Chapter 40 #2
I turn my face away automatically, but he doesn’t force it back. He just keeps his hand warm against my cheek, thumb moving in slow, grounding strokes.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says quietly, like he’s already reading the refusal in the tension of my jaw. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Thank you,” I say finally. “It’s just…stuff from before. I don’t… I can’t talk about that one yet, okay?”
“Okay,” he says, and I turn back to face him. “You don’t have to. I just… I hate that you’re still carrying it alone.”
The relief of that almost undoes me worse than the nightmare did.
He sits back a little, enough to give me air, and for a second we just breathe. The room is still dim. The lamp’s still on. Jericho is gone, probably offended by emotional scenes. Outside, the trees scrape softly against the window in the night breeze. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
Brendon glances at the clock, then back at me. He makes a decision I can see happen in real time.
“Come on,” he says softly.
I frown. “What?”
He pushes the blankets back and slides carefully out of bed, one hand already reaching for mine. “Kitchen.”
I almost laugh, because the idea is absurd. My skin’s clammy, my chest feels flayed open, and my body’s still halfway expecting the dark to come back if I close my eyes. The last thing I want is bright lights, movement, and conversation.
Brendon knows that. That’s probably why he’s doing it.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, which is such bullshit even I don’t believe it.
He gives me a look that says exactly what he thinks of that claim, then curls his fingers around mine more firmly. “No, you’re not, and that’s okay. Come with me.”
There are a hundred reasons to resist. Pride. Embarrassment. The fact that if I move too fast, my heart still feels like it’ll climb up my throat. I let him lead me anyway, because his hand is warm and his voice is steady, and when he says ‘come with me,’ my body listens before my ego can catch up.
The kitchen light is soft when he turns it on, just the overhead above the stove and the one over the sink.
Enough to see by without feeling interrogated.
He points me toward one of the stools by the counter, and I sit because apparently this is my life now—taking orders from a skinny law student in my own house.
I’ll indulge him in this when I wouldn’t for anyone else.
My hands brace on the countertop, fingers spreading on the cool surface.
My chest still feels tight, but the oppression of the dream is fading under the familiar sights.
The chipped tile, the dent in the fridge door, the mug he left by the sink earlier with a smear of red from the tea he was drinking.
“You know there are easier ways to drug me into sleeping again,” I mutter.
He shoots me a look over his shoulder. “Shut up. I’m being nurturing.”
“That’s disgusting,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
There’s a little smile tugging at his mouth, faint but there, and it does something warm and horrible to my insides.
I watch as he takes out two mugs, a small pot, milk, cocoa powder, sugar, and a little jar of vanilla I forgot I had.
He’s barefoot, shirt rumpled from sleep, hair sticking up in messy tufts, and he’s making me fucking hot chocolate in the middle of the night like that’s a normal way to handle my PTSD.
“You could’ve just made the instant kind,” I say, trying for casual, watching him measure cocoa into the pot.
He snorts. “You’re not getting that powdered shit after a nightmare like that,” he says. “We’re doing this properly. This is… I don’t know. A ritual. You need a ritual.”
He pours milk into the pot, turns the burner on low, and starts whisking slowly, the faint scrape of metal on metal soothing.
The smell hits quickly—the deep, rich chocolate, a hint of sugar, the warmth of the milk.
He adds a pinch of salt and a drizzle of vanilla, then keeps whisking until it’s glossy.
His movements are unhurried, almost reverent.
The smell hits me halfway through.
Cocoa and sugar and a hint of vanilla, warm and rich and familiar in a way that’s got nothing to do with this kitchen. It slams into a part of my brain I keep boarded up.
I’m not here. I’m shorter, bare feet on cold tile, kitchen table towering. There’s a big hand on the pot handle, stirring, the deep rumble of a voice in Russian telling me something about how even soldiers need sweetness sometimes.
A mug slid in front of me, steam curling, gentle fingers pushing my hair off my face. “Drink, mishka,” he would say. “Bad dreams don’t like sugar.”
The memory hits so clean and sudden, it knocks the breath out of me.
My dad used to do this on the nights things got too bad. Make hot chocolate from scratch, exactly like this, like if he poured enough sweetness into the mug, he could cover the bitterness in the walls. After he died, the smell disappeared with him.
Now it’s back. In my kitchen with my boyfriend at the stove, doing the same thing, without even knowing what he’s echoing.
He’s just doing what feels right to him, making something warm in the middle of the night because I woke up wrecked.
He has no idea he’s just stepped into a memory so tender it hurts worse than the nightmare did.
I push up off the stool, turn around, and brace both hands against the counter before I can think better of it, head bowed, arms locked. The wood feels cold under my palms.
“Dom?” Brendon’s voice goes soft immediately. “Hey. Did I do something wrong?”
His concern makes it worse. I shake my head once because speaking feels impossible. My eyes burn. My chest aches with a fullness I can’t keep contained anymore.
“No,” I say, but it comes out wrecked. “Not you… fuck.”
I drag in a breath that doesn’t help. The tears are there before I can stop them, stupid and humiliating and hot. I squeeze my eyes shut and stare down at the countertop like I can bully them back where they came from.
But then there’s that memory again, my father’s big hand ruffling my hair, his voice saying, “It’s okay to be sad, Dima. It means you’re still human.”
He’d be pissed if he saw me standing here choking on it just to prove I’m tough.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Fuck, fuck.”
I shake my head and lean more forward, bracing my forearms on the countertop, head hanging. My hair swings forward, curtaining my face. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches, swallowing against the burn in my chest.
I feel the first tear slip out before I can stop it. It tracks hot down my nose, and hits the counter. Then another until my shoulders start to shake, and try to breathe through it, but my body’s done taking orders.
“Hey,” Brendon says softly.
“I’m fine,” I rasp.
A mug slides into my peripheral vision, then disappears as he sets it down and moves around the island.
A second later, he’s behind me, his chest warm against my back, arms coming around my middle.
He doesn’t say anything at first. He just holds on, cheek pressed between my shoulder blades, breath steady.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs after a minute. “You’re safe. Nobody’s here but me and Jericho. You can let it out.”
That makes it worse, obviously. A rough sound rips out of me, halfway between a groan and a sob. I squeeze my eyes shut and let my head hang, the tears dripping onto the counter.
“This is so fucking stupid,” I grind out. “It was just a dream and fucking hot chocolate.”
“It wasn’t just a dream,” he says quietly. “And it’s not just hot chocolate, is it?”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. My hands tighten on the countertop until my knuckles ache.
“Don’t,” I say again, and I’m not even sure what I mean. Don’t look at me. Don’t pity me. Don’t make this softer than it already is.
The sobs that follow are quieter than the ones at the hospital, less ripped open, more like something old finally cracking the rest of the way.
It still hurts, and it still feels like my ribs are trying to push their way out through my skin.
I let my forehead drop to my folded arms, shoulders hunched, breath hitching.
The sound I make is muffled, but it’s there.
Brendon just holds on, cheek against my shoulder blade, his warmth seeping into me.
“This is what he used to do,” I hear myself say, when I lift my head, words coming out before I decide to share them. “My dad.”
Brendon stills behind me, listening.
“On bad nights,” I continue, staring at the countertop through the blur, seeing a different kitchen overlaid on this one.
“When she… when shit got loud, he’d make cocoa.
Not that powdered bullshit. The real kind on the stove.
Said it was ‘for his nerves.’ But I knew it was for me. To give me something else to focus on.”
Brendon’s arm tightens around me, just enough to say I’m here without squeezing too hard.
“I forgot what it smelled like until you did it. And now my fucking chest feels like someone’s stabbing it, and all you did was boil milk.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s not… I’m not mad,” I say quickly, blinking hard. “It’s just… I miss him, and sometimes I forget that. I’ve been so focused on hating her and surviving and not thinking about any of it that I forgot there was a person in that house who made things bearable for a while.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, and another tear slips free, tracks hot down my cheek. I sniff, drag the back of my hand across my face, not bothering to hide it now. Jericho hops up onto the counter and bumps his head against my wrist like he’s trying to head-butt the sadness out.
I huff a watery laugh. “Even your cat’s judging me,” I mutter.
“He’s comforting you,” Brendon says. “That’s his ‘don’t be stupid, human’ face.”
I sniff shakily and let my head drop forward until my neck stretches, vertebrae popping. His hands slide up, palms flattening on my chest now, right over my heart. The position is familiar—I’ve done this a hundred times to calm him down—but the roles have flipped, and my brain stutters.
“I didn’t know,” he says quietly, voice careful. “About your father. About the—” He stops himself before he says the word I won’t let out tonight. “About the dreams. About how far back it goes.”
“Yeah, well,” I rasp. “I’m not exactly a model of open communication.”
He lets out a breath against my back that might almost be a laugh. “We’re working on it. This counts.”
I close my eyes, focus on the warmth of his hands, the weight of his head, the purr of the cat, the smell of cocoa. My breathing evens out little by little, the sobs tapering off into ragged inhales.
After a while, he eases back just enough to reach around me for the mugs. He presses one into my hands, fingers curling around mine to steady it.
“Careful,” he says. “It’s hot.”
I wrap my palms around the ceramic, soaking up the warmth.
The surface is smooth under my fingers. I bring it up and take a sip.
It’s rich and dark and a little too sweet, cocoa hitting my tongue like a punch of memory, but this time it’s anchored to him standing here with me, not just a ghost in a different kitchen.
Brendon watches me over the rim of his own mug, eyes still a little swollen from sleep, hair still a mess. I don’t know what I did to deserve someone who meets my worst moments with this much care.
He leans his hip against the counter next to me, close enough that our arm touch, and we stand there in the pool of kitchen light at stupid-o’clock in the morning, drinking hot chocolate and breathing.
When I set the mug down, I turn to him without thinking and pull him into my arms, carefully mindful of his side. He fits there the way he always does now, like my body built itself around the shape of him without asking permission.
“Thank you,” I murmur into his hair.
He hums, cheek pressed to my chest. “For the cocoa, or for not making you talk?”
“Both,” I say. Then, because the night has already peeled me open and there’s no point pretending, I add, “For making this feel like a home instead of a graveyard.”
His arms tighten around me just a little. “You want to go back to bed?” he asks. “We can put something on in the background. The stupid baking show with the British guy you like. Or I can just talk until you pass out again.”
I snort. “Your voice will put me to sleep faster than any British baking show,” I say. “Law lecture tone. Deadly.”
He pulls back and swats my arm. “Asshole,” he mutters, but he’s smiling now. “Come on then, Beast. Let’s try this sleep thing again. If you get stuck, I’ll be right there.”
I grab my mug, finish it in a few quick swallows, and set it in the sink. He does the same. On impulse, before I can overthink it, I catch his wrist and tug him in, pressing a slow, grateful kiss to his mouth.
“I don’t deserve you,” I say against his lips. “But thank you for waking me up. For this. For… fuck, all of it.”
“Anytime,” he says. “You pull me out of my nightmares, I pull you out of yours. That’s the deal.”
I let him lead me back down the hall. The bed is still warm, sheets rumpled. He climbs in first this time, giving me a look over his shoulder that calls me in without words.
I slide in beside him, pull him against me, and let his weight anchor me back into the present.
I used to think softness was a liability. A crack in the armor that somebody would always eventually force a knife through. Maybe it still is. Maybe loving Brendon will always mean bleeding more than I know how to stop.
Right now, with him half-asleep against me and the taste of hot chocolate on my tongue, I don’t give a fuck.
If this is soft, I’ll take it.