Leo stared at the watch in his hand, the silver stars etched across its face catching the afternoon light. Its ticking was steady, a quiet heartbeat that seemed to sync with his own. Over the past weeks, the fragments of thought had grown more frequent, more vivid, more… alive.
I'm still having trouble getting this right; the join is off again.
Leo's chest tightened at the frustration underlying the words. He traced the motion of the imagined saw, the angle of the plank, the careful hands at work. He had started to notice patterns: the rhythm of Kai's mind, the subtle spikes of hope and dips of despair, the moments when he paused to breathe before pushing forward.
The sketches on his pad had evolved. At first, they had been vague impressions: the set of the shoulders, the tilt of the head, hands poised mid-task. Now, they were detailed, deliberate—capturing the lines of concentration, the subtle tension in Kai's brow, the careful precision of hands that shaped wood with devotion and patience. Leo imagined the smell of sawdust, the warmth of the workshop, the faint scent of varnish clinging to skin.
He tried something new. He closed his eyes and focused, picturing encouragement, calm, a steadying presence he could send across the unseen thread. At first, it felt absurd—a childish notion of influence. But when he opened his eyes, the thoughts he caught were smoother, calmer, more deliberate. A tiny triumph flashed through the fragments:
The join… it works. Finally.
Leo's lips curved in a soft, private smile. The sense of connection was no longer passive. He could feel the subtle resonance, a two-way current that left him both exhilarated and unnervingly responsible.
Meanwhile, miles away, Kai Mercer paused mid-plane, inhaling the sharp scent of freshly cut wood. A faint warmth brushed the back of his neck, a sensation like a hand resting lightly on his shoulder. He frowned, shaking his head. He wasn't imagining it, was he?
No… It's just the sweat, the stress…
He returned to work, but the feeling lingered, subtle and persistent, like a quiet hum of reassurance he couldn't place. His thoughts felt lighter, the edges of frustration dulled, and a curious spark of focus returned. Somewhere in the invisible distance, someone was guiding him—or so it seemed, impossibly, against all reason.
Leo, unaware of the tangible effect he had, kept sketching, imagining, and sending quiet, intentional nudges of encouragement. Every stroke of his pencil, every heartbeat measured against the ticking of the watch, was an offering of care to a man he had never met but whose life had become impossible to ignore.
By the evening, Leo leaned back in his chair, breath shallow with anticipation, hands still trembling slightly from the intimacy of the connection. Somewhere, far away, Kai Mercer worked in the glow of his workshop lights, guided by a presence he could not name, unaware that each small triumph, each reclaimed moment of calm, was carried to him on the pulse of a heartbeat he could not yet see.
And in that quiet, both men felt a thread pulling taut, drawing them closer across the distance, across the lives they lived apart, toward something neither fully understood but both would soon recognize.