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He finally breathes out and stares at the horizon like it might save him. “Gods, I do love her. I do. And I hate how fucking easy she makes it.”
“She’s good for you,” I say again, and this time, the words don’t echo; they land. “She softens your sharpest edges without dulling you. She holds space for the darkest parts of you without trying to fix them. That’s rare, Elias. That’s sacred.”
He doesn’t respond right away, but he doesn’t argue either. His silence is an admission.
We start walking again, slower now, but somehow more certain. I don’t tell him the rest of what I’m thinking, that I love her too, that I have since the first moment I saw how she held my chaos like it was holy, but I don’t need to. Elias knows. He’s always known.
And still, we walk side by side.
Brothers in our damnation. Bound in different ways to the same storm-hearted girl.
Elias glances at me like he’s trying to make the question sound casual. “Hypothetically,” he starts, dragging out the word like it tastes wrong on his tongue, “if someone, anyone, were maybe considering the whole binding thing… how would one, you know… bring it up?”
I don’t respond immediately. Not because I’m stalling, but because Elias, despite the sarcasm woven into every word he’s ever spoken, has never once been this transparent. He’s practically holding the question in his open palm and begging someone to see it for what it is. And I do.
I clasp my hands behind my back, pace unhurried. “You mean if someone who is obviously in love with her and doesn’t want to admit it out loud yet wants to bind to her without sounding like a pathetic little wreck?”
“Yeah, that. Exactly that,” he mutters, eyes fixed forward.
“First, he should stop pretending it’s hypothetical. She already knows.”
That gets his attention. His head jerks toward me like I’ve slapped him with a revelation. “She does not.”
“She does. She’s not oblivious. Just merciful.”
Elias groans and tips his head back toward the washed-out sky. “Why is it so much worse when you say these things like you’ve already read the ending?”
“Because I probably have.”
He snorts at that, but there’s tension in the curve of his mouth, the way he presses his tongue to his cheek like he’s biting back more than his usual banter.
I slow my steps so we’re walking side by side again. “If it were me, I’d start with the truth. Not grand declarations. Just… truth. She doesn’t need to be impressed. She needs to be trusted. To feel safe in your certainty.”
He’s silent for a moment. Then he mumbles, “What if I don’t feel certain?”
I glance over at him. “You do. You’re just terrified of what that certainty makes you.”
His laugh is rough. “Pathetic little wreck?”
“No. Vulnerable. And that’s something new for you.”
He exhales hard through his nose, then shoves his hands deep into his coat pockets. “Okay, philosopher king. So truth. Something like… ‘Hey Luna, by the way, I think about binding to you every time you smile, and it makes me want to die, but also, I’d probably let you ruin me if you asked nicely’?”
I arch a brow. “It’s cringey. But yes. That.”
He groans louder. “You’re no help.”
“I’m exactly the help you need. You just don’t like the form it takes.”
Elias mutters something under his breath about how philosophers should be banned from giving romantic advice, but I hear the shift in his voice. The fear hasn’t left him, but it’s dulled. Now it’s curiosity, warmth, the ache of something he hasn’t let himself hope for.
And maybe that’s what scares him most. Not the idea of binding. Not even loving her.
But the fact that she might not love him back.