Pale sunlight washed through thin curtains, washing the bedroom in a watery gold and collecting like liquid uncertainty around Jared. Not yet seven. He would have stayed in bed, willingly lost to the dreams that kept the Dark's whispers at bay, but the fragrance of coffee and the subtle pull of the morning sun dragged him up before the alarm. Or maybe it was Adrian, already moving, clattering and humming under his breath. The sound was soft and insistent, much like the Dark: ever-present, a companion he neither welcomed nor could ignore.

Adrian's humming slipped in, vibrating along Jared's bones, stirring the Dark folded securely in his chest. The Dark was never merely energy. The more he learned from the Shadow Kind, the more he studied its workings, the more he believed it was alive. It was distinct, like a parasite with its own consciousness, yet more than that: a sentient presence residing deep inside. Sometimes he wondered if he was losing his grip on what was real.

Bare feet on cold tile. Jared rubbed at his eyes, sleep clinging to his skin. Adrian looked up from the stove, his soft smile gentling the edges of the world.

“Morning,” Adrian said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and glancing momentarily at Jared's face with a subtle crease of concern on his brow. “Eggs?”

“Coffee,” Jared muttered, heading straight for the mug already waiting on the counter. “And… The eggs smell good.”

Adrian returned to the pan, stirring the potatoes in practiced motions. “You slept a little better.”

Jared grunted. As close to agreement as he could manage. He had slept better. Not free of the Dark’s drifting unease, or the sharp shock of waking with the sense of eyes in the corner. But better. No nightmares he could remember.

Adrian quietly set a plate on the small table. “Sit and eat, please.”

Jared sat. When Adrian said "please" like that, resistance was impossible. The Dark, curled deep in his chest, stirred at Adrian’s voice. But it did not bristle. Not this morning. Instead, it unfurled, slow and languid, like a soothing, warm wave flowing through him. The sensation spread, leaving a perceptible heat along his ribs, a soft throb vibrating inside his veins. The Dark felt like it was breathing with him, its presence a comforting heaviness rather than an oppressive force.

They ate in the softness of routine. Outside, the city woke, a quiet drone flowing through the glass. Inside, only the clink of silverware. The steady sound of the coffee maker. Familiar sounds. Safe.

Adrian finished first, leaning back, stretching until his joints popped. He had changed since they last worked together. Still gentle, still warm, but more focused now. More certain. The Dark watched him now, where before it had not. Was it Adrian who had changed, or the Dark itself?

For a while, neither spoke. Jared focused on the mechanics of eating. The texture of potatoes. The heat of the mug in his palms. He could feel it coming; the burden of an unvoiced truth settling between them. With a bite of egg poised on his fork, he stopped briefly, considering the silence and Adrian's expression. Adrian wore that look. The one he had when sorting through something difficult, searching for a way to approach without harm.

Finally, Adrian set his mug down. The sound was soft, deliberate.

“Jared,” he said.

There it was.

Jared didn’t look up. He scraped the last of the egg onto his fork, even though he wasn’t hungry anymore. “Mm?” He put the egg in his mouth and slid the plat away. 

“We need to talk.”

Jared huffed a quiet breath. “We’re already talking.”

Adrian’s mouth curved faintly, but it didn’t shine in his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

The Dark shifted. A subtle tightening under Jared’s ribs. Not alarm. Anticipation. He swallowed and set his fork down, hands flat against the table, anchoring himself.

“Okay,” he said. “Talk.”

Adrian folded his hands together, resting them against his knee. Doctor posture. Unthreatening, but serious. Jared had seen him sit like that across dozens of beds, had watched him deliver news that broke people in half.

“I reviewed your latest scans this morning,” Adrian said. “And your telemetry from the implant.”

Jared’s jaw tensed. “You always do.”

“Yes,” Adrian agreed. “Because it’s my job. And because I care.”

Jared’s eyes shifted up at that, then away again, toward the window. The city light was brighter now, catching on the edges of buildings.

“The Dark’s progression hasn’t accelerated yet,” Adrian continued. “Not dramatically. But it is not stable, either. The markers we talked about, those are all still present.”

“I know,” Jared said quietly.

“And they will worsen,” Adrian said. Gently. Just truth. “Especially if you remain in the field.”

That was at the center of it. The words sat heavy in the air, bearing the burden of too many sleepless nights and fears kept silent in the shadows.

Jared leaned back in his chair, folding his arms loosely over his chest. A defensive posture, whether he meant it or not. “You’ve said this before.”

“I have,” Adrian said. “But you keep choosing the same answer.”

Jared let out a thin laugh. “Funny. I was going to say the same thing about you.”

Adrian’s eyes sharpened. “This isn’t about stubbornness.”

“No,” Jared agreed. “It’s about choice.”

Adrian inhaled slowly, then nodded. “Yes. It is. Which is why I need you to hear this.” He paused briefly, just a fraction. “I could write the order today, Jared. I could pull you from active duty. Full medical exemption. Research-only clearance, if that. No field exposure. No further surges.”

The Dark stirred. Something chilled and displeased curled through Jared’s chest.

“I won’t,” Adrian added quickly. “Not without your consent. But I could. And you know that.”

Jared’s fingers clenched against his sleeves. He kept his vision focused on the table. “I know.”

The Dark pressed; not outward, but inward. A weight settling on Jared’s lungs. He searched for words and found only fragments. Blood on tile. Chains in the dark. The sound people made when something inside them broke.

He paused briefly, words failing him for a moment. Finally, he admitted, “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Adrian met Jared's eyes, a softness within his look that asked the unvoiced question. The pause lingered, charged with their mutual understanding, challenging Jared to find the words.

Jared swallowed. “I see what it does. The Dark. What exposure does to people who don’t have… whatever fractured part I have that lets me survive it.”

Adrian didn’t interrupt.

“It eats them,” Jared continued. “It hollows them out. Turns them into weapons, or conduits, or just… ruins. People like Baker. Like LeMere. Like the civilians in the tunnels.” The timbre of his voice roughened. He recalled the wrenching, acrid metallic taste of the air and the reverberation of distant screams that bounced endlessly off the wet stone. “They didn’t choose that. They didn’t even know what they were touching.”

He looked up then, eyes focused with something like anger. “If I’m out there, if I’m the one going into those places, it means fewer people have to. It means fewer people get exposed at all. Fewer chances for someone to become what I am.”

Adrian exhaled slowly. “You are not a contagion, Jared.”

Jared snorted softly. “Tell that to the protocols.”

Adrian’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t argue the point.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Jared said. “The Dark, the implant, the Tuning. But it’s here. And if it’s going to overtake me anyway, then I want it to mean something. I want the damage to… do some good. To be useful.”

Adrian’s voice was careful. “You’re talking about martyrdom.”

Jared shook his head sharply. “No. I’m talking about responsibility. I can contain it. I can fight it. I can keep it from spreading.”

“And at what cost?” Adrian asked.

Jared’s lips pursed together as he weighed Adrian’s words, a trace of resignation passing through his eyes. He shrugged, one shoulder lifting, as if the gesture alone could deflect the enormity of what he was admitting. "Eventually? Everything." The answer settled with quiet finality, revealing not only his acceptance of the risk but also the underlying weariness of carrying such knowledge.

The words rested between them. Heavy. Unmoving.

Adrian got up quickly, turning away, hands braced against the counter. He stared down at the sink, jaw locked.

“This is exactly what I’m afraid of,” he whispered gently. “You talk like your death is a foregone conclusion.”

Jared watched his back. The tightness in his shoulders. “It is.”

“No,” Adrian snapped, then immediately softened. “It doesn’t have to be. Not yet. Not if we slow this down.”

Jared leaned forward, elbows on the table. “By taking me out of the field.”

“Yes,” Adrian said. “By reducing surges. By minimizing exposure. By giving your body and your mind time.”

“And then what?” Jared asked. “I sit in a lab and watch other agents go in? I read reports about things I could have stopped myself?”

“You live,” Adrian said. The word broke softly.

Jared stilled. breath snagged in his chest.

“You live longer,” Adrian continued. “You buy time. Years, potentially.”

Jared stared at his hands. “Years doing what?”

Adrian turned back to him. “Research. Teaching. Oversight. You have knowledge no one else does. You don’t need to be bleeding in alleyways to make a difference.”

Jared exhaled sharply, a short, uneasy sound. “You once told me, ‘But you can choose who you are in the meantime.’”

Adrian blinked, caught off guard.

“You said that,” Jared pressed on, voice more composed now. “After you diagnosed me at the Resonance Phase. When I talked about becoming a Dark Anchor, you said I could choose who I was anyway.”

Adrian closed his eyes briefly. “I remember.”

“This,” Jared said, spreading his hands helplessly, “is me choosing.”

Adrian opened his eyes, pain flickering through them. “And what if that choice kills you faster?”

Jared didn’t answer immediately. The Dark pulsed, a low resonance underneath his skin.

“Then at least it’s a road I recognize,” he said at last. “I need the movement. The puzzles. The unknown. I need to keep asking questions. I have to keep pressing at the edges of this thing until it pushes back hard enough to finish me.”

“That’s not living,” Adrian said. “That’s burning.”

Jared shrugged again. “Maybe. But it’s my burn.”

Adrian sat back down slowly, rubbing a hand over his face. Doctor, facing a terminal prognosis that wouldn't behave.

“I’ve watched patients make this argument before,” he spoke in a low voice. “Quality over quantity. Dignity over duration. And sometimes they’re right. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Jared’s shoulders tensed. He hadn’t expected that concession.

“But sometimes,” Adrian continued, “they’re just afraid of slowing down long enough to feel the grief.”

Jared flinched.

Adrian met his eyes. “Are you afraid of what happens when the fight stops?”

Jared opened his mouth, then closed it. The answer lodged somewhere behind his ribs.

“I’m afraid of watching myself disappear,” he said eventually. “Piece by piece. I’m afraid of being safe and empty.”

Adrian’s tone mellowed. “You wouldn’t be empty.”

Jared looked at him, something raw in the set of his eyes. “Wouldn’t I?”

Silence followed, dense as fog spreading over the small kitchen. The muted morning light gleamed on the table’s surface, amplifying the sense of suspended possibility. A quiet tension defined by all the futures they could not guarantee.

Adrian spoke first. “I’m afraid,” he said.

The admission struck a blow to the chest.

Jared froze. “You… what?”

“I’m afraid of losing you,” Adrian said simply. No clinical distance now. No measured phrasing. “I’m afraid of watching you Tune yourself into an early grave because you think it’s the only way to matter.”

Jared stared at him, heart beating fast. He didn’t know where to put his hands. His eyes. He fixed on the edge of the table, the grain of the wood.

“I don’t know how to respond to that,” he said honestly.

“I’m not asking you to fix it,” Adrian said. “Just hear it.”

Jared nodded, once. “I hear you.”

He took a breath. Then another.

“Everyone dies,” he said, the words awkward and halting. “It’s not fatalism. It’s just reality. Every relationship ends, one way or another. Impermanence is part of being human.”

Adrian watched him, expression enigmatic.

“Living,” Jared continued, voice quiet, “is learning how to hold that space. Knowing it ends. Choosing to step into it anyway.”

His shoulders stooped. “It scares me too. Losing you. Losing this. But I don’t want to spend what time I have pretending I’m going to have a fairy tale ending. This is real life.”

Adrian’s eyes were moist, even as his voice stayed steady. “You want to spend it with me?”

“Yes,” Jared said. The word was spoken softly. “I do.”

Another silence. This one fragile. Different.

“There’s something else,” Jared said quickly, afraid he’d lose momentum if he stopped. “Something I have to ask. And you don’t have to answer it now.”

Adrian straightened slightly. “Go on.”

Jared’s eyes lowered to the floor. His foot tapped once, then came to rest. “When the time comes. When the containment protocols need to be activated.”

Adrian went very still.

“I want it to be you,” Jared said. “I want you to do it.”

Adrian’s breath faltered, just slightly.

“I want you to be the last person I see,” Jared rushed on, words cascading. “I believe in you. You’ll do it with care. With respect. You won’t let it turn into something cruel. I know that’s a lot. I know it’s selfish.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

“I don’t want anyone else,” Jared finished softly.

For a long moment, Adrian didn’t speak. When he did, his voice became heavy but controlled.

“I don’t want to trust anyone else with it either,” he said.

Jared looked up then.

Adrian held his eyes. “If that’s what you choose,” he said, “then I will honor it.”

Jared’s chest hurt. He nodded, once. Awkward. Uncertain. Still steadfast.

Outside, the city woke. Inside, at the small kitchen table, steam rose from the neglected mugs of coffee, curling in the morning light like something alive, breathing. A quiet tribute to the burdens and choices that rested between them.