noun

       • a rope or chain for tying an animal; the limit of one's endurance.

transitive verb

       • to fasten with a tether; to limit.  

It's quiet, that night. The kind of quiet that settles into every breathing body, deep in strong spines and soft in resilient hearts. The air is still and calm, the sheets making no sound where they rest on bare skin and drape firm bones.

Troye's fingers comb the tangles from his lover's hair, the motion subconscious and gentle as he leans his head back against the wall. His chest rises more prominently with every breath when he's sitting like this, his shoulders pressed to the headboard and one leg drawn up. Connor's breaths are shallower, less obvious with the sleep that relaxes his features and keeps the constant worry from his face.

There's a tightness to Troye's skin where the moonlight filters through the window and basks him in fragile white light. Like there's too much inside of him and not enough space, like there are things he wants to feel and do and say but can't because his body isn't big enough to encompass it all.

It doesn't feel as bad when he glances down at Connor. It feels like maybe his skin will stretch or maybe the things inside of him will fall into each other like a jigsaw puzzle and eliminate the empty space he can't fill. It feels like maybe his bones are too solid and too strong and his skin is too thin and too fragile, but maybe that's okay - maybe his skin will form scar tissue over all his open wounds and maybe his bones will learn to bend instead of break.

Maybe there will be a time, somewhere in the distant future he's sure they'll share together, where he won't lay awake at night and feel hands on him that don't belong to his boyfriend.

Or maybe there won't. Maybe ten years from now he'll still lay beside a sleeping Connor and feel his skin crawl with a past he can't erase. Maybe there will still be mornings spent entirely in the shower, will be hours and hours of feeling the water pour down his skin and suck away the moisture but not the memories. Maybe, in ten years, he still won't really be able to talk about it.

"Troye?" Connor murmurs, blinking bleary eyes open. His voice is thick with sleep and effortlessly disturbs the silence Troye has spent too much time basking in.

He hushes him, fingers still combing through the older man's hair as he looks down at him warmly. He doesn't bother smiling - Connor would see right through it in a heartbeat. "Go back to sleep."

Connor hums. His eyes slip shut and, for a brief inexplicable moment, Troye feels his throat lock at the idea that Connor might listen to him. He brushes it off a second later, resumes the motion of his fingers when he realizes he'd stopped, and tells himself he's being ridiculous.

"What's wrong?" Connor questions a long minute later. He turns onto his side, angling his head up to meet Troye's hesitant gaze. Like he'd sensed the distress emanating from his lover's form. Like he'd known that if he closed his eyes for too long, Troye might lose his grip on reality again.

"Nothing," Troye assures him quickly, softly, uncertainly. He does smile now - sweetly, gently, steadily. "Really. You've got an early class tomorrow."

They don't say anything. Their eyes meet in a silent stand-off, Troye's unreadable but pleading for something he isn't sure how to name and Connor's readable but full of things Troye doesn't understand. Things like their first kiss - their real first kiss, the one they don't talk about - and how soft his voice had been when he'd assured him that he could always say no. Things like their first time - Troye's first time ever because the creaking beds were not sex and Connor doesn't understand a lot of things about his past, but he understands that.

Troye takes his hand away from Connor's hair. Everything feels softer in this light, like truths are less solid and heavy and more intangible and weightless. He looks away.

"Maybe I should see a therapist."

It's not what Connor wants him to say, but it's enough to have the concern melting into something more gentle. It's the look he gets every time they drift to deeper waters, every time Troye brings up the life before this one. Connor never seems to know what to say when he does, always quieter than he ever is and always more physically affectionate to make up for the verbal reassurances he isn't sure how to give.

Because Connor is loving and kind and beautiful and things are great between them, as perfect as a real relationship ever could be, but there are some things they can't share. Some things Connor will never understand and Troye will never be able to talk about with someone that will never know how to reply.

It's fine if sometimes Troye thinks he's somewhere else with someone else - Connor will hold his hands to keep him from tearing himself apart and gently coax him from the shower when the water's all but frozen. It's just that Connor doesn't ask where he went and Troye doesn't tell him who he was with.

And, sometimes, Troye wonders if maybe that's the reason he still can't sleep through the night.

 "Okay," Connor agrees, watching him carefully. His hand creeps across the space between them, fingers entwining with Troye's as he traces the veins running between his white knuckles. "I think that could be good for you."

"Yeah?" Troye murmurs. He searches his boyfriend's face for that intangible feeling of truth, his skin loosening when he finds it. His breath is soft between his lips when he exhales, his lashes fluttering over his cheeks when he blinks.

"Yeah," Connor assures. He draws their clasped hands towards him, kissing at the back of Troye's before dropping them to the sheets between them. "Do you want me to look into it, or is this something you have to do on your own?"

There's no judgement in his tone, nothing that says he's swaying the vote one way or the other, and Troye runs his thumb across his knuckles in thanks. "I think," he confesses, "this is something I have to do on my own."

Connor smiles. "Okay. You're right, though. I really should get some more sleep. I have to be up in-" he cuts off, turning his head at an awkward angle to try to read the alarm on the bedside table.

"Three hours," Troye supplies for him. He smiles at the curse that slips from his partner's lips, affection finding the hollows of his chest and making a home beneath his ivory skin. It's pink with the flush of happiness and heart, taking the gauntness from his flesh and replacing it with life. "Go back to sleep. I love you."

Connor sighs. He curls a hand around the back of Troye's neck and draws him down into a comfortable kiss, the kind that makes Troye's stomach swoop and smile broaden. "I love you too," he breathes against his skin, letting him go. He turns over onto his other side, back to his boyfriend and hands curling under the pillows as he settles in with a yawn. "I'm really happy for you."

Troye smiles again where Connor can't see. Leaning down, he kisses Connor's shoulder and lays beside him, pressed to his back with an arm draped across his waist. "I'm happy, too."

They are a team, a well-oiled machine designed to weather the worst of storms, and they face all things together. Even if Connor isn't always standing beside him on the front lines, he's the hand reassuringly squeezing his shoulder and tightening his armor before he heads towards the battle ground.