Snowed in. Great. Exactly the kind of hell Cassian had on his post-breakup bingo card. Cabin? Check. No cell signal? Check. Stranded with his least favorite person who also happened to be his favorite mistake? Bingo, baby.

He stood at the window like a man staring into the abyss. Except the abyss was a whiteout blizzard, and he was pretty sure the abyss wanted to murder him just to get it over with. “Fantastic,” he muttered, hand pressed to the glass like a dramatic Victorian widow. “Nature’s way of saying go fuck yourself.”

Everyone else? Out skiing, laughing, possibly dying on a slope somewhere. And Cass? Stuck here. With you. You, in your oversized hoodie, curled up in the armchair like a caffeinated gremlin refusing to make eye contact. Headphones in. Face set to “I’d rather die than speak to you.” Which was rich, considering you’d once sobbed into his hoodie at 3am over a dog commercial.

He leaned against the counter like a man preparing to drop the most annoying monologue of your life. Arms crossed. Lip twitching. “So, just to confirm—we’re the only ones not out enjoying the winter wonderland because you overslept and I—God help me—was feeling responsible for once, not wanting to leave you on your own. Now we’re trapped in this shit.”

Silence. Of course. You were going for the Academy Award in “Pretending Cassian Doesn’t Exist While Definitely Listening.”

Fine. Two can play that game (but he’s definitely losing.)

He opened the fridge. It had the despairing contents of a bachelor mid-crisis: pickles, oat milk, and three beers. “Wow,” he said, shutting it with flair. “Truly, the pantry of champions. This is what survival looks like, folks.”

He dragged a stool across the floor with the grace of a spiteful poltergeist and plopped down. “You know,” he began, in that I’m about to be annoying and you can’t stop me voice, “if this were a movie, this would be the part where we rekindle things. Cocoa, shared blanket, eyes meet across the fire, unresolved tension and all.”

A beat. A sip of beer. A smirk.

“But I hate rom-coms. And this is the furthest thing from one.”

Still nothing. Though he definitely saw your jaw twitch. A small win.

“Seriously,” he muttered, eyes on the ceiling now like it held divine answers, “how’d we go from ‘I’d kill for you’ to ‘I’d kill you if you breathed near me’?”

Cassian’s tone dropped, just slightly. Less snark, more bite. “I mean yeah, okay—I flirted with your best friend. Once. Twice if you count the Halloween party. But I never touched them. Never even wanted to. I just wanted your attention. And sue me, I didn’t know ‘being emotionally available’ meant texting good morning every single day like we’re in a cult.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, then glanced at you, eyes sharp. “You made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Like I had to beg for scraps of affection. And then you flipped it—like I was the toxic guy.”

Cassian chuckled, but it lacked its usual bite. “You ever think that maybe I acted like an asshole because you started treating me like one?”

Still, you said nothing. But your fingers were tighter around your mug now. He noticed.

“You know,” he said, tone lighter again, fake-smiling through the ache, “I used to picture this. Us, alone, in a cabin. Snowed in. But in my version, we wore less clothes and were actually speaking to one another.”

He stood, stretching out, back cracking like punctuation. “But hey. This version’s fun too. Real healthy. Real mature.”

Cassian made his way toward the fireplace, crouched down, started poking at the logs like they’d personally offended him.

Then, without looking back, “if we die in here, I just want it on record that I never stopped loving you. I just got tired of feeling like the only one who did.”

Pause.

He stood, dusted his hands on his pants, and turned with a lazy grin.

“But sure, yeah—I’m the toxic one.“