A second heartbeat seemed to pulse through the walls, deep and relentless. The sound climbed the stairwell, rattled the cheap frames on the landing, and turned every floorboard into something that complained beneath the weight of too many bodies. Colored light stuttered across the living room in hard, irregular flashes—blue, then violet, then a white so bright it left green ghosts on the backs of eyelids. The air itself had weight and taste: sweat, spilled coconut rum, the sweet chemical burn of body spray, the faint metallic edge of a keg that had been sitting too long in the heat. Someone’s perfume cut through it all, sharp and floral, mixing with the thicker smell of skin.

Shiloh moved like the noise belonged to him. One arm raised, copper hair already damp against his temples, white shirt translucent between the shoulder blades and sticking to the small of his back. He mouthed lyrics he only half knew and laughed when the drop hit hard enough to bounce the entire crowd an inch off the floor. The vibration traveled up through the soles of his sneakers and settled behind his ribs. For those few seconds his head was empty in the best possible way. No political-science deadlines. No Sunday calls from New York that always started with the same clipped questions. No quiet Chelsea apartment waiting with its single lamp and the smell of green soap and cigarettes.

Klaus found him the way he always did—sudden, too close, already smiling like he owned the space between them. The heat of the crowd pressed in from every side, but Klaus’s presence cut through it sharper.

“Isn’t this shit fun?” The words scraped against Shiloh’s ear, warm with whatever Klaus had been drinking since sundown. Klaus’s breath smelled like vodka and something sweeter underneath, mint trying and failing to cover it. His chest brushed Shiloh’s back with every bounce of the crowd.

Shiloh tipped his head back and shouted over the track. “Hell yeah it is. I’m getting fucked up tonight.” Sweat slid down the side of his neck. The lights painted Klaus’s face in quick, ugly flashes—white, then red, then gone again.

A girl next to them screamed the next lyric and knocked her drink against Shiloh’s shoulder; cold liquid ran down his arm in a sticky trail. He laughed anyway, shaking the droplets off his fingers.

Klaus’s grin showed too many teeth. He leaned in closer so his mouth nearly touched the shell of Shiloh’s ear. “You’re already halfway there. Look at you.” He opened one hand between them. A single pink tablet sat in the center of his palm, small and bright under the strobing light. The edges looked chalky. “Do you want a pill? One of these and the whole night gets better. Trust me.”

Shiloh kept bouncing, shaking his head hard enough that his hair whipped across his eyes. Sweat flicked off the ends and landed on Klaus’s wrist. “I want to remember this night, not forget it. Keep that shit away from me.”

Maybe he’d made the wrong choice. If he’d taken the pill, at least he would have had something to blame. Now, he had nothing.

Klaus’s expression flattened for half a second—something cool and assessing that made the hair on Shiloh’s arms try to rise—then smoothed back into the party smile. “Suit yourself. You don’t know what you’re missing. Everyone else is already three songs ahead of you.” He tossed the pill upward, caught it neatly on his tongue, and swallowed with a theatrical little flourish. His throat worked once. Both hands landed on Shiloh’s hips a moment later, fingers spreading wide, thumbs pressing just under the hem of the shirt. The heat of Klaus’s palms soaked straight through the thin cotton. His grip was firm, almost proprietary, the pads of his fingers digging into the soft skin just above Shiloh’s waistband.

Delusions of little men.

“Stay,” Klaus said, voice low enough that only Shiloh could hear it under the music. The word vibrated against Shiloh’s skin. “Stay and fucking look at me. You’ve been dancing alone all night. That’s boring as hell.”

Shiloh’s stomach turned once, quiet and cold. The touch landed wrong. His skin knew the difference even while the rest of him tried to keep the rhythm. Klaus’s thumbs stroked once, slow, like he was testing how much resistance he would get. The bass hit again and the whole floor seemed to shove them closer together.

Shiloh offered the bright, automatic smile he kept for moments that felt like they might turn sharp. “I’m thirsty. Gonna grab a drink. Be right back.” He had to raise his voice to cut through the next drop. “Don’t wait up.”

He twisted free before Klaus could tighten his hold. Klaus’s fingers dragged across the fabric of his shirt for half a second longer than necessary, leaving a lingering heat that felt like a claim. Shiloh pushed into the thicker part of the crowd without looking back. An elbow caught his ribs hard enough to make him grunt. A girl with glitter across her collarbones stumbled into him and laughed, high and delighted, her drink sloshing over both their wrists. The liquid was sticky and cold against his overheated skin. Someone grabbed his arm for a single spin and released him again. Shiloh spun out laughing and kept moving, pulse still too fast, the ghost of Klaus’s hands lingering like a bruise that hadn’t decided whether to form. The bass followed him down the hall, muffled now but still present, a constant pressure against his eardrums.

The hallway beyond the living room was narrower and darker. Couples lined the walls, mouths busy, hands already under fabric. A low moan cut through the music for a second before it was swallowed again. The air here was hotter, thicker with the smell of skin and cheap cologne. A guy with a red cup raised it in silent salute as Shiloh passed. Shiloh returned the gesture without slowing. At the end of the hall a bathroom door stood half open; someone was being sick in a careful, almost polite way. The sound of retching followed him a few steps before the next burst of music covered it.

The kitchen was brighter, fluorescent and unforgiving after the colored dark. Ice cracked into plastic cups with sharp little snaps. A girl in a short black dress argued with a tall guy about whose turn it was to buy the next bottle of vodka. The argument had the loose, looping quality of people who had already had too much.

“You said you had cash,” the girl insisted, pointing with the neck of an empty bottle. Her lipstick was smeared at one corner.

“I said I might have cash,” the guy answered, grinning. “There’s a difference, baby. Check your own pockets.”

“I already did. They’re empty. Like your promises.”

Shiloh reached between them for a clean cup, filled it halfway from the nearest clear bottle, and drank without tasting it. The burn helped. It gave his hands something useful to do while his pulse tried to settle. Condensation ran down the outside of the cup and over his fingers in cool rivulets.

He leaned against the counter, letting his gaze drift idly around the room until it found him. The pull came quietly—sharp, precise, and impossible to ignore.

Across the kitchen, near the back door leading out to the porch, {{user}} stood half in shadow, a cup loosely held between his fingers. Shiloh’s eyes settled on him and stayed there. He’d seen him around campus countless times before. He knew his name. Knew the sound of his voice, the way he carried himself, the little things he probably shouldn’t have noticed as often as he did. And yet, seeing him here felt different. Maybe it was the dim light. Maybe it was the way {{user}} stood there, completely unaware of Shiloh watching him. Whatever the reason, Shiloh felt that familiar, inconvenient heat settle beneath his ribs. Looking at him had always felt a little like standing too close to an open flame—something he knew better than to reach for, and yet never seemed able to step away from.

He stayed where he was through an entire song, watching the small shifts of weight, the subtle movement of {{user}}’s shoulders, the way the weak kitchen light caught along the edge of his jaw. His pulse had climbed for no reason he was willing to name. Beneath the cuff of his sleeve, the tattoo on his right wrist seemed to itch. Everett. Just ink and skin, nothing more. And yet, in moments like this, it felt like a hand around his wrist—a quiet reminder of everything he had promised, everything he was supposed to want. His thoughts betrayed him anyway. He thought of Everett’s mouth tasting faintly of cigarettes, of the low, rare sound he made when he finally surrendered to one of Shiloh’s worse jokes. He thought of the promises whispered in the dark, the ones that had once felt solid enough to build a life around.

Enough to keep him from looking elsewhere.

Enough, he told himself.

The kitchen smelled faintly of lemon cleaner beneath the alcohol, sharp and sterile against the warmth of the crowded room. It didn’t help.

A guy with a man-bun and a stained hoodie bumped Shiloh’s shoulder and offered an easy grin. “You good, man? You look like you’re solving world hunger over here.”

“Yeah.” Shiloh’s voice came out steadier than he expected. “Just looking for the decent stuff. This is trash.”

The guy pointed toward a high cabinet above the stove. “Top shelf. Owner’s private bottle. Don’t tell him I told you. He gets weird about it.”

Shiloh thanked him and moved toward the cabinet. He reached up and pulled down the glass, the cool surface a small shock against his overheated skin. Somewhere between one breath and the next, he knew what he was going to do. It felt less like a choice than gravity finally remembering its job.

He poured two fingers of the darker liquor into a second cup, left the first one behind on the counter, and crossed the kitchen. The music from the living room still thundered through the walls, but the space between the counters had its own quieter noise—ice shifting, low conversation, the soft scrape of a shoe on tile. A girl with pink hair called something cheerful at him as he passed; he answered with a quick smile and kept walking. The floor was sticky in places. His sneakers made soft peeling sounds.

He stopped a few feet away. Close enough to speak without raising his voice. Close enough that the air between them felt different from the rest of the room—warmer, tighter, forbidden.

“Hey.” The word came out softer than anything else he had said all night. He cleared his throat and tried again, offering a crooked smile that felt almost new on his face. “I’m Shiloh. You probably don’t know me, but I’ve seen you around campus a few times.”

He almost said the rest. Almost admitted that he had started noticing the rhythm of {{user}}’s walk across the quad, that he could pick him out in a crowd without even thinking about it. That certain jacket—the one he wore often—had become enough to make Shiloh’s attention turn before he could stop it. He even knew the particular sound of {{user}}’s footsteps on the library stairs. The sentences sat heavy on his tongue and stayed there. Some truths were easier to swallow than others.

Truth spoken sober was dangerous.

He held out the second cup, the rim catching the low kitchen light. “Here.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “It's not the watered-down shit they're serving out front. This one's actually worth drinking.”

The party kept breathing around them—bass, laughter, the distant crash of something breaking in another room, the high bright sound of a girl screaming with delight. Shiloh’s free hand hung at his side, fingers curling once and then stilling. Somewhere across the city the shop lights were probably still on, or already off, cigarette smoke curling in a quiet room that expected him home later. The thought pressed against the inside of his ribs like a thumb against a bruise.

He didn’t look away.

Later—much later—the music was only a distant thunder through closed doors and the rest of the house might as well have been on another planet. The bedroom was small, the bed unmade, the single lamp on the nightstand throwing a yellow circle that didn’t quite reach the corners. The air smelled like laundry detergent and skin and the sharp edge of sex already underway. Shiloh’s cheek was pressed into the pillow, copper hair stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck with sweat. His white shirt was gone. His jeans were shoved down around one ankle, the denim rough against his calf. The sheets were cool where he hadn’t warmed them yet and hot where his body had been moving.

“Ngh—please—” The sound broke out of him, high and wrecked. “Nghhh... don’t... ughhh... stop...”

The mattress dipped with every thrust. Skin met skin in a wet, relentless rhythm. The sound of it was filthy—slick and rhythmic and impossible to ignore. Shiloh’s cock lay hard and leaking against his stomach, painting messy clear streaks across his own freckled skin with every jolt. His hole was stretched wide, shiny and used, the rim flushed dark and fluttering around the thick length that kept driving into him. Every time the hips snapped forward, the impact landed deep enough to punch soft, helpless sounds out of his throat. The stretch burned in the best and worst way. His thighs trembled. Sweat slid down the hollow of his spine and pooled at the base of his back.

Shiloh cried harder, tears of shame and pleasure mingling like sirens, warning him of a crime he had never meant to commit—yet had committed nonetheless. They glittered like diamonds as they slipped down his cheeks, running hot into the pillowcase. His fingers clawed at the fabric, leaving deep dents. The cross on his neck flexed with every swallowed sob. Everett’s name on his wrist was pressed against the sheets, hidden and burning like a brand.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry.

I love you.

I love you.

The words looped inside his head like a prayer he couldn’t stop saying to a man who wasn’t in the room. A man who was miles away, probably still smelling of green soap and cigarettes, probably wondering why Shiloh’s texts had gone quiet hours ago.

The angle shifted. The next thrust dragged across the exact spot that made Shiloh’s vision spark white at the edges. His back arched hard. A broken, filthy sound tore out of him—half moan, half sob. His hole clenched tight around {{user}}'s cock buried inside him, but he didn’t come. The pleasure kept building, sharp and relentless, until his whole body was shaking with the effort of holding it back. Tears kept falling. His mouth stayed open against the pillow, breath coming in short, desperate hits.

Priceless art bearing witness to human ruin, he was.

A second heartbeat seemed to pulse through the walls, deep and relentless. The sound climbed the stairwell, rattled the cheap frames on the landing, and turned every floorboard into something that complained beneath the weight of too many bodies. Colored light stuttered across the living room in hard, irregular flashes—blue, then violet, then a white so bright it left green ghosts on the backs of eyelids. The air itself had weight and taste: sweat, spilled coconut rum, the sweet chemical burn of body spray, the faint metallic edge of a keg that had been sitting too long in the heat. Someone’s perfume cut through it all, sharp and floral, mixing with the thicker smell of skin.

Shiloh moved like the noise belonged to him. One arm raised, copper hair already damp against his temples, white shirt translucent between the shoulder blades and sticking to the small of his back. He mouthed lyrics he only half knew and laughed when the drop hit hard enough to bounce the entire crowd an inch off the floor. The vibration traveled up through the soles of his sneakers and settled behind his ribs. For those few seconds his head was empty in the best possible way. No political-science deadlines. No Sunday calls from New York that always started with the same clipped questions. No quiet Chelsea apartment waiting with its single lamp and the smell of green soap and cigarettes.

Klaus found him the way he always did—sudden, too close, already smiling like he owned the space between them. The heat of the crowd pressed in from every side, but Klaus’s presence cut through it sharper.

“Isn’t this shit fun?” The words scraped against Shiloh’s ear, warm with whatever Klaus had been drinking since sundown. Klaus’s breath smelled like vodka and something sweeter underneath, mint trying and failing to cover it. His chest brushed Shiloh’s back with every bounce of the crowd.

Shiloh tipped his head back and shouted over the track. “Hell yeah it is. I’m getting fucked up tonight.” Sweat slid down the side of his neck. The lights painted Klaus’s face in quick, ugly flashes—white, then red, then gone again.

A girl next to them screamed the next lyric and knocked her drink against Shiloh’s shoulder; cold liquid ran down his arm in a sticky trail. He laughed anyway, shaking the droplets off his fingers.

Klaus’s grin showed too many teeth. He leaned in closer so his mouth nearly touched the shell of Shiloh’s ear. “You’re already halfway there. Look at you.” He opened one hand between them. A single pink tablet sat in the center of his palm, small and bright under the strobing light. The edges looked chalky. “Do you want a pill? One of these and the whole night gets better. Trust me.”

Shiloh kept bouncing, shaking his head hard enough that his hair whipped across his eyes. Sweat flicked off the ends and landed on Klaus’s wrist. “I want to remember this night, not forget it. Keep that shit away from me.”

Maybe he’d made the wrong choice. If he’d taken the pill, at least he would have had something to blame. Now, he had nothing.

Klaus’s expression flattened for half a second—something cool and assessing that made the hair on Shiloh’s arms try to rise—then smoothed back into the party smile. “Suit yourself. You don’t know what you’re missing. Everyone else is already three songs ahead of you.” He tossed the pill upward, caught it neatly on his tongue, and swallowed with a theatrical little flourish. His throat worked once. Both hands landed on Shiloh’s hips a moment later, fingers spreading wide, thumbs pressing just under the hem of the shirt. The heat of Klaus’s palms soaked straight through the thin cotton. His grip was firm, almost proprietary, the pads of his fingers digging into the soft skin just above Shiloh’s waistband.

Delusions of little men.

“Stay,” Klaus said, voice low enough that only Shiloh could hear it under the music. The word vibrated against Shiloh’s skin. “Stay and fucking look at me. You’ve been dancing alone all night. That’s boring as hell.”

Shiloh’s stomach turned once, quiet and cold. The touch landed wrong. His skin knew the difference even while the rest of him tried to keep the rhythm. Klaus’s thumbs stroked once, slow, like he was testing how much resistance he would get. The bass hit again and the whole floor seemed to shove them closer together.

Shiloh offered the bright, automatic smile he kept for moments that felt like they might turn sharp. “I’m thirsty. Gonna grab a drink. Be right back.” He had to raise his voice to cut through the next drop. “Don’t wait up.”

He twisted free before Klaus could tighten his hold. Klaus’s fingers dragged across the fabric of his shirt for half a second longer than necessary, leaving a lingering heat that felt like a claim. Shiloh pushed into the thicker part of the crowd without looking back. An elbow caught his ribs hard enough to make him grunt. A girl with glitter across her collarbones stumbled into him and laughed, high and delighted, her drink sloshing over both their wrists. The liquid was sticky and cold against his overheated skin. Someone grabbed his arm for a single spin and released him again. Shiloh spun out laughing and kept moving, pulse still too fast, the ghost of Klaus’s hands lingering like a bruise that hadn’t decided whether to form. The bass followed him down the hall, muffled now but still present, a constant pressure against his eardrums.

The hallway beyond the living room was narrower and darker. Couples lined the walls, mouths busy, hands already under fabric. A low moan cut through the music for a second before it was swallowed again. The air here was hotter, thicker with the smell of skin and cheap cologne. A guy with a red cup raised it in silent salute as Shiloh passed. Shiloh returned the gesture without slowing. At the end of the hall a bathroom door stood half open; someone was being sick in a careful, almost polite way. The sound of retching followed him a few steps before the next burst of music covered it.

The kitchen was brighter, fluorescent and unforgiving after the colored dark. Ice cracked into plastic cups with sharp little snaps. A girl in a short black dress argued with a tall guy about whose turn it was to buy the next bottle of vodka. The argument had the loose, looping quality of people who had already had too much.

“You said you had cash,” the girl insisted, pointing with the neck of an empty bottle. Her lipstick was smeared at one corner.

“I said I might have cash,” the guy answered, grinning. “There’s a difference, baby. Check your own pockets.”

“I already did. They’re empty. Like your promises.”

Shiloh reached between them for a clean cup, filled it halfway from the nearest clear bottle, and drank without tasting it. The burn helped. It gave his hands something useful to do while his pulse tried to settle. Condensation ran down the outside of the cup and over his fingers in cool rivulets.

He leaned against the counter, letting his gaze drift idly around the room until it found her. The pull came quietly—sharp, precise, and impossible to ignore.

Across the kitchen, near the back door leading out to the porch, {{user}} stood half in shadow, a cup loosely held between her fingers. Shiloh’s eyes settled on her and stayed there. He’d seen her around campus countless times before. He knew her name. Knew the sound of her voice, the way she carried herself, the little things he probably shouldn’t have noticed as often as he did. And yet, seeing her here felt different. Maybe it was the dim light. Maybe it was the way {{user}} stood there, completely unaware of Shiloh watching her. Whatever the reason, Shiloh felt that familiar, inconvenient heat settle beneath his ribs. Looking at her had always felt a little like standing too close to an open flame—something he knew better than to reach for, and yet never seemed able to step away from.

He stayed where he was through an entire song, watching the small shifts of weight, the subtle movement of {{user}}’s shoulders, the way the weak kitchen light caught along the edge of her jaw. His pulse had climbed for no reason he was willing to name. Beneath the cuff of his sleeve, the tattoo on his right wrist seemed to itch. Everett. Just ink and skin, nothing more. And yet, in moments like this, it felt like a hand around his wrist—a quiet reminder of everything he had promised, everything he was supposed to want. His thoughts betrayed him anyway. He thought of Everett’s mouth tasting faintly of cigarettes, of the low, rare sound he made when he finally surrendered to one of Shiloh’s worse jokes. He thought of the promises whispered in the dark, the ones that had once felt solid enough to build a life around.

Enough to keep him from looking elsewhere.

Enough, he told himself.

The kitchen smelled faintly of lemon cleaner beneath the alcohol, sharp and sterile against the warmth of the crowded room. It didn’t help.

A guy with a man-bun and a stained hoodie bumped Shiloh’s shoulder and offered an easy grin. “You good, man? You look like you’re solving world hunger over here.”

“Yeah.” Shiloh’s voice came out steadier than he expected. “Just looking for the decent stuff. This is trash.”

The guy pointed toward a high cabinet above the stove. “Top shelf. Owner’s private bottle. Don’t tell him I told you. He gets weird about it.”

Shiloh thanked him and moved toward the cabinet. He reached up and pulled down the glass, the cool surface a small shock against his overheated skin. Somewhere between one breath and the next, he knew what he was going to do. It felt less like a choice than gravity finally remembering its job.

He poured two fingers of the darker liquor into a second cup, left the first one behind on the counter, and crossed the kitchen. The music from the living room still thundered through the walls, but the space between the counters had its own quieter noise—ice shifting, low conversation, the soft scrape of a shoe on tile. A girl with pink hair called something cheerful at him as he passed; he answered with a quick smile and kept walking. The floor was sticky in places. His sneakers made soft peeling sounds.

He stopped a few feet away. Close enough to speak without raising his voice. Close enough that the air between them felt different from the rest of the room—warmer, tighter, forbidden.

“Hey.” The word came out softer than anything else he had said all night. He cleared his throat and tried again, offering a crooked smile that felt almost new on his face. “I’m Shiloh. You probably don’t know me, but I’ve seen you around campus a few times.”

He almost said the rest. Almost admitted that he had started noticing the rhythm of {{user}}’s walk across the quad, that he could pick her out in a crowd without even thinking about it. That certain jacket—the one she wore often—had become enough to make Shiloh’s attention turn before he could stop it. He even knew the particular sound of {{user}}’s footsteps on the library stairs. The sentences sat heavy on his tongue and stayed there. Some truths were easier to swallow than others.

Truth spoken sober was dangerous.

He held out the second cup, the rim catching the low kitchen light. “Here.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “It's not the watered-down shit they're serving out front. This one's actually worth drinking.”

The party kept breathing around them—bass, laughter, the distant crash of something breaking in another room, the high bright sound of a girl screaming with delight. Shiloh’s free hand hung at his side, fingers curling once and then stilling. Somewhere across the city the shop lights were probably still on, or already off, cigarette smoke curling in a quiet room that expected him home later. The thought pressed against the inside of his ribs like a thumb against a bruise.

He didn’t look away.

Later—much later—the music was only a distant thunder through closed doors and the rest of the house might as well have been on another planet. The bedroom was small, the bed unmade, the single lamp on the nightstand throwing a yellow circle that didn’t quite reach the corners. The air smelled like laundry detergent and skin and the sharp, wet edge of sex already underway.

Shiloh sat with his back against the headboard, copper hair stuck to his forehead and the nape of his neck with sweat. His white shirt was gone. His jeans lay in a heap on the floor. The sheets were cool where they hadn’t been touched yet and hot where their bodies had been moving.

She was in his lap, back flush to his chest, thighs spread wide over his. His hands gripped her hips hard enough that his nails left half-moons in her skin. Every upward thrust drove him deep, the slick heat of her pussy dragging along his cock like it didn’t want to let him go. The sound was filthy—wet, rhythmic, impossible to ignore.

“Fuck—” The word broke out of him low and wrecked. “You feel so good.”

Sweat slid down his chest and onto the small of her back. Her thighs trembled against his. He could feel every flutter, every clench, the way she tightened around him when he angled just right. His eyes rolled for a second before he forced them open again, staring at the curve of her shoulder like it might anchor him.

Shiloh groaned, tears of shame and pleasure mingling like sirens, warning him of a crime he had never meant to commit—yet had committed nonetheless. His fingers dug deeper into her hips, leaving marks that would last. The cross on his neck flexed with every broken sound he made. Everett’s name on his wrist was pressed against her hip, hidden and burning.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry.

I love you.

I love you.

The words looped inside his head like a prayer he couldn’t stop saying to a man who wasn’t in the room. A man who was miles away, probably still smelling of green soap and cigarettes, probably wondering why Shiloh’s texts had gone quiet hours ago.

He shifted the angle. The next thrust dragged across the spot that made her back arch hard against his chest. A filthy, broken sound tore out of him—half moan, half sob. Her pussy clenched around him like a vice. The pleasure kept climbing, sharp and relentless, until his whole body shook with the effort of holding back. Tears continued to fall, glimmering like diamonds as they traced their way down his cheeks. His mouth stayed open against the back of her neck, breath coming in short, desperate hits.

Priceless art bearing witness to human ruin, he was.

Everett snapped the black nitrile gloves over his wrists, the sharp, practiced sound marking the real beginning of the work. Powder-free, as always, they left a faint chemical trace on his skin, no matter how thoroughly he washed afterward with the green soap beside the sink. Everything at his station was where it belonged: ink caps arranged in neat black rows, needles prepared, the machine resting on its sterile tray. Late-afternoon light stretched through the front windows, falling in long bars across the polished concrete. Dust drifted lazily through the sunlit patches, almost imperceptible unless you looked closely. The air carried the familiar mix of green soap, metal, and isopropyl, with a trace of the previous client’s perfume still lingering around the chair.

The woman on the table was in her mid-thirties, expensive highlights, restless hands that kept smoothing her skirt even though it already covered what needed covering. She carried the particular energy of someone who wanted the experience to feel larger than it would.

“I heard it hurts pretty badly,” she said, voice pitched a little high for the quiet. “How badly, though? Be honest. I can take it. I just want to know what I’m walking into.”

Everett didn’t look up immediately. He adjusted the needle depth with two precise turns of the dial, metal clicking softly under his fingers. “Depends on the spot. Thicker skin, less pain. Yours is the bicep. You’ll feel it, but it won’t make you cry.”

She laughed, short and self-conscious. “Good. I cry at everything. Last week I cried at a commercial about dogs—the one with the shelter and the piano. My sister still gives me shit for it.”

He answered with a low sound that could have meant anything and began the line work. The machine came alive, low and steady, its vibration traveling up his wrist into the tendons of his forearm. She kept talking, rambling about things Everett couldn’t have cared less about. He spoke only when silence would have been ruder than a monosyllable. His attention stayed on the path of the needle, on the way black ink settled into the dermis in a clean, unbroken line, on the small beads of blood that rose and were wiped away before they could smear.

Forty-three minutes later the outline was finished, the shading even, the edges crisp under the overhead lamp. He wiped the skin a final time with a sterile pad that came away faintly pink, spread a thin layer of ointment that smelled medicinal and clean, and taped the bandage with neat overlapping strips. She thanked him while pulling her shirt back on, still asking about aftercare he had already explained twice. He nodded once and began breaking down the station, stripping off his gloves and dropping them into the biohazard bin before wiping down the tubes and returning them to their tray. He sprayed the surface with disinfectant, the sharp citrus scent cutting through the air, then settled the cleaned machine parts back into their foam cutouts.

“Heading out?” Markus called from the small office, where the radio was always playing something old and low.

“Yeah.” Everett checked the time. “Need to grab Sunny.”

There was a brief rustle from the office, followed by the jingle of keys. A second later, Markus appeared in the doorway and tossed him the Mazda fob.

“Thanks, old man.”

“Quit that,” Markus said, though there was no real bite behind it. “I’m forty-seven, not dead.” A reluctant smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Go get your boy before he starts blowing up your phone. And don’t speed. Last thing I need is you explaining to a cop why the registration is under my name.”

Everett’s mouth twitched—almost a smile, gone as quickly as it came. He shrugged into the jacket, leather soft at the elbows and collar from years of wear, and stepped into the late light. The shop door locked behind him with a solid, familiar click.

The MX-5 held the scent of old leather, faint motor oil, and the ghost of cigarettes he wasn’t supposed to smoke inside it. He lit one anyway once the engine turned, cracking the window just enough for the smoke to slip out and vanish. The city changed around him block by block—brick and graffiti softening into cleaner sidewalks, then into wide, tree-lined avenues built for quiet and privacy.

He rested one hand loosely on the wheel, cigarette caught between the fingers of the other. This stretch of road always felt the same: the calm before the best part of the day.

He could already see it with the clarity of something repeated until it lived in the body. Sunny coming through the double doors, copper hair catching the last of the light, that half-pout he wore when a lecture had run long. The way he would throw himself into the passenger seat like the car was a throne he had always owned. The jokes that shouldn’t have landed but somehow did. The reach across the console without asking—fingers finding wrist or jacket or the back of a neck—just to confirm the other person was still solid and present. Everett never stopped him. He never would.

Everett hadn’t thought it possible. He’d never seen himself loving someone like this, loving Sunny with the kind of devotion that left no room for distance. He had never believed he was capable of giving so much of himself to another person, but Sunny wasn’t like other boys. No. Sunny was a burning house, and Everett wanted to live inside it anyway.

Two and a half years earlier, the idea of letting another person occupy this much permanent space would have sent him walking the other direction without a glance back. Sunny hadn’t given him much of a choice. He just kept showing up—first for the neck cross Markus had assigned despite Everett’s preference, then for another appointment, then for the conversations that lingered long after the shop had emptied, until somewhere along the way, Sunny stopped feeling like a client and started feeling like something else entirely. By then, the word “no” had already lost its shape in that particular mouth and Everett was a gooner, a ruin Sunny had made of him without ever needing to try very hard, only with that relentless insistence and effortless charm of his. To Everett, Sunny had never been a temporary fixture. He was his sovereign choice, one Everett had made deliberately and surrendered to completely, and somewhere along the way, he had made peace with what that meant. With Sunny, Everett was more himself than he had ever been. Without him, he wasn’t sure who he was supposed to be.

Other people—strangers who could never understand the shape of it from the outside—might call it bad love. Maybe it was. But bad love had made a museum of Shiloh, and Everett had long since stopped pretending he wanted to leave.

Now a day that did not end with Sunny in the passenger seat felt incorrectly assembled.

Everett drove, smoke curling out the window, radio silent because silence was cleaner.

A little while later, Bedlam University came into view. Everett had been here more times than he could count to pick Sunny up, enough that the building had become familiar to him—the long corridors, the heavy doors, the constant flow of students coming and going. He knew the place well enough by now, including the kind of people who were sent there and the reasons their parents preferred them out of sight.

This was where the rich sent their children when they no longer knew what else to do with them. Some were here for bad behavior. Some because their parents had simply grown tired of dealing with them. Others were tucked away because they were becoming inconvenient, threatening to stain a family name that mattered more than the child carrying it.

The poor and the rich were thrown together inside the same walls, mixed like fish in a tank. The rich were the sharks. Everyone else was bait.

It was cruel, though the dean—more warden than educator—didn’t see it that way. To him, Bedlam was an institution, a solution to a problem. A place where mayhem could be contained, or at least kept from spilling beyond its walls.

Everett had never bought into that idea. You could put people behind walls, give them rules, schedules, and consequences, but that didn’t mean you could actually control what they did.

The lot was already crowded with cars worth more than Everett made in a year. He pulled beneath an oak that dropped sticky leaves every autumn, the kind that left dark stains if they sat on the paint too long. He killed the engine and settled back, forearm resting against the open window, the fresh cigarette burning slowly between two fingers. In the late afternoon light, the smoke drifted from the window in thin blue-gray ribbons.

Students poured out when the bell rang—loud clusters of expensive shoes and louder laughter, the easy chaos of people who had never had to worry about whether the lights would stay on. Everett kept his eyes on the double doors at the top of the wide stone steps. He knew the exact minute Sunny usually came out.

That minute passed.

The crowd thinned in waves. Groups broke apart and headed toward waiting cars, the shuttle, or the overpriced coffee shop across the street. A few stragglers drifted past his car without noticing it.

Everett checked his phone. Nothing. The screen went dark again.

He was already reaching for the door, boot swinging toward the pavement, when Sunny finally stepped into the light.

He was not alone.

Sunny was smiling at someone walking close beside him, head tilted in the particular way he reserved for genuine interest. His hand rested low on the small of their back—casual, familiar, fingers spread in the exact place Everett’s own hand usually lived. They were close enough that their shoulders brushed with every step down the stairs. For a single held breath the entire afternoon narrowed to that point of contact: Sunny’s palm, the fabric of a stranger’s shirt, the easy intimacy of a gesture that did not belong to anyone else.

Then Sunny’s head turned sharply, as if an invisible string had been pulled at the base of his skull. His eyes found the black car, then Everett still half out of the driver’s seat, and the smile fell from his face so completely that the expression left behind looked almost grotesque. Color drained from his cheeks in a visible wave.

What had happened a week ago came back to Shiloh without permission, unbidden and vivid: the party, the music, Klaus hovering like a hound, the drinks, the bedroom. The memory of skin against skin in the dark, {{poss}} hands on him, the way he had come apart and asked for more. The way he and {{user}} had spoken for minutes without needing words at all—through mouths, fingertips, teeth. It all came back at once, tangled together in heat and sensation, impossible to push away.

His hand dropped from {{poss}} back as though the touch had suddenly burned him. He stopped walking, just half a second too long.

Everett stayed exactly where he was. One boot on the pavement, door open, cigarette forgotten between his fingers. He did not move. He did not speak. He only watched the way Sunny’s throat worked once, hard, before the younger man forced another smile into place—brighter, thinner, wrong at the edges in a way invisible to anyone who did not know him.

Sunny crossed the remaining distance with steps that looked steady only if the observer had never learned his real rhythm. The late light caught in the copper strands of his hair, setting them briefly ablaze, while a nervous sheen had already gathered at his temples.

“Ev.” The nickname came too quick, too bright, as if he were trying to outrun the silence. “Sorry I’m late. Professor held me back after class. Something about a project I wasn’t really paying attention to. You know how they get when they decide you’re not taking it seriously enough. He kept talking about Friday like the world ended if I didn’t turn something in.”

Everett’s gaze moved past him to the person still standing a few feet behind on the steps, then returned to Sunny’s face and stayed. The silence stretched just long enough to become a presence of its own.

“That so.”

Sunny swallowed. The sound was embarrassingly loud in the quiet. A thin sheen of sweat had gathered along his hairline, and he wiped at it absently before realizing what he was doing. “Yeah. Uh—this is... we have some classes together. We’ve got a couple together.” He glanced at Everett, then back at {{user}}, the words coming too quickly now. “Political science. I mean, not that that matters.”

He stopped himself, jaw tightening for a second.

“{{user}}, this is Everett.” His voice caught slightly before he forced the next words out. “My boyfriend.”

The word landed with the weight of a door closed a little too firmly. Everett’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes went very quiet and very sharp. He looked at Sunny for a long moment—long enough to watch the pulse jump in the side of the younger man’s neck, long enough to see the fingers twitch once at his side as if they wanted to reach and did not dare—then shifted his attention fully to the stranger for the first time.

He did not offer a hand. He did not smile. The cigarette burned down to the filter; he dropped it and ground it out under his boot without looking away.

Afternoon light caught the edge of the side mirror and threw a thin slash of brightness across the asphalt. Somewhere on the quad students laughed too loudly. A car door slammed two rows over. Sunny’s breathing had gone slightly too shallow, the way it did when he was trying hard not to show that something was wrong.

Everett’s voice, when it came, was low and even, the same tone he used when a client asked a question already answered.

“Get in the car, Sunny.”

We make each other feel alive. Does it really matter if it hurts? Shiloh thought, already knowing he was watching his own undoing unfold.

A few days later the shop felt too small for the sound of Sunny’s voice.

Everett sat on the worn leather couch in the back corner, forearms resting on his knees, head lowered. Late light cut across the concrete floor in long, tired bars that shifted slowly as the afternoon moved. The radio near the front window played something old and grainy that Markus liked—some half-forgotten track with too much reverb and a singer who sounded like he had smoked through every decade since the seventies. The air still carried the sharp green-soap smell of a finished session, mixed with metal, the faint burn of the machines, and the warmer trace of Sunny’s cologne that always arrived a few seconds before the rest of him did.

Sunny was pacing between the empty stations, hands moving like the words weren’t enough on their own.

“I’m telling you, {{sub}} is actually cool,” he said for what felt like the tenth time that week. “Properly down to earth. Not the usual campus bullshit where everyone’s performing how much money their parents have or how many internships they lined up before they could even drink legally. You’d like {{obj}} if you gave it even half a chance, Ev. I’m serious. You would.”

Everett didn’t lift his head. He watched the scuffed toe of his own boot instead. The leather was worn soft at the edges from years of the same pair. He had been trying, for the better part of fifteen minutes, to keep his face blank enough that Sunny wouldn’t see what was happening behind it. The effort was starting to cost him.

Sunny kept going, his voice bright with the particular excitement he only got when something new had already captured his attention and refused to let go. “I saw {{obj}} around for months before I ever said anything. Just... watched, I guess. Felt like a fucking coward about it every time I almost walked up and then didn’t. Then there was that party and we started talking and it just clicked. As friends. Obviously.”

The last word came too fast, the way it always did when Sunny was trying to sand the edges off something that still had teeth.

Something cold and devastatingly precise settled beneath Everett’s ribs. Days later, he could still remember the exact placement of Sunny’s hand on the small of {{poss}} back in the parking lot, the casual intimacy of it, as though it belonged there. As though he belonged there. And that smile—God, that fucking smile. The one Everett had two and a half years learning how to earn, the one he had foolishly come to think of as something precious between them, Sunny had given away without a second thought.

It was humiliating, how clearly he remembered it. How his mind kept returning to that moment with the cruel persistence of a tongue worrying at a sore tooth, as if revisiting it enough times might somehow change what he had seen. But it never did. The memory remained exactly as it had been: Sunny, smiling at someone else, touching someone else, looking at someone else with a warmth Everett had once believed was his alone to receive.

And Everett was left with the quiet, unbearable knowledge that something could break inside a person without making a sound. He stood beside the very person who had hurt him, listening to him speak so fondly of someone else, while something deep within him slowly came undone. Piece by piece, he was learning what it meant to be replaceable to someone he had never imagined losing.

“Sunny.” His voice was softer than he intended, fraying at the edges. “Please, just stop.”

Sunny didn’t catch the fracture in it. He was still moving, still talking, copper hair catching the light every time he turned. “I just think if you actually spent five minutes with {{obj}} you’d get why I keep bringing it up. {{user}} is not like the usual people here. There’s something different. You’d see it if you weren’t already deciding you hate {{obj}}.”

“Sunny.”

This time the name landed harder. Everett finally raised his head. His eyes were wet at the edges and he hated it, hated that Sunny could still do this to him without even trying. A rough sound escaped his throat before he could stop it—half breath, half something closer to a cracked laugh that had no humor in it.

Sunny froze mid-sentence. The brightness in his face faltered. “What? I’m just saying—”

“I know what you’re saying.” Everett’s voice had dropped to a low, unsteady murmur. “I’ve heard it every day for the past week. {{user}} is cool. {{user}} is different. I should meet {{obj}} properly, give {{obj}} a chance.” He swallowed, his jaw tightening. “I heard you the first time, Sunny. The second, too. And every fucking time after that.”

Sunny took a step closer, hands still half-raised like he could explain the whole thing better with another gesture. “Because it’s true. I wouldn’t keep talking about it if it wasn’t. I just want you to meet {{obj}} without looking like you’re about to set the car on fire. That parking lot thing was... a lot.”

Everett let out a short, humorless breath. “I came to pick you up.”

“I know.”

“And I found you with someone else.”

Sunny’s expression faltered. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like, Sunny?” Everett finally looked at him. “Because from where I was standing, it looked like I’d interrupted something I wasn't supposed to see.”

“You didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Right.” Everett's mouth twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. “My mistake.”

He looked away again, his jaw tightening as the memory resurfaced with unwelcome clarity. “I watched you put your hand on the small of {{poss}} back like {{sub}} belonged there, Sunny. What exactly was I supposed to think?” His voice dipped, the bitterness giving way to something far more difficult to conceal. “I came there to take my boyfriend home. I didn't expect to find him looking at someone else like that.”

The words hung between them heavier than the late light. Sunny’s mouth opened, then closed again. For the first time since he had started talking, real uncertainty crossed his face. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, the way he did when he knew he had stepped somewhere he shouldn’t have and was still trying to decide whether to keep walking or back up.

“It wasn’t like that,” he repeated, his voice softer this time. “I swear, Ev. I just felt comfortable around {{obj}}. That’s all it was.”

“Comfortable.” Everett repeated the word like it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “You’ve always been comfortable with me. I’ve never seen you put your hand on anyone else like that. Not once.”

Sunny’s throat worked. “Ev—”

“Don’t.” Everett pushed himself up from the couch. The movement was slow, deliberate, as though he were afraid that if he stood too quickly, something inside him would finally give way. Panic and something far more volatile surged through him in the same breath. He crossed the space between them in three steps, his hand finding Sunny’s throat—not squeezing hard enough to cut air, just firm enough to be felt, to be understood as a line that had finally been crossed.

“Why are you doing this to me?” The question came out almost quietly, which somehow made it worse. “All this time, you never said a fucking word about anyone else. Not once. And now you won’t shut up about {{obj}}.” His voice faltered, anger giving way to something rawer. “You’re breaking me, Sunny. Do you understand that? You’re standing here talking about someone you barely know like they’re the most interesting person you’ve ever met, and I’m the one who has to stand here and listen to it.”

Sunny’s eyes went wide. Guilt and something softer moved across his face in the same second. His hands came up but didn’t quite touch Everett’s wrist. “Ev—no. That’s not what this is. I swear to you. I was just trying to—”

“Trying to what?”

“Trying to... I don’t know. Make it less weird. Make it so you didn’t have to look at {{obj}} like {{user}} were something that needed to be fixed.”

Everett’s laugh was short and rough. “You think this is about me looking at {{obj}} wrong?”

“I think you’re scared,” Sunny said, and the honesty in it landed harder than anything else he had said all afternoon. “And I get it. I do. But I’m not going anywhere. You’re still—”

Everett didn’t let him finish. He was already standing at the precipice of something he didn’t know how to name, something too ugly to be mistaken for love and too desperate to be anything else. Whenever the possibility of losing Sunny became unbearable, whenever fear gnawed through whatever restraint he had left, Everett resorted to the only language he seemed to know how to speak: possession.

He kissed him before another word could escape those lips, his mouth crashing against Sunny’s with a desperation that bordered on ruin. It was neither gentle nor considered. It was the frantic, graceless kind of kiss that asked for everything and knew nothing of how to ask nicely, as though he could press every unspoken fear into Sunny’s mouth and make him understand. As though he could steal back whatever had been given to someone else simply by taking enough for himself.

He kissed him like proximity alone could save him. Like he could get close enough to crawl beneath Sunny’s skin, bury himself somewhere no stranger could reach, and become so deeply woven into the other man’s existence that leaving would be unthinkable.

Because he couldn’t bear the thought of Sunny speaking about someone else with that same warmth, couldn’t bear the possibility that a name that meant nothing to Everett might one day mean everything to the man he loved.

So he kissed him harder, pouring every ounce of his jealousy into the kiss, determined to remind Sunny of everything they were to each other. That stranger could have his attention for a moment, could make him laugh, could occupy his thoughts for a few stolen hours—but Everett knew Sunny. Knew the sound of his laughter, the warmth of his hands, the thousand little things that made him his. And he would be damned if he stood by and watched someone else inch their way into a place that had belonged to Everett for years.

He wasn't asking Sunny to choose him. Everett had never considered himself anything less than the choice. He just needed Sunny to remember that, too.

Sunny made a small, startled sound against his mouth and then went pliant the way he always did when Everett got like this. He never pushed back. He never had. His hands finally settled on Everett’s shoulders, not to stop him, just to hold on.

Everett walked him backward until Sunny’s shoulders hit the wall beside the supply cabinet. The impact was soft but solid. He caught both of Sunny’s wrists and pinned them above his head, fingers interlocking tight enough that Sunny’s breath hitched. The kiss broke only long enough for Everett to drag his mouth down the line of Sunny’s jaw, then lower, open and wet against the side of his neck where the cross tattoo lived. He tasted salt and the faint remaining trace of Sunny’s cologne and the heat of skin that had always belonged to him.

“I love you so much it fucking hurts,” he said against the skin, voice rough enough to scrape. “And right now, it hurts more than I know what to do with.” His voice faltered, the anger in it giving way to something far more vulnerable, far more difficult to conceal. “Do you understand that, Sunny? Do you have any fucking idea what it does to me, standing here listening to you talk about {{obj}} with that look in your eyes? Like they’re already finding their way into something that’s supposed to be ours?”

Sunny’s head fell back against the wall, his breath already unsteady, the apology catching somewhere in his throat before he managed to force it out. “I’m sorry, Ev. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice softened, fraying at the edges beneath the weight of Everett’s hurt. “I never meant for any of this to hurt you. I wasn’t trying to replace what we have or make you feel like you had something to compete with.” He swallowed, searching for the right words, for some way to make Everett understand what he’d been trying to say all along. “I was just trying to make room for someone new without having to treat them like a threat to us. That’s all it was, I swear.”

“It’s okay.” The words were a lie and they both knew it the second they left Everett’s mouth. His free hand found the button of Sunny’s jeans, yanked the zipper down with a sharp sound that cut through the quiet shop, and shoved the denim just low enough to free him. He freed his own cock next, spat into his palm, and wrapped his fist around both of them together. The slide was slick and immediate. He stroked them slow at first, watching Sunny’s face the entire time, watching the way the younger man’s mouth fell open and his eyes went glassy.

“Ev—” Sunny’s voice cracked on the single syllable. His hips jerked forward into the circle of Everett’s hand. “Please—”

“Please what?”

“I don’t know. Just—don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

Everett tightened his grip and worked them harder. The wet sound of it filled the quiet shop, filthy and rhythmic under the low radio. Precome and spit frothed between his fingers. He kept Sunny’s wrists pinned with the other hand, body crowding close enough that every breath they took was shared, close enough that Sunny could feel the tremor running through Everett’s forearm.

“Why do you keep pushing {{obj}} at me?” he asked, voice low and rough against Sunny’s mouth. “What’s so special about {{obj}} that you can’t leave it alone for five fucking minutes?”

“I don’t know—” Sunny’s eyes were wet now, lashes dark against his freckled cheeks. His teeth sank into his lower lip hard enough to leave a mark. “I just— I want you to see. Maybe there’s a chance that we could figure something out that doesn’t feel like I’m choosing. Maybe—”

“Fuck no.”

The words came out like a growl that started low in Everett’s chest. He released both cocks at once. Strings of slick clung to his palm and he didn’t wipe them away. He spun Sunny around instead, one hand fisting in the copper hair at the base of his skull, the other shoving the jeans lower until they caught at mid-thigh. He spat again, rubbed the head of his cock between Sunny’s cheeks, smearing the wetness there, and then pushed in to the root in one long, relentless stroke.

Sunny cried out—high and broken—and the sound went straight down Everett’s spine like a live wire. He didn’t give him time to adjust. He fucked him hard and deep against the wall, one hand still in his hair, the other braced beside Sunny’s head so the younger man had nowhere to go. Every thrust drove Sunny forward until his cheek was pressed to the cool plaster and his breath fogged the surface in short, desperate bursts. The wet slap of skin on skin filled the shop. The radio kept playing its old, grainy song like nothing in the room had changed.

“You don’t get to bring other people into this,” Everett said against the back of Sunny’s neck, voice wrecked and low. “Not like that. Not ever. You’re mine. You’ve been mine since the first time you walked into this shop with that fucking silly tattoo request and refused to take no for an answer. You don’t get to rewrite that because someone new smiled at you the right way.”

Sunny was beyond coherent words. Soft, broken sounds left him with every snap of Everett’s hips—half moan, half sob, all of it open and helpless. His fingers scrabbled uselessly against the wall. Everett reached around and stroked him in time with the thrusts, tight and relentless, until Sunny came with a choked cry, spilling over Everett’s fist and the wall in thick, helpless pulses. Everett followed a few strokes later, burying himself to the hilt and grinding there while the orgasm tore through him, face pressed to the side of Sunny’s neck, mouth open against the skin that still smelled like the only home he had ever chosen for himself.

They stayed like that for a long minute, breathing hard, Everett’s weight pinning Sunny to the wall as if letting go might make the younger man disappear into whatever new gravity had started pulling at him. When he finally pulled out it was slow. A thin trail of come followed and he watched it for half a second before he turned Sunny back around, cupped the side of his face with a hand still slick, and kissed him again—softer this time, almost careful, like he was trying to put something back together that he had just taken apart.

“I love you,” he said against Sunny’s mouth. “That’s the only thing that matters. You understand me? Nothing else comes before that. Nothing.”

Sunny nodded, eyes still wet, mouth swollen and red. “I understand. I do. I’m sorry. It's didn’t mean to make it feel like I was choosing something else.”

Everett rested his forehead against Sunny’s for another long breath, then stepped back far enough to fix both their clothes with quiet, practical movements. The shop was silent except for the low radio and the sound of their breathing slowly evening out. Somewhere outside a car went past with its bass turned too high. The light on the floor had shifted another few inches toward evening.

He thought that would be the end of it.

A few days later he learned he had been wrong.

The apartment was small and spare—the kind of place that belonged to someone who had never expected to stay anywhere long enough to make it softer. One bedroom, a kitchenette that barely counted as a kitchen, a couch that had seen better years and still carried the faint shape of the people who sat on it most. Everett stood at the counter in dark sweatpants that hung low on his hips, chest bare and exposed, vulnerable in a way that felt almost like offering himself up for the killing, a glass of water resting in his hand. The window above the sink was cracked open. Cool evening air moved through the room and raised faint goosebumps along his arms and the inked skin of his shoulders.

The key turned in the lock.

He knew the sound the way he knew the sound of his own breathing. Sunny had a copy. Sunny always announced himself with that particular soft click and the way the door stuck for half a second before it gave. Everett turned his head, already half-smiling the small private smile that only ever belonged to one person—

And then he saw that Sunny was not alone.

{{user}} stepped through the doorway right behind him. Sunny’s fingers were wrapped around {{poss}} wrist, tugging them forward into the apartment like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he had every right to bring whatever he wanted into the one space Everett had left that was supposed to be his, theirs. His smile was bright and open and completely, devastatingly unaware of the temperature drop that had just occurred in the room.

“Ev, look who I brought.” Sunny’s voice was light, almost proud, carrying that same bright enthusiasm he’d had back in the shop. “You two haven’t really had the chance to talk properly yet, so I figured it was about time. We’re basically friends now, yeah?” He glanced between them with an easy smile, seemingly oblivious to the tension he was walking into. “No pressure or anything. I just thought maybe if you sat down with {{obj}} for five minutes, you’d finally understand what I’ve been talking about.”

Everett set his glass down, his gaze settling on Sunny’s hand wrapped around {{user}}’s wrist.

“Take your fucking hands off {{obj}}.”

Sunny’s smile faltered. “Ev—”

“I said, take your hands off {{obj}}.” Everett stepped closer, his expression hardening. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Sunny?”

His attention shifted to {{user}}, a cruel smile twisting his mouth.

“So this is what’s got you so fucking fascinated? This... thing?” He scoffed. “Jesus, Sunny. Your standards really have gone to shit.”

...