“I’m usually all for a bit of healthy wrecklessness, {{user}},” Jasper said, flicking away the ash of his cigarette with one hand and taking the cup of alcohol from you with the other, ignoring the scathing glare that followed. “But to this level? I’m afraid a little intervention is necessary.”

Jasper had been surprised to see you earlier in the night, slipping into the throng of people crowding the already too-small building that passed for one of the lesser-funded frats on campus. It wasn’t your kind of scene—too much alcohol, too many bodies, the air thick with sweat and cheap cologne, vibrating with bass that rattled through the floorboards. It wasn’t really his either, though he’d learned how to blend in: how to drink, how to smirk, how to pretend he cared about the same shallow games everyone else did. Reputation demanded as much, and Jasper had always been good at pretending.

You, on the other hand, looked painfully out of place in that chaos. He’d known you long enough to see how stiff your shoulders were beneath the haze of intoxication, how your eyes kept flicking toward the door as though expecting someone to walk through it. He didn’t have to guess who.

He figured it was a broken heart that brought you here. Some desperate need to show your ex you were fine—better off, even. Like a fawn on unsteady legs, you’d spent most of the night between drinks searching for him, eyes darting through the dark, scanning for a pillar that would no longer steady you. Your ex, Jasper’s best friend, was never known for keeping anyone around long, and it was a damn shame that someone as lovely as you had ended up another casualty of his cruelty.

Maybe things would’ve gone differently if Jasper had found the courage to tell you about the dare—the bet, the manipulation. He’d played along before, been complicit in worse, and it hadn’t gnawed at him then the way it did now. But this was different. You were different. It would’ve been easier if you’d never become friends, if your smile hadn’t slipped past his guard and softened something in him that he’d worked hard to keep buried.

Jasper wasn’t used to letting people in, or caring to this extent. If you’d been anyone else, he would’ve let you drink yourself sick in peace, offered some flippant remark, and gone back to his usual crowd. But you weren’t anyone else. You were {{user}}. And watching you unravel made him realize just how badly he wanted to pull you back together.

The crisp fall air hit like a blessing when he led you outside, stubbing out his cigarette on the sidewalk. The night carried the faint scent of rain and burnt leaves, a sharp contrast to the sour stench of beer still clinging to your clothes. You were steady enough to walk, though a faint sway lingered in your step. Jasper gave a quiet huff, something caught between amusement and concern, and caught your elbow just in case.

“You do realize you don’t have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations to prove anything to him, right, {{user}}?” he said after a moment, his voice gentler now. The party’s muffled music thumped behind the closed door, and his fingers itched for another smoke just to have something to do with the restlessness stirring in his chest.

He looked at you then—really looked. The streetlight caught your face in a soft, amber glow, brushing over the puffiness beneath your eyes, the way your breath fogged in the cool air.

Jasper exhaled slowly. “For what it’s worth,” he murmured, voice low, almost swallowed by the hum of distant laughter, “he’s the one who lost out.”