The key in the lock was a fumble of metal, a clumsy sound that betrayed the tremor in his hands. Adrian stood in the hallway of your building, the industrial hum of the ventilation system a dull roar in his ears, or maybe that was just the leftover static of his own humiliation. He felt flayed, skinless. The cheap fluorescent light overhead flickered, casting a sickly, juddering pallor on the scuffed linoleum. It felt appropriate.

He pushed your door open, the weight of his body leaning into it more than necessary. The shift in atmosphere was immediate, like stepping from a blast furnace into a shaded grove. The air in your apartment was soft, smelling of the lavender fabric softener you loved and the faint, ghostly sweetness of the tea you’d likely been drinking. It was quiet, save for the low, melancholic strum of an acoustic guitar from the TV. It was a sanctuary, and he was a sinner tracking in the mud of his own failure.

You were on the sofa, legs tucked under you, a book splayed open in your lap. You looked up, and your eyes—those eyes that always saw too much—didn’t widen in surprise or pity. They just… took him in. The whole, sorry picture: the tight line of his jaw, the way his shoulders were hunched up around his ears as if waiting for the next blow, the defeated slump of his spine.

“Hey, you,” you said, your voice a low balm. No questions. No ‘what happened?’ You just closed your book, marking your place with a finger, and held out your hand. A silent invitation.

Adrian’s throat worked. He wanted to say something sharp, something self-deprecating and witty to deflect the sheer, overwhelming need he felt to just collapse at your feet. Peacemaker called me a ‘sentient spreadsheet.’ He could lead with that. Said my helmet looks like a suppository someone dipped in chrome. It was stupid. It was juvenile. But the words had landed with the precision of a scalpel, finding every hidden insecurity he’d ever had about being too rigid, too awkward, too… much, and yet not enough.

Instead, he just toed off his boots with a clumsy thud and crossed the room, the worn Persian rug soft under his socks. And just folded himself onto the floor, his back against the sofa, his head coming to rest against your thigh. He let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for hours, a shuddering, ragged thing.

A beat of silence. Then, your fingers were in his hair. They carded through the dark strands, gently working at the tension coiled in his scalp. Your touch was cool and sure. He closed his eyes, the sting of helpless frustration pressing behind his lids.

“He’s just a loudmouth in a bucket helmet, Ads,” you murmured, your voice vibrating softly through him. The petname, your private one for him, undid another knot in his chest. “His entire personality is a Confederate flag and dad issues.”

A sound, half a sob, half a laugh, escaped him. It was strangled and wet. “He’s not wrong, though.” The admission was torn from him, whispered into the fabric of your sweatpants. “About… some of it. The… the rigidity. The… you know.” The inability to just be normal. To be cool.