The warehouse was quiet now.
The kind of quiet that settled after chaos, when the blood had dried and the screams had stopped echoing. Steve stood there long after the sirens faded, long after Christian was taken to the hospital and cleared for bruises and shock.
But Steve couldn't move.
Not really.
He sat on the edge of an old crate, the floor around him still stained with Joe's blood.
He didn't cry.
He couldn't.
Joe had been many things — a brother, a soldier, a shadow he never truly saw until it was too late. But he was gone now. And there was nothing left to say.
Or so he thought.
One of the officers handed Steve a small envelope later that night, found inside Joe's jacket. It was worn at the edges. Folded once, then folded again. His name was written across the front in Joe's familiar, messy handwriting.
Just: Steve.
Steve turned it over in his fingers for a long time before opening it.
The letter inside was a gut punch. Raw. Unfiltered. A wound written in ink.
He read it once.
Then again.
And again.
Each word carved into him deeper than any knife ever had.
He pictured Joe—thirteen and alone, heart cracked open by the system, touched first by violence and then by a kind of love that always demanded too much. He saw the boy who stood behind him through every war, who waited for a glance, a touch, a promise that never came.
Steve hadn't known.
Or maybe he had—maybe some part of him had always known and chosen to ignore it.
Because Joe's love had scared him.
Because Joe loved like drowning.
And Steve… Steve was tired of drowning.
He folded the letter carefully, like something sacred. Slipped it into his jacket pocket like a memory too fragile to carry, too heavy to leave behind.
Later that night, when Christian reached for him in bed—still sore, still quiet, still shaking—Steve hesitated.
His fingers trembled.
Because part of his heart still ached for a ghost he couldn't save.
Because love didn't erase the dead.
It just made room for them in the dark corners of your soul.