Salem

Thorne Potter was not a spectacular hero. 

He ran about as fast as your average seventh grader lamenting having to run the mile in that sickening, not-quite-fall heat, and the last time he’d tried to fly, he’d spent his entire summer vacation trying to sneak a wire hanger down into his plaster cast without his mother noticing. (Spoiler Alert: He’d succeeded, but the infection that’d resulted most definitely hadn’t been worth it). His arms got tired carrying his textbooks, and the only thing his mind could move was the letters on their pages—though that wasn’t exactly his doing.

But what he could do... was observe. He didn’t just see the world; he read it, deciphering the fine print of every sideways glance and nervous twitch. People, in all of their fantastic complexity, were easy. Books were not. And while his mother attempted to help him unpack themes and motifs, like understanding how things like love and social class influence the world of The Great Gatsby would have any sort of bearing on his post-high school existence, Thorne decided to lean into what he was actually good at.

And while he may not have grown up to be a literary scholar, his gig as the Villian Rehabilitation Specialist with the Los Angeles Heroics Department was nothing to scoff at. It’d led him to Xander, which was perhaps his greatest blessing. Xander was not his first rehabilitation, but he was one of his most rewarding.

The fact that Thorne now had the privilege of calling the omega ‘his’ was just the icing on the cake.

That said, it didn’t take someone with his particular skillset to realize that Xander had been... off these last few weeks. At first, it had been small things—Xander staring out their apartment window for longer stretches, his responses to Thorne’s questions coming a beat too late, as if he had to pull himself back from somewhere far away. Then came the restless nights, Xander’s powerful frame tossing and turning beside him, muttering words in his sleep that Thorne could never quite catch.

Now, watching his omega methodically fold laundry with the kind of mechanical precision that screamed emotional avoidance, Thorne knew he couldn’t let this continue. Xander was allergic to talking about his feelings, yes, but sometimes such conversations were necessary.

“The blue sweater goes in the middle drawer,” Thorne said gently, leaning against the bedroom doorframe. “You’ve been staring at it for five minutes.”

Xander’s hands stilled. The sweater—soft cashmere that Thorne had bought him for his birthday—hung between Xander’s fingers like he’d forgotten what to do with it. When he looked up, his dark eyes held that distant quality that had become all too familiar.

“Sorry,” Xander mumbled, his voice rough around the edges. “Got distracted.”

Thorne pushed off from the doorframe and crossed to where his mate sat on the edge of their bed, surrounded by neat piles of clothes. Even sitting, Xander was nearly at eye level with him—all broad shoulders and contained power, the kind of omega who could bench press a car one moment and perfectly fold a fitted sheet the next. The contradiction had drawn Thorne to him from the beginning, but now those gentle hands trembled almost imperceptibly as they smoothed over the sweater.

“What’s going on, love?” Thorne asked, settling beside him on the mattress. He kept his voice low, non-threatening, the way he’d learned to do with skittish witnesses and traumatized civilians. The way he’d learned to do with Xander, in those early days when trust had been as fragile as spun glass between them.

“Nothing’s going on.” The response came too quickly, too rehearsed. Xander’s scent—usually warm cedar and bergamot, with a strong undercurrent of tobacco from the menthol cigarettes he favored when everything was too much—carried an undercurrent of anxiety that made Thorne’s alpha instincts prickle with the need to fix.

But this wasn’t the kind of threat he could punch or arrest or defeat with a well-placed quip and superior firepower. This was something internal, something that had taken root in Xander long before Thorne had ever met him, and it was proving far more challenging than any supervillain he’d ever faced.

“Xan.” Thorne reached out slowly, telegraphing his movement before covering one of Xander’s hands with his own. His skin was warm, calloused from years of fighting, and Thorne could feel the tension thrumming through him like a live wire. “Talk to me. Please.”

For a moment, Xander’s fingers turned beneath his, palm pressing against palm in a gesture that felt almost desperate. Then he was pulling away, standing abruptly and crossing to the window that overlooked their small balcony. The afternoon light caught the silver threads in his black hair—premature gray that spoke to a life that hadn’t always been kind. He knew a little of the hell that Xander had endured, had read about it in his file before their first official meeting. But trauma encapsulated on paper was very different than trauma embodied.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Xander said, but his reflection in the glass told a different story. His jaw was tight, his shoulders rigid with the kind of tension that came from carrying a weight too heavy for one person to bear alone.

Thorne bit back his first three responses, all variations of gentle pushes that he knew would only make Xander retreat further. Instead, he stood and began finishing the laundry himself, giving his omega space while making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Remember when we first started dating?” Thorne said conversationally, shaking out one of Xander’s t-shirts. “You told me you didn’t like people who pushed.”

“Still don’t,” Xander muttered, but some of the tension eased from his shoulders.

“Good thing I’m patient, then.” Thorne folded the shirt with deliberate care, adding it to Xander’s pile. “Though I have to say, watching you carry around whatever this is like it’s yours alone to handle... it’s killing me, Xan. Not because I need to fix it, but because I can see it hurting you.”

Xander went very still. For a long moment, the only sound in their bedroom was the distant hum of traffic from the street below and the soft whisper of fabric as Thorne continued folding clothes. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet Thorne almost missed it.

“What if... What if there was someone? Before you.”

The words hit Thorne like a punch to the solar plexus, not because he was jealous—well, not entirely—but because of the way Xander said them. Like a confession. Like a secret that had been burning him up from the inside.

“Okay,” Thorne said carefully, setting down the shirt he’d been folding. “Someone important?”

Xander’s laugh was bitter, hollow. “Important doesn’t begin to cover it.”

The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken truths. Thorne wanted to ask a dozen questions—who, when, what happened—but he forced himself to wait. This was Xander’s story to tell, in his own time, in his own way.

“She was...” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat roughly. “She was everything. My partner, my best friend, my... God, Thorne, she was my whole world.”

She. Something tight in Thorne’s chest loosened slightly. Not another alpha, then, which meant whatever had happened, this wasn’t about Xander losing himself to memories of someone who could offer something that Thorne couldn’t. But still... to hear him refer to this mysterious woman as his entire world... he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt. But the pain in Xander’s voice, the way he spoke about her in the past tense... it was enough to make him bite his tongue. This wasn’t about him, and he couldn’t rightly be upset about what he’d asked to know.

Xander’s reflection met his eyes in the glass, and Thorne saw raw anguish there, a grief that time had dulled but not healed.

“I don’t know,” Xander whispered. “And that’s the problem.”

The admission hung between them like a bridge half-built, offering the possibility of crossing over but requiring a leap of faith to reach the other side. Thorne took that leap.

“Tell me about her.”

Thorne could see the shape of a name on his mate’s lips, the desire to lay down his burden warring with the pain demanding he close and lock the door before he unleashed the floodgates. “I-I... I can’t. Not yet.”

“Okay,” Thorne said carefully, setting down the shirt he’d been folding. He didn’t push for more, but he felt something shift in the air between them, like he could tell Xander was making the conscious choice to hold that door open, damn the consequences. And that... that was something.

Xander turned from the window, his dark eyes meeting Thorne’s directly for the first time in weeks. There was something vulnerable there, something that looked like it wanted to reach out but didn’t know how.

“I know you’ve been patient with me,” Xander said, his voice still rough but steadier now. “More patient than I deserve. And I know I’ve been...” He gestured helplessly at himself. “I’ve been shit company lately.”

“You’ve been hurting,” Thorne corrected gently. “There’s a difference.”

Xander’s smile was small and brittle, like it might crack if he held it too long. “You always know what to say.”

“Not always.” Thorne moved closer, drawn by the way Xander’s scent had shifted, the sharp edge of anxiety softening into something warmer, more familiar. “But I know you. And I know when you’re ready to talk, you will.”

For a moment, Xander looked like he might say something else, might cross that invisible line he’d drawn around himself and let Thorne in completely. But then his gaze drifted back to the dresser, to a ring in the dust beside the stand he used to charge his phone. Thorne had never really noticed it before, outside of noting Xander’s apparent aversion to dusting... but now, he thought it looked an awful lot like a place where a ring used to sit. Something so precious that he couldn’t bring himself to destroy the shadow of what it’d once been.

And just like that, Thorne saw him pull back again, retreating to safer ground.

“I should make dinner,” Xander said, which was his way of changing the subject without actually lying about it.

“I’ll help,” Thorne offered, though they both knew Xander preferred to cook alone when he was working through something difficult. It was another ritual, another way of keeping his hands busy while his mind processed things he wasn’t ready to voice.

In the kitchen, Thorne watched Xander move through the familiar motions of meal preparation with that same precise care he brought to everything else. But here, too, Thorne noticed small things that painted a picture that he hadn’t quite been able to make sense of before. Xander automatically reached for a third plate before catching himself. He measured out portions that would have been perfect for three adults, then had to awkwardly adjust when he realized what he’d done. Most telling of all, he kept glancing toward the small breakfast nook where they usually ate, his eyes lingering on the empty chair pushed against the wall—a chair that had been there when Thorne moved in, though they’d never needed it.

When the food was ready, they ate in comfortable silence, though Thorne caught Xander’s gaze drifting to that empty chair more than once. It was a look of such profound longing that it made Thorne’s chest ache with sympathy for whatever loss his omega was carrying.

And later, as they got ready for bed, Thorne noticed other small details he’d overlooked before. The way Xander always left exactly half the closet empty, despite owning enough clothes to fill it. The small bottle of lavender oil on his nightstand—not something Xander ever used, but something he kept close anyway, occasionally unscrewing the cap to breathe in the scent like he was remembering something precious. The way he slept curled around a pillow that he held against his chest, as if his body remembered sharing the bed with someone smaller, someone who needed to be held.

“Thorne?” Xander’s voice was soft in the darkness, uncertain in a way that made Thorne’s protective instincts flare.

“I’m here,” Thorne replied, reaching across the space between them to find his hand.

“Thank you. For not pushing. For just... being here.”

Thorne squeezed his fingers gently. “Always.”

They lay in silence for a while, Thorne listening to the gradual evening out of Xander’s breathing as he drifted toward sleep. But just before unconsciousness claimed him, Xander whispered something so soft it was barely audible, a name that sounded like starlight and shadow: ”Salem.”

Thorne filed the name away carefully, a piece of the puzzle that was his omega’s past. Someday, when Xander was ready, he would learn who Salem was and why her absence carved such deep lines of pain across his face. For now, it was enough to know that she had existed, that she had mattered, and that whatever had happened to her was still an open wound in Xander’s heart.

In the morning, when Thorne woke to find Xander already up and standing at the kitchen window with a cup of coffee, staring out at the city with that distant look back in his eyes, he didn’t ask questions. Instead, he simply joined him, adding his own warmth to the space beside his omega, and waited.

Patience, after all, was something Thorne had in abundance. And love, he was learning, was often less about having all the answers and more about being willing to sit with the questions until the right moment came to voice them.