply arrived in the world carrying all the weight of his body, and people heard a threat even when he was trying to offer something gentle.

Wemmbu stared at him.

Flame forced himself to keep going.

“Please don’t leave tonight,” he said. “Not because I’m angry. I just… I don’t want us to pretend this didn’t happen.”

Rain ticked against the window.

Wemmbu’s fingers closed around his abandoned fry.

“I have a work thing tomorrow,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

The moment the phrase was out, Flame wanted to take it back. He saw it hit Wemmbu; saw the almost invisible tension in his shoulders.

Flame drew in a breath. “No. That isn’t what I mean.”

Wemmbu looked up.

“I mean you can go. I’m not asking you to stay here all night.” Flame’s throat felt tight. “But I want to talk soon. When you can.”

For a long moment, Wemmbu said nothing.

Then he pushed his plate toward the middle of the table. There were still fries on it. There was half a sandwich, untouched.

“Take one,” he said.

Flame blinked. “What?”

“Take a fry. I hate eating alone when I’m sad.”

The sentence had the same casual shape as a joke.

But it was not a joke.

Flame picked up a fry.

Wemmbu watched him put it in his mouth. Then he took one for himself.

Neither of them said anything about the fact that he ate it.

Sometimes, Flame was learning, care had to be quiet.

Sometimes it had to be quiet without becoming invisible.

By the fourth time Flame said it’s okay in one week, Wemmbu wanted to scream.

The first time had been after he cancelled their movie night.

The project at work had exploded into twelve different emergencies, which was an objectively rude number of emergencies. One or two emergencies were a professional setback. Twelve was a malicious curse placed on him by a minor deity with a LinkedIn account.

At six forty-seven, Wemmbu had been in his office, staring at a spreadsheet full of red numbers and unread messages. At six fifty-three, he had been lying on the floor of his apartment in the dark, fully dressed, with one shoe still on and his phone facedown beneath a pile of unopened mail.

Flame had texted at seven-oh-three.

Flame: Are you on your way?

Wemmbu had looked at the message until the letters stopped behaving like language.

He could have told the truth.

I’m overwhelmed. I feel like my skin is on inside out. I know I said I’d come and I want to come but I can’t make my body move.

Instead, at seven-thirty-two, he had typed:

Wemmbu: In a thrilling development, my job has revealed itself to be a pyramid scheme designed specifically to kill me. Rain check?

The answer had arrived almost immediately.

Flame: It’s okay. You’re busy. Another time.

No angry punctuation. No question mark. No Are you okay? Nothing that required Wemmbu to tell the truth.

He had stared at it until the screen went black.

The second time happened at lunch.

Wemmbu was two hours late, vibrating with apologies he translated into insults because apparently his brain was a terrible little intern who had not received adequate training.

“You’re still here?” he said as he dropped into the chair across from Flame in the café. “Wow. You really do have the survival instincts of a decorative lamp.”

Flame had looked up from his book.

He had been sitting at a table near the window with a cup of coffee gone cold beside him. The book was facedown on the table. He had not been reading. He had been waiting.

“It’s okay,” Flame said.

And because Flame’s voice was always quiet, he made it sound like the opposite of okay.

Wemmbu had spent the rest of lunch talking at high speed about a woman from work who believed office printers were spiritually vindictive. Flame had laughed in the right places. He had eaten half his sandwich. He had never once said, I waited for you.

The third time had been after Wemmbu did what he was best at: mistook jealousy for humor, then treated the resulting emotional shrapnel as a personality trait.

Flame had mentioned an old friend from university. A man named Jaden, who had invited Flame to an art opening.

Wemmbu had said, “Oh, Jaden? The guy with the personality of a damp sock and an unjustifiably symmetrical face?”

Flame had gone quiet.

Wemmbu’s stomach had dipped. He had kept talking, because silence was where all the monsters lived.

“I mean, he probably moisturises with the tears of lesser men. You know the type. He owns at least one scarf that has opinions.”

“What?” Flame had asked.

Wemmbu had heard the defensive edge in his own voice before he knew why it was there. “What? You like him or something?”

Flame had looked toward the window. “No.”

“Then why are you acting weird?”

A pause.

“It’s okay,” Flame said.

That one had stung so badly Wemmbu had made another joke and left before he could find out why.

He knew why, of course. He knew in the way one knew a toothache was there before touching it with the tongue.

Flame had been talking about someone who mattered to him. Wemmbu had turned it into a test. If Flame defended Jaden, then maybe Flame wanted Jaden. If Flame did not, then maybe Flame wanted Wemmbu. It was a spectacularly stupid structure for a question. A haunted maze designed by a clown with abandonment issues.

The fourth time was tonight.

Flame had cooked.

Of course he had.

Flame cooked like it was a sacred ritual, apron tied carefully, ingredients lined up, expression grave enough to suggest he was defusing a bomb rather than making pasta. He had sent Wemmbu a picture at six twenty-one of sauce simmering in a pot.

Flame: I tried that recipe you sent me.

Wemmbu: I’m honored. Your culinary career begins with my terrible influence.

Flame: Come hungry.

Wemmbu: I am always hungry. Emotionally, medically, and in the ordinary dinner way.

Wemmbu was supposed to arrive at seven.

At seven fifteen, he was still at the office.

At seven forty, he had finally left but got stopped in the lobby by his coworker Zam, who pressed a glittery party crown onto his head because the team had somehow decided a project crisis required a surprise retirement party for a manager he barely knew.

At eight, he could have texted Flame. He knew he should text Flame. His phone was in his hand. He even opened the conversation.

Then he looked at the words he had typed, I’m sorry, I’m running late again, and something in his chest seized.

Because he could already imagine Flame’s answer.

It’s okay.

And then he would feel worse. And then he would have to either sit with the feeling or make Flame feel responsible for it. And then perhaps civilization would collapse, which would at least make the dinner situation less personally embarrassing.

So he did what he always did when he was afraid of being disappointing.

He waited until he was definitely disappointing.

He arrived at nine-thirty with rain in his hair, a paper bag of gas-station cookies clutched like a peace offering, and the glittery party crown still crooked across his forehead.

Flame opened the apartment door.

For one terrible second, Wemmbu braced himself.

He expected anger. Expected the tight mouth, the disappointed eyes, the sort of silence that asked him to explain why he had not bothered to care.

Flame took one look at him and said, “You made it.”

Not Where were you?

Not You said seven.

Just: You made it.

Wemmbu wanted, absurdly and immediately, to cry.

Instead he saluted. “Your princess has arrived.”

Flame took the stupid crown off his head and set it carefully on the entryway table.

It was such a small thing.

It was unbearable.

Now they sat on the floor of Flame’s living room with takeout boxes between them and a terrible action movie playing silently on the television. Flame had tried to save the pasta, but the sauce had thickened and the noodles had gone soft. He had ordered takeout without comment.

The party crown glittered from the table by the door like evidence of a crime.

Flame nudged a carton of noodles toward Wemmbu. “They’re cold. I can heat them up.”

“I deserve cold noodles. It builds character.”

“You don’t have to punish yourself.”

Wemmbu stared at him.

Flame’s mouth pressed into a line, like he had said too much. Then he added, quietly, “It’s okay that you were late.”

There it was.

Something in Wemmbu snapped not loudly, not dramatically, though he would later insist it had been very dramatic and everyone should have appreciated the craftsmanship. It was more like a thread pulled too hard until the whole careful knot came undone.

“Can you stop acting like I’m perfect?”

Flame froze.

The movie flickered blue light across his face. “What?”

“Stop it.” Wemmbu laughed once, and the sound came out wrong. “Stop doing that. Stop looking at me like I’m like I’m some kind of…”

He gestured helplessly. “I don’t know. Tiny, dazzling deity of bad decisions.”

Flame’s expression was confused, soft. “You are dazzling.”

“Oh my God.” Wemmbu put both hands over his face. “See? That. Exactly that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, obviously.” The sharpness was automatic. Wemmbu hated it the second it left him, but he could not stop. “You never understand because you never say anything. I cancel on you, I disappear, I act like an absolute nightmare, and you just stand there going, ‘It’s okay, Wemmbu.’”

Flame’s eyes dropped. “I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

“I already feel worse.”

The room went silent.

Wemmbu’s hands fell into his lap.

There. He had said it. Not the whole truth, not even close. But enough of it that the air changed.

Flame looked at him like he was approaching an injured animal. Gently. Carefully. Like one wrong movement might send him running.

Wemmbu almost made a joke. He felt it rising, bright and familiar.

Congratulations, you’ve unlocked my tragic backstory. Please collect your commemorative mug at the door.

But Flame’s face was open.

So Wemmbu let the joke die.

“No,” he said. His voice shook. “No, I’m not perfect. I’m difficult. I overthink everything. I ruin things before they can ruin me. I push people away because it’s easier to pretend I wanted them gone.”

Flame did not move.

“I panic,” Wemmbu continued. “I lie. Not huge lies, usually. Just…” He swallowed. “I say I don’t care when I do. I say I’m fine when I want somebody to notice I’m not. I make everything a joke because if I don’t…”

His voice broke.

The sound startled him more than it should have. It had no business being there. Wemmbu was excellent at talking. He was excellent at turning pain into something bright enough that people mistook it for celebration.

But the words came anyway.

“If I don’t, I don’t know who I am.”

Flame inhaled slowly.

Wemmbu stared at the noodles. At the thin curl of steam still rising from them. Anywhere but at Flame.

“I keep waiting for you to get tired of me,” he whispered. “So I test you. I act annoying. I make it easy for you to leave. And every time you don’t complain, I think maybe you don’t care enough to be hurt.”

He laughed again, small and miserable. “Which is insane. Very elegant emotional logic. I should teach a class.”

“Wemmbu.”

Flame said his name like it was something fragile.

Wemmbu flinched.

Flame noticed. Of course he did.

“I am hurt,” Flame said.

The words were so quiet that for a second Wemmbu did not understand them.

Then he looked up.

Flame was sitting with his hands clenched around his knees. He looked scared. Flame, who could make strangers cross the street just by existing in a hoodie, looked terrified.

“I’m hurt when you disappear,” he said. “I’m hurt when you cancel and act like it doesn’t matter. I’m hurt when you say I can leave.”

Wemmbu’s chest tightened.

Flame glanced away. “I thought saying that would make you feel trapped.”

“Flame…”

“I thought if I asked you for things, you’d realize I was too much.” His jaw worked once, hard. “You’re-”

“Don’t,” Wemmbu said.

Flame stopped.

“Don’t say something stupid.”

“I was going to say you’re important to me.”

That was worse.

Wemmbu’s eyes burned.

Flame continued, voice low. “I thought you were fearless. I thought you knew exactly who you were. I thought if I loved you quietly enough, if I never made you responsible for my feelings, then maybe I could stay close to you.”

A terrible tenderness passed through Wemmbu.

Because of course Flame had done that. Of course Flame had mistaken silence for devotion and self-erasure for love.

“You don’t have to earn a place next to me by being easy,” Wemmbu said.

Flame’s laugh was almost soundless. “Neither do you.”

That did it.

Wemmbu’s face folded before he could stop it. Tears were embarrassing. Tears were damp. Tears had no sense of timing and terrible public relations instincts.

He turned away, but Flame moved only after a beat, slow enough to give him time to refuse.

“Can I touch you?” Flame asked.

Wemmbu nodded.

Flame gathered him in.

He was warm. Solid. His arms went around Wemmbu with such care that it hurt in an entirely different way. Not because Flame held him too tightly.

Because he held him as though Wemmbu was worth holding even like this.

Especially like this.

Wemmbu pressed his face into Flame’s shoulder and let himself shake. Flame did not tell him to calm down. Did not call him dramatic. Did not try to fix the grief like it was a broken appliance.

He just stayed.

After a long time, Flame said into his hair, “I don’t think you’re perfect.”

Wemmbu made a wet, offended noise. “Rude.”

Flame’s arms tightened a little. “I think you’re funny. And brilliant. And beautiful. But I also think you’re scared. I think sometimes you hurt people because you’re afraid they’ll hurt you first.”

Wemmbu shut his eyes.

“I think you need to apologise when you do that,” Flame said. “Not make a joke. Not disappear. Actually apologise.”

The honesty hit hard, but it did not feel like a weapon.

“And,” Flame added, “I need to tell you when I’m hurt. I need to stop saying it’s okay when it isn’t.”

Wemmbu pulled back enough to look at him. “That sounds horrible.”

“It does.”

“Absolutely terrible. Communication? Boundaries? Next you’ll tell me we have to drink water and sleep eight hours.”

Flame’s mouth twitched. “You should drink water.”

“Don’t push it.”

For the first time that night, Flame laughed properly.

The sound was warm and startled out of him, and Wemmbu felt something in his own chest loosen.

Not vanish. Nothing that important vanished in one conversation.

But loosen.

“I’m sorry,” Wemmbu said.

Flame’s smile softened.

“I’m sorry I was late. I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me when I hurt you. I’m sorry I keep treating you like you have to prove you’ll stay.” He drew in a breath. “And I missed you. At the diner. When I said you got slower.”

Flame looked at him for a long moment.

Then, very carefully, he cupped Wemmbu’s cheek.

“I missed you too,” he said.

Wemmbu leaned into his hand before he could pretend he had not.

Flame’s thumb brushed beneath his eye. “I want to stay.”

The old reflex rose fast: You can leave whenever.

Wemmbu felt it at the back of his teeth. He let it sit there. Let it be ugly and familiar and not in charge.

Then he said, “Please do.”

Flame’s expression broke open.

He kissed Wemmbu like he had been waiting for permission, which, in a way, he had.

It was not a dramatic movie kiss. No orchestral score crashed through the apartment. No one burst into applause. The cold noodles remained cold. The action movie continued to feature a man escaping an explosion on a motorcycle for reasons neither of them had followed.

But Flame kissed him slowly, with both hands gentle at his face, and Wemmbu let himself be kissed without performing through it.

When they pulled apart, Flame rested his forehead against Wemmbu’s.

“Can I heat up the noodles?” Flame asked.

Wemmbu sniffed. “Only if you admit I’m your princess.”

“You’re my menace.”

“Close enough.”

Flame stood, then held out his hand.

Wemmbu took it.

Not because he was fixed. Not because Flame’s love had turned him into someone who never panicked, never joked when he was frightened, never wanted to run before he could be left.

But because Flame was learning that love was not worship.

And Wemmbu was learning that being chosen did not mean being perfect.

It meant being seen.

It meant being asked to stay.

It meant, sometimes, reaching back.

The next morning, Wemmbu woke up in Flame’s bed with a crick in his neck, one sock on, and the vivid conviction that he had died during the night and been reborn into a humiliatingly earnest afterlife.

Sunlight poured through the thin gap in Flame’s curtains. It hit the ceiling in a pale gold stripe. Somewhere in the kitchen, something clinked softly.

Flame was awake.

Of course he was awake. Flame had the unnerving ability to wake up like a person in a commercial for expensive mattresses. No snarling. No existential betrayal. Just a slow blink and then immediate consciousness, as if he had been waiting peacefully in a darkened room for his soul to re-enter his body.

Wemmbu, by contrast, woke up like he had lost a legal battle with gravity.

He lay very still.

Last night rushed back in pieces.

The crying.

The apologising.

The kissing.

The fact that he had not made a joke during the kissing. Or, worse, immediately afterward. He had simply leaned into Flame’s hand and looked at him, which was not behavior he recognised in himself and should probably be reported to the authorities.

His first instinct was to leave.

Not because anything was wrong. That was the irritating part. Nothing was wrong. Flame had not pushed him. Flame had not asked for more than he could give. They had eaten reheated noodles side by side on the couch, their knees touching beneath a blanket. They had fallen asleep during the action movie, which ended with the motorcycle man somehow surviving a helicopter crash.

Everything was gentle.

Which meant, naturally, that Wemmbu’s nervous system had begun ringing every alarm in the building.

Escape now, it advised. Before he sees you in daylight. Before you have to acknowledge that you wanted this. Before he can decide he made a mistake.

It was not even a convincing argument. Flame had seen him before daylight. Flame had seen him with food poisoning, with a black eye from an ill-advised attempt to repair a ceiling fan, and with an entire week of emotional avoidance stuffed under his skin.

But fear did not need to be convincing. It only needed to be familiar.

Wemmbu pushed himself upright, careful not to make the bed creak.

The bedroom door opened immediately.

Flame stood there in a soft gray T-shirt and sweatpants, holding two mugs.

He looked from Wemmbu to the bag he had apparently begun reaching for.

Neither of them spoke.

Wemmbu considered faking his own death.

It would be difficult. Flame was observant and would probably go crazy looking for him and pay a bird to help find and trap him (¬_¬") I wonder where that thought process came from. Also, Wemmbu had been crying into a pillow approximately nine hours ago, which made the logistics of suddenly becoming a corpse somewhat awkward.

“I was going to get coffee,” Flame said at last.

“Wow, invasive. I’m allowed to have a bag.”

Flame’s expression flickered.

There it was. The old road. Joke, deflect, make it impossible for him to say what he had seen.

Wemmbu looked down at his hands.

“I was thinking about leaving before you woke up,” he admitted.

Flame went still, but he did not look angry. “Do you want to leave?”

The question was so simple that it made Wemmbu’s throat close.

Did he?

No. Not really.

He wanted to stay in this room forever, perhaps suspended in amber, where Flame was holding a mug with both hands and looking at him like the answer mattered. He wanted Flame to tell him that he did not have to leave. He wanted to be brave enough to believe it.

“I want to want to stay,” he said, which was cowardly and honest in equal measure.

Flame nodded once.

“That’s enough for this morning.”

It should not have been enough. Wemmbu wanted Flame to demand a clearer answer, if only because demands were something he knew how to resist. Instead Flame set one mug on the bedside table, then sat at the edge of the bed without touching him.

“I want you to stay,” he said. “But I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

Wemmbu stared at the coffee.

Flame had made it correctly. Two sugars, too much milk, a dusting of cinnamon over the top because Flame had once caught him adding it and apparently filed the information away in whatever enormous, terrifying archive he kept behind his stern face.

“You remembered the cinnamon,” Wemmbu said.

“Yes.”

“Disturbing.”

“I know.”

Wemmbu took the mug. Their fingers brushed.

He did not pull away.

The silence that followed was not comfortable, exactly. It was new. It had edges. It asked him to sit inside himself without filling every inch of the room with sound.

Flame waited.

Wemmbu hated that he was good at waiting. It made the world feel less dangerous, which was unfair. The world should remain at least moderately dangerous until Wemmbu had decided what to do with all this tenderness.

“I’m scared you’ll regret last night,” he said.

Flame’s face changed. “I won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“No.” Flame looked down at his own mug. “But I know I don’t regret it now. And if something changes, I’ll tell you. I won’t pretend it’s okay if it isn’t.”

That was not a promise that Flame would never leave.

It was not even a promise that nothing would hurt.

It was a promise that Flame would tell the truth.

Wemmbu’s chest went painfully warm.

“Okay,” he said.

Flame looked up. “Okay?”

“I’m staying for coffee. Don’t make it a huge thing.”

The small smile that crossed Flame’s face was so soft Wemmbu immediately had to look away.

“Okay,” Flame said.

They drank coffee in the bed. They did not talk about what came next. They talked about the action movie instead, specifically the fact that the villain had survived a fall from a bridge, a fire, a boat explosion, and being run over by a truck.

“Maybe he was the real protagonist,” Wemmbu said.

“He was terrible.”

“Exactly. Art.”

Flame laughed.

And when Wemmbu left two hours later, he did it through the front door.

He kissed Flame once, quickly, on the cheek.

Then he walked down the stairs before he could turn the moment into a joke.

It felt like carrying something breakable with bare hands.

It also felt, dangerously, a little like hope.

The first time Wemmbu remembered to communicate, it was an accident.

Three days after the diner, he got a message from his manager at four fifty-eight on a Friday afternoon.

Zam: Quick question, do you have five minutes?

There were no words in the English language more structurally dishonest than quick question.

Wemmbu stared at the message.

His shoulders climbed toward his ears. His phone suddenly weighed as much as a brick. By five ten, he had imagined being fired, sued, publicly executed, and forced to attend another work party where someone handed him a glittery crown.

At five fourteen, Flame texted.

Flame: Still okay for dinner at seven?

The old answer was already forming in his fingers.

Probably. Unless I die. Lol.

Then, later: silence. Then panic. Then an apology made out of jokes and self-loathing. Then Flame saying it was okay, except he was trying not to say that now. Then both of them quietly bleeding from wounds they had decided were too inconvenient to name.

Wemmbu looked at the conversation.

He typed.

Deleted it.

Typed again.

Wemmbu: I want to be okay for dinner. I’m getting overwhelmed by work and I don’t know how long this will take. Can I tell you by six?

He stared at the message as though it might bite him.

Then he sent it before he could revise it into something unreadable.

The response came two minutes later.

Flame: Yes. Thank you for telling me.

No guilt.

No you should have planned better.

No declaration that it was fine before Flame knew whether it was.

Just gratitude.

Wemmbu’s eyes burned so suddenly he had to stand up and walk to the office window, because crying at work was unprofessional unless one could pass it off as allergies, and nobody had ever developed allergies from a Slack message.

At five fifty-eight, his manager’s quick question was still going.

At six, Wemmbu sent another message.

Wemmbu: I’m sorry. I need to reschedule. I know we planned tonight, and I’m disappointed too.

Wemmbu: Are you okay with tomorrow instead? If not, I understand, but I’d like to see you.

This time Flame took longer to answer.

Wemmbu spent those five minutes pacing between the conference room and the printer, where he had a brief, irrational urge to apologize to the printer for all the times he had insulted it.

Then his phone lit up.

Flame: I’m disappointed, but yes. Tomorrow works.

Flame: I’m glad you told me instead of disappearing.

Wemmbu stood very still.

There it was. A boundary. A feeling. No anger sharpened into punishment. No cruel tally of every time he had done this before.

Just the truth.

He texted back:

Wemmbu: That is horrifyingly reasonable of you.

Flame: Is that an apology?

Wemmbu: It is a compliment. Don’t ruin it.

Wemmbu: Also, yes. I’m sorry.

The next evening, he arrived at Flame’s apartment seven minutes early.

He sat in his car outside for eleven of those minutes because apparently being early was more terrifying than being late. Then he made himself get out.

Flame opened the door before he could knock.

“I saw you pull up,” Flame said.

“That feels like surveillance.”

“You parked in front of my window.”

“Fine. It feels like aggressive architecture.”

Flame smiled.

Wemmbu stepped inside.

There was no pasta this time. Flame had ordered pizza, perhaps having decided that the relationship could not survive another complicated recipe right now. The familiar glittery crown still sat on the entryway table.

“You kept it?” Wemmbu asked.

“I thought it was yours.”

“It is an artifact of my shame.”

“It has stars on it.”

“That is how it tricks you.”

Flame’s smile stayed, but his eyes went serious when he said, “I was hurt when you cancelled yesterday.”

Wemmbu’s body went rigid before he could stop it.

Flame noticed. “I’m not saying that to punish you.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry.” Wemmbu swallowed. “I know it’s not enough to apologise after. I’m trying to do it before it gets to the after.”

“I know.”

The words rested between them.

Then Flame held out his hand.

Wemmbu looked at it.

There had been a time not long ago, embarrassingly recently when he would have made a joke to avoid the simplicity of taking it. Something about palm readings or hand germs or Flame having enormous hands because he had a secret second career as a cartoon villain.

Instead, he put his hand in Flame’s.

Flame’s fingers closed around his, warm and steady.

“You can tell me if you’re overwhelmed,” Flame said. “You don’t have to make it pretty first.”

Wemmbu scoffed lightly. “But pretty is my brand.”

“You can still be funny.”

“Thank you. I was worried you were going to take away my primary personality trait.”

“I like your jokes.”

The statement was so earnest that Wemmbu nearly combusted.

Flame squeezed his hand once. “I just don’t want you to hide behind them when you need something.”

The pizza arrived then, saving him from having to answer immediately.

Wemmbu tipped the delivery driver too much. Flame did not comment.

They ate on the couch. Halfway through the second slice, Wemmbu remembered something.

“What did you mean at the diner?” he asked.

Flame looked over. “About what?”

“You said you didn’t want to make me feel trapped. Why would telling me you were hurt make me feel trapped?”

Flame’s fingers worried at the edge of the napkin in his lap.

Wemmbu waited.

He was trying to practice waiting, too. It was not a skill he enjoyed. Waiting was just standing still while uncertainty did cartwheels in your bloodstream.

“When I was younger,” Flame said at last, “people usually told me I was too much after I was angry. Or sad. Or needed something.”

Wemmbu went quiet.

“My father used to say that I took up all the air in the room. He said I made things hard because I couldn’t just let things go.” Flame’s voice remained level, but the set of his shoulders changed. “So I learned to let things go. Even when I shouldn’t.”

Wemmbu’s jaw tightened.

He did not know Flame’s father. He had never met him. He did, however, immediately add him to a mental list titled People I Would Like to Personally Escort Into a Nearby Volcano.

Flame continued. “With you, I didn’t want to be another person who made your life harder.”

“You weren’t.”

“I know that now.”

Wemmbu stared at his pizza. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to disappear to be safe with me.”

Flame looked at him.

“You don’t have to be easy,” Wemmbu said, more firmly. “You don’t have to be quiet. You can be angry with me. You can need things.”

A strange, uncertain expression moved across Flame’s face.

“Even if it’s inconvenient?” he asked.

“Especially if it’s inconvenient. Otherwise it’s not a real test of my extremely questionable character.”

Flame laughed, but there was something fragile in it.

Wemmbu wanted to tell him that he could not undo the old lessons Flame had learned. That one good conversation could not turn fear into confidence. That he would probably fail sometimes, and Flame would too.

Instead he said, “You’re allowed to take up air.”

Flame’s eyes went bright.

Wemmbu panicked immediately.

“Not, like, all of it,” he added. “I need some too..”

Flame laughed hard enough to bend forward.

Wemmbu watched him, and for once, did not feel the need to turn away from what he had caused.

For two weeks, they did better.

Not perfectly. Perfect was a word Wemmbu had started to distrust. Perfect was usually the first sign that someone was holding their breath.

But better.

Wemmbu sent messages when he was late. Sometimes the messages were elegant. Sometimes they were not.

Wemmbu: My brain is static today. I care about you and I’m not ignoring you. I just need a little time.

The first time he sent that one, he had stared at it for twelve minutes. Flame had replied:

Flame: Thank you. Take the time you need. Can you check in before bed?

Wemmbu had wanted to say yes and then vanish into the ocean.

Instead, he wrote:

Wemmbu: Yes.

And before bed, he had checked in.

Flame began telling the truth sooner, too.

“I’m disappointed,” he said once, when Wemmbu chose to go to a work event instead of a concert they had planned to attend.

Wemmbu’s heart had lurched. “Do you want me to cancel?”

“No. I want you to go if you need to go.” Flame looked down. “I just don’t want to pretend I’m not disappointed.”

So Wemmbu went to the event, stayed for forty-five minutes, and left early because it turned out he did not need to go as much as he had thought. He met Flame at the concert during the opening act.

Flame did not say, You didn’t have to come.

He simply moved over in the crowd and made space beside him.

Wemmbu slipped his hand into Flame’s jacket pocket, because it was cold and because he could.

It was ridiculous how much that mattered.

On the third Friday, Jaden invited Flame to another event.

Wemmbu knew because Flame mentioned it while they were walking through the grocery store, arguing over whether any reasonable person needed six kinds of mustard.

“I only bought three,” Flame said.

“Three kinds of mustard is the gateway drug,” Wemmbu said. “Next thing you know, you’re wearing a tweed vest and calling soup ‘a course.’”

“Jaden asked if I wanted to go with him tomorrow.”

The name hit like a dropped pan.

Wemmbu’s hand stopped halfway to the shopping basket.

The old fear arrived so fast it was almost impressive. It did not come with evidence. It did not need evidence. It came wearing a little suit and carrying a clipboard that said FLAME WILL EVENTUALLY DISCOVER A MORE WELL-ADJUSTED PERSON.

Jaden had symmetrical face bones. Jaden wasn’t insecure. Jaden probably ate meals at consistent intervals and owned matching bedding. Jaden was everything Wemmbu was not.

Wemmbu opened his mouth.

He could feel the joke lining itself up.

Tell Jaden I said his scarf is still emotionally manipulative.

Or worse:

You should go. You two seem perfect together.

He stopped walking.

Flame stopped beside him, pushing the cart only far enough that it squeaked.

“What?” Flame asked.

Wemmbu looked at the mustard display. There were, horrifyingly, seven kinds of mustard.

“I’m feeling weird,” he said.

Flame waited.

This was a bad sign. Flame waited with such patience that Wemmbu’s feelings had nowhere to hide but directly inside his own mouth.

“Not weird about the mustard,” Wemmbu added. “Though this is a deeply upsetting amount of mustard.”

“Wemmbu.”

“Fine.” He let out a breath. “I’m jealous.”

Flame’s expression softened.

Wemmbu hated that softness. He also wanted to live inside it forever. This was the problem.

“I know Jaden is your friend,” he rushed on. “I know you’re allowed to go to an event with a friend. I’m not saying you can’t. I’m saying my brain has invented a whole screenplay where he has something I don’t and you realize I’m a nightmare.”

Flame stared at him for one beat.

Then another.

Wemmbu’s face went hot. “You can laugh. It’s objectively ver-”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Oh.”

Flame set one hand on the cart handle, the other hanging at his side. “Thank you for telling me.”

That did something ridiculous to Wemmbu’s throat.

“I’m not asking you not to go,” he said.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be controlling.”

“You’re not.”

“I might become controlling in a very charming, poorly disguised way.”

“I’ll tell you if you do.”

That was not flirtatious. It was not soft. It was simply true.

Wemmbu looked at him, and felt a pulse of affection so sharp it nearly hurt.

“Okay,” he said. “Good. Please do.”

Flame’s hand moved toward his, then stopped. Grocery store. Bright lights. Other people. Flame still asked with his eyes sometimes.

Wemmbu took the hand himself.

The next day, Flame went to the event.

Wemmbu did not spiral. Not completely.

He spiraled a tasteful amount. A manageable, artisanal spiral. He cleaned his apartment, reorganised his bookshelf, and considered moving three different pieces of furniture before admitting he was actually just waiting for Flame to text him.

At nine thirty, his phone buzzed.

Flame: I’m heading home. Do you want to come over?

Wemmbu did not reply immediately.

Not because he was playing a game. He had been standing in the middle of his living room wearing one sock, holding a lamp, and trying to decide whether he needed to admit that he had spent the evening being jealous of a man who was probably just trying to talk to his friend.

Then he wrote:

Wemmbu: Yes.

Wemmbu: Also I handled this incredibly well and deserve a medal. Or perhaps a pastry.

Flame’s response came with a picture of a paper bag from the bakery near his apartment.

Flame: I bought you a pastry.

Wemmbu stared at the photo until he had to sit down on the floor.

It was not that Flame had bought him a pastry.

It was that Flame had remembered. It was that Flame had gone to an event with an old friend, had not done anything wrong, and had still thought of Wemmbu on the way home.

No one had ever made being considered feel so dangerous.

He went to Flame’s apartment.

Flame opened the door, took one look at him, and said, “You’re wearing mismatched socks.”

“It’s fashion. Be respectful.”

“I am.”

“You’re not. Your face is judging me.”

“My face is always judging you.”

It was the sort of thing Flame would not have said a month ago. Too sharp, maybe. Too playful. Too much like risk.

Wemmbu grinned. “There he is. My beloved critic.”

The word came out before he could examine it.

Beloved.

Flame froze.

Wemmbu froze.

The entire apartment froze, including the pastry bag, probably.

Wemmbu’s brain began trying to evacuate through his ears.

“I mean,” he said, “not in a legally binding way. You’re not, like, my beloved mortgage holder. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

Flame stepped closer.

“Wemmbu.”

“No. I have become a very small bird and am flying into a window.”

“You called me beloved.”

“I did, unfortunately, commit a crime.”

Flame’s mouth twitched. “I liked it.”

Wemmbu looked up.

Flame’s face was open. Nervous, too. It helped, strangely, to see that.

“I like you,” Flame said. “A lot.”

“That is wildly unspecific.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

Flame’s eyes searched his. “I love you.”

There it was.

Not dramatic. Not polished. No candlelight, no rainstorm, no orchestra arriving late to a scene it had misunderstood.

Just Flame in his apartment doorway, shoes damp from the evening, holding a paper bag full of pastries in one hand and looking terrified.

Wemmbu’s heart seemed to forget its job.

He had imagined this moment before. Of course he had. He had imagined it in a hundred possible forms, each one ending with him making a joke clever enough to avoid the fact that someone had handed him something enormous and breakable.

But Flame had told him he was allowed to need things.

Flame was trying to take up air.

Wemmbu could not meet that courage with a joke.

Not first.

“I love you too,” he said.

The words were quieter than he expected.

They were also true.

Flame’s eyes closed for a moment, as though the sentence had physically struck him.

Then he opened them and smiled.

It was not a small smile this time. It was a real one, wide enough to change his whole face.

Wemmbu thought, not for the first time, that Flame should have been legally required to warn people before doing that.

“You bought me a pastry,” he said, because he had reached the limit of sincerity he could survive without medical supervision.

“I did.”

“You’re very good at romance. It’s unsettling.”

Flame held out the bag. “It’s an almond croissant.”

“You remembered.”

“Yes.”

Wemmbu took it. Then he caught Flame by the front of his jacket and kissed him, hard enough that Flame made a soft surprised sound against his mouth.

When they pulled apart, Flame’s forehead rested against his.

“I missed you,” Flame said.

“You saw me twelve hours ago.”

“I know.”

Wemmbu smiled. “I missed you too.”

Love did not turn out to be an answer.

Wemmbu found this deeply misleading.

There should have been a ceremony. A certificate, perhaps. Something embossed and official that declared: Congratulations. You have successfully communicated. Your past wounds are now decorative and will no longer affect your behavior.

Instead, there were still Tuesdays.

There were still days when his work brain ate every other part of his brain. Days when he saw a message from Flame and felt warmth first, then panic right behind it—because warmth meant something to lose.

There were still moments when Flame’s quietness made him wonder if he had done something wrong, and moments when Flame’s directness made him want to defend himself before he had even understood what was being asked.

The difference was not that the fear disappeared.

The difference was that they began naming it.

One rainy Sunday afternoon, three months after the diner, Flame came over to Wemmbu’s apartment to help him hang shelves.

This was a terrible idea.

Not because Flame was bad at practical tasks. Flame was offensively competent at practical tasks. He owned a level. He knew the difference between screws. He had an actual toolkit arranged in foam cutouts like he was secretly a very handsome surgical technician.

The terrible part was that Wemmbu had said he wanted shelves, which Flame had apparently interpreted as a request to make decisions.

“You don’t need to measure it again,” Wemmbu said as Flame held the tape measure to the wall for the fourth time.

“I do.”

“You measured it in two separate units.”

“I want it even.”

“It’s a shelf, Flame, not a peace treaty.”

“It will be uneven if I don’t measure.”

“Perhaps unevenness is a metaphor for the beautiful chaos of life.”

Flame glanced at him. “Perhaps you don’t want crooked shelves.”

Wemmbu crossed his arms. “Wow. Oppressive.”

Flame’s mouth twitched, but he kept measuring.

That should have been the end of it.

Instead, something in Wemmbu snagged.

He had spent the day feeling off. He had not slept well. He had gotten a strange email from his sister that he had not answered. His apartment was messier than Flame’s, noisier than Flame’s, less orderly in a hundred tiny ways he had never considered failures until someone he loved was standing inside it with a level.

“You know, you don’t have to fix everything when you come here,” he said.

Flame stopped.

The sentence came out harsher than he had intended. Worse, it came out with the old familiar implication: You are doing something wrong. I will not tell you what. Figure it out or leave.

Flame lowered the tape measure.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The apology landed badly.

No. Not badly. It landed like a familiar blade. A thing that told Wemmbu he had succeeded in making love smaller again.

He looked away.

Flame stood very still near the wall. “Do you want me to stop?”

The correct answer was yes. No. Maybe. The correct answer was: I don’t know why this upset me, but it isn’t actually about you and I’m afraid I’m going to make it about you anyway.

Wemmbu felt all the old scripts crowding in.

Make a joke.

Say it is fine.

Tell him to leave whenever.

He put a hand over his face.

“Can you give me a minute?” he asked.

Flame’s expression changed not relief, exactly, but recognition. “Yes.”

He did not leave. He moved to the kitchen instead, close enough to be there, far enough not to press.

Wemmbu stood in the living room with a shelf bracket in one hand and a pulse beating too loudly in his throat.

He hated this part.

He hated the pause between feeling and language. He hated how much easier it was to be cruel than precise. He hated that Flame had to wait while he excavated the truth from underneath a dozen protective jokes.

But after a few minutes, he went to the kitchen.

Flame was filling two glasses with water.

“You don’t have to fix the shelves,” Wemmbu said.

“I know.”

“I did ask you to help.”

“I know.”

“I’m just…” He looked down at the floor. “I’m embarrassed that my apartment is a mess.”

Flame was quiet.

“And when you start measuring things and putting up shelves, I feel like you’re seeing all the places where I’m failing to be an adult person with a normal amount of matching furniture.”

Flame set down the glass.

“Oh,” he said softly.

“It’s stupid.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is a little stupid. People have survived wars. I’m having a crisis because you own a level.”

Flame looked at him with that terrible softness.

Wemmbu braced himself.

Flame did not say he was dazzling. He did not say it was okay.

He said, “I wasn’t judging you.”

“I know.”

“I like your apartment.”

“It has a chair that is mostly laundry.”

“I know.”

“It’s not even clean laundry.”

“I know.”

Wemmbu looked at him.

Flame’s expression was carefully serious. “I still like it.”

Something in Wemmbu gave way.

Not dramatically. Just enough to let him breathe.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“You can tell me if I do it again.”

“I will.”

“And you can finish the shelves.”

Flame hesitated. “Do you want me to?”

Wemmbu considered that. The fact that Flame asked not because he was afraid of making a wrong move, but because he cared whether this was actually what Wemmbu wanted made the answer easier.

“Yes,” he said. “But you have to stop making the wall feel morally inferior.”

Flame smiled. “I can do that.”

They finished the shelves together.

Flame measured. Wemmbu held things in the wrong places and complained about the dust. At one point, Flame handed him a screwdriver and said, “Can you hold this?”

Wemmbu held it up like a sword. “I have been chosen.”

Flame leaned over to kiss his temple. “You have.”

Wemmbu went still.

Flame seemed to realize what he had said at the same moment. His face flushed in a way that was so unfairly adorable Wemmbu nearly forgave him for owning a level.

“Sorry,” Flame said. “I meant- ”

“No.” Wemmbu caught his sleeve. “Don’t apologise.”

Flame looked at him.

Wemmbu’s hand tightened around the screwdriver.

The words were still hard. They were probably always going to be hard in some ways. But he had learned that hard was not the same as impossible.

“I like being chosen by you,” he said.

Flame’s gaze held his.

“Not because I need you to choose me every second,” Wemmbu added quickly. “That would be exhausting and also logistically challenging. You should be allowed to choose snacks and television programs and, I don’t know, socks. Your life has other priorities.”

Flame’s mouth twitched.

“But I mean…” Wemmbu swallowed. “I like that you keep doing it. Even when I’m not easy. Even when we have to talk about things. Even when it’s not romantic in the dramatic way.”

Flame set the drill down.

Then he took Wemmbu’s face in both hands.

“I choose you,” he said. “Not because you’re easy. Not because you never hurt me. Not because I think I can fix you.”

Wemmbu’s breath caught.

“I choose you because you are you,” Flame continued. “And because you keep trying. Because you tell me the truth when you’re scared. Because you make me laugh. Because you see me.”

Tears threatened immediately. Wemmbu considered fleeing the room.

Then Flame added, “And because you are very bad at shelves.”

Wemmbu gasped. “Cruel. Cruelty in my own home.”

Flame smiled, then kissed him.

The shelf bracket dug into Wemmbu’s shoulder. The water glasses sat forgotten on the kitchen counter. Somewhere outside, a car horn blared at someone who had probably deserved it.

It was not cinematic.

It was better.

Months later, they returned to the diner.

It was not intentional at first.

They had been walking home from a friend’s birthday party, where Wemmbu had spent an hour being charming and loud and only slightly too competitive during a game involving trivia. Flame had stayed close enough that their shoulders brushed whenever the crowd shifted. Not hovering. Not rescuing. Just there.

Rain began halfway down the block.

Wemmbu looked at the familiar neon sign, the fogged windows, the open sign flickering blue and red in the dark.

“Oh no,” he said.

Flame followed his gaze.

“What?”

“This place has emotional history.”

“It has fries.”

“Both can be true. But only one has ketchup.”

Flame smiled. “Do you want to go in?”

Wemmbu looked at him.

A year ago, this would have been a trap. A place full of echoes. A booth where he had all but dared Flame to leave. It still made his stomach turn a little, remembering how scared he had been. How hard he had worked to make fear look like indifference.

But Flame was standing beside him under the awning, hair damp from rain, waiting for an answer.

Not deciding for him.

Not pretending he did not want something.

Wemmbu took his hand.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go in.”

They got the same booth.

This time, Flame ordered tea and drank it while it was hot.

This time, Wemmbu ordered a sandwich and ate half of it without commentary.

Flame noticed, of course. He always noticed. But he only smiled.

“What?” Wemmbu asked.

“Nothing.”

“Suspicious.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Worse.”

Flame laughed.

The diner had not changed. The lights were still too bright. The song playing from the speaker was still too sad for a place serving curly fries. Rain still traced silver lines down the window.

But something in Wemmbu had changed.

Not all at once. Not neatly.

He still had bad days. He still made jokes when he was afraid. He still sometimes heard the old voice tell him to leave before he could be left, to make things ugly before they could become important, to call every tenderness a joke so it could not possibly wound him.

Flame still had days when asking for what he needed made his hands shake. He still had to stop himself from saying it’s okay when it was not. He still had to believe that being honest did not make him a burden.

They did not defeat those parts of themselves.

They made room for them.

They learned their shapes.

Flame’s hand rested on the table near Wemmbu’s.

Not touching.

Never demanding.

Just there.

Wemmbu looked at it.

Then he put his hand over Flame’s.

Flame’s fingers turned beneath his and laced with his.

“I’ve been thinking,” Flame said.

Wemmbu narrowed his eyes. “Should I be afraid?”

“No.”

“That is not reassuring. You’ve thought before. It didn’t end well”

Flame smiled. Then the smile faded into something more careful.

“I’m glad you stayed,” he said.

The old reflex stirred.

It always would, probably. The instinct to turn the moment sideways, to make it easier, lighter, less capable of mattering.

Wemmbu felt it.

Then he looked at Flame. Really looked.

At the scar near his eyebrow. At his gentle hands. At the man who had learned how to be honest without being cruel, and who had let Wemmbu learn beside him.

“I’m glad you asked me to,” Wemmbu said.

Flame’s eyes softened.

Wemmbu squeezed his hand.

“And I’m glad you stay,” he added. “Not because you have to. Not because I make it easy. But because you want to.”

“I do want to,” Flame said.

“I know.”

The words did not make him afraid anymore.

Or maybe they did, a little.

But fear was no longer the only thing in the room.

There was rain and tea and the terrible diner music. There were fries between them. There was Flame’s hand in his.

There was the long, ordinary miracle of being known and not abandoned.

There was the choice, made again.

And again.

And again.

Wemmbu smiled.

“Eat your fries,” he said. “They’re getting cold.”

Flame picked one up. “You’re bossy.”

“I’m yours”