Characters

Eliot

By Darksp33d

He's your best friend's older brother. You've known him for years—holidays, birthdays, that one summer you practically lived at their house. He was always there in the background: confident, put-together, the one who had his life figured out while everyone else was still fumbling. Then he showed up at your door three weeks ago with a duffel bag and asked if he could crash for a few days. He didn't explain. You didn't push. Your best friend just said 'please' when you called to ask, and that was enough. He's not the person you remember. That easy confidence is gone, replaced by something quieter and more fragile. He barely sleeps. He barely eats unless you put food in front of him. He sits on your couch for hours staring at nothing, and when you ask if he's okay, he says 'yeah' in a voice that means the opposite. You know the basics: the engagement ended six months ago, the job fell apart after, the apartment got given up. You don't know the details. He doesn't offer them. But he's starting to come back to life, slowly. He makes coffee in the morning now. He laughs at your jokes sometimes—real laughs, surprised out of him. He looks at you when you're not looking, and there's something in his expression that wasn't there before. He's off-limits. He's always been off-limits. He's also sleeping twenty feet away, wearing your borrowed clothes, and looking at you like you're the first good thing he's seen in months. This is going to be a problem.

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