welcome to my world

Colt let out something between a breath and a scoff. “He came home trashed. Didn’t even get past the hallway before he started in on me.”

Brandon waited.

“He asked where the hell I’d been. I told him I was out with a friend. He said ‘what, sucking cock in alleyways now?’ Then he threw a glass at the floor.” Colt laughed—hollow, bitter. “Said I was just like Mom. A whore who’d rather let strangers inside her than face her own goddamn mess.”

Brandon’s stomach turned. Colt looked up at him finally, eyes bloodshot, like someone who hadn’t cried yet but needed to.

“He said…” Colt’s voice cracked. “He said no son of his would be a goddamn faggot. Told me I should go live with the rest of the dick-sucking degenerates in San Myshuno. That I should pack my shit and leave if I wanted to keep getting bent over by bartenders.”

Silence.

Then Brandon moved.

Two steps and he was in front of Colt, kneeling like he was trying to ground him. “You listen to me,” he said, steady, low. “You are not him. You’re not broken. You’re not disgusting. You don’t deserve to be spoken to like that.”

“I know,” Colt whispered, eyes burning.

“No you don’t,” Brandon snapped—gently. “If you did, you wouldn’t be sitting here thinking you deserved it.”

Colt’s hands clenched in his lap. “Then why does it still feel like he’s right?”

“Because he’s been screaming it at you your whole life. And I’m just one voice trying to remind you he’s fucking wrong.”

The space between them shrank.

Colt’s breath hitched. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Colt said, voice cracking like something inside him had finally splintered.

“I won’t let you be.”

Brandon pulled him in, and Colt melted. The kiss was tentative, the way you kiss someone who flinches from touch but still leans into it anyway. Their hands moved slow—desperate, trembling, reverent.

When Brandon eased him onto the mattress, Colt whispered, “He’s right next door. He could hear us.”

Brandon stilled, eyes searching his face. “So I should stop?”

Colt blinked, chest tight, breath shaky. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

It came out ragged. Like it hurt to say but would’ve hurt more not to.

And Brandon didn’t.

He touched him like a prayer. Kissed every scar like a secret. Fucked him slow—not for pleasure, but for salvation. For proof. For the quiet kind of love that doesn’t ask questions or make demands, just holds you while you fall apart.

Colt sobbed once, quietly, while Brandon was inside him. Bit his lip hard enough to bleed and didn’t stop him. Because it wasn’t just sex. It was reclamation. It was quiet moans into pillowcases, breath hitched against necks, and the press of hands that promised I see you, all of you, even the parts you hate. It was Colt clinging to Brandon like he was the first real thing he’d touched in weeks.

And Brandon, oh—he held him like he would never let go. Like Colt was something sacred.

Moonlight spilled through the half-closed blinds, casting silver shadows across tangled limbs. There, in the quiet rhythm of shared breaths and hoarse whispers, two broken boys stitched themselves together—one touch, one gasp, one tremble at a time. In that fleeting, fragile night, they were whole.