“Oh.”
The single syllable fell in a stupid sigh. He didn’t know what else to say. Jack had been thinking of him. Sneaking him food he’d spent time foraging in the bleak and ever-raging wilderness, when he had to be just as weak and cold as anyone else.
“Thank you,” he blurted, just a little too late.
“You’re welcome.”
He was still speaking in that flat, begrudging way meant to shut down further conversation—but Ger couldn’t help but notice that he was still standing here, too. Quite close in fact, leaning against the opposite wall in this rather tight corner, his long legs just a breadth from Ger’s knees. Waiting. Giving him a chance, even if he wasn’t going to make it easy to grasp it.
“You know it’s not true, right?” said Ger, eyes on his own hands where they curled over his knees. Try as he might, his lips faltered with each breath until the last few words were little more than a mumble. “About Adeline, I’m not—”
“I know you’re not.”
Ger looked up. Jack wasn’t smiling, but his face was softer; more open.
“Hard to be a person with eyes and miss the way she looks at the Merrow King. She’s not looking at anyone else like that, not anytime soon.”
“Neither am I,” said Ger at once.
Jack’s lips twitched, and he rolled them in between his teeth. Deliberately withholding his smile, but the instinct was there.Somethingwas there, even now, and though he didn’t have a name for it, Ger found it gave him the courage to hold Jack’s eye a moment longer.
“I should thank you, too,” said Jack. “Never had anyone fight for my honour like that. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, to be honest.”
Ger’s heart flipped.
“I’d say the effect was ruined,” he edged, glancing down at his hands again. “Given what a shithead I was.”
“Just a bit,” Jack agreed brightly—but then he sighed. “Ruined a little more so because—”
His words cut off with a tightness that Ger felt in his own chest. When he looked up, Jack was studying him with his black brows furrowed. Then, slowly, he slid down the wall until he crouched close enough to meet Ger’s eye.
“I was scared for you,” he said. “Not because of Benan, don’t get me wrong. You held your own, and I’m sure you would’ve had it handled. I was scared because of what it did to you; the fear. The way it sort of takes over, all that panic.”
All that panic.
Ger swallowed. “I can cope.”
“Can you?”
It wasn’t an accusation; not a judgement. Jack’s eyes flickered between his, searching for something. It was with an odd flip in his chest that Ger realised what Jack wanted; understanding.
“I’ve been learning to,” Ger said slowly. “For as long as I can remember, really. Certain situations set me off, is all. It happens more often now. With the way things are, you know?”
“What sets you off?”
“Violence. Shouting sometimes, not always though. Usually just reminders of—”
His chest tightened in warning, as though eventhiswas reminder enough. His knuckles bleached as his grip on his knees tightened, but then Jack’s hand lay over his, and the warmth and callouses sent a jolt of sensation through him. It was distracting, in just the right way. Real as the bite of his hilt beneath his palm when he needed it most.
Jack prompted him softly, “Of?”
He took a deep, wheezing breath, then another, easier one.
“Of how I grew up.” He pushed on through a tightening chest, the words shuddering all the way up his throat. “Who I grew upwith.Out there, with Benan, it was the violence that got to me, but it was more than that. He was going to hurt you, and I knewI’d have to hurthimto get it to stop. And last time I tried to protect someone else …Goddess, this probably sounds so stupid. I’m a Gard, it’s literally my entire job—”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” Jack said. Said it so firmly that Ger knew they could leave it there if he wanted to. That it was enough for Jack.
But maybe it wasn’t enough forhim.
