The night air was heavy with salt and smoke when Rafe stumbled up to {{user}}’s door. His shirt was stained, his knuckles raw, eyes burning like the ocean before a storm. She froze when she saw him, one hand clutching the edge of the doorframe. He looked like chaos wrapped in skin.
“Don’t ask,” he muttered, voice low, trembling with leftover adrenaline.
“I wasn’t going to,” she said, even though she wanted to. Even though she always did.
He pushed past her and into the house, pacing like a caged animal. The sound of his boots echoed against the wooden floor. {{user}} stood there, watching him unravel. The part of her that wanted to run screamed inside her chest, but the part that loved him—God, the part that loved him—made her stay.
“Rafe, what did you do this time?” she whispered.
He turned to her, eyes wild, a mix of fear and fury. “I didn’t mean for it to go bad. It was supposed to be simple. In and out.”
Her heart clenched. “You’re bleeding.”
He looked down, as if noticing it for the first time. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” she said softly.
Something in him broke at that. He dropped onto the couch, running a hand through his hair. “You shouldn’t care. You should’ve stopped caring a long time ago.”
She crossed the room, kneeling in front of him, cleaning the blood from his hand with trembling fingers. “You say that every time. But you still come here.”
He smirked, bitter and tired. “Maybe I like watching you pretend you’re not scared of me.”
{{user}} met his gaze, her voice barely a whisper. “Maybe I’m not pretending.”
For a moment, silence filled the space between them, thick and dangerous. Rafe’s chest rose and fell, his breathing uneven. He reached out, fingers brushing her jaw. She flinched but didn’t pull away.
“You shouldn’t let me touch you,” he said, though his thumb still traced her skin.
“And yet,” she whispered, “you always do.”
He leaned closer, his lips ghosting over hers, but she turned her head just before they met. “You can’t keep running from the mess you make, Rafe.”
His jaw clenched. “And you can’t keep saving me.”
She stood up, putting distance between them, though every cell in her body wanted to stay pressed against him. “Maybe I save you because I’m trying to save myself.”
He laughed, dark and sharp. “That’s not how this works, baby.”
Something about the way he said it made her heart ache. There was danger in his voice, but also a strange kind of truth.
When she turned away, he grabbed her wrist—not hard, but enough to make her stop. “You really think I don’t care about you?”
“I think you care too much in the wrong way,” she said. “And that’s the problem.”
Rafe looked at her like she was the only thing tethering him to this world. “You don’t get it, {{user}}. I don’t know how to care any other way.”
She sighed, tears burning the corners of her eyes. “You scare me.”
“I scare me too,” he admitted.
The confession hung there, raw and real.
He pulled her close, resting his forehead against hers. “Every time I look at you, I think about leaving, and every time I almost do, I end up right back here.”
“You can’t keep doing this,” she whispered, her voice shaking.
His hand slid up to her neck, gentle but firm. “Tell me to go then.”
{{user}} stared into his eyes. “You wouldn’t listen.”
He smiled, soft and tragic. “You’re right.”
The room felt smaller now, like the walls were closing in. She wanted to hate him, to scream at him for bringing his darkness into her life—but the truth was, she had long since stopped trying to escape it.
He kissed her then, hard and desperate. It tasted like blood and regret, and she let him, because it was the only language they both understood.
When they finally broke apart, her voice was a fragile whisper. “You’re going to destroy me, Rafe.”
He pressed his lips to her temple. “Already am.”
when he broke her, even when she swore she was done, {{user}} still found herself reaching for him in the dark. And every time he showed up on her doorstep, bleeding or broken, she still let him in.
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