The Grounding Current

The bunker made its own kind of silence, the kind that stuck to the ribs. It hummed in vents and buzzed in old wires, stretched thin across the long corridors. Dean felt it the moment he woke, a weight pressing just behind his eyes, and he decided not to let it sink its teeth in.

He spent the morning under the hood.

The Impala’s engine waited for him like a friend who knew all his bad habits and forgave them anyway. He set out a tray of wrenches on the rolling cart and checked the intake, the timing, the lines he already knew were clean. The rattle didn’t announce itself on startup today—of course it didn’t—so he revved her gently and listened, jaw tight, until the noise came threading in under the steady purr. A skitter, like a coin stuck where it shouldn’t be. Not loud enough to be urgent, not quiet enough to ignore.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he muttered, reaching in to check the belts. His knuckles skimmed hot metal. He liked the sting. It gave him something to answer to.

He found nothing obvious, which meant the rattle was going to be petty. He welcomed petty. He took his time, unbolting the air filter, laying pieces down in the order his dad had taught him, the method carved into his muscles as old as every road he’d ever driven. He breathed cleaner with the smell of oil in his nose. He leaned into it, shutting out the echo in the garage that always appeared when he was alone.

Footsteps didn’t carry well in the bunker; he knew that too well. Still, he kept glancing toward the entrance, toward the staircase that curved down into the garage like the throat of a cave. He didn’t tell himself he was waiting. He didn’t ask himself why.

He tightened a hose clamp, then loosened it again and tightened it a second time, measuring the give of the rubber. He replaced a gasket that wasn’t worn because it gave his hands something to do. He tricked himself into believing he heard the rattle soften, then heard it again when he leaned in with the stethoscope, the small disk pressed to the valve cover. There, a faint chatter at low idle. He could chase that all day.

Dean straightened, wiped his hands on a rag, and looked toward the staircase. Empty. He clicked his tongue, an unconscious sound.

The quiet threaded back in. He turned up the radio on the workbench instead, some classic rock station half-static, the riffs familiar enough to drag him out of his head for three minutes at a time. Between each song he checked the entrance again. Habit, he told himself, the same way he checked the exits in a diner, the mirror on a back road. Nothing personal. Nothing at all.

He pulled the distributor cap and checked the points. Clean. He replaced it carefully, turning the screws with a control he only had here. The Impala didn’t mind his silence. She didn’t ask.

On the next start, the rattle fluttered and then went shy, teasing him from somewhere under the manifold. “You’re killing me,” he said, a wry edge lifting his mouth. He was talking to the car, sure. He wasn’t thinking about blue eyes that had watched him the same way this car did—steady, patient, a stubborn sort of fondness pressed behind the gaze.

He set the socket wrench down with more force than necessary. The clatter of metal on metal echoed, sharp and clean. It didn’t fill the room the way he wanted.

He checked the staircase. Still empty. He told himself he was making sure Sam hadn’t come down, hadn’t swooped in with a coffee and a story that would pull him out of his little sanctuary. Sam wasn’t due back for days. The lie didn’t hold.

He bent under the hood again, shoulders tight. The smell of gas and old dust steadied him. He traced the wiring harness and found a chafe he’d missed. There it was. “Hah.” He cut the zip tie, slid on a piece of split loom, taped it off in neat rings that wouldn’t catch. He liked the way the black tape went smooth, how it made something look tended. He checked the entrance again. Nothing.

He went back to the driver’s seat, turned the key, listened. The rattle was still there but different now, hiding behind a lower note. He could have called it fixed. He didn’t. He followed the sound, chased it with the stethoscope like a hunter traces a blood trail. He pulled the fan shroud and checked the bolts. One was a whisper loose. He tightened it and felt the tremor in his fingers ease with the click of the ratchet. He breathed out.

He wandered to the foot of the stairs and looked up. The garage light bled a weak gold up the concrete steps, painting the rail in strips. The bunker above was a block of shadow and the idea of someone moving through it. He listened for a long moment without admitting he was listening. Nothing but the low idle of the car and the radio humming a chorus he’d heard a thousand times.

He went back to the Impala, hand skimming over her fender, the touch almost reverent. He’d never say it out loud, but working on her was the only prayer he knew how to say. He tightened another bolt because it felt like progress. He adjusted the idle screw a hair. He steadied the throttle with two fingers and listened as the rattle faded down to something like memory.

He shut her off and the silence swept in again, fast and complete, the way it always did in this place. He caught himself glancing at the stairs. This time, he didn’t bother coming up with a reason.

Cas wasn’t there. Dean told himself that was good. He had things to do. He put the tools back in their place, each wrench slotted where it belonged, each rag folded into a neat square like he could make order hold if he just tried hard enough. He looked at the stairs one last time, a quiet pull in his chest he didn’t have a name for, and then he reached for the ignition again, unlocking the silence with the sound of the engine catching. He could lose an hour like this, two. As long as the noise kept his mind from roaming the halls without him. As long as he could look up now and then and tell himself he wasn’t waiting.

Castiel chose the library because it demanded something he could give: attention, patience, an eye for pieces that had drifted out of place. The far stacks were a mess—half-finished cataloging projects Sam had postponed, piles of unsorted journals, a shelf bowed by a row of encyclopedias jammed in sideways. The bunker had collected knowledge the way a field collected wind, and sometimes it all settled wrong.

He rolled up his sleeves and started with the journals. He skimmed spines, dates, and titles, laying them out in ordered columns on the long oak table. His handwriting, small and exact, lined the cards he cut from old manila folders. Each entry got a number. Each number went into a ledger. The system was nothing like Heaven’s. It was human, imperfect, full of cross-outs and inconsistent terminology. He preferred it.

The work slowed his mind. When he lifted a volume, he noted the dust line under it, the faint scent of old paper and mildew. He cleaned the shelf before returning a book. He straightened each row so the spines touched hands. He paused when he found a folded piece of paper used as a bookmark, then unfolded it carefully. Sam’s scribble: “See case file 12-032: Berwick.” He left it where it was. This library had a pulse, a trail of the people who had moved through it.

The bunker wasn’t silent. The ventilation hummed, a low, steady thread. Somewhere, water moved through ancient pipes with a soft knock. And below, deeper than the foundation, he could feel Dean’s presence like static through a radio left on low. It wasn’t sound. It was a restless pressure, a rhythm of motion. In the pauses, when the pen stopped moving, Castiel could tell whether Dean was under the hood or leaning against the fender and thinking. The difference had a shape to it.

Castiel drew a finger along the edge of a shelf and wiped the dust on a rag he kept in his pocket. He made a note: “Section B-4, Row 3: demonology, late 20th-century publications—reorder chronologically.” He reached for the next stack and felt the surge again—engine turning over, a spike of attention, then frustration pressed down until it smoothed. He set the books back more gently than necessary.

He did not go to the garage.

He turned his focus to an atlas that had been shelved with occult literature, its spine cracked, the cover softened by many hands. He repaired a torn corner with library tape, smoothing it with the pad of his thumb. He made a small, quiet column for atlases—placement, condition, cross-references. Dean’s energy rose again, a flare—metal on concrete, a tool dropped from more height than a careful hand would allow. Castiel breathed in and out and reminded himself of what he was doing. He had learned that sometimes leaving Dean alone was not indifference but trust.

He worked until a small pile of paper clips, screws, and bits of string collected in the shallow dish he used for detritus. He found three bottle caps and an outdated motel key in a drawer of a catalog cabinet and set them aside. He paused at a photograph tucked between two volumes of folklore: Sam, Dean, and a blurred finger at the edge of the frame that might have been his own. He put it carefully back where he found it. It felt like a boundary.

He moved through the aisles without hurry. The table filled with neat stacks. He re-labeled a misfiled set of hunter newsletters, aligning them by date. When he slid them into place, he caught himself listening again. Dean had quieted down there for a minute. The Impala idled through the concrete like a low, patient heartbeat. Then, the burst again, then soft. A cycle that felt like pacing without footsteps.

He thought about going to the doorway and saying something simple: the part you’re looking for might be hidden in the obvious. He thought about coffee, about the way Dean glanced up and away when he handed him a mug. He thought about last night’s brief exchange in the kitchen, the way the silence had sat between them like a third presence. He pressed his palm flat to the tabletop until the impulse to intrude cooled into something softer.

He fetched a ladder and climbed to the top shelf to ease down a heavy tome wedged too tight. On the ground again, he traced the gilt lettering with a fingertip. In Heaven, knowledge had been instant. It had never needed touching. Here, everything asked to be handled. He liked the responsibility that implied.

He sorted a stack of newspapers next, brittle and yellowing around the edges. He used interleaving sheets to keep them from tearing. The task required a delicate steadiness he trusted in his own hands. He imagined handing one of these pages to Dean and watching him roll his eyes at superstition printed as fact. He felt his mouth tilt, a reluctant smile that no one would see.

The urge to check on him came in waves, a current he almost stepped into each time it swelled. Each time, he steadied himself with a small action: align these, label that, breathe. He didn’t pretend he couldn’t sense Dean’s frustration; he just chose not to answer it with his own. He remembered too many times when his entry into Dean’s orbit had set off sparks. Sometimes the most helpful thing he could do was anchor elsewhere.

He took a break only to fill a glass of water at the cooler in the corner, the machine rumbling a cold, hollow weight into the cup. The first sip tasted like steel. He leaned against the table and closed his eyes, narrowing his awareness to the sound of his own breath. The garage’s echo softened. It didn’t vanish. He wouldn’t want it to.

He moved on to the section devoted to ancient architecture—Mesopotamia, Assyria, Sumer. The spines felt familiar. He pulled a volume at random and opened to a page of ziggurat schematics, inked by a precise hand centuries ago. The notations were neat. He copied a few lines word for word on a card even though he didn’t have to. The act calmed him. He imagined the builder’s careful planning, each brick set to hold the next. He understood that approach to living: piece by piece, angle by angle, weight distributed so nothing collapsed.

Somewhere below, the engine cut off. The silence rolled up and pooled against the library doors. Castiel felt it arrive like weather—swift, complete. The urge to move rose sharp and quick. He swallowed it, then placed the open book on a stand and continued entering its data into the ledger. His pen didn’t waver.

He added three more entries. He reshelved a set of volumes with spines cracked from use and thought, gently, of hands. When he finally allowed himself to pause and look toward the shadowed doorway that led deeper into the bunker, the quiet there tugged. He straightened a stack one last time and, without making a decision, waited. He could go to him in an hour. He could let Dean come to him. He let the possibility rest next to the ledger, orderly and patient, and reached for the next book.

By the time he looked up again, the numbers on the wall clock had turned late into later. The bunker had that washed-out feel of after-hours, lights dimmer than they were, shadows stretched, the air cooler. Dean’s stomach had an opinion about it. He scrubbed a hand over his face and told himself he was going to the kitchen for caffeine, not for a reason to walk past the library door and pretend he wasn’t checking it.

His boots sounded loud in the hallway that always made him feel like a kid sneaking in after curfew. The kitchen light was on, not bright, just enough to cut the edges off the steel counters. The hum of the refrigerator was the only sound at first, then the soft clink of glass.

Cas was at the sink, back to him, filling a tumbler under the tap. He didn’t move in a way that took up space. He held still, the water line rising until it almost touched the rim. Dean’s pulse did a dumb little skip he pretended not to notice.

“Didn’t know you were still up,” Dean said. His voice came out low, rough with the hours.

Castiel turned. The collar of his shirt was unbuttoned, his tie loosened, trench coat folded over the back of a chair like a polite guest. He seemed to measure Dean’s face, make sure there were no new catastrophes there, and then his gaze dropped a fraction.

“I was working,” he said. “You were… busy.”

Dean rolled his shoulder, heard the quiet pop of a joint that had opinions too. “Yeah.”

He went to the coffee maker, clicked it on by habit, even though the pot was empty and the filter basket was still wet from earlier. He set it up, the simple sequence of scooping, leveling, tapping the spoon against the edge, pouring water until the line hit eight cups. Cas’s eyes followed the movement like he was committing it to memory.

The first drops hit the glass with a sound that felt better than it should have. Dean leaned against the counter, arms folded, keeping his hands from doing something stupid like reaching for the glass Cas held a little too carefully.

Cas took a drink. Dean watched the tendon in his throat move. He swallowed his own mouthful of nothing and looked away.

“We’re out of milk,” he said to the coffee maker.

Castiel tilted his head. “I used the last of it this afternoon. For Sam’s tea.”

“Figures.” Dean dragged open the fridge with one hand to confirm the crime scene. A lone jar of pickles, half a lemon, leftovers of something he didn’t trust. No milk. “I’ll hit the store tomorrow.”

“I can go,” Castiel said, the words immediate, like a reflex. “If you make a list.”

Dean snorted. “You know what to get.”

Castiel glanced at the open fridge, then back at Dean, eyes steady. “I know what you prefer. But lists are useful.”

The corners of Dean’s mouth twitched before he could stop it. He kept his eyes trained on the coffee as it thickened from weak brown to the right color. “Fine. I’ll write it down. Milk, eggs, bread, coffee. Real coffee. None of that decaf Sam sneaks in.”

“I know the red can,” Cas said. “And the blue box with the oats you say are ‘only for emergencies’ and then eat in one sitting.”

Dean huffed something that almost made it out as a laugh. The sound didn’t echo. It settled between them like something that belonged. He reached for two mugs without thinking, set them on the counter with soft ceramic thumps. He hesitated, then grabbed a third for no reason he could name and put it back.

“Coffee?” he asked, even though Cas had water in his hand.

Castiel glanced at the mug, at the pot, at Dean. “Yes,” he said, like it was a decision he’d been waiting to make.

Dean poured and slid the mug across. Their fingers didn’t touch. They almost did. The space between their hands felt loud. Cas wrapped both hands around the cup, as if learning how to hold it. He didn’t drink right away. Steam curled up and brushed his face. Dean smelled it, dark and familiar. He was suddenly aware of his own breath, of the way his chest moved, of everything he did that made sound in this blue hour.

“It’s colder,” Cas said after a moment, like he was answering a question Dean hadn’t asked.

“Yeah.” Dean cleared his throat. “Weather app says it’ll drop another ten degrees overnight. Might get frost.”

Castiel considered that. “The bunker maintains its temperature well.”

“Concrete igloo,” Dean said, and took his first sip. It was hotter than he was ready for, and he welcomed the sting on his tongue. “We should check the exterior vents. Make sure nothing nests in there when it gets cold. Last thing we need is a raccoon in the ductwork.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” Cas said.

“The list was for milk,” Dean said, because keeping the conversation small felt safer. “Don’t go blending categories.”

Castiel’s mouth curved, tiny, like he didn’t want it to be noticed and knew it would be anyway. “I’ll create a second list.”

They stood like that, the distance between them measurable in feet and a thousand little nothings. Dean took another sip, felt the caffeine promise him a steadier head. He tried not to stare at Cas’s hands, at the square knuckles around white ceramic. He failed a little. Cas held the mug like it was an offering and a shield both.

“You eat?” Dean asked, the question coming out like a familiar route he could drive without thinking.

“I had a sandwich earlier,” Cas said. “You didn’t.”

Dean rolled his eyes at the accuracy. “I had a handful of pretzels.”

“That’s not sufficient.”

“It’s fine.”

Cas didn’t argue. He only let his gaze linger a fraction of a second longer than necessary, and Dean felt the observation like a weight pressed against his ribs. It wasn’t heavy. It just reminded him where he was.

“I found a photograph,” Cas said into the quiet, then seemed to reconsider and fold the rest of the sentence away. He lifted the mug. “In the library.”

“Oh?” Dean said, keeping his tone casual. “Sam’s mess still there?”

“It’s less of a mess now.” Cas’s voice softened. “The photograph was of you. And Sam.” He paused. “We were… younger.”

Dean’s mouth went dry. He covered it with another pull of coffee. “You should put it somewhere it won’t get lost.”

“I did.”

Silence settled again, the kind that wasn’t empty. The hum of the fridge, the drip of the coffee maker winding down, Cas’s quiet breathing. Dean felt his own heartbeat a little too hard for the level of activity he was engaged in.

“You working late?” he asked, then frowned at himself. “I mean—are you going back?”

“Yes,” Cas said. “There’s a section that needs finishing. It helps to complete a system once it’s begun.”

Dean understood that down to the bone. Fix what you can. Put what you can in order. “Right.”

Cas took a small sip, like he was testing the coffee each time, getting to know it. He swallowed and looked at Dean over the rim. Dean forgot what to do with his hands for a second and set the mug down just to give them a job.

“I can pick up the milk in the morning,” Cas said. “And the vents. And—” He stopped, narrowed the list to the essential. “Milk.”

“Okay,” Dean said. His voice sounded steadier than he felt. “Get the whole fat. None of that watered-down crap.”

“I know,” Cas said, soft, like he was promising more than a grocery item. He glanced at the clock and then back at Dean. “You should sleep.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, because the idea of walking back to his room and laying in the dark felt like driving off a cliff. He lifted the mug again and pretended it was a plan. “In a bit.”

Cas nodded. He stood there a moment longer, long enough for Dean to feel the shape of him in the room, and then he reached for his water again, as if returning to the first reason he’d come. He finished it in three swallows, set the glass in the sink. His fingers brushed the lip of the basin with care, a small, unnecessary courtesy Dean tried not to memorize.

“Goodnight, Dean,” he said.

Dean looked at him then, really looked, and let something ease in his chest. “Night, Cas.”

Cas left without the trench coat. Dean watched the doorway for a heartbeat after he was gone, then reached for the coat, folded it along the seams he’d repaired weeks ago, and set it back over the chair more neatly than before. He drank the rest of his coffee standing up. The kitchen felt warmer than when he’d entered, like the heat had finally caught up to the room. He told himself it was the coffee. He told himself a lot of things.

He rinsed both mugs, set them upside down on the towel, and wrote “milk” on the corner of a napkin, the ink bleeding a little into the paper. He left it by the fruit bowl no one ever used, in case Cas wanted the list he’d promised. Then he turned off the light and let the bunker’s soft, old noises guide him back down the hall.

Dean’s room felt smaller when the door shut behind him, a familiar cave with too many ghosts. He tossed his keys into the bowl on the dresser and missed by an inch. They skittered and spun, the sound thin and bright in the quiet. He didn’t bother picking them up.

He bent to the shelf, thumbed past a stack of CDs until muscle memory pulled one free. He didn’t look at the cover. He didn’t need to. The player’s tray slid out with a soft whirr, accepted the disc like it had been waiting. Dean hit play and turned the volume up past the line he usually respected at night.

Guitar flooded the room. Sharp, relentless, exactly what he thought he wanted—something with edges to scrape himself against. He stood in the middle of the floor and let it batter the walls, felt the bass thud against his ribs. He tried to let it fill in the places that had been hollow all day, to coat the quiet in noise thick enough to stick.

The first verse cut through, too familiar, mapping old routes across old scars. He realized it felt like he was listening to a recording of a life he didn’t fit quite right anymore. The chorus hit, and instead of lifting him, it just made everything else sound farther away—the vents breathing, the pipe’s slow tick in the wall, the clock’s second hand like a patient footstep. He waited for the part of himself that used to throw its head back and let the volume carry him. It didn’t show up.

At the end of the song, his finger was already on the power button. Silence fell so quickly it rang. He exhaled, like the noise had been a held breath. The LED on the player glowed a steady, accusing blue. He turned it off too. The room, rid of its distraction, settled around him.

He didn’t bother with the light. He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands hanging. His palms were still rough from the afternoon’s wrestling match with the Impala’s undercarriage, faint grease shadows in the lines he hadn’t scrubbed clean. He rubbed his thumb along his index finger anyway, a habit with nowhere to go. The bunker's hum was back, low and companionable. It sounded like a sleeping animal.

He stared at the wall. The paint had a hairline crack that ran from the vent down to the baseboard, a thin, pale river. He’d noticed it months ago and promised himself he’d patch it. He hadn’t. He traced it with his eyes the way a person might memorize a road on a map, like it could take him somewhere if he just followed it enough times.

Empty rooms. There were too many of them here. Doors he walked past without looking, lights off behind them, the kind of quiet that tried to be respectful and ended up feeling like it was holding its breath. No hunt waiting in his inbox. No apocalypse knocking at the bunker’s metal door, demanding his attention, telling him where to put himself so he wouldn’t have to think.

He cataloged that absence and found it wasn’t empty at all. It was heavy. It pressed down on his shoulders in a way no engine block ever had. He was tired, though sleep didn’t feel like something that would take him. It felt like a cliff edge he could see and not reach.

Cas’s mug had still been warm when Dean washed it. He could feel that warmth echo in his hands now, a faint sensation like the ghost of heat. He’d told himself it was the water. He’d told himself a dozen versions of that when his heartbeat went sideways for no practical reason in the kitchen. He didn’t know why thinking of Cas standing there, sleeves rolled, collar loose, made the bunker feel less like an underground vault and more like a place where breath went in and out the way it was supposed to.

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face and let it drop. His knuckles brushed the scar on his cheek, the old one that tugged when he frowned. He let his eyes slip shut for a second and opened them again because the dark didn’t change anything. The wall was still a wall. The air still carried the old smell of paper and concrete and a hint of motor oil that clung to him like a signature.

He thought of all the times quiet had meant something else, something worse. Hospitals. The backseat of the Impala on the side of some deserted road. Bunkers in other places that weren’t theirs. He’d learned how to turn noise into armor. But this wasn’t battle silence. This was the kind that asked questions he didn’t answer.

He looked at the ceiling. The hairline crack continued there, thin as fishing line. He pictured the rooms beyond, the corridor, the library spread out like a heart. Cas was probably there, headset of focus on, moving through stacks, sorting chaos into order with care like it mattered. Of course it mattered. Of course Dean wanted it to.

He stretched his legs out and leaned back on his palms, spine loosening a little against the mattress. The springs creaked their old announcement. He let his gaze drift to the chair in the corner where his jacket hung and realized the flannel he’d draped over Cas in the car still smelled faintly like him, like rain that never touched the ground. Stupid. He should put it in the wash. He didn’t move.

No world-ending crisis. No checklist that ended with bleeding and bruises and a win that tasted like relief and road dust. The bunker felt like a place being asked to be a home. He didn’t know the rules for that. He knew how to hold a line. He knew how to take apart a problem and put it back together well enough to limp another mile. He’d never learned how to sit still in something good without waiting for it to break.

His phone buzzed once, a quiet vibration on the nightstand. He didn’t reach for it. Probably a weather alert or some junk. The crack in the paint waited, a patient invitation he declined. He breathed in and out and let the emptiness show its shape. Underneath it, something steadier. The memory of steam ribboning up from a mug. The weight of a coat folded along clean seams. A goodnight that hadn’t made anything worse.

He lay back without meaning to, the mattress giving with a familiar sigh. He stared up, hands folded over his stomach like he was bracing for impact. The silence didn’t hurt. It just didn’t help. He could live with that for a while. He let his eyes close and listened for the library’s soft sounds reaching him through concrete. He didn’t hear them, but he pretended he could, and for the first time that night, the empty rooms didn’t feel as lonely. He didn’t sleep. He just let the quiet sit with him until it was something he could stand.

The hallway had a hush that felt attentive, like it knew where everyone was. Castiel moved through it with his hands in his pockets, feeling the faint brush of air from the vents, the old building’s breath against his skin. The bunker’s low hum matched the pace of his steps. He didn’t need light to see; his eyes had learned these turns a long time ago. Still, he kept his gaze down, measuring the floor, listening to the rhythm of the place as if it could explain the little edge running through him.

He had thought the library would be enough for tonight. The neat columns of books and the quiet rules it obeyed usually worked on him. He’d sorted a full range of folklore earlier and rebuilt a broken catalog card drawer, lining up the paper slips with precise satisfaction. But he found himself in the corridor instead, moving without deciding to, knowing where he was headed even as he tried to tell himself he wasn’t.

Dean’s room was close. A faint bleed of guitar had been threading into the hall for the last few minutes, thin as water under a door. Then it cut off. The sudden stillness left a sharper outline in the air. Castiel slowed, and the world narrowed down to that one slice of space. He could hear the faint tick of a clock inside, the kind found in motel rooms and old kitchens, the kind that marked time because nothing else would.

He stopped outside the door. The urge to raise his hand and knock slid up his spine like a habit, a muscle remembering what it meant to move toward rather than away. He could picture the outline behind the wood—Dean sitting, maybe standing, maybe the music had been an attempt at something he couldn’t articulate. The absence of it now felt personal.

Castiel let his hand hover a breath from the door. The wood carried no heat through the cool of the bunker, but he imagined the shape of Dean’s presence anyway, the same way he’d once tracked him across miles without looking. He had learned not to intrude. He had learned that closeness in this place had a different weight, that the line between presence and imposition was thin and careful. He had crossed enough lines in his existence. He didn’t want to cross this one.

He lowered his hand. A second passed, then another. The silence inside stretched, not hostile, just full. He stepped back, his shoes making a whisper against the floor.

The library waited like it always did—open and exact, a place that could hold anything without saying much. He returned to it because it was the one room that always agreed to take his attention and give it back organized. The lamp on the main table threw a circle of warm light, ellipses of dust moving through it. The card catalog stood to the side, small brass handles catching the glow. He felt himself slot back into the routine of it like a book finding the right shelf.

His eyes scanned the rows until they caught on a spine he hadn’t handled in a while, dark cloth, the title stamped in gold that had dulled along the edges: Ancient Mesopotamian Architecture. He reached for it because it was far from what hurt. Because it promised shapes he could examine without consequence. He pulled it free and carried it to the table, opening to a section marked by an old slip of paper.

The pages lay flat, full of diagrams: ziggurats in clean lines, elevations and cross-sections, stairways that climbed with purpose. He traced a finger through the air above them without touching, following the steps, the layers rising like a steady thought. There were notes about foundations sunk deep to meet the earth’s stubbornness, about how weight found its balance when you built wide first and high second. He could almost hear an architect’s quiet pride living in the script. It was easy to imagine the work—the heat, the careful stacking, the way each block mattered only because of the one it supported.

He read about doorways that aligned with the stars and canals that led water where it needed to go. He let those images fill him until they slowed his heartbeat. This was what he loved about human efforts: the insistence on order, on making space for themselves and calling it sacred by virtue of care. He understood that more than he used to. He understood that the act of arranging a shelf, or repairing a frayed seam, could be a prayer.

He turned a page. A photograph showed a temple’s threshold worn smooth by centuries of steps. He thought of Dean’s door again without meaning to—how the paint around the handle was paler from use, how the hinges barely complained because he’d fixed them months back, unasked, just to make sure they wouldn’t. He could feel the angle at which the door rested when left just shy of closed. He had learned those small facts the way someone learned the sound their own name made in another’s mouth.

He closed his eyes and took a measured breath. He was not immortal in the way he had been, but his memory still kept things too well sometimes. He carried Dean’s goodnight in it now, the even tone, the way it had eased something in him like a thumb pressed to the center of his chest. It was ridiculous that such a simple exchange could rearrange the air in a room. And yet. His fingers tightened on the edge of the book and then loosened.

He read a passage about protective walls, about the way they weren’t meant to keep everything out as much as to define what was within. The scholar’s phrasing was dry, but the idea felt honest. He let it settle. He didn’t need to knock to be near. He could be a wall. He could be a lamplight. He could be within, and that would be enough tonight.

He stood and crossed to the map cabinet, drawing out a rolled plan of an ancient city to compare the layouts. The paper crackled softly as it unfurled. Lines connected sections like veins. He studied intersections, imagined how people once moved through them—where they paused, where they always quickened their steps. He marked a point with his fingertip and felt a small satisfaction when the logic made sense.

The quiet around him shifted as he sank back into the work. He turned another page. He made a note in the margin, small and neat, in pencil that could be erased later if someone else needed the space. He let that be his answer for now—a mark that said I was here without taking more than his share.

He remained until the lamp’s heat warmed his forearms and the shapes on the page blurred at the edges. The corridor beyond the library stayed still. He didn’t listen for footsteps. He didn’t reach for the door again. When the urge rose, he pressed it down like smoothing a wrinkle from a sleeve and returned to the plan, to the patient lines that held long after the builders were gone. He could wait. The bunker would hold them both until morning. He trusted it to. He trusted himself to. That had to be sufficient, and for tonight, it was.