The suburbs were beginning to wake. A milk truck rumbled through the next intersection. Somewhere down the street, a sprinkler clicked to life with a lazy, mechanical rhythm. The eastern horizon had only just begun to pale, washing the quiet residential road in cold shades of blue.

Nicholas barely noticed any of it.

He was kneeling on the curb-one knee driven flat against the damp concrete, one arm wrapped tightly around Avinash's trembling shoulders, the other cradling the back of his head. Avi had both fists twisted into the front of Nicholas's jacket so fiercely his knuckles had gone entirely stark and white.

He was crying. Hard. Every single breath caught halfway into his lungs before breaking apart into another shuddering sob that rocked his entire body.

Nicholas had seen people cry after shootings. After overdoses. After raids. After identifying family members behind the clinical glass of a morgue.

This...

This was none of it.

"...Avinash."

No response. Only another broken inhale against his collarbone.

Nicholas lowered his voice instinctively. "Look at me."

Nothing. The kid only buried his face harder against Nicholas's chest.

Nicholas let out a slow, controlled breath. "...Okay, then."

Very carefully, he shifted his grip. Professional instinct took over before conscious thought ever could.His hands moved automatically.

Back of the head. No swelling.

Neck. No tenderness.

Shoulders. No instability.

Wrists. No defensive fractures.

His fingers traced lightly over Avi's sleeves, checking for blood beneath the fabric.

Nothing.

"...Did somebody hurt you?"

A faint shake of the head.

"Did somebody threaten you?"

Another shake.

"Were you followed?"

Nothing.

"...Avinash."

Silence.

Nicholas waited.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Long enough for the morning breeze to dry the tears already staining the shoulder of his jacket.

"...Talk to me."

Avi's grip only tightened, his fingers clawing into the fabric. His voice, when it finally cracked through the static, barely existed.

"...I can't."

Nicholas closed his eyes. A sharp, ugly doubt flared in his chest. His mind debated as his throat tightened.

He won't tell me. He doesn't trust me.

Nicholas was a weapon hired with money the kid didn't have, an investigator who had literally slipped a sedative into his coffee hours prior.

Why should he trust him?

Then again... the kid wouldn't have his head buried in Nicholas's chest, clinging to him like a lifeline, if he didn't.

Nicholas searched his mind, pacing the cold labyrinth of his own logic for a better explanation, and found absolutely nothing. He let out a quiet, defeated sigh.

"May I ask why?"

Avi shook his head again. "If I tell you... then it becomes real."

Nicholas opened his eyes, the cold dawn filtering back into his vision as he looked down at Avi's dark hair.

"I... I don't want it to be real," Avi mumbled, the words muffled and broken against the jacket.

Nicholas's mind instantly kicked into overdrive. And his mind was back at the with the logic of his brain. raging back and forth as he tried to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean. 'If I tell you, it becomes real.'

Was it Daniel Mercer's death? No. He rejected the thought immediately. Avi was terrified of the fallout, yes, but he couldn't possibly possess that much raw, visceral attachment to Boaz Riggerz' chauffeur. This wasn't the shock of a tangential murder.

Was it a threat against Avi's own life? Had he found a body? Had someone cornered him in the dark and whispered a promise that broke him? No-if someone had drawn a weapon or leveled a threat, Avi's reaction would be spiked with fear, looking over his shoulder, frantic to run. This was a collapse. A profound, hollow emptiness.

'It becomes real.'

What becomes real exactly?

A revelation? Had he found whatever Shane had hidden? Had he finally uncovered the secret that connected his dead friend to the addresses Mercer died searching for?

Whatever had happened tonight... whatever Avi had seen or figured out in his drug-addled, desperate state... he genuinely couldn't speak it aloud.

For the first time since meeting him, Nicholas reached the absolute end of his questions. And found nothing but a devastating wall of silence beyond them.

The drive home passed without a single word.

Avi sat completely curled against the passenger-side window, his oversized hoodie pulled tightly around himself, staring blankly out at the passing streetlights. Every few minutes, Nicholas's eyes drifted over. Checking the posture. Watching the chest rise and fall. Still breathing.

The apartment felt strangely unfamiliar, almost hostile, when they finally stepped back inside. Nicholas locked the front door behind them, the heavy click of the deadbolt echoing in the quiet space.

"...Shoes."

Avi blinked, staring blankly at the floorboards as though he had entirely forgotten he was wearing any. He obeyed without a word, slipping off one shoe, then the other, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.

Nicholas watched him sway slightly as he straightened up. The residual zolpidem was finally fighting the crashing adrenaline. The idiot had actually walked halfway across the city, entirely drugged out of his mind, completely vulnerable. The thought made something sharp and deeply unpleasant tighten beneath Nicholas's ribs.

"...Come on."

He placed one hand lightly against Avi's back as they crossed the apartment toward the living room.

And for once, Avi didn't pull away.

***

Nicholas had only been inside Avinash's bedroom once before. That was the night he'd climbed through the high window, fingers slick with his own blood, barely holding his own weight together as he sought a place to hide. Back then, the room had been nothing but blurred shadows and sharp angles, viewed through a haze of pain and adrenaline.

Now, the late dawn was beginning to spill through the half-drawn curtains, painting the quiet room in cold, pale shades of blue and gray. The morning light crept slowly across the floorboards, exposing the details he'd missed.

He had absolutely no memory of seeing the peeling wall let alone the four monitor setup Avinash had put together on his desk, but then again, he'd been fighting to stay conscious for the most part of it. Looking at the stacked displays now, surrounded by the quiet hum of hardware, he wondered how things had managed to get to this point. How a man like him and a kid like Avinash had come to be this entangled.

Avi sat down on the edge of the bed with all the mechanical precision of a wind-up toy running out of spring.

Nicholas crouched in front of him, forcing himself down into the kid's direct line of sight.

"...I'm going to ask one last time."

Those dull eyes finally lifted, heavy and completely drained.

"If somebody is after you..."

Silence.

"...If somebody threatened you..."

Nothing.

"...If you're in danger..."

Avi looked at him for a very long, agonizing moment. Then slowly... very slowly... he shook his head.

Nicholas searched every line of his face. Years of interviews, witness statements, and deep undercover work had made Nicholas an expert in the anatomy of a lie. He knew fear. He knew deception. He knew the thousand tiny tells people leaked from their eyes and jaws without ever realizing it.

This wasn't either of those.

Nick sighed. "...Alright then. Lie down."

Avi obeyed. There was no argument, no sharp sarcasm, no defensive complaints. Nicholas honestly wasn't sure which version of the kid he preferred-the prickle of his usual defenses, or this hollow, compliant ghost.

He pulled the blanket up over Avi's shoulders and turned toward the door.

"...Nicholas."

Nicholas stopped, his hand coming to rest on the wooden frame.

"...Yeah?"

Avi didn't look at him, keeping his eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling. "...Thank you."

Nicholas blinked.

Thank you?

Not leave me alone.

Not go away.

Not another sarcastic remark carefully sharpened into a weapon.

'Thank you.'

For a strange, disorienting moment, Nicholas tried to remember the last time someone had said those words to him and genuinely meant them. Not out of hollow politeness, and not because social etiquette demanded it, but because they actually felt it.

Nothing came to mind.

His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly against the edge of the doorframe.

"...You don't have to thank me."

The words slipped out quieter than he intended. It felt awkward, clumsy on his tongue-like he wasn't entirely sure how a conversation was supposed to function when nobody was arguing.

Avi didn't respond. Whether he had already drifted off or simply had nothing left to say, Nicholas couldn't tell.

He waited for one more heavy heartbeat.

"...Get some sleep."

Pulling the door halfway shut behind him, Nicholas stepped out into the hall.

The rest of the apartment welcomed him in total silence.

He looked over his shoulder.

The door remained half-open. Inside the kid was already asleep, or close enough to it that the world had blurred out. One arm was tucked awkwardly beneath the pillow, his breathing finally beginning to even out into a steady, heavy rhythm.

Nicholas turned around and leaned quietly against the doorframe, his shadow stretching long across the floor. He'd seen this state of being before. Not the sleeping itself, but the utter, soul-deep exhaustion. The hollow quiet that follows the exact moment somebody has spent every single ounce of themselves simply surviving.

He had been there himself.

His eyes drifted unconsciously to the damp tear stains still drying across Avi's cheeks.

What the hell happened to you tonight?

No answer came. Only the muffled chirping of birds waking with the dawn outside.

Nicholas remained there another minute. Two. Longer than he ever should have.

Something fundamental had shifted between them tonight.

He couldn't define it, couldn't categorize it, and he certainly couldn't file it neatly beside every other professional boundary he'd spent the last three years building.

He'd broken more than one protocol before sunrise.

He had slipped a civilian sleeping medication without consent.

He had abandoned an active investigation halfway through to answer a phone call.

He had driven across half the city well above the speed limit after hearing nothing more than a stranger's broken breathing on the other end of the line.

The last time he'd driven like that...

...he'd been seventeen.

Pedaling his bicycle through red lights with his mother's unanswered phone calls still buzzing in his pocket, convinced that if he got home fast enough, whatever had happened could still be undone.

It hadn't.

His jaw tightened.

Attachment compromised judgment.

It was a simple, clinical rule. He knew it by heart. He'd seen it ruin investigations, get good officers killed, and destroy legendary careers.

Don't do it again.

He forcefully pushed himself away from the doorframe, turned his back on the room, and walked halfway down the hallway.

Then stopped.

He closed his eyes, a heavy, exhausted breath rattling in his chest.

"...Damn it."

Turning back, he returned to the bedroom. The blanket had slipped down from Avi's shoulder sometime in the last minute, exposing the kid to the chill of the early morning air. Nicholas reached down almost automatically and pulled the fabric back into place, tucking it securely over his shoulder.

His fingers lingered on the edge of the blanket for another heartbeat before withdrawing.

Then he turned and left. This time... he managed to not look back.