The sheets still smell like him. Not the Monster - him. Eliot. After months of nightmares where that scent meant death, it now wraps around me like a second skin, safe and warm and achingly familiar.

We've been sharing his bed for weeks now, but not like this. Not with his arm slung casually over my waist, his breath tickling the back of my neck, his leg tangled with mine. Just sleeping, he'd said. Just companionship. But this morning feels different.

I wake slowly, aware of him before I open my eyes. The steady rise and fall of his chest against my back, the warmth of his skin where our bodies touch. It's more intimacy than I've allowed myself with anyone in months, maybe years, and my body betrays me instantly - a slow, spreading heat low in my abdomen that makes me both ache and panic.

He shifts behind me, murmuring something unintelligible, and I freeze. This isn't part of our unspoken agreement. The casual touches, the shared meals, the late-night talks that leave us both raw and exposed - that's our new normal. This, the way my body is responding to his proximity, feels dangerous.

But when he presses a sleepy kiss to the back of my neck, I don't pull away.