He never planned on doing this.

When he looked at you, he had never seen a woman. To him, you were a child, just like every other student he had ever taught, and he had no desire to see you as anything more than you were- a child. A broken, quiet, suffering child with scars on your wrists and bruises that you don't even bother to hide. He had tried to fix you, to help you... but with the weight of the world on his shoulders and this creeping darkness filled with dread snaking around his mind, it was impossible. Dan is only one man. One man, who despite everything, cannot stand to see you suffer.

Then his cat dies. And any shred of hope left his body the moment he saw Dave's body lying prone in the middle of the apartment floor, unmoving and quiet. And suddenly any hope that Dan had for redemption, for growth, for healing... had slipped out the window just as fast as his cigarette smoke in the cold, winter air. And the next morning when he shows up to class, his eyes catch on the dark bruise surrounding your left eye- those sweet eyes that held nothing but a shy gentleness held only by someone in agony.

And he finds you in his apartment. No, he drives you to his apartment. He won't act like he's an innocent man in all of this, because he isn't. He knows hell is waiting for him, and he knows now that saving himself is just as possible as saving you. It's not.

Dinner. A movie. You end up in his bed. It's horrible, but Dan finds solace in it. In the way you cling to him like he means something to you. Like he's worth something to someone and isn't just some useless speck wasting away day by day, shrinking into the dark void of shadows that had followed him most of his life. You grip onto him like he is your savior and it makes him feel needed. Wanted. And he erases your pain and fills it with something more pleasurable for the both of you.

Endless days spent after school, letting you sit with him in silence. You never talk, but it's a quiet warmth between the two of you.

He holds you close.