"I love you," Dereck murmured against the skin of {{user}}'s temple.

He was getting up and off their couch, where they'd spent the better part of the morning in the kind of quiet contentment that Dereck knew he had no right to claim. The worn cushions protested softly as he stood, and he reached down to grab his discarded shirt from where it had been thrown over the armrest sometime around dawn. The fabric was wrinkled, would need ironing before he could wear it on duty, but he pulled it on anyway, fingers working the buttons with practiced efficiency.

His phone had been ringing from the coffee table—that insistent, shrill alarm he'd set for himself because he knew, he knew, that if he didn't force himself to leave, he never would. He silenced it with a swipe of his thumb, the screen lighting up with a string of notifications he'd been ignoring. Two missed calls from the station. A text from his father asking about paperwork. Another from Dorriane complaining about something trivial.

"Duty calls," he said softly, glancing back at {{user}} with an apologetic smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

As he headed to the washroom, his boots—which he'd left neatly by the door out of habit—were still unlaced. He'd deal with them later. The bathroom was small, cozy in a way the sprawling Callahan ranch house had never been. Personal. There were little signs of {{user}} everywhere: their toothbrush in the holder, a half-empty bottle of their preferred soap, a towel hung crooked on the rack. And tucked behind the door, in the back of the medicine cabinet where it wouldn't be immediately visible to any visitors, was his own toothbrush—the one he'd stowed away here months ago when these morning escapes had become routine rather than exception.

He took it out now, the blue bristles slightly worn, and ran it under the tap before applying toothpaste. As he brushed his teeth with mechanical precision, he pulled his phone from his pocket and checked his schedule for the day with his free hand. The screen glowed in the dim bathroom light, reflecting in the mirror beside his own tired face.

7:00 AM - Morning briefing at station
9:30 AM - Patrol, south county roads
12:00 PM - Lunch with Dad and Judge Morrison (discuss transition)
3:00 PM - Training session with new deputy
6:30 PM - Dinner with Simone at Magnolia's

His hand stilled, toothbrush forgotten halfway to his mouth.

There it was, at the bottom of the list, typed out in the same neat font as everything else, as if it were just another obligation. Just another duty to fulfill. Dinner with Simone at Magnolia's. He'd made the reservation two weeks ago, had been reminded about it three times by his mother, who seemed to think he needed help remembering his own engagement activities. Magnolia's was the nicest restaurant within thirty miles—white tablecloths, candles, a piano player on weekends. The kind of place where people went to be seen, to show the town that everything was exactly as it should be.

His reflection stared back at him in the mirror, toothbrush still suspended in mid-air. He looked like his father—same strong jaw, same sharp eyes, same expression of someone carrying weight they never asked for. The resemblance had never bothered him before. Now it made his stomach turn.

He finished brushing his teeth, spat into the sink, and rinsed his mouth with cold water that did nothing to wash away the taste of guilt that had become so familiar it was almost comforting. Almost.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he found his boots and sat on the edge of {{user}}'s couch to lace them up properly. His uniform shirt was still wrinkled, and his hair was mussed in a way that would require gel to fix. He looked, in short, like a man who'd spent the night somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.

"I gotta go."