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"Aguilar told me", you say suddenly. He doesn't look at you, neither stops what he is doing, he simply stays in silence while he looks at his food. You are both at an empty table and the big hall is too packed and noisy with brothers and sisters in the Creed to spy on your conversation.
"What the old man told you?", he finally asks before he takes a spoon of soup into his mouth.
"That you haven't slept in all week", while he swallows the soup, he looks at the plate in front of him.
Anyone could say that he wasn't affected by your sentence, but you weren't just anyone. You have been standing his ass since you were children. Since he came into the Brotherhood after losing everything, after been adopted by Aguilar, his magnifico grandfather, who left you in charge of him like you were his mother.
"Since when the Viejo cares if I sleep or not?", he wants to sound indifferent, but he is failing.
Callum and Aguilar were supposed to get closer after he came because they were the only family each other have, but for some reason that didn't happen, and instead of leaning on his grandfather, Callum leaned in on you. And you hate that because, again, you weren't his mother.
"He always looks like he doesn't care about you, but he does, and you know it. Back to the topic, he told me that you haven't been sleeping and I wanna know why".
Callum exhales, moving his spoon in the soup without taking it.
"You know why I can't sleep".
"Because of the nightmares? I thought they came sometimes only".
"They don't have timers nor schedules. They came whenever the fuck they want", you know he is getting angry, you know because he always loses control fast when pressured. But this time you don't care since, if he doesn't sleep and eat properly, he is of no use to the Brotherhood.
"They are getting worse?"
"Yes", your eyes shift to your soup, which you aren't in the mood to eat.
Callum always has nightmares. Since always. He says that they are about how his family died at the hands of the Templars and that travel he did from the States to find his grandfather. The experience traumatized him and Aguilar, instead of helping him, told him to solve his problems on his own because he had to be a man. That made him turn to you, his partner in practically everything except love because you hate his guts and he hates yours.
"You know I can't sleep without you", he whispers, and is something you almost don't hear because of the noise around you.
His blue eyes stay on his soup but his dominant hand plays with his spoon.
"You can't depend on me every time you have a nightmare. We have solo missions, like this past week", he knows this, you are just repeating it to him because you're angry at him.
You are angry at him because you couldn't sleep this week either. Not because of nightmares, but because he wasn't on the other side of the bed.
Your relationship is weird, is pretty obvious. You don't like him, he doesn't like you, you're always arguing and almost stabbing each other. But you were both Aguilar's novices and he made you depend on each other in a level where you both resolved your problems with the other. When you wanted to scream, he was there to listen, when he had nightmares, you were there to drive him back to sleep. It was a weird relationship, since you were always together but arguing, you looked like his mother because the idiot doesn't know how to take care of himself, and most of the time people thought you were together.
You weren't and you will never.
"We have been doing this since childhood, how do you expect me to not depend on you?", his blue eyes look at you and for a second or two your heart skips a beat.
Is true. At the start, it was just sometimes, but while the nightmares became more regular, he started to come almost every day. Now, at this rate, you sleep in the same bed every night like is the most normal thing in the world. Maybe that's why you missed him all this week because you too were used to him beside you, holding your hand, the hem of your sweater, or simply curled up beside you.
"You're an adult now and I'm not your mother", you answer, he rolls his eyes.
"Stop making yourself look difficult, you couldn't sleep without me neither", he now gives you a smirk. One of those rare and naughty ones that you hate with all your might.
"I have been out of the Bureau all week, what do you expect?"
"Those bags under your eyes say that you haven't been sleeping well. Did you miss me?", now he starts teasing you like he does when you're alone. You hate that even more because you struggle hiding the fact that he affects you in some way.
"No. Why will I miss you?", he lifts his shoulders in a gesture that means "I don't know, you tell me". You scoff and look at your food. Suddenly you lost all your appetite even when you were dying of hunger before Aguilar called you to gossip about his grandson's lack of sleep.
"If it makes you feel better", he starts in a whisper, suddenly stretching his hand to rub his thumb in your jaw, "I did miss you".
You look at him with your heart about to get out of your chest.
You have never told him, but when he first came to the Bureau, Aguilar looked at you and made you promise him that you will always take care of Callum. Not just because he was in an unknown place and you were the only child of his age, but also because he was practically alone in this world and he wanted to make sure that Callum had someone to lean on.
You promised your Mentor that you will take care of him, that was before knowing that Callum was a huge pain in the ass but you guess that that promise was the main reason why you always accept him in your bed when he comes all scared after a nightmare.
Feeling like you have to run out of his warm and affectionate gesture, you stand up from the table suddenly, making Layla, Desmond, Rebecca, and Shaun, who were at a close table, look at the both of you with confused expressions. You left the great hall in a hurry and Callum laughed while you disappeared.
That night, after dinner and after you deny yourself a lot of things, Callum came to your room like so many nights before and lay down at the other side of the bed. You tried to ignore him but then he grabbed the hem of your hoodie and you realized something.
You didn't hate him.
You never did.
It was always something else.
And you were scared now.