They stayed by the sea until the cold stopped being poetic.
Until it crept past fabric and skin and settled into bone.
Until Evan's trembling softened into something smaller. Quieter. The kind that didn't ask to be noticed.
The sky thinned slowly at its edges, gray light diluting the darkness without quite becoming morning.
They drove back without music.
Without conversation.
Not because there was nothing to say...but because everything was too sharp to touch with language.
Streetlights slid across the windshield like tired comets. Evan watched them pass. Noah watched Evan.
When they reached his building, Noah parked but didn't turn off the engine. The dashboard clock blinked 4:17. The city exhaled around them.
Noah rested his hands on the steering wheel. Let the moment exist. Then he said, very softly, "Do you remember his face?"
Evan's body answered before his mouth did. A slight stillness. A pause in breath. "No," he said.
Noah turned toward him. "Not even a little?"
Evan shook his head slowly.
"It's like trying to hold smoke," he murmured. "I know there was a face. I know it mattered. But when I reach for it… there's nothing there."
Noah's jaw tightened.
"That might be why," he said after a moment. "Why it's tied to you. Why you see what's coming."
Evan folded his hands together.
Unfolded them.
"You think a psychiatrist can fix that?"
"No," Noah admitted. "I think they might help you find it."
Silence grew between them. Not hostile. Heavy.
"The voice," Noah said quietly. "His walk. The way he smelled. Anything. One thread is enough to pull the rest."
Evan looked at the windshield.
At his reflection layered faintly over the city.
"You want me to open that door again."
Noah didn't lie.
"Yes."
"And if it breaks me?"
Noah's voice softened. "Then I'll be there."
Evan let out a thin breath that tried to be a laugh.
"That hasn't stopped anything before."
Noah reached across the space between them.
Laid his hand over Evan's twisted fingers. Not tight. Not possessive. Just warm. Human.
"Think about it," he said. "That's all."
Evan stared at their hands.
Then nodded. Once. "I will."
Noah walked him to the door.
The hallway light flickered, old and tired, unsure whether it wanted to exist tonight.
Evan unlocked his apartment slowly. Then stopped.
"You're not coming in?"
Noah's chest pulled inward.
"I can't."
Evan turned. "Why?"
"There's someone I have to meet." The word someone landed wrong. Sharp. Unfinished.
Noah stepped closer anyway. He kissed Evan's forehead. Slow. Careful.
Then reached into his pocket and lifted a thin silver chain, the pendant shaped like a small ivy leaf.
He fastened it gently around Evan's neck.
"For you," he said. "So you don't forget… you're not temporary."
Evan touched it like it might disappear.
"See you tomorrow," he whispered.
Noah smiled faintly. "I love you too."
He stepped back before Evan could answer.
Turned...And walked away.
Noah dialed the number before he reached his car. It rang twice.
Then...
"Detective Knox."
The voice was calm. Measured. Wrong.
"You said you had evidence," Noah said.
"I do."
"Why the secrecy?"
A pause.
Then:
"Because it involves Evan Kale."
Something cold slid through Noah's veins.
"If anyone else hears it," the voice continued, "he won't survive what comes next."
Noah's grip tightened on the phone.
"Where?"
A location buzzed onto his screen seconds later. An industrial district. Dead warehouses.
"Come alone," the voice said. "If you bring anyone, I disappear." The line went dead.
Evan stood in his apartment long after Noah left. Shoes still on. Lights still off. The city breathing through the walls. He pressed his palm flat against the door.
As if it might remember Noah's warmth. His chest felt wrong. Too tight. Too empty.
He closed his eyes. Tried to breathe the feeling away. Tried to believe the kiss meant safety.
Outside, somewhere across the city, the night stretched itself wide.
And inside Evan's ribs, unease bloomed slowly.
Like something ancient.
Like something patient.