The living room was too quiet. Jack sat so close his knee stayed pressed against hers, warm, stubborn, like he was afraid she'd vanish if he gave her an inch. He smelled like old smoke and the bottom of a coffee pot.
"You came out of that rift looking like hell had chewed you up and spat you out," he said, voice rough from no sleep. "And I still couldn't breathe right. Still can't."
Elisa rubbed her eyes, hunting for a joke. "Wait. You're thirty-three, right? Steve looks forty. You didn't knock someone up at—"
Jack laughed once, sharp, wounded. "Twenty-four, you idiot." He dragged a hand through his hair and kept it there, like his skull might come apart. "Same as you. You really forgot everything? Us as kids, racing across the dark, stealing starlight just because we could? You always won. I never minded losing to you."
She reached up without thinking, fingertips brushing the corner of his eye.
He stopped breathing.
Then the mark on her collarbone lit up like a blade dragged across skin.
She ran.
Aurora was crumpled on the hallway floor, small, shaking, blood slipping through her fingers. Steve was on his knees in front of her, one big hand braced on the tile to keep himself upright, the other pouring the last of his grace into her arm. The glow was weak, flickering, like a candle someone forgot to snuff out.
Elisa saw the blood and nothing else.
She crossed the hall and hit him so hard the crack bounced off the walls.
The light died. Steve's head snapped sideways. He stayed like that, cheek turned, breathing through his mouth like the air had turned to glass.
Aurora whimpered. "Elisa—"
Steve turned back slowly. The handprint was already swelling, violent red against pale skin. His eyes were wet, but the anger in them was old, older than this house, older than this life.
"I ripped the void open with my bare hands to drag you home," he said, voice barely above a whisper, shaking with something rawer than rage. "I've been on my knees for fifty-three minutes keeping her heart beating with half my grace gone. And the first thing you see when you look at me is a threat."
He rose. Slowly. Like every inch cost him.
Elisa's hand was still in the air, numb, useless.
Steve looked at the mark she'd left on him the way someone looks at a scar they always knew was coming. His mouth twisted, not quite a smile.
"I would've let the universe burn to bring you back," he said, so low she felt it in her ribs. "I did let half of me burn tonight so she wouldn't die. And you still think I'm the one hurting her."
A single tear slid down the cheek she hadn't touched. He didn't wipe it away.
Aurora reached for him, fingers trembling in the air. "Steve—"
He stepped back, just one step, but it felt like a continent.
"Don't," he said, voice cracking open. "Don't touch me right now. I can't—"
He couldn't finish. He walked past Elisa without looking at her again, shoulders folded in like he was trying to hold his own ribs together.
The front door shut with the softest click in the world.
Jack appeared barefoot, took in the blood, the empty space where Steve had been, the perfect red print blooming on nothing but air now.
Outside, the car engine turned over once, twice, then roared away like it was trying to outrun the sound of its own leaving.
Elisa stared at her hand. Her knuckles were already bruising purple.
She could still feel the heat of his skin, the way his head had taken the blow without moving an inch to stop it.
Aurora's voice was barely there. "He didn't even flinch."
Elisa dropped to the floor, wrapped her arms around her friend, and cried the kind of tears that come with snot and hiccups and no dignity at all.
Jack stood in the hallway, fists clenched so tight his nails cut half-moons into his palms, listening to the rain start and knowing exactly how much Steve wasn't coming back tonight.
Because some misunderstandings don't get fixed.
Some just sit in your chest like shrapnel and wait.
Jack stood bleeding in the hallway, but the blood on his hands wasn't the part that hurt.
It was the memories that broke him open.
Nine years old, barefoot on cold marble, the gates of the God Realm slamming shut like the end of the world. The echo chased them down every road after that. Traitors. Half-bloods. Mongrels not worth the dirt under divine feet. Realm after realm turned its back until there was nowhere left but the Human world, rain hissing on broken concrete, and a boy with storm-gray eyes stepping between Jack and five older kids who wanted to crack his ribs for fun.
"Touch him and you deal with me."
Steve was twelve. All height and bones and stupid, impossible courage. Jack had never had anyone choose him before. Not once.
Eleven: learning how to siphon sparks from streetlights so the corner store freezer would stay cold long enough to steal dinner. Steve's fingers shaking from the shock, laughing through it, then draping his only jacket over Jack's shoulders. "I run hot anyway," he lied, lips blue, teeth clacking like dice.
Fifteen: Steve coming home with split knuckles and a paper bag of takeout he couldn't afford, sliding a single shimmering comet-feather across the table. "Happy birthday, little brother." Jack had stared at it like it was made of starlight (because it was) and Steve had just shrugged, like stealing from angels was nothing if it made Jack smile.
Eighteen: Jack sobbing on the roof, drunk on cheap vodka and cheaper heartbreak. Steve sat beside him until the sky turned pink, saying nothing, just a steady shoulder to cry into until there was nothing left but hiccups and snot.
Twenty-one: Jack starting a bar fight he couldn't finish. Steve stepping in, taking every punch, then taking the rap. Six months in county so Jack could keep the scholarship that was supposed to be their way out. Steve's postcards from jail were all dumb jokes and "don't do anything stupider than I did."
Twenty-four: tonight. Steve on his knees in the ruins of the old church, burning his grace to nothing to keep Aurora breathing, veins glowing white-hot under his skin. And when it was done, when she was safe Elisa's hand still cracked across his face like he was something dirty for saving her sister.
Steve didn't say a word. He never did.
He just wiped the blood from his lip, gave Jack the smallest nod (I'm okay, I've got it), and walked away before anyone could see the tears.
Jack looked down at his own bleeding palms, the cuts from catching Steve when he finally collapsed, and something inside him shattered quietly.
All these years.
Every time the world tried to kill Jack, Steve had stepped in front of it.
Every time Jack fell, Steve caught him.
And he never asked for anything back.
Not once.
Jack's knees hit the floor. The sob that tore out of him was ugly, raw, years overdue.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the empty hallway, to the brother who wasn't there to hear it. "I'm so fucking sorry I never said thank you."
He pressed his forehead to the cold tile and let himself cry, really cry, for the first time since he was nine years old.
Because Steve had always stood in the way.
And Jack had never stood in front of him.
Not once