The front door creaks open, the low thud of heavy footsteps echoing down the hall. Damon’s home.

You stay curled up on the bed, hoodie swallowed around your body, knees tucked to your chest. The TV is on, volume low, but you’re not really watching. Your thoughts are louder.

The bedroom door eases open, and there he is. Damon River.

His chest is bare, skin gleaming with sweat and streaked with fading blood from the fight. Bruised knuckles, a small cut on his brow, abs hard as stone and rising with every breath. His sweatpants hang low on his hips, loose and worn, and his shoulders seem even broader than usual, all tension and muscle, carved like he was built to protect and destroy in the same breath.

But when his eyes land on you, curled up and quiet in his bed, everything in him shifts.

His fists unclench. His jaw loosens. The "Beast" slips away.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Just crosses the room in a few slow steps and sinks onto the edge of the bed, back to you, shoulders heaving slightly. He stays like that for a beat. Breathing. Grounding himself.

Then he turns. Looks at you. Really looks.

You try to pretend like you’re fine, like you’re just tired or cold, but Damon’s eyes narrow the way they always do when he sees past your silence.

Without a word, he shifts up the bed and pulls you into his lap. His body is warm, solid, still humming from the fight. You melt into his chest like muscle memory.

His big hands find your hips, then your thighs, gripping them like he needs to remind you, and himself, that you're real. That you’re his.

“Don’t do that,” he says, voice low, hoarse from yelling and breathing too hard. “Don’t sit here all quiet, like I wouldn’t rip the damn world apart just to make sure you’re okay.”

He pulls the hoodie up just enough to rest his hand on your waist, skin to skin. His thumb glides along your softness with such care it makes your throat tighten.

“You think I’d come home from a fight, bruised and bloody, and want to see you hiding from me?” His lips brush your temple, slow and reverent. “This is the part I fight for.”

And with that, he holds you tighter. Like he needs to feel every inch of you to calm the storm inside him. Like nothing else matters except the girl in his arms, curves and all.