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N oah clutched his side, palm pressing into the gaping wound like he could stop the blood pouring out of it. But his eyes never left Lex.

“Lex, please,” Noah gasped, voice cracking on the weight of it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. He—he brainwashed you . Jesus, let me fucking help. ”

He reached out again. Shaking. Pathetic.

Lex took one step back. Put himself squarely between Morgan and Noah.

If Morgan could move… there was no way. His body had gone mute, every signal dulled and drowned. Legs dead. Arms useless. He was still upright, somehow, spine pressed to the wall—but every second bled that strength thinner.

So he watched .

Watched Lex’s shoulders rise. Once. Twice. Watched the sweat slide down the back of Lex’s neck, pooling into the collar of his shirt.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Lex said, low, as if he was talking to himself. Not Noah. Not Morgan. “I’m done with you.”

Noah’s mouth opened, but Lex was still talking.

“I’m not coming with you. I’m not answering your texts. I’m not playing this stupid, childish game with you any more.”

“Wait—”

“You’re going to take Ollie. You’re going to leave. And you’re never coming near me again.”

Noah’s expression cracked, the laughter too high and bright.

“You don’t mean that.”

“You better fucking believe I do . For your sake.”

Morgan could barely keep his eyes open, but he forced them to stay on Lex. On the way he stood between them like a wall he hadn’t known he needed. His Lex. Shoulders trembling, hand clenched around the knife. Too firm and stable for this chaotic world.

Lex didn’t stop.

“Whatever story you’ve told yourself—about us, about what we were—it’s not real. God, I hated you, Noah. I hated everything about you. All you’ve ever been is a problem. Do you know that I was happy when I moved out of our trailer? Because I knew I wouldn’t be sharing a room with you ever again.”

Noah blinked once. Something inside him broke. Morgan could see it dripping out, dark and thick. Like a wound that had never healed properly.

Now it never would .

Noah didn’t speak. Didn’t scream. Just walked, slow and staggering, to the cage.

He unlocked it without a word.

Tossed Ollie over his shoulder like a sack of meat.

Then he left.

The door slammed behind him. Rattled the walls.

Morgan’s body gave out the second the latch clicked shut. His knees buckled, spine curling down the wall until he hit the floor. The suite was unrecognizable—splintered wood, cracked drywall, the metallic tang of blood too thick in the air.

Every breath tasted like rust.

The silence was absolute.

No footsteps, no creak of the hallway.

Just… nothing.

Nothing but Lex.

Lex, standing in the wreckage. Trembling. Ashen under the tan. Streaked with blood and bruises and something older—something bone-deep.

Lex, who’d always sworn he wasn’t the one to draw blood.

Lex, who had stabbed someone to protect him.

Morgan’s throat burned. “I should’ve killed him.”

Lex didn’t answer.

“I should’ve—” Morgan tried again, swallowing the bile rising in his chest. “You should’ve let me.”

Still nothing.

Morgan tipped his head back against the wall, blinking through the haze. “ He touched you .”

I had one job. One. And I failed that, too.

Lex turned to face him, and dropped to his knees .

Not fast. Not dramatic. Just... down. Like the air had finally stopped holding him up.

“You’re still bleeding,” Lex said, brushing a shaking thumb across Morgan’s temple. His fingers were tacky with dried blood—Morgan’s or Noah’s, it didn’t matter. “You need stitches.”

“I need you,” Morgan murmured.

The words felt wrong in his mouth. Too fragile. Too real.

He clenched his teeth against the tremor.

“I need him dead .”

“You need to stop talking.”

Morgan tried to argue—but Lex leaned in and pressed two fingers to his lips. Gentle. Final.

“Just listen,” he said. “You don’t get the last word this time.”

Lex stayed quiet at first. He leaned their foreheads together, breath ghost light soft. His hands gripped Morgan like he was afraid if he let go, the rest of the world might fall apart too.

Then: “You could’ve died.”

Morgan didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“You weren’t trying to survive,” Lex continued, voice frayed at the edges. “You weren’t trying to live . You just wanted to win.”

Morgan let his shoulders drop. It never bode well for him when Lex made sense.

“You’re not invincible ,” Lex bit out, but it sounded quieter now. Cracked. “I need you. I need you .”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Morgan said, but even he heard how unsure it sounded.

“ You almost fucking did . I—I watched him, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t do anything. ”

Morgan lifted a hand. It was like moving bricks through deep water, but he forced it up anyway. Traced the line of Lex’s jaw, the pulse beneath fragile skin—fast, frantic. He couldn’t hold Lex the way he wanted, couldn’t calm. Couldn’t soothe.

Lex exhaled hard.

“I thought I was too late,” he whispered. “I thought I’d never get to say it.”

Morgan didn’t ask what. Didn’t get a chance to.

Lex was speaking too quickly now, stumbling over words as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough.

“I love you. Not because you do all the fucked-up things I won’t. I love you because you’re mine . I don’t want to deal with this shitty place alone.”

Lex took a breath but it shook, stuck in his throat.

“You’re all I have,” he mumbled. “ That’s it . It’s supposed to be me and you against the world. You don’t… you don’t even have to say it back. I just wanted to make sure you heard it.”

Morgan’s hand moved, clumsy and slow, to the back of Lex’s neck. His fingers curled into messy hair, not tight—just there. Just present.

It was cute, and such a very Lex statement. Predictable.

There wasn’t a need to say it out loud. Declare it for everyone to hear—even if it was only them.

Actions spoke so much louder than words.

Lex kissed him.

It wasn’t rushed. Wasn’t frantic. It didn’t crash into Morgan like so many of their previous moments—violent, possessive, edged with desperation. It was quiet.

Intentional .

There was nothing demanding in it. Nothing that asked for more than Morgan could give. And that alone almost undid him.

Lex didn’t kiss like someone asking for permission. He kissed like someone giving it—over and over, with every soft drag of lips against his.

I forgive you. I see you. I love you.

It tasted like blood and exhaustion and grief.

It tasted like relief.

Morgan opened his mouth, just slightly, and Lex met it. Wet and slow and real.

No one else would ever kiss the same way Lex did.

Lex made a sound, so quiet Morgan might’ve missed it if they weren’t close. A broken thing. A moan swallowed in a sob. It cracked right down the center of Morgan’s chest.

Lex’s hands didn’t roam. They clung—one fisted weakly in Morgan’s shirt, the other cradling the back of his skull with a tenderness Morgan didn’t know how to hold. Every time he shifted closer, Morgan felt the tremble still running through him like aftershocks.

This wasn’t about sex. It wasn’t about power. It was something older. More sacred. The kind of kiss that only came after survival. After ruin.

Lex pulled back half an inch, just enough for their noses to touch. His eyes were damp, lashes clumped together in gold spikes.

And Morgan hadn’t realized how much he needed this. Just… the quiet. The weight of Lex breathing in sync with him. The reminder that whatever pieces of himself he’d broken in the fight, this— Lex —was still here .

That Lex would come back. Time and time again.

Lex’s fingers traced the side of Morgan’s neck.

“I would’ve killed him,” he murmured after another beat, voice raw. “If I had to.”

Morgan’s eyes opened.

He didn’t say I know.

Because he hadn’t.

Not until the moment Lex, who’d always stood outside the blood and violence, had crossed the line— for him .

Lex leaned against Morgan’s chest, tucking in like he needed to feel his heartbeat. Like he needed proof that Morgan was still here. Still breathing.

Even barely.

“Please, just—just don’t ever make me watch that again, Morgan...”

Morgan didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t.

Something was… wrong. Wrong in a way he couldn’t quite catch. More than heaviness. This was different. Deeper.

His fingers didn’t move when he told them to—only after. They were on a delay, running on borrowed time.

Forty seconds.

It took forty seconds for them to obey.

That should’ve meant something.

Should’ve scared him.

But Lex was right here. Right here.

The only thing that mattered in this whole, destroyed room.

They stayed pressed together, Lex’s voice still trembling in his chest.

You’re all I have .

The words echoed. Louder than any scream.

“Me too,” Morgan whispered eventually. It felt too soft. Too small. But it was the best he could do.

“Come on. Let me take care of you.”

Morgan almost laughed. Not because it was funny—but because he didn’t know how. That word— care —had never belonged to him. Never felt like it applied.

This wasn’t a nightmare he was stuck in.

This was reality.

And he could never ask Lex to do that.

But Lex was already helping him sit up straighter, slow and careful, murmuring soft words that didn’t need meaning. Morgan didn’t catch all of them. He didn’t need to.

They weren’t about instructions. They weren’t orders. They were tether lines. Spoken reminders that he was still wanted.

Even if all he’d done was fail.

Morgan didn’t fight it.

He let Lex pull him up. Let him press a kiss to his temple. Let himself rest against Lex’s chest for a moment, breathing in the scent of blood and sweat and something warm beneath it all—something that hadn’t broken.

Lex’s fingers ran through his hair. He didn’t say anything else.

Neither did Morgan.

There would be time later for words. For war. For cleanup and stitches and decisions that could never be unmade.

But for now—

Morgan closed his eyes.

He let himself be held.