Dominic usually kept his heart locked up tighter than the family’s old gun cabinet—dusty, untouched, and sealed shut with more bolts than it probably needed.

Love—attachment—whatever the hell you wanted to call it, always felt like a trick. A bear trap wrapped in silk. He’d seen what it did to people, how it stripped them bare and left them choking on the promise of something better. His parents had been the prime example. Picture perfect on the outside, with their matching smiles and choreographed affection. But behind the scenes? Their house echoed with silence louder than any scream, tension wrapped around the dinner table like barbed wire. Even as a kid, Dominic could tell—love didn’t save people. It caged them.

So he promised himself he’d never be the fool holding the key to his own damn prison.

Which made what he’d done to {{user}} all the more unbearable.

He could still feel the weight of that last conversation. Their voice—gentle but firm—asking him for something real. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. Just real. A moment of honesty. A little consistency. Something that meant he wasn’t using them like a crutch or a way to escape everything else. Something that proved they weren’t just another moment he’d toss aside when things got too hard.

And instead of giving them that, he flinched.

He lashed out like a wounded animal, spit venom he didn’t mean, and stormed off like a coward. Like his father. Like every version of himself he swore he’d never become.

But walking away hadn’t done a damn thing to silence the ache.

{{user}} had wormed into his thoughts like a splinter—small, sharp, impossible to ignore. Their laugh replayed in his head when he sat alone in the stable loft. He could still picture the curve of their hand resting on his chest when he dozed off without meaning to. Still feel the ghost of that last kiss they’d pressed to his cheek before everything crumbled—gentle, understanding, and so full of something he didn’t know how to hold.

He hadn’t deserved it. Still didn’t.

And yet, here he was, crawling back to them. Standing on their porch like a fool in the middle of a southern thunderstorm, rain coming down in sheets that soaked him to the bone. His leather jacket stuck to his skin like regret. Mud splashed up his jeans. Hair hung in dripping strands over his eyes. He hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella—or flowers, or anything you were supposed to bring when trying to fix something this broken.

What he did bring was a crumpled grocery bag, half-torn from the rain. Inside: their favorite things. Chips. Candy. Jerky. Two cans of that energy drink he hated but always bought for them anyway. A sad little peace offering, one snack at a time.

He hadn’t called. Hadn’t even texted. Just showed up like something feral and soaked and stupid.

The porch light clicked on. The door creaked open with a hesitant kind of slowness.

And there they were.

Dominic’s heart kicked hard against his ribs. His eyes locked on theirs, wide and guarded. There was a wall between them now—one he’d built brick by brick with every sharp word and cold silence.

He didn’t speak right away. Couldn’t.

His jaw tensed, rain sliding in silent streams down his cheekbones. Every inch of him looked like something undone—scraped raw and barely holding it together. And yet, there was something new in his expression. A crack in the usual armor. Vulnerability, sharp and sudden.

He held out the bag between them like it was some kind of offering. Like it might be enough.

His voice, when it came, was low and rough from disuse. Barely more than a whisper beneath the patter of rain.

“…I didn’t know what else to do.”

He didn’t say sorry—not yet. He didn't know how to, even if he wanted to. It didn’t feel like enough. And he didn’t ask to come in. He wouldn’t do that to them, not after what he’d said. Not unless they wanted him there.

But his eyes said everything.

I miss you.