Page 73 of Bound By Threads
Not awkward—just heavy.
That kind of quiet that comes after a long day, where everything hurts a little more than it should.
“You okay, baby?” Archer asks softly, rubbing my leg like he already knows the answer but wants to hear it from me anyway.
I breathe in through my nose, still face down in the comforter. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “Maybe? Just... tired.”
Tired of fighting. Tired of remembering. Tired of pretending I’m fine when I’m barely keeping it together.
Neither of them says anything right away. They just sit with me in the silence. And honestly? That’s what I need most.
I finally rollover to face them, and I’m greeted with two equally concerned… boyfriends? Staring back at me.
“You ok?”Oscar signs worriedly, and I nod, wanting to reassure him.
“Drained? I think is the word. It’s been a lot since they appeared, and I feel like I’ve been fighting to stay afloat ever since. Add on all the feelings between us, and the worry that it’s all going to be ripped away at a moment’s notice…”I blow out a breath.“It’s a lot.”
Oscar shifts closer on the bed, like his proximity alone might help take some of the weight off. His hand finds mine, warm and grounding, and his thumb rubs gently across my knuckles.
It helps. A lot.
Archer leans back against my pillows beside me, one arm resting behind his head. “It’s okay that it’s a lot,” he says slow enough that Oscar can follow along with his lips. “You don’t have to carry it all alone. It’s what we’re for.”
“I know,” I say, though my voice feels as thin as my ability to deal with anymore blows right now. “It’s just… I think I forgot what it’s like to not be constantly in fight mode, and now that I am, I can feel the toll it’s taking on my body.”
“You really think we’d let you do this alone?”Oscar pulls his hand from mine to sign.“You’re ours now, Siren. You can’t get rid of us, even if you wanted to.”
I blink fast, tears threatening again.
I’m so tired of crying, but these feel different. They are more of a release of all the emotions I’ve been forced to feel and less about survival.
“I keep thinking I’ll wake up and this will all be gone. That you’ll both realize I’m too much, or something will happen, and—”I sign it all, too scared to say the words aloud.
“Hey.” Archer cuts me off, reaching down to brush my hair back from my face. No one’s going anywhere. You’re not too much. You’re the reason I came home.”
I look at him, then at Oscar, who gives me a small, crooked smile.“You’re stuck with us.”
I huff a weak laugh, wiping my face. “God. You two are going to ruin me.”
Archer grins. “That’s the plan.”
Oscar leans in and presses a soft kiss to my lips, and I close my eyes for a second, sinking into it. And for the first time in days, maybe weeks, the noise in my head quiets.
His kiss is soft—more of a whisper than anything else—but it settles something deep in my chest. When he pulls back, I take a breath, eyes still closed, holding onto the quiet inside me like I’m made of glass and I don’t want to break.
“So,” I murmur, sitting up a little more, fingers still tangled with Oscar’s. “What is this? Between us. What does it mean now?”
The question hangs there, and I almost expect them to tell me it’s all one big joke.
Archer’s brow furrows slightly, not out of confusion, but disbelief. Like, he can’t believe I even have to ask.
“It means you’re ours,” he says it so simply, like it really is that easy. “All in. There’s no one else for us, baby. Only you.”
Oscar nods along, his hand tightening around mine for a second before he signs,“Ours, Lottie. Always our girl.”
I let the words wash over me. Simple but so certain, like they’d decided this a long time ago.
“I still don’t know how this works… but I want it. With both of you, if that wasn’t clear.”
