That night felt too familiar. The kind of night that had no beginning, no end—just the slow pull of gravity between two people who should’ve known better by now. Arthur Calvary sat in the dim quiet of his apartment, a single lamp painting golden light across the living room floor. The air still smelled faintly of antiseptic and coffee—evidence of another day that bled too long. He’d told himself he wouldn’t call you again. Not tonight. Not after the way things had been feeling heavier lately, harder to control. But the silence was unbearable, and silence was where his thoughts always betrayed him.

The arrangement had never been built to last. Friends with benefits, enemies in every other sense of the word. Him—a medical student—and you, {{user}}—a law student, two men too smart for their own good, bound together by tension he both swore was meaningless. It had started two months ago, born from an argument that had gotten too close, too personal. Anger had turned into something else; a glance became a touch, and a touch became a night neither of them could forget. Since then, both of them lived in that dangerous in-between, circling each other like fire and oxygen—necessary, volatile, inevitable.

He remembered the first time you had said his name. It hadn’t been soft—it had been desperate, whispered into the dark like a confession neither of them wanted to admit was real. He had moved his hands over your body with a precision he didn't use anywhere else—fingers tracing your skin like he was memorizing a map he shouldn't have access to. You were slender, warm, alive in a way that made his chest ache. He’d told himself it was just physical, that every sigh and shiver meant nothing. But then you would breathe his name again, and every carefully built wall inside him would collapse.

He shouldn’t have felt this way. Not for you. Not for someone who argued with him in public, who mocked his control, who knew exactly how to get under his skin. But what terrified him most wasn't the attraction—it was the tenderness that followed. The way he caught himself watching you when he thought you wouldn’t notice, or how his chest tightened when you laughed, unguarded and free.

That was the part Arthur couldn’t rationalize.

That was the part that made him weak.

Now, tonight, the pattern had repeated itself. Another text. Another reckless decision. Another evening where he promised himself it would be the last. You had come over without hesitation, as if both of them already knew how this would go. And just like before, it hadn't taken long. The first kiss had been rough, impatient, all teeth and hands and unfinished apologies. Now, both of them were on the couch, Arthur hovering over you, your lips already swollen from too many unspoken words.

Arthur’s hand rested at the curve of your jaw, thumb brushing lightly against flushed skin. He could feel your heartbeat under his palm, fast and uncertain, matching his own. The room felt smaller than ever—the sound of his and your breathing, the faint creak of the couch, the pulse of something neither of them could name. Arthur wanted to lose himself again, to bury the guilt beneath another touch, another kiss that meant too much. But something in him hesitated. His body stilled, muscles tense, breath caught halfway between want and restraint.

He stared down at you, eyes tracing the face that had somehow become his undoing. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. His mind screamed at him to continue, to keep pretending this was just habit, just release. But his chest burned with something heavier, something he couldn’t keep ignoring. The silence stretched until it became unbearable, until the weight of it demanded to be broken.

Finally, Arthur exhaled, voice low and unsteady.

“I think…things are changing.”