POV: Jasmine
The coffee was already poured when we arrived. Asher had waited.
His apartment was ordered, not staged. He had been home more than usual lately and the place reflected it. He stood at the counter when we came in and made no move toward the table, no offer of ease, no preamble. That was the first signal. Asher always allowed a room to settle before he spoke into it.
"Sit down," he said. "I'll be brief."
Liam took a chair. Finn sat beside him. I sat across from Asher and wrapped both hands around the mug he had set out. He stayed at the counter.
"I picked up a parasitic infection in Southeast Asia," he said. "During my last quarter abroad I had a layover in London. I was already symptomatic then, though I had no name for it yet. I've been treating it privately for several months."
He paused. "It has escalated. What I have is hepatic schistosomiasis. The infection has reached the liver."
He turned and lifted two prescription bottles from the counter. He placed them on the table with the labels facing out.
I read them twice.
"How long have you known?" Finn asked.
"That it reached the liver?" Asher held his gaze steadily. "Long enough that I should have said something sooner. That it required this conversation? Longer than I should have waited."
Liam stood too fast, chair scraping back, and crossed to the window. He stood with one hand against the frame and his back to the room.
"Current treatment," I said.
Asher looked at me. "Praziquantel. I completed the primary course. The repeat dose is indicated because the load didn't clear sufficiently."
"Specialist?"
"Dr. Aria Sircha, Royal Free, affiliated through UCL. She has the full imaging."
"Liver function numbers," I said. "I need the actual figures."
He gave them to me. I held his gaze and let them land without expression, because what he needed from me right now was steadiness, not grief. I could feel the grief anyway, sitting at the base of my throat, patient and insistent, but I did not let it move toward my face.
"You need to be admitted today," Liam said from the window, his voice lower than his posture suggested. "Not tomorrow. Today."
"I'm aware of what's recommended," Asher replied.
"Then we're not arguing about it."
"I'm not arguing." Asher's voice stayed even. "I'm asking for one more day at home before the next phase begins. One day."
"A day doesn't change the—"
"Liam." He let the name settle before continuing. "I understand the timeline. I'm asking anyway."
"You're not the only one in this room who gets to decide what's reasonable right now."
"No. But I'm the one it's happening to." Asher stated.
Liam turned from the window. He looked at his brother for a long moment, and the push in his face receded — not concession, but recognition that he had reached the line.
Finn placed both palms flat on the table. "One day," he said. "Tomorrow we take you in. That's not a suggestion."
Asher held his gaze. "Agreed."
"We don't leave you at the entrance," Finn added. "We stay."
"I know," Asher replied. "That's why I called you here in person."
I put two more questions to him — dosage intervals, what to monitor overnight. He answered without any pause that suggested retrieval. He had been alone with these details long enough that they lived in him by now. I put the specialist's name into my phone.
When we stood to leave, Liam crossed to his brother. He gripped Asher's shoulder and held it there past any ordinary duration, one beat and then another. Asher stayed still beneath his hand.
We left without extending the goodbye into something it did not need to be. The elevator closed behind us and none of us said anything in the lobby, or in the street, or getting into the car.
Liam's hand was on my thigh before we cleared the parking garage. He placed it there and left it. I watched the streets pass and let the silence hold.
Aurora had been with Nora. Nora takes one look at us when we come through the door and reaches for her coat without a word. I go upstairs, run the bath, sit on the edge of the tub while the water fills.
He had known for weeks. He had sat across from us and looked entirely fine.
Liam comes in without a sound, crosses to where I'm sitting, and pulls me up against his chest. I press my face into his neck and breathe. Neither of us speaks. There is nothing words would accomplish here that breathing cannot do better.
Then he steps back.
He takes my face in both hands and I close my eyes before I mean to — a reflex, the kind of surrender the body makes before the mind signs off on it. His forehead lowers to mine and we stay there, close and still, the space between our mouths charged and unresolved.
His thumbs trace the line of my jaw. Careful. Deliberate. The bath is still running. Steam drifts. I am acutely aware of every point of contact — the warmth of his palms, the way his breath grazes my upper lip without quite landing.
Say something, I think. Don't say anything.
He tilts my chin up.
The kiss, when it comes, is slow enough to be a choice. His mouth finds mine without rushing, without urgency, and that restraint is somehow the most devastating thing he could have done. He kisses me like the night outside this room — with everything it dropped on us — can wait.
I grip the front of his shirt in both hands.
He pulls back just far enough to make me follow him. A fraction. Barely the width of a breath. And I do. Of course I do.
He breaks it the same way he began it. Slowly. On his terms. His forehead drops back to mine, and neither of us pretends our breathing is steady.
His hands are still in my hair. I have not let go of his shirt.
My phone rang on the counter. It was Finn, so I picked it up.
Finn's voice was flat, stripped to what was necessary. "Liam. Get back here. Asher just collapsed. The ambulance is on the way."