Dawn bled slowly through the narrow gap in the curtains, thin and pale, the kind of light that didn't feel warm yet—more like the world reminding him it was still moving whether he had kept up or not.
Trafalgar stood in front of the mirror with his hands braced against the edge of the washstand, watching his own reflection stare back as if it belonged to someone else. The dark shadows beneath his eyes looked like bruises that had formed overnight. His face was composed, his posture straight, but the exhaustion sat behind his gaze, lodged there like grit you couldn't rinse out no matter how long you stared at running water.
He hadn't slept.
