she's a rattlesnake

you were targeted . the words strike her hard and fast , becoming difficult for her to conceal it . she knows what that night meant -- she just stifled it , shoved it away and tried her best to ignore it with hope it'll all go away , but no matter what she did , it came back to haunt her . she couldn't pretend it didn't happen and the realization of who she is to him comes to the forefront . this wasn't just a power move , they were trying to send a message . she swallows to wet her mouth , his touch helping aid her defenses to come down and understand this from his perspective . "i'm sorry ," the words falter in a whisper , glancing away . "i just feel like .. i don't know , i feel like i put myself in a bad position that night .. i shouldn't have drank as much ." displayed there for everyone to see . it was easier said than done , however , knowing the kind of attention she attracted . people gravitated , curious , wanting to get closer , but she was spoken for . in every way that counts . she looks into his eyes , "he wouldn't purposely put me in harm's way . if you're upset , if you have to be angry then fine . do what you have to do , i would just hate to see you lose someone important to you ." palm lifts to cup his cheek , thumbing over it before ultimately folding , knowing she shouldn't get involved . "i want us to move on from it , lucky ."

her apology arrives like a reflex sharpened by guilt rather than truth and it tightens his chest, not because he accepts it, but because it confirms how quickly she turns the violence of the night inward. he hears her try to rationalize it, the drinking, the positioning, the quiet suggestion that she might have authored her own vulnerability, and he cuts through it before it can settle into belief. “ no, ” it comes immediately and absolute. his hand remains around her wrist, as though letting go would allow her thoughts to spiral back into places he refuses to permit. his other hand rises, guiding her chin back toward him with a measured gentleness that still carries unmistakable authority. “ that doesn’t matter. ” there is no room left behind for her to negotiate with it. when she speaks of gunnar — of loyalty, of fairness, of not wanting him to lose someone important — the conflict registers in a brief flicker behind his eyes. years of shared survival and blood-deep trust yet none of it erases what happened. in his world, intent does not absolve outcome. her fingers against his cheek soften him in spite of himself and for a fraction of a second, he leans into it before steadying again. “ you don’t get to decide when i stop protecting you, ” he says quietly, thumb brushing once through her hair.  a pause, lower now. “ and you don’t get to ask me to minimize this just so it feels easier to live with. ”

he should have seen that coming . part of him did , part of him was well aware of the damaged caused by his actions , and yet that same inclination clung onto the past — any fraction of it he could in order to breathe properly . “can we just talk ?” positions the possibility of a civil conversation , eyes pleading as if she owed him anything . time doesn’t erase anything , he’s come to realize that the longer he remained on familiar soil . a home that often felt draining than hopeful . he didn’t want to leave her , and had he been able to , he would have stayed . but his mom needed him — she couldn’t take care of his dad all alone . so he managed to uproot himself to handle all matters pertaining to his rehabilitation relocation , a nicer venue . more expensive . hoping this time it’ll get the job done . but cartier lockwood struggled for the better half of his life , choosing sobriety while aching for the resolve of a bottle .

she holds his gaze for a beat too long before looking away, the familiar ache of old hurt settling inside her chest. “ fine. ” because she’s spent years convincing herself she was over it — him — but people who are truly over something rarely need convincing. she slips back toward the office, flipping the weathered sign in the window to ‘ CLOSED ’ before locking the door behind her. it feels strange abandoning responsibility though there was a time she used to leave without thinking. before luke. before everything became hers to carry. the walk to the dock passes in silence until she lowers herself onto the edge, her sneakers nudging against the water below, sending small ripples outward. this place has always felt like a dividing line, where luke died, hermes left, and lainey stayed. none of them got the future they thought they were promised. “ well, ” she murmurs after a moment, “ you wanted to talk. ”

" if you're jealous, just say that. "

he’d been at the center of the vip section like he always was, a hand lingering on some model’s waist, and she’d watched it the way she watches most things — without urgency, already halfway gone before it even registered as a scene worth staying in. the night was still humming when she stepped outside. she doesn’t turn when she hears him, just adjusts the weight of her coat. “ if i were jealous, i would’ve stayed to compete with the version of you that needs an audience to feel real. ”

" can't say i believe in timelines. " what's meant to be will always be. it's a philosophy his mother instilled in him at an early age, a lesson he's clung to through every loss and uncomfortable truth he's ever had to swallow. digits drum absently against the gear shift, pondering her next question for all of a second before blurting his response. " yeah. " the admission comes naturally, more blunt than anything else because part of him suspects she'd appreciate the truth over some polished version of it. " i prefer living life on the edge. " doesn't know how much she's already heard about him — whether the rumors circulating through town have reached her yet. the fights, the nights that end with an excess of vodka and not enough common sense. people love to talk around here, it's the first conclusion he made upon his arrival. " but i think you do, too. " gaze flickers toward her, following the curve of her jaw that's illuminated by the pale moonlight. he drifts through a few more corners, finally stopping when they're high enough to overlook the city, thousands of lights glittering against the darkness like scattered stars. slows down his speed, easing the car onto the side of the road, the engine settling into a low rumble as he shifts the vehicle to park. " c'mon, " then he's pushing the door open, stepping into the cool night air. sneakers scuff against the asphalt, hopping up on the hood with ease, metal creaking faintly beneath his weight while his palm pats the spot beside him, urging her to take a seat.

she lets his words roll around in her head, trying to decide if she’s listening to confidence or a slow-motion free fall. still hasn’t decided which is more dangerous. but when he assigns her the same philosophy, a scoff slips out before she can temper it, bright and immediate. “ don’t project, ” her tone is light but precise, the edge of amusement threading through it like wire. “ you don’t know me that well. ” there’s no real heat behind it, not exactly anger, just instinct. a reflexive resistant to being read too easily, too quickly, especially by someone who still feels like a moving variable she hasn’t solved yet. then the world shifts as the engine winds down, the car settling into silence as he pulls off toward the overlook. the absence of motion feels almost unnatural after the relentless rhythm of drive, like her body is only now remembering stillness exists. adrenaline drains slowly from her system. she steps out while he’s already moving, casual as gravity, hopping onto the hood like it belongs to him. of course it does, and that kind of ease shouldn’t be attractive, but it is. she exhales through her nose, circling the car before finally following, climbing up beside him. the city stretches beneath them and for a moment she doesn’t speak, doesn’t annotate the view with sarcasm or deflection. she just watches. the city glitters quietly and lumionously in a way that feels almost intimate, as though the night itself is conspiring to make the moment softer than she’s willing to admit. “ .. you bring everyone you’re trying to sleep with up here ? ” finally asked dry as ever, her voice calm, almost conversational.

the hallway suddenly feels smaller, like the walls are going to close in on them, tension growing with each passing second as the two men size each other up, and she's stuck in the middle of their standoff. what are you supposed to do when your distraction collides headfirst with your complex past? her hand curls around the doorframe, fingers tightening around the wood as if holding on will keep the situation from spiraling out of control. " who even is this guy? " his face is scrunching in disdain as he motions towards ricky, searching for an explanation that refuses to come out. because how is she supposed to define him? the man she used to trust with her life, the one she had given every piece of herself to, the one who broke her heart not once but twice. the silence drags on, thick and uncomfortable, a tightness coiling in her chest as her gaze finds ricky's, speaking to him through her eyes — to tell him i don’t know what to do here. " you don't need a minute. i already gave her twenty. " the satisfied smirk on the other's face says it all, puffing his chest the way men do when they're threatened, and it leaves a particularly sour taste in her mouth. " if you catch my drift. " adds that last bit with a cocky wink, obviously looking for a reaction as he steps closer towards homme, hand squeezing ricky's shoulder, almost mocking. " oh, that's not— " necessary. she can sense heat creeping up the back of her neck, beyond the point of discomfort. this is just pure agony for her now, a scene straight from a nightmare. but she knows him better than anyone, knows that he's not going to take well to his little comment.

the twenty minutes comment lands exactly as intended. a lesser man might have taken the bait. aaron practically serves it to him on a silver platter, chest puffed out, smirk firmly in place, the unmistakable posture of someone convinced they’re winning a competition ricky hadn’t realized they were participating in. but he has spent too many years surrounded by men like this to mistake performance for threat. gang members trying to establish hierarchy. drunk patrons outside the inferno looking to prove something. men who believed volume was synonymous with power. aaron is amateur hour by comparison. the jealousy is there, of course — brief, acrid, unavoidable. but it evaporates the second his attention shifts to sahar. noticing the discomfort etched across her features, the way she looks almost trapped inside a situation that seems to be growing more intolerable for her by the second, his priorities realign. he’s not choosing himself, nor his pride. he chooses her. his jaw tightens, a slow breath leaving through his nose as he forcibly reins in every uglier impulse threatening to surface. the last thing she needs is two men turning her front hallway into a territorial spectacle. then aaron’s hand lands on his shoulder, ricky’s gaze dropping to it. a quiet beat passes though there’s no visible reaction, no impulsive escalation. it’s almost disconcertingly calm when he moves, his hand closing around the other male’s wrist to remove it from his shoulder with an ease that makes the disparity between them immediately apparent. he’s not aggressive with it, only simply decisive. the movement shifts his jacket, just enough that a dark holster becomes visible for the briefest moment before the fabric settles into place. not displayed, not offered, merely there. his eyes lift again, expression unreadable. and ricky says nothing — because his silence communicates far more effectively and menacing than any verbalized threat ever could.

“i think gunnar understands the severity of the situation , lucky . he’s not stupid to think he’ll get off unscathed for what happened to me , but it’s just … not fair for him to take all the blame . it’s not , i’m sorry . i don’t agree with you on this . which should say something because i’m always my own advocate , but i know what i did was stupid ,” she’s rambling , a clear sign of her own internal distress as gaze meets his that is unrelenting to the situation . can feel her chest crumbling under the weight of his words , “there is no one in this world i trust to protect me other than you .” almost feels slighted that he’d think anyone else could even compare . seeing him like this — stressed and nearly on the verge of a burnout — all because of something that happened to her , had her feeling the pressure and blame was easy to put when she was the victim . it was a lot to process especially coming back from it all and trying to move past it . she did her due diligence of remembering as much as she could about that night , hoping to put it behind her , but every second that passed was proving to make it an impossible feat .

her insistence tightens him like pressure sealed inside glass. his gaze stays fixed on her as she speaks through the distress building behind her words, trying to distribute blame onto herself from someone actually at fault. he recognizes her mind attempting to rationalize what it cannot fully hold yet. “ stop, ” he cuts in, a beat passing before he closes the remaining space between them, and his hand finds her wrist, steadying rather than restraining. “ you were not stupid, ” his correction comes almost immediately, “ you were targeted. ” he won’t allow her language to turn inward like that as his distinction offers no softness, only certainty. her confession that she trusts no one but him lands heavier than anything else she’s said, shifting something behind his eyes he doesn’t quite let surface, yet her attempt to keep gunnar inside the frame of fairness only sharpens the restraint already coiled beneath his composure. “ then why are you defending him ? ” the question comes low and measured, firm in its correction of boundaries that are slipping out of place. his thumb stills her pulse beneath his hand for a moment. “ you don’t need to balance this for him. and you don’t need to decide what is or isn’t fair in how i handle it. ” his eyes hold hers, unwavering, the finality beneath his gaze unmistakable. “ let me do my job. ”

“i don’t think i’ll ever get you out of my system .”

she goes still at his words, attempting to physically anchor herself to something steadier than this. “ i think that’s your problem, ” she says softly, almost detached, but her eyes don’t quite meet his. like she’s afraid of what they might give away if they linger too long.

" it could've went worse. " had the guy not picked up on what slater was telling him to do, or combatted him. he could've got in a fight, for no good reason. she wasn't his responsibility to protect, and yet he seemed to be showing up time and time again. it was a pattern she couldn't ignore. " most guys are. " she didn't have much luck in that department, if dating was like shopping, she was definitely picking out of the damaged bin. time and time again, it felt like she found herself getting scorned, and yet she couldn't stop dipping her fingers back into that fire. " i'm just... i'm apologizing for you having to deal with it. " there was no reasoning for the other's actions, she wouldn't and couldn't justify that, but slater didn't need to step in the line of fire, no matter what he said. " i knew you wouldn't refuse. " if it was anything else, he probably would've told her he didn't need anything from her in return, despite the guilt that curled up in her chest. " i'll have an amaretto sour, and... whatever he's having. " her eyes flicker between slater's drink and the bartender, fishing for her card in the pile of stuff that had compounded in her purse. " put it on my tab. "

he watches her as she speaks, hearing the careful logic behind her words and there is an immediate, almost reflexive irritation at the way she bargains with her own safety as though it is negotiable. “ yeah, ” he cuts in, flat and final, gaze steady on her. “ and it didn’t. ” no room left for alternate endings, no space for the imagined versions of him bleeding or breaking over a stranger’s entitlement. when she says most guys are, he can’t help the way his jaw shifts at how she says it like disappointment is the default setting of people. like she’s been conditioned to expect rot and simply learned to walk carefully around it. her apology follows though he doesn’t let it land. “ don’t do that, ” it’s quieter, slightly sharper in its restraint than anger. he orders his drink then takes the glass when it arrives as if ending a transaction that never should have existed. only then does he move, settling into the seat beside her — closer, deliberate, an unspoken refusal to let distance do the talking. his eyes flick toward her profile and he studies her longer than he means to, noticing the faint warmth still lingering in her cheeks, the softened focus in her gaze. and something in his chest tightens at the thought of how easily she takes up less space than she deserves. “ you here alone tonight ? ” a pause. “ or am i still dealing with that boyfriend of yours ? ”

“it’s not his fault , lucky .” words come out despite his clear warning knowing no matter what she said , it wasn’t going to change his mind . she knew better , they both did . gunnar left when he shouldn’t have , but freya accepted something from someone she didn’t recognize . if he wanted someone to point fingers at , then they were both to blame for it , not just him . can’t even believe the words coming out of her mouth , once convinced the man in question was going to kill her one day . “i should have waited for him to come back . you know it , i know it , and he knows it , too ,” positions the idea , looking him in the eye as she walks further into his space and closer to him . she’s never seen him like this , and maybe that’s because his anger was usually pointed towards someone else . whenever it involved her , he wasn’t as intimidating as he was just seconds ago . chin tips to make up for the height , “if you want to be mad at someone , be mad at me — okay ?”

her defense of gunnar lands where it shouldn’t, right against the precise instruction he’d given her not to shoulder blame that was never hers to carry. it doesn’t soften him. in fact, it irritates — quiet and contained — because she’s still trying to distribute responsibility like it belongs in equal measure. he notices her stepping closer while simultaneously trying to absolve the room around her, as though proximity might balance consequence. it doesn’t work like that in his world. his jaw tightens once, restrained, then he moves, taking one step forward to close the space between them. “ no, ” it’s not raised, not negotiated. absolute. his gaze holds her as he cuts through the structure she’s building in her mind. “ i don’t care what gunnar thinks, ” a beat, controlled but edged with certainty. “ i care what happened to you. ” gunnar’s name, their history, the years of loyalty and violence and imperfect trust all exist, yes, but none of it is relevant in this moment. accountability will still come later, privately, where it belongs. “ and if you keep trying to make this your fault, i’m going to start thinking you don’t trust me to protect you at all. ”

that night tagged along like a storm cloud no matter where she went as a reminder of her mistake and everyone else’s involved . felt it when she woke up in the morning , locating it in lucky’s eyes .. and right now , walking in on the tail-end of his conversation with gunnar . the moment his attention lands on her , she crosses her arms against her chest as it squeezes relentlessly in guilt , “can i have a second alone with lucky , please , gunnar ?” doesn’t glance at homme in question , remaining entirely focused on her husband expecting him to accept her proposal in order for the two of them to talk in private .

the moment he recognizes her presence, whatever temperature the room has been holding fractures and lucky’s attention detaches from gunnar almost instinctively. she looks guilty before she even speaks, which is enough to dull the edge in his voice. his gaze shifts between them once, calculation replaced by immediacy. “ we’ll finish this later, ” he says to gunnar, tone flattening into controlled dismissal. his right-hand man understands without protest, giving a short nod and stepping out, closing the door behind him. lucky turns fully to freya, watching the way she holds herself with her arms folded and shoulders tightened inward like she’s bracing for impact that hasn’t come. his voice lowers, stripped of the earlier steel but not the authority beneath it. “ if you’re about to blame yourself for this conversation, ” a pause, his eyes steady on hers. “ save your breath. ”

dallas didn't ask what he meant by that. the different reason. not yet, anyway. she filed it away instead, the way she'd learned to do with most things that mattered, turning them over later when no one was watching. but she heard it. the half-second where his voice had dropped out from under the joke, the way he sighs. she set her cup down on the windowsill, abandoning the pretense of it entirely, and fell into step beside him without making a thing of it. the night air outside was sharper, cleaner, the bass from the speakers fading into something more like a heartbeat than a song. "better?" she asked, glancing sideways at him, giving him an easy out if he wanted one — talk about the party, the town, anything that wasn't the thing he'd almost said. but she left the door open too. "you don't have to tell me," she added, quieter now, "but if you want to to talk about it" a pause, careful. "i'm a pretty good listener. comes with being the youngest of four and never getting a word in otherwise."

“ your brothers would be thrilled to hear you’ve finally found a use for being the youngest. ” a quiet laugh escapes him as the teasing comes easily. it’s the honesty that takes a second longer. he leans against the railing, gaze settling on the familiar constellation of porch lights and storefront signs scattered across town. for a moment, he just watches them. it occurred to him that she remembered who he was before the trophies and the interviews. most people approached trey keating with questions already formed; dallas approached him with curiosity and he found himself relaxing at that. “ the crash.. ” he exhales through his nose. “ turns out it changed more than my knees. ” it hadn’t taken racing from him nearly as thoroughly as it had taken his sense of direction. “ i’ve spent so long knowing exactly who i was. ” driver. competitor. the guy always headed toward the next race. “ now i’m stuck figuring out who i am when none of that’s guaranteed. ” the admission feels larger spoken aloud than it ever does in his head. “ but, ” he glances at her with a crooked smile, unwilling to linger in that territory too long, “ that’s enough existential crisis for one night. ”

she didn't want to change him , didn't want him to regret any of his decisions knowing he had a schedule he lived by . a process in place for which his empire survived on . but the thought of him leaving her now felt like someone was reaching in and taking something from her and she didn't like it . she didn't like feeling helpless , either , but the stranger took something from her . something she didn't have a name for . turning her into someone she's already having a hard time recognizing . "good ," she whispers . "i can live with that ." brushes her lips along his temple , down the side of his face before kissing the corner of his mouth . tonight was supposed to be a good night . how the hell did it turn into such a disaster ? glancing between this eyes , a smile edges upwards before she's tightening her arms around his neck , "thirty minutes is all we need and they can most certainly wait their time ." nearly huffs , eyes pinched at the idea of anyone intruding , already dreading the day he has to go back to work like normal and she has to wait for him to come back to her . a fear living in the back of her head of anticipation , hoping the door opens with him at the foot . shifting her body and pressing her palms to his chest in order to get him to lay back , she nuzzles right there on top of him . head in the crook of his neck with her arms around his body , "don't leave me . okay ?"

lucky stood in his office with gunnar opposite him, tension saturating the room so thoroughly it felt combustible. “ i’m not interested in excuses, ” his voice is sharpened into a blade. “ i trusted you to handle it. ” ‘ and i did. ’ “ clearly not well enough. ” the words arrive harsher than intended, but his restraint has been in short supply since the incident. ever since a stranger managed to get close enough to frighten her — to touch what belonged to him. that realization has infected every corner of his thinking since. ‘ you think i’m not aware of that ? ’ gunnar fires back. lucky drags a hand through his hair, frustration mounting. “ then explain to me how she was left vulnerable in the first place. ” the silence that follows is only broken by the sound of footsteps beyond the doorway. his gaze lifts. freya.

lets her sit back down without comment, like he'd known she would the moment she stood. "relocation assistance," he repeated, dry, almost fond, like he could appreciate the spin even knowing exactly what it was. "cute," reaches into his jacket, unhurried, and set a folded slip of paper on the table between them — not sliding it over yet, just letting it sit there the way he let everything sit, patient, deliberate. "thirty-five thousand. principal, interest, and the cost of however many people it took to track you down." he finally pushed the paper an inch closer to her. "cain would've let it slide, probably. told you to keep it, even." there was no bitterness in it, just fact, the kind that came with loving someone and knowing exactly what made them breakable. his brother had a daughter now who'd inherited that same softness, and abel showed up for her every chance he got precisely because he understood what it cost a man like cain to be that gentle in a world built to punish it. "that kind of heart doesn't last long in this business. he's proof of that." a beat, his expression unreadable. "i don't have that problem."

the number lands with a kind of quiet violence. thirty-five thousand. she goes still in the way things do right before they break — not dramatic, not outwardly performative — just an internal cessation, like her mind refuses to grant the figure legitimacy in the real world it inhabits. a laugh slips out of her anyway, more breath than sound. “ thirty-five— ” she starts then abandons it, because even language feels complicit in making it real. her thoughts fracture into language she understands: rent she never quite paid on time, bus tickets folded into pocket lint, nights measured in cheap highs and cheaper mistakes, the handful of dollars she’d taken back then like it was nothing more than survival tax. a few hundred, a fleeing girl’s insurance policy, now proliferated into something obscure. “ you’re charging me luxury pricing for survival-level stupidity, ” her humor is thin, fraying at the edges. her eyes lock onto the folded paper without touching it, before she shifts back in the booth. then finally, she taps the paper once, light and dismissive, almost involuntary, like she’s testing whether it bites. humiliation creeps in slowly as she understands she wasn’t forgotten. she was recorded, catalogued, kept. “ so what, ” she says at last, voice quieter but sharpened at the edges, “ this is the part where i work it off ? ” a pause as her gaze lifts to him. “ what do you want from me, exactly ? ”

she wanted to tell him that she couldn't stay here. that this place was eating her alive. that if she didn't find a way to leave, they would swallow her whole and spit out her bones as pieces. even if she felt for him. even if she could see hands that were stained like the rest of them in scars, and red paint that wasn't paint at all- and choose to feel the warmth in them. unravel in the calloused brush against her skin, turning her survival into a softness she shouldn't have felt. shouldn't have let herself feel. she inched forward, watched the way his jaw twitched, watched the way absentness flickered his gaze somewhere else momentarily. as thoughts ricochet off her words, and split into different paths, each of them ending the same way. with money on the counter. with a hole in her chest, or her heart- it was the same fucking thing these days. and she was smart enough to know promises weren't something that could be wielded like silver tongues, not in the life he lived. not in the one she was thrust into. her hands gently curved down his chest, her own jaw twitching with the hard swallow as eyes traced the lines where digits rested. he had a heart- she knew because she could feel it beating. "i.." don't say it, don't say it. her eyes closed, inhaling through her nose and he fills her there too. he left it on her bed, in her hair, on her clothes. she wondered if the others could smell it. wondered if their wandering hands had been restrained by choice, a hierarchy sniffed out and wrapped around her like a territorial mark. or if digits that tried, had been cut at the knuckle. "stay." she decided, it was better off for the both of them. if she said the words that had been touched at the tip of her tongue, if she spoke them out loud, no matter if she felt it or not- love was a recruitment for weakness. she'd have been digging a heart-shaped grave of her own. "please." her nose touched his, felt the curve of his mouth ghost against hers like an almost touch. an almost admittance. an almost betrayal.

he stills when she touches his heart, her hand against his chest disrupting the order of him in a way violence never has. he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t retreat, but pauses in the kind of way that suggests a system recalibrating under strain, charged with the realization that she has crossed into a space he did not realize was still accessible. stay. he feels the request before he processes it. as a kind of structural word, the type of word that doesn’t negotiate with a man like it ; it simply reorders the architecture of everything that comes after. “ you don’t know what you’re asking, ” the words come low, restrained, carved down to their most functional form. it’s not a refusal, but not acceptance either. a warning. “ that’s not how this works. ” a heavy beat. “ angel— ” he stops there. because her name, spoken in this proximity, acquires weight it has never carried before, and for the first time in years, language feels insufficiently armoured to contain what it risks revealing. her please has arrived like an inevitability, as if the word has been circling both of them for far longer than either has been willing to acknowledge and has finally found a place to land. she doesn’t retreat, doesn’t reconsider, the distance between them collapsing further until thought itself becomes inconvenient. her breath is close enough to disturb the cadence of his control, her presence threaded through every instinct he has spent a lifetime disciplining into obedience. his following gesture is almost subconscious and instinctive, as his hand rises, not to claim, not to possess, but to anchor. his fingers settle at her wrist first, then drift upward with measured restraint until his grip finds the line of her jaw — controlled and deliberate. the kind of contact that might appear like composure to anyone else. his gaze locks onto hers as the question forms before he can soften it. “ why should i ? ” it’s not challenge alone, not cruelty, but something more dangerous. the words leave him in a near-whisper, fractured at the edges, and the distance between them disappears in the briefest violation of restraint. his lips ghost hers in a feather-light caress — not brushing fully, not yet — but enough to collapse the remaining space into implication rather than action. he understands with uncomfortable clarity that this is the threshold he’s been avoiding since the first night she stepped into his orbit. because whatever answers she gives next will not determine whether he stays. it will determine whether he remembers how to leave.

the club was so loud, pulsing with music and bodies that packed together. they had to shift through the crowds of it, his hand encapsulating hers so that he didn't loose her in the heat of it. when they reached the bar, he wavered down his sister- who gave him a stern looked, blinking between the two of them. brina knew his type, and knew that he was a fucking yes-man to pretty girls, with pretty eyes, most of which that were halfway using him to get free shit. but the bar was busy tonight, she didn't have time to argue with him. but he knew that he'd hear about it later. she also would bitch about him wasting money on the drinks, when he should have been saving it. but money comes and goes. he wasn't-- that worried. maybe not as worried as he should have been. "hmm?" he asked under his breath when she presented the prose of a question, winking at brina when she slid him the shots and then sliding it closer to to her. the question had him look away for a second, before he brought the glass to his lips and swigged it to the back of his throat, the warm settling there before the burn. "yeah baby," his hand lingered on the tops of her wrist, thumb draping small circles. "everything is fine." truth is, his boss- which was just a low fucking man on the totem pole trying to up his status to the real boss, and their boss, up the chain of teeth- noticed that he'd been short. on the cash, that is, the last couple weeks. he had to sell all the shit this time to make up for it, and keep the roaches off his back. none of which he wanted her involved in. "everything's fine." he leaned in, so she could hear him better. "i was worried you'd get bored of me." which is halfway the truth, too.

she catches the look his sister gives her — the kind of look she’s grown accustomed to over the years: rich girl, party girl, bad news wrapped in designer labels and a pretty smile. a girl who takes and takes and takes. maybe the accusation isn’t entirely unfounded, but the corner of her mouth twitches anyway as she reaches for the shot. “ she hates me. ” the sentiment is promptly drowned beneath liquor, the burn sliding down her throat as she sets the empty glass back onto the bar. then he speaks and for a moment, she just stares at him. of all the things she expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. the laughter that escapes her is soft and incredulous, almost disbelieving. “ you were worried i’d get bored of you ? ” the thought is so foreign it borders on absurd. men tend to get distracted and restless with her. they take what they came for and then leave. some departures are dramatic, others imperceptible, but they leave all the same. the first man in her life had taught her that lesson long before she was old enough to understand it. since her father left, she’d spent years trying to become indispensable. pretty enough. interesting enough. worth staying for. “ blue, ” she laughs again, shaking her head. “ that’s adorable. ” the word is teasing, but something tender lingers beneath it. her gaze drops briefly to where his hand rests over her wrist as the club pulses around them, all flashing lights and cacophony. with the warmth of alcohol settling beneath her skin and his touch anchoring her to the present, she can’t quite remember why she’d wanted anything else so badly in the first place when his attention was intoxicating enough. “ i spent half the night looking for you, ” a smile pulls at her lips like she’s deciding something about him she doesn’t want to say out loud. fingers slipping to his collar, she pulls him down into a kiss that’s sweet enough to feel almost careless, like she’s pretending this doesn’t mean more than it should.

"don't they know i come first ?" attempts to ease the tension between them , arms crossed on the table . reads that look on his face like a chapter she's come across many times before , the way she believes him . wasn't sugarcoated or tied in a pretty bow to satisfy her curiosity . people have wanted things from him for a very long time and for a majority of that time , she used herself as an armor . did her best to protect him from it , whether that was interrupting conversations at galas , sending his phone to voicemail or simply taking him halfway across the world on an exotic vacation in order to get far , far away from those people . the same ones trying to tear her down now that their privacy is on full display . "stop letting them get to you , cai ." she tells him like it's simple . maybe it could be maybe they hadn't cracked the code to get them to settle down . eyes watch as he turns back to the stove , "you need to protect yourself before they manage to eat you alive ."

“ trust me, they’re aware. ” the response arrives effortlessly, gone almost as quickly as it appears. he turns his attention back to the stove as the grilled cheese meets the pan with a familiar sizzle. then she tells him to protect himself, which earns her a look. “ you’re really giving me this speech right now ? ” coming from calliope dupont, it’s almost funny. not because she’s wrong, but because he can still remember every occasion she dragged him away from people demanding pieces of him. gala conversations interrupted without apology, phones mysteriously disappearing, flights booked with little warning beyond ‘ pack a bag ’ . she’s spent years protecting him in her own peculiar way. “ you’re not wrong. ” the admission is quiet as he stirs the soup once before pointing the spoon in her direction. “ but you say that like you’re any better at it. ” not cruel, but fond. the grilled cheese is plated, the soup following, before he slides both across the island toward her. “ eat. that’s an order. ” a teasing smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, something warmer unfurling inside his chest as he considers the notion: while the industry has always wanted fragments of him, callie has always wanted the mean beneath them. somehow, that distinction still feels monumental.