The first night with Lucien's body beside him should've felt like relief. But it didn't.
It felt like silence had changed it's texture again, less like peace, more like something that sat on Eliàn's chest and watched him breathe.
Lucien hadn't stopped being present. He had just changed how he existed in the room. Now, in the mornings he brings warm milk and morning kisses, pretending he was a dotting husband instead of the architect of Eliàn's slow unraveling. And at night, he'd repeat the same routine over again, good night kisses and warm milk.
"You slept well?" Lucien would ask each morning, placing the cup on the bedside table.
Eliàn's fingers would curl around the cup slowly, like his bones had learned hesitation. "Yes."
Lucien always smiled. "Good. You need your strength."
Strength for what, Eliàn's never asked. He didn't want the answer.
Sometimes he'd wake up to find Lucien sitting on the bed, watching him. Eyes calm. Hands resting on his lap. The milk already warm and waiting.
Eliàn stopped flinching. Stopped reacting. Spoke less. Moving like a shadow of himself.
Lucien seemed to notice.
"You've changed," he said one evening, as Eliàn's sat curled on the windowsill, gazing at nothing. His voice was soft. Too soft. "I can't read you anymore."
Eliàn turned his head slightly. Just enough to acknowledge him. "Good."
That made Lucien smile wider. "Is it? I used to love how expressive you were."
Eliàn stared back, unblinking. "I'm tired."
There were no more arguments. No more begging. No rage, no pleading.
Just... stillness. Stillness that spread like frost.
He moved differently now. Slower. Sharper. His expressions were careful, curated. Even his silences were not empty, they were laced with a distance Lucien couldn't breach no matter how often he tried.
Lucien responded the only way he knew how, with presence. Breakfast in bed. Walks in the garden he insisted Eliàn take. Regular medical checkups with Dr Sere. Always someone watching. Always someone listening.
And always Lucienz smiling through it all like this was a fairytale with no villain.
"You're doing so well," he murmured one night. "I knew you'd adapt eventually."
Eliàn met his gaze. No hatred. No fear. No softness. Just something unreadable. Something cold.
It made Lucien shift slightly. That night, Lucien didn't bring milk.
Eliàn noticed but didn't mention it. He simply returned to the windowsill, sitting beneath it like it was a place of prayer. The moonlight draped over him, highlighting the hollowness beneath his skin. He looked like a painting left out in the rain, still beautiful, but blurred at the edges.
Lucien tried to revive him in subtle ways.
Fresh silk robes. Imported books. New art on the walls.
But Eliàn didn't ask for these things. Didn't react to them. And somehow that frightened Lucien more than his screams ever had.
He stood outside the door some nights, hesitating before entering the room.
Eliàn could hear the quiet exhale.
He knew Lucien was trying to wait him out.
Trying to see how long it would take before the silence broke.
But Eliàn wasn't breaking.