I wake to the sound of strangled screaming. The hallway is cold and dim as I stumble down it, still half-asleep but waking up quickly, towards the epicenter of the noise.

David lies twisted up in the bedsheets. His chest rises and falls too quickly, the throb at his pulse point accelerating into a panicky rhythm. I run to the bedside, hands hovering. Inadequate. I give a soft “hey” and began to tap firmly at his shoulder. He makes an aborted attempt at speaking, eyes writhing and rolling underneath closed eyelids. “I— I can’t—“

“Hey,” I plead, more urgently. I grab his hands to keep them from scrabbling at his throat and press them into the mattress near his side. “Wake. Up,” I hiss.

He gasps, pitches forward, clutching his neck. “I can’t— breathe! It’s— he’s choking me!” I yank his hand away and crush it into the mattress again. “Who? Who’s choking you?!” He hiccups, sounding dangerously close to tears. “He looks like m—“ He stops, as if broken off by an external force again. “Tomorrow,” he whimpers. “Tomorrow.”

The words send shivers coursing through my body. The shadows around us suddenly feel alive, summoned, like an unseen presence has heard us calling.

David stops breathing.

“David!” I scream, jumping onto the bed and shaking him violently by the shoulders. “What? What is it?” he said, blinking awake and breathing harshly.

“You—it—“ My tongue feels strangely clogged. “If you wanted to cuddle, all you had to do was ask,” he snorts, wavering at the end. I shake my head. “David, you were—“ I bite the inside of my cheek and gnaw on the words before finally admitting, “It sounded like you were being murdered.”

His brow wrinkles thoughtfully.

“That’s not all though, you kept saying you were being choked. And… ‘tomorrow’. You repeated that word over and over.”

David lifts one eyebrow, but the cheeky glint behind his eyes betrays him. “Are you saying you want me to stay home tomorrow? You think it was a warning?”

My heart squeezes so hard it hurts at the way he says “home” when he could chosen anything from “here” to “this dingy old flat that costs too much”.

“I don’t want you getting hurt. Or worse,” I say by way of explanation.

“You’re so…” His nose scrunches up adorably, lips parting, but then he smiles. And it’s quiet. Private. Like he doesn’t mean for anyone else to see it. I notice when the sentence changes course. “Did you want to cuddle?”

It’s too warm, suddenly. “Yeah.”

It’s too soft when he brushes his palm over my shoulder, my back. We curl into each other, my chest to his spine, and I know I shouldn’t want more than this. But I do.

——

I call in sick the next day. There’s this growing pit of anxiety in my stomach that tells me I NEED to keep an eye on David at any cost. As I juggle between forcing him to binge baking shows with me, having him read to me, and grabbing leftovers from the fridge to sustain us both, I can’t help but feel that the real danger is something I cannot protect him from.

——

“You don’t need to take care of me, I’m not actually sick,” he says through mouthfuls of cold noodles. He rarely giggles, but he does so now, and it’s addictive. Inebriating. I could get drunk on it quicker than actual liquor.

Before I can stop I’m reaching out, tracing over the contours of his face, watching his cheek flush wherever I graze it. I still my hand in horror once I realize what I’ve done. “Do it again,” he whispers. Then he shakes his head, apologizing. “Please, I mean. Only if you want to.”

I shut him up with the press of my mouth.

Then, startled by my own thoughtlessness, I just as quickly pull away.

“Is this okay?”

“If I say yes, will you promise not to stop?”

I kiss the smirk off of his face. And then it’s quiet. There’s a lull as I put away the late dinner and we both go through the motions of getting ready for bed.

David walks into my bedroom, looking nervous. “So. I was wondering if. I mean. I don’t think I can make it through tonight by myself. I don’t… want to be alone.”

“You delusional git,” I say fondly. “I stayed home all day to keep you safe. I’m not about to leave when it’s most dangerous.”

——

We nest up in my bed (it’s not like his bed is dangerous or anything, but at the same time, you can never be too careful). He asked if I would kiss him again, so I did, but he got this really sad look on his face afterwards.

“What’s wrong?”

David sighs. Stares at the moth tattoo on my wrist. Swallows. “Look, you don’t need to do this just because I like you. Or because you’re trying to cheer me up or something.”

I almost laugh out of sheer bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

“This—“ He gestures between us. “It’s something I never thought I’d have, so please don’t get my hopes up just to shoot them down.”

I splay a hand over his bare skin, watching the contrast, brown against the pale, freckled expanse of his shoulder. I lean down to kiss the spaces in between my fingers. “I’m doing this for no reason other than the fact that I want to. I really, really— I like you.”

David blushes a deep strawberry color at that. Then his face goes odd and he asks if I think he’s going to die tonight.

“I—“ Suddenly, he presses a finger to my lips. “Something’s here,” he whispers feverishly.

I follow his gaze to a corner of the room, where shadows are collecting. The shape gets clearer as it moves closer.

“It’s… David?” I murmur. I’m unprepared when the Shadow-David bares its nails and lunges at his throat.