Chapter 97: Un-crossable Boundary

Basil swallowed past the sudden dryness in his throat. He forced his feet forward, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the brass handle of his door and avoiding Darius’s eyes entirely. He reached the keypad beside the frame and began punching in his access code with trembling fingers. "What are you doing here?" He asked, his tone clipped as he tried to maintain a calm he didn’t feel. "Shouldn’t you be sleeping by now? The doctor explicitly said you need proper rest to avoid complications and give your body the time it needs to recover. You’re ruining your own recovery."

Darius stepped closer, watching Basil’s frantic, evasive movements with sharp, calculating focus. "If you had been home for the past three days, you would have known that I’ve made tremendous progress. I can sleep whenever I want now without my head giving me trouble." His voice remained calm, but there was a quiet edge beneath the words. "So stop using my recovery as an excuse to avoid talking to me."

Basil only hummed in response, refusing to look at him. Just then, the electronic lock clicked open. Relief immediately flooded through him. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, intending to slip inside and shut it behind him, but before he could even cross the threshold, Darius moved. With effortless speed, he stepped into the doorway, using his shoulder to push the door open wider and following Basil straight into the room.

The door shut behind them.

Basil spun around, backing up a step. "What do you think you’re doing? Get out, Darius. I’m exhausted. I just came back from the shooting range. I need to sleep."

Darius calmly turned the heavy latch, securing the door behind him. He then turned to face Basil, his eyes burning through the shadows of the room. "You’ll rest after we talk," he said calmly, his tone carrying an iron edge that left no room for argument.

Basil stiffened. Darius took a step forward.

His expression had lost every trace of patience, every trace of restraint.

"I’m sick and tired of you avoiding me."

"There is nothing to talk about, and I’m not avoiding you," Basil said, stepping back and trying to keep some distance between them.

He kept his shoulders squared, attempting to build a wall out of sheer composure, but his gaze darted toward the far window rather than meeting Darius’s eyes. "It is late, Darius. Stop acting recklessly with your health and go back to bed."

Darius closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps until he was standing directly in front of Basil, invading his space completely. The aura of calm authority surrounding him was dense and unbroken, untouched by the late hour or the fatigue lingering around his eyes. He lowered his gaze to Basil, his expression unreadable as he said, "If you cared about my health, you wouldn’t have been hiding from me for three days now." His voice dropped into a register that felt far too intimate for the vastness of the quiet room.

Basil swallowed and lifted his chin slightly, refusing to be intimidated by the proximity. "I told you I’m not hiding from you. I just have some things to handle." His voice remained steady, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed how uncomfortable he was with the conversation.

Darius’s eyes narrowed slightly. "I never knew spending your afternoons burning through ammunition at a firing range was more important than what we had."

Basil’s jaw tightened. He finally looked up at Darius, meeting his intense gaze for a brief moment before speaking. "I get it. You have people working for you and all that, but I wouldn’t appreciate you using them to monitor my movements."

Darius pressed forward, backing, backing Basil against the wall. He took one final step that eliminated the remaining space between them before reaching out. His broad hand caught Basil by the chin, firm but careful, forcing his face upward until their eyes locked. "If you weren’t running from me, I wouldn’t have to keep track of where you go."

Basil’s breath caught at the quiet certainty in his voice. He tried to turn his face away, but Darius held him there, his grip never becoming painful, only preventing him from retreating. Darius studied him for a long moment before speaking again. "You can’t even look me in the eyes now. Do you regret what we did, Basil?"

The question struck harder than Basil expected. His chest tightened as he heard the vulnerability buried beneath Darius’s controlled voice.

The dark intensity in Darius’s eyes held no malice, no anger, only an overwhelming, relentless need for an answer. Basil was the one making this harder than it needed to be, yet he kept pulling away, kept creating distance between them as though that could somehow erase what had happened. Why did he keep making things so difficult for Darius when Darius was only asking him to face what they had shared? He swallowed hard, suddenly unsure of what answer he could give without revealing far more than he was ready to admit.

"You think what we had was a mistake, right?" Darius murmured, his thumb tracing the sharp line of Basil’s jaw. "You are now trying to claw it back by pretending it never happened, by keeping your distance and shutting me out."

"You don’t understand what you’re asking of me," Basil choked out, his voice finally cracking as the defensive wall around him began to crumble. "We cannot... we were supposed to..." He pressed his hands against Darius’s chest, trying to push him away, but his grip lacked real strength. "...See, I’m sorry, okay? I can’t give you what you want. We’re supposed to be siblings... brothers, bu—"

"But we’re not exactly brothers," Darius interrupted, his voice quiet and flst.

Basil flinched as if he had been struck, his eyes widening before he quickly looked away, his face going pale in the dim light of the entryway. The visceral reaction hit Darius hard, a sudden pang of regret cutting through his impatience. He immediately realized how badly his words had come out and rushed to explain himself, his voice softening as he said, "Basil, listen to me. I don’t mean it like that. I mean we can’t just pretend we’re only brothers now, not after what happened between us. Please, don’t use that label to justify your fear."

Basil wrenched himself free from Darius’s touch, taking several quick steps back and creating a wide distance between them. "You don’t understand—"

"You’re the one who doesn’t understand, Basil," Darius interrupted, his voice dropping into a rough, low growl that filled the room. "You gave yourself to me without holding anything back. Do you honestly believe I am going to let you pretend it never happened and simply go back to how things used to be?"

Basil couldn’t take it anymore.

Darius was being utterly insufferable, completely blind to the reality hanging over their heads. He was acting as though everything between them was simple, as though they could simply acknowledge what had happened and decide where to go from there without considering everything standing in their way. Basil’s chest tightened with frustration as he stared at him. If there were a way to turn back time, he would have done it without hesitation. He would have gone back to that moment and stopped himself before any of it happened. He would never have allowed things to cross that line in the first place.

But they couldn’t change the past. What had happened had happened, and neither of them could undo it. That didn’t mean they had to accept it as something that could define their future or pretend there wouldn’t be consequences for what they had done. He expected Darius to understand that there was more at stake than what the two of them wanted. Their relationship had never been simple, and whatever Darius was trying to turn it into would not suddenly become acceptable just because they had feelings for each other. They would have to face the people around them, the questions, the judgment, and everything that came with stepping beyond the boundaries they had always known. Not everyone would look at their relationship the way Darius did. Not everyone would simply accept it or pretend that their history meant nothing.

The dam inside Basil finally broke, and his frustration came pouring out.

"I don’t know why you are being so unreasonable!" Basil blurted out, his voice rising as all the frustration he had been holding back finally spilled over. "I don’t understand what you even want from me! Whatever it is you think we can have, it cannot happen! It will not work!"

Darius went completely still, his expression hardening as he stared at Basil.

Basil swallowed hard but forced himself to continue, even though something inside him was already screaming at him to stop.

"I am supposed to be your brother, dammit," he said, his voice trembling with the weight of the words. "I am supposed to be making up for every single thing my biological family stole from you, not dragging you into an abomination. Whatever relationship you have built up in your head, it is impossible!"