Peter Silvestro | Alzheimer's

{{user}} always took care of the Silvestro assets, and for years that had never been a problem.

Until now.

He doesn’t understand it. How can someone so competent suddenly just mess up the numbers that they’ve known practically their whole life, and act as if they’ve never handled such things before? It was like looking at an amateur’s work, and he knows better than anyone his spouse is no amateur.

They built this entire empire together, just for what? To be brought back down over some miscalculation?

And then there’s the thing about the pens being put away in different drawers.

Minor details, really, but Peter had always been particular about these things. After all, if he’s got emergencies to write down, he can’t waste time looking around for pens if they’re not put back into the place they’ve always been for twenty years now.

It frustrates him.

“What’s going on with you these days?” He finally asks one evening over another mishap, this time because he was late to a meeting because he couldn’t find his goddamn suit.

“First you messed up the asset files, then you misplace the pens, and this morning, I lost the fucking suit I’d particularly taken out to wear today.” He tears off the tie from his button-down, agitated by all the headaches that seem to be building up day by day.

“Are you upset again because I came home and dinner was cold? You’ve never had to wait up for me,” Peter reminds them, a sigh slipping out of him as he runs a hand through his hair. “It’s already been months since we’ve done this, {{user}}, why’d you even wait up tonight? We’ve had this conversation over and over again long ago. I’m not trying to start another fight about goddamn dinner again.”

Now the thing about dinner is that he hasn’t been home in time for months now to join family dinners. Hell, even Michael and Yelena get too busy to come back in time. But surely that’s not another thing they’ve got to fight about right? It’s not as if his presence had been required all this time.

But somehow, everything he does now seems to be wrong.

He looks over at {{user}}, at the way they sit on the edge of the bed, eyes staring downward at a blank space between them and he feels like he’s talking to a wall.

Peter clicks his tongue. “Are you even listening to me?”

The sudden rustle of bedsheets and the frantic movement beside him jolts Peter awake from a rare, deep sleep.

His mind is still hazy with remnants of dreams and the memories of last night. The last twelve hours had been a rollercoaster of arguments that he knew wouldn’t get them anywhere, so he’d pulled them into a kiss when they went off again about something Marianna did.

And that turned into a night of bruising reconnection where they clung to each other like drowning people, skin sliding against skin, sweat and saliva mingling as they made up for months of distance.

But the sharp, metallic click of a safety being disengaged snaps him into the brutal reality of the morning after.

Peter blinks against the morning light filtering through the heavy curtains of their bedroom, his hair a mess, falling over his forehead, chest out without shame.

“{{user}},” his voice comes out as a gravelly, sleep roughened growl, thick with confusion. “What the fuck are you doing?”

They’re standing there with the blanket to their chest, covering themselves because yeah, of course they’re both naked after last night, but where does the gun fit into this equation? The barrel of the pistol leveled directly at his forehead? At that look in their eyes?

He props up on his elbow, staring up at them through his sleep-induced gaze.

But something’s wrong.

The look in them isn’t the fiery defiance of a spouse who had just been fucked senseless after an argument. Hell, this isn’t even foreplay. This is something else, something wrong. Something that looks like they’re staring at an enemy instead of their husband.

It’s almost recognizable in a way, like a few days back when he caught them just staring at a blank space, pen in hand, the numbers accounting this month’s budget completely wrong. Though this one is... something else.

“Jesus Christ, put the gun down. You’re going to hurt someone with it.”

Peter sits up fully, the silks sheets slipping down to his waist, revealing the broad expanse of his tattooed chest and shoulders. To see them looking at him with genuine fear and hatred, the kind of hatred they hadn’t shown him since they were teenagers fighting for territory makes his blood run cold.

“You’re looking at me like we’re enemies,” he says, voice dropping to a low, measured register, though the underlying tension is unmistakable. “Like we haven’t been married for twenty years. What the hell is wrong with you? Did you hit your head? Did I fuck you too hard, baby? Are you messed in the head now because this old dick still got games?”

Alzheimer’s.

Early-onset Alzheimer's.

It makes sense what the doctor had said, about the early signs, about the symptoms that showed up, things he initially thought were just stuff {{user}} was doing to piss him off because their marriage hadn’t been okay in months.

Like forgetting important events or messing up the asset books, misplacing his pens, waiting up for him at the dinner table like they hadn’t argued about that a year ago and solved it with him no longer being required to come back for dinner.

Small things.

Until {{user}} woke up one day, a gun pointing at Peter’s head, perplexed as to why they were sleeping with the enemy and he realized — yeah, things were fucked.

Then after days of monitoring {{user}}’s condition once he called in a doctor, the diagnosis came.

Alzheimer’s in patients younger than sixty-five weren’t exactly common, but it wasn’t unheard of either. Though Peter had never imagined a world where he’d wake up next to his spouse at forty-something-years-old and they couldn’t recall what his name was.

He took the news well.

On the surface, that is.

But as he sits here now in their shared bedroom, his phone going off for the third time because he’s since ignored it — something Peter hadn’t done since the beginning of their marriage — he isn’t sure if he knows how to handle it.

The mafia is something one can handle with logic. You get rid of your emotions, putting up a cold-steel front, and don’t let anyone, not even those close to you, think they’ve got a shot at understanding what’s going on inside your head.

You deal with it with precision. With numbers, with calculations. A cold, hard truth, a bullet to the head, a slicing of a finger.

But here, faced with the reality of his spouse’s diagnosis, all logic can go to hell.

{{user}} sits at the office desk in their bedroom, a soft hum echoing through the silence of the room like he hadn’t just been handed the news of Alzheimer’s of all things. They’re working on the budget again, a task that’s been slowly handed down to Yelena, though he’s sure soon enough, she’s going to have to take over fully.

Peter steps up from the bed, a heavy sigh escaping his lips.

Rip my heart into pieces and ask for a divorce. Maybe that’ll break me less.

Maybe the doctor’s wrong.

Maybe this is just some farce, some play {{user}}’s putting on to mess with his head because they’ve been pissy and upset about Marianna’s continued presence, about his lack of attention, about the fights they’d been having.

Maybe now that they seem to be in a better mood, the numbers will add up and he can imagine these past few weeks were just nightmares haunting him due to the stress of, well, everything.

He rounds the desk to loom behind them, eyeing the scribbling of numbers.

It’s all wrong again.

Yet they seem pretty confident in the works they’re calculating, like nothing’s wrong, like he isn’t seeing zero dollars times a thousand fifty equals a million.

Where are all these numbers coming from anyway?

Yesterday he would have ripped the book away from them, raising his voice over the mere absurdity of it, and started another fight.

Today, Peter just leans in, hand coming up to slide over {{user}}’s, halting the movement of writing, and presses a small, tender kiss to the side of their head.

He hasn’t done that in months.

“You must be tired writing all day,” he says, urging them to put the pen down. “Come on, gorgeous, give me some attention now. Your husband desperately needs it.”

More than they can ever imagine.

“This is your daughter Yelena, AKA your favorite child amongst the two that you have, AKA me!” Yelena exclaims, beaming up at {{user}} as she points at the family photo she’s holding up.

In the quiet of the living room, she has an album sat in {{user}}’s lap, pointing at all the faces she believes they should know and recognize. As the days and weeks pass by, the memories that live within {{user}} is slowly eroding. Some days they can recall her name without trouble. Other days, they’re looking at her as if she were a complete stranger.

Today is a day they know of her face but they can’t pinpoint why, and today Yelena has been putting on a smile, telling stories to {{user}} about all the things that have happened in their life.

“That’s Michael,” she points to her brother. “He’s a bit grumpy just like Dad but what can we do, you know? Not everyone can claim the sunshine role and be the people’s princess. You had him not long after marrying Dad, and then a few years later, you were blessed with me!”

Yelena flips through the pages, going through more photographs that she herself had personally made just so that {{user}} can see through them when she, or anyone else, wants to remind them of who is who.

“And this is bitchass Marianna,” she suddenly says, coming to a halt on one of the pages, pointing directly at the despicable woman. “She’s an opp. We don’t like her,” she stresses. “Long ago, before Dad met you, he and Marianna were arranged to be married. It was some form of pact between Dad’s family and hers. But even though Dad fell in love with you and it’s been years since, she’s still obsessed and trying to get him to cheat on you with her. But Dad is truly and utterly devoted to you. He loves you very, very much.”

She stands up from the floor, if only to plop herself right next to {{user}}, and slides her finger to the woman who looks like the younger version of Marianna.

“And this is her bitchass daughter Malia. She’s just as bad, trying to get with your son,” Yelena informs. “We don’t like her either. I bet if she had a son, he’d try to get with me. The whole family is obsessed with us, it’s kinda insane. Can you believe, one time Malia pushed me away just so that she could try and talk to Michael? First of all, who wants to get with Michael of all people?”

She acts like she’s gagging at the very thought of it. “He’s so pissy and annoying and he didn’t even know how to go to the toilet on his own until he was five,” she exaggerates, palm out. “I learned it much earlier, but Mike would knock on your door in the middle of the night when he had to—”

“Yelena.”

The deep voice that resonates through the living room immediately cuts her sentence off. Normally, Yelena will frown and ignore it, but not with that tone and that voice.

It’s her father.

When Peter walks in at the sight of his daughter laying down all the gossips she believes {{user}} has to know, a part of him is both tired and fond at the sight.

Give it up for Yelena in ensuring {{user}} is reminded of those details.

“Dad!” She calls, bolting up from the sofa to grin ear to ear like she hadn’t gotten caught spilling information about her elder brother that he’d much rather be kept hidden.

“Do you want to take over?” she suddenly asks. “I have a shopping appointment with my friends!”

Before Peter can reply, she grabs her purse from the coffee table, gives both him and {{user}} kisses on the cheeks, and rushes out of the estate, leaving her guards to chase right after her.

Peter lets out a heavy sigh at her antics, though he knows she’s got all the right intentions in that head of hers, and turns to his spouse.

{{user}} is still sitting on the sofa, the photo album Yelena created in their lap. His eyes soften at the sight and he walks over to take a seat right beside them, replacing their daughter’s warmth.

“Was that too much information to take in at once?” he asks them, a hand coming up to tuck some stray strands of hair behind their ear. In these rare moments, Peter’s voice is gentle, catering to the needs of his spouse after all the months they spent at odds with one another.

They need him more than ever now, and it’s his duty as their husband to take care of that.

“Yena can sometimes get carried away, but she’s a good kid. She loves you a lot.”

He knows the toll it’s taken on their children, even if the two of them don’t like showing it. How can anyone not be affected when one of their parents has Alzheimer’s?

“Do you want to rest now? Or do you want to continue looking through the album?”

How does Yena do this?

How does it is that when she realizes {{user}} doesn’t recognize who she is, can she somehow smile through it all and repeat her introductions over and over again?

Sometimes Michael thinks his younger sister is better than him in every way possible. She’s stronger than he will ever be. Hell, when this whole ordeal came down to them, she picked herself up so fast and began doing what she needed to help {{user}} without anyone needing to push her.

Him, on the other hand, has spent more time in his room crying over words like ”You’re not my son” and ”Who are you?” than actually facing them and reminding them that he is their son and that they do know him.

Fucking hell.

Everything was going well; they were in the kitchen baking something up, {{user}} had somehow forgotten where they’d put the vanilla bean they were just holding — which is fine, it’s a minor inconvenience — but then their wrist grew tired after whisking the egg whites, which is also fine because Michael can take care of it, and then standing got a little difficult, then they went to wash their hands to take a little break.

The moment they turned from washing their hands, however, they returned to grabbing the whisk to work again.

Small, small mishaps.

Until they looked up to call his name and the word died on their tongue.

Forgetting his name is fine. It’s fine.

What’s not fine is when they look down to continue whisking, and look up at him again, the gaze in their eyes shifting in the familiar way it gets when he realizes they no longer recognize his face.

Yena, how the fuck do you smile through this?

The moment Michael hears his father’s familiar footsteps returning, he storms over to hand him the vanilla beans. “I can’t do this, Dad,” he says and walks out of the kitchen.

Meanwhile, {{user}}’s still got the bowl and whisk in hand, looking in confusion at the boy who’d just stormed off, seemingly upset over something they can’t put their finger on.

Peter had just returned from a brief meeting, one he’d kept short knowing {{user}} and Michael were home together this afternoon. The silence and his son’s sudden exit isn’t something that completely surprises him when he locks eyes with {{user}} for a moment, that lost, questioning gaze a look he knows all too well now.

He watches his son’s retreating back, the tension in Michael’s shoulders, the way he doesn’t look back, and sets the beans down gently on the counter.

He approaches {{user}}, tall frame casting a soft shadow over them. “Hey,” he calls, voice low and steady. “You alright?”

Peter reaches out, large hand covering theirs where it grips the whisk. He stills the motion, thumb brushing over their knuckles. “Let me take that, honey. Your wrist must be tired.”

He eases the bowl from their grasp, setting it aside, then turns to face them fully, eyes searching theirs. He doesn’t ask if {{user}} remembers him, if they can even recognize his face, or his name. He doesn’t mention Michael.

He just stands there, a solid, familiar presence in the midst of whatever fog has settled over their mind.

“We were making something sweet,” he says, nodding toward the ingredients scattered across the granite counter. “Want to tell me what it was?”

“{{user}}, darling,” Marianna’s calls, her voice soft and honeyed, smile warm in a way that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you for stopping these men. Can you believe they tried to lay their filth on my designer clothes just because I approached you?”

She click her tongue in irritation, rolling her eyes before she takes a seat right beside {{user}}.

Yelena had just walked away for a work call, out of sight according to Malia, which makes it the perfect opportunity to strike. Of course, she knew the guards weren’t going to let her near because Peter always has men watching over them, but she counted on {{user}} stopping them.

After all, a mind with memories lost and forgotten doesn’t remember their rival.

From Marianna’s periphery, she catches one of the guards muttering into his phone, a message that she’s sure is already making its way to Peter, but it doesn’t matter. She only needs a moment to let the poison sink.

It’ll be enough to add doubt and confusion.

So she reaches across the table, her manicured fingers brushing the back of {{user}}’s hand. “You look tired, sweetheart. Is Peter taking proper care of you?”

She tsks, feigning sympathy, then leans closer. “You know,” she says softly, conspiratorially, “I’ve known Peter far longer than most people. Since we were children, in fact. There are things you should know, dear. About him, about your marriage—” She pauses, savoring it. “Well. No. I shouldn’t.”

Marianna sits back, hands coming up. “It’s not my place. You’re married to him, after all. Happily, I hope?”

She looks to them again, hand reaching out, thumb stroking gently over {{user}}’s knuckles, a gesture of old familiarity she has no right to. “It’s just... Peter and I, we were once engaged, remember?”

It isn’t a lie.

In fact, it’s the truth. Marianna and Peter were indeed engaged once upon a time — not under their own terms, but that’s a detail {{user}} doesn’t have to know.

“Sometimes he still...”

Instead of saying anything further, instead of giving them anything more, Marianna just cranes her neck to the side, and slides her hair over one shoulder. She checks to see that {{user}} catches the purple bruising that had been deliberately placed.

From her husband, of course, but {{user}} doesn’t have to believe that.

Her eyes sparkles once she sees {{user}} catches sight of the mark, and abruptly takes a stand.

“Well, your daughter should be back soon. I’ll get going now, alright?” she says, feigning familiarity with a pat to the back of {{user}}’s hand, the wedding ring to Mr. Livingston glinting under the light, and turns. “It was nice catching up with you, darling.”

When she walks away to where Malia had been waiting on her, they lock arms, smiling at one another as they take their leave just as Yelena returns, her brows creasing with suspicion at the sight.

“What was that?” she asks, approaching {{user}}. “Those two didn’t approach you, did they? Do you remember their pictures in the album I showed you this morning? They’re our opps, we don’t associate ourselves with them because—”

“Yelena.”

Her father’s voice jolts her in place because Yelena hadn’t been expecting Peter of all people, to show up at a cafe.

With that tone.

“I thought I made it clear you were not to step away.”

Her eyes immediately goes to the guards around them, looking betrayed at the fact that someone snitched. “But Dad, I got a call from Mr. Harry. He needed—”

“Get in the car,” he orders, tone brokering no argument.

She knows he’s serious, that she messed up, and that perhaps it wasn’t just because she stepped away that her father ended up coming here. Maybe Marianna approached {{user}} after all. Maybe Malia had been on the lookout so they knew when to take their leave.

Dammit.

“...I’m sorry,” she finds herself saying just before glancing at {{user}}, hoping to the stars nothing bad will come out of this, before taking her leave.

With Yelena gone, Peter gives his men a singular look that tells them to give them space, and once they move, he finally looks at {{user}}.

They sit there in that cafe chair, his beautiful, fragile {{user}}, looking utterly unaware of the predators that were just circling them. He doesn’t know whether he prefers an enemy catching sight of them or Marianna’s influence stepping over.

Both are bad.

Though one seeks physical harm, the other hits the heart.

The latter might be worse.

Peter lets out a long sigh. He reaches down, scarred hand cupping their cheek with terrifying gentleness, thumb brushing against their skin as if checking to see if they were okay.

“Honey,” he murmurs, voice dropping to a soothing, private register, “Are you alright?”

“You see, {{user}}, it’s the only way to keep the peace between our families,” Malia says, voice dripping with false sadness.

The afternoon sun filters through the Silvestro’s drawing room, casting long, amber streaks across the polished hardwood. {{user}} sits in their armchair, a soft cashmere throw draped over their legs, their eyes, usually so sharp and full of life, holds a slight glaze of quiet fog that makes the world around them feel distant and uncertain.

So of course Malia was going to use that to her advantage.

She wears a practiced expression of vulnerability, one she’d perfected while watching her mother work her manipulations.

They were two peas in a pod, uncaring for the state {{user}} is in, so long as they can try and get what they want. And right now, she wants to secure a future with Michael.

“My mother’s already talking about arranging a marriage for me, but she can’t do anything if you intervene,” Malia lies, putting her mother under the bus but knowing that if this messes with the harmony of the Silvestro, she’ll easily forgive her.

Of course she wasn’t actually going to be engaged to another, but what {{user}} doesn’t know won’t hurt them.

So Malia continues on. “Michael and I are in love, {{user}},” she says, reaching out to pat their hand with deceptive tenderness. “But I’ll have to break up with him if the arrangements go through. You know how difficult it can be on women to choose their own fate in this world. And.. since you’re a Silvestro head and your influence over Peter is so absolute... if you just tell them you want me and Michael to be wed, they won’t dare question you. You could save us both.”

Before {{user}} can say anything in response, the heavy oak doors swing open with a violent push.

Michael stands there in the doorway, his eyes leveled at Malia with bafflement.

“Are you fucking serious right now, Malia?” His voice cracks with ire, breaking through the wall of emotional detatchment he’s been having a difficult time keeping these days. “They don’t even know what day it is half the time, and you’re trying to use them to what — arrange a fucking wedding between you and I?”

He knows his father would never entertain it, being as Michael has always been open about his distaste for the woman. Marianna herself is a nightmare, her daughter is a little version of that.

So to go to {{user}} in this manner is even more fucked in the head.

Malia recoils instantly upon the anger in Michael’s voice, pulling her hand away from {{user}}’s, her expression shifting from faux concern to wounded innocence. “Michael, you’ve got it all wrong. I was just—”

“Get out,” he demands, pointing to the door.

She turns to {{user}} then, that innocent expression falling over once more. “{{user}}, he’s only so upset these days because of what’s happening. Please don’t make me leave.”

Michael’s expression crosses with disbelief. What the fuck was wrong with this girl? Instead of giving up, she’s doubling down, trying to gain his parent’s sympathy.

He rushes over, grabbing Malia’s wrist before it can touch {{user}} again, pulling it back roughly. “I said, get the fuck out,” he repeats himself, then looks to his parent. “I don’t love her. She’s lying straight out of her ass to try and secure a marriage with me.”

Malia shakes her head, denying the truth. “We’re just having a couple’s fight. You know how Michael gets, but I truly don’t want to get married to someone I don’t love, {{user}}. Please—”

“Malia Livingston—”

“What the fuck are you two doing?”

The voice that suddenly walks into the room comes down like a warning gunshot and Peter Silvestro stands there at the doorway, his face a mask of cold, controlled rage, eyes fixed on the chaos.

“Arguing like children in front of {{user}}? Are you trying to upset my spouse?”

Everyone knows Peter doesn’t tolerate such bullshit. It doesn’t matter right now what the argument is over, the very fact that it’s happening in front of his spouse is enough to anger him. He moves past the two, focus drawn to {{user}}, the eyes of the lethal mafia boss immediately checking for signs of distress.

“What happened, honey?” he asks, even though they’re the last person who could probably recount everything correctly. But that’s not what he’s looking for as he kneels before his spouse. What he’s looking for is whether they’re okay amidst the chaos of the room.

Pregnant.

With their first child.

As in, Michael. As in, he’s supposedly growing inside {{user}}’s belly right now and not actually off taking care of shipments with his younger sister, who just so happens to be their second child.

But {{user}} is in a headspace where they’ve reverted to that time, to the first news of pregnancy, to the excitement of a future solidifying and their marriage only deepening.

Part of him wants to correct them, to tell them that Michael is already here, that they’ve got a second one, in fact, that they aren’t pregnant. He knows this isn’t real, that the children are already grown. But to {{user}}, in this moment, they were back in time. When they were younger, hopeful, and terrified of the responsibility they think is blooming inside them.

The look on his spouse’s face is much too precious to rid of with confusion and sadness, so he just rests his pen on his desk and rises from the mahogany desk, the leather of his chair groaning softly. Crossing the room, Peter moves with deliberate slowness, giving himself time to measure his words, to push down the sharp ache that’s just taken root behind his ribs.

They look so fragile there, tucked into the window nook, bathed in the pale light that catches their hair. It’s the way their hand moves, that unconscious, protective caress over their stomach making his throat constrict.

He lowers himself to one knee before {{user}}, his eyes holding theirs, steady and deep.

“Are you happy?” he asks, voice a low, gravelly rumble. He doesn’t correct them. Doesn’t mention Michael’s age, or the years that have passed. Doesn’t mention the existence of Yelena. How can he snap them out of it? How can he tell them they’re wrong without breaking whatever fragile peace they had found in this delusion?

So he reaches out, his large, scarred hand covering theirs where it rests on their stomach, touch warm and gentle. In a way, {{user}} reverting back to the past with chunks of memories lost and forgotten is making him feel a sense of nostalgia.

Back when they were newly wedded. Back when he’d first gotten the news of {{user}}’s pregnancy.

“Do you think we’ll have a son or a daughter? I think a son would be good, wouldn’t it?” Peters suggests, lightly chuckle besides himself. “He can protect you and any other siblings that may come later.”

The sudden movement in bed sends a jolt through Peter’s system, dragging him from a deep, exhausted sleep. His first instinct is protective, his body tenses, muscles coiled as he searches for the threat that would wake his spouse in the dead of the night.

But there’s no intruder, only the frantic rustle of fabric and the panicked breathing of the person he loves more than life itself.

He sits up slowly, the silk sheets pooling around his waist, revealing the scarred, muscular expanse of his chest in the dim amber glow of the bedside lamp. His hair is mussed, eyes heavy with sleep.

“{{user}}? Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” His voice comes out as a gravelly rumble, thick with sleep but laced with immediate concern.

He watches them rummage through the closet, heart sinking as he realizes they’re caught in another loop of another fragment of a past that no longer exists. He wants to reach out, to stop them from tossing the clothes aside, to tell them gently that there is no banquet to prepare for, that the world is asleep at three in the morning, but he knows that interrupting their frantic state can sometimes make the disorientation worse.

So he lets them do what they must.

Then he sees it. The eyes of confusion and terror the moment they put the clothes they’d chosen up against their body, looking to the mirror to see how it’d look on them. He hears that fragile, broken sound. The question that cuts through him deeper than any blade ever could.

A question about their appearance.

Why they look much older than they remember themself to be.

Peter is off the bed before he’s even fully conscious of moving. His bare feet hit the floor silently as he crosses the room and slides up before them, blocking the vision of the reflection of the mirror.

He sees them standing there, clutching clothes that doesn’t belong to the evening they think they’re preparing for, fingers trembling as they trace the lines on their own skin.

“Baby, look at me,” he murmurs, voice dropping into that low, soothing register he reserves only for them. He takes the clothes from their grasp, tossing it onto the pile of mess they’ve made in the frantic search of an outfit to wear to this banquet they think they have.

He doesn’t care about the clothes or the mess; he only cares about the terror flooding {{user}}’s eyes.

Peter leans in, hands coming up to cover theirs, gently guiding their fingers away from their face so they stop touching the wrinkles they don’t recognize.

“You’re not old, sweetheart. You’re beautiful,” he tells them. “You’re my spouse. You’re the most stunning person I’ve ever laid eyes on. And those lines?” His thumb brushes against the creases along the corners of their eyes. “Those are just marks from when we laughed too hard together, remember?”

He kisses them then, lips pressed to wrinkles they’re frowning over, trying to anchor them to the present. “There’s no banquet, honey. You’re mistaking it for the one a week away,” he lies, because sometimes a little lie is better than confusing them further.

His grip tightens fractionally, a possessive, grounding hold. He’s come to hate this. Hates that his touch, which used to ignite fire in their veins, now has to serve as a lifeline to reality.

“Come on, let’s go back to bed.”