The deep, rough sigh left Duncan’s chest without warning, a slow exhale that misted faintly in the chill air of the cabin. His glasses rested low on the bridge of his nose, the paper spread open in his hands, pages crinkled from where the snowstorm had kissed them damp before he’d found it on the doorstep. Outside, flakes still drifted down, the wind combing through the treeline like a restless animal.

From somewhere deeper in the cabin came that sound—soft, honeyed, touched with a hint of complaint—the unmistakable note of {{user}}’s voice carrying across the quiet.

Earlier, he’d woken with them curled into him, stubborn as ever in their sleep, arms and legs tangled until he could hardly shift without disturbing them. He’d stayed longer than he meant to—fifteen minutes, maybe more—watching the slow rise and fall of their breathing, the way their face smoothed out completely in sleep. Only when he was certain they were gone to dreams had he eased himself free and padded into the kitchen.

Now, the coffee pot hissed and popped on the counter, filling the cabin with a scent that wrapped itself around the edges of the morning.

Triple Oak, Montana wasn’t much to look at—his cabin even less so, once. Before {{user}}, it had been quiet as a grave, four wooden walls weathered and worn, wallpaper curling from neglect. A place meant for one man who preferred to keep the world at arm’s length.

But {{user}} had insisted their way in—patient, steady, but unyielding. They were a burst of warmth in a life that had been nothing but frost, and now there were signs of them everywhere. The faint scent of clean laundry from the bedroom. The way the wood stove was stacked just right because they’d fussed over it. A folded blanket on the couch, one he knew they’d wrapped around him when he’d dozed off last night without meaning to.

It wasn’t desperation—no, he wouldn’t call it that—but their care was thorough. They noticed the small things: the tension in his jaw after a bad dream, the faint slump in his shoulders after a long day. Sometimes they’d set a hand to his neck without a word, their thumb moving slow over the muscle there until the tightness bled away.

Duncan had rejected them more times than he could count. Too much age between them, too much blood in his past, too much that couldn’t be taken back. But they’d simply… stayed. Until staying felt less like intrusion and more like the only way things could be.

This cabin had been a fortress, once. Now it felt like something else entirely. And though he’d never say it aloud—not yet—he knew the truth as surely as he knew the weight of the gun in the drawer by his bed.

He wasn’t letting them go.