"Look at me," Simon said. I raised my eyes slowly, head tilted up, lips just shy of brushing him again. That mask covered so much, but I could still see it-the heat in the way he watched me, the possession in it. "I want you to remember this," he said, tone smooth and measured. "Not as work. Not as some transaction you forget when you leave." I swallowed. "You'll remember it," he added, thumb trailing along my cheek now. "Because no one's ever touched you like I will." . . . . . . . . . . She used to capture life with a camera. Now she dances for strangers under neon lights just to survive. He's a soldier with no past he'll speak of. She's a woman with no future she believes in. But somehow, their ruin feels familiar. In a bar where names are fake and nothing is ever real, two broken souls collide in the quiet space between danger and desire. A slow-burn, emotionally heavy fanfic about survival, vulnerability, and the kind of connection that feels more like a wound than a cure.