Andrew didn’t like parties. He tolerated them. Endured them — like a patient endures a long, tedious treatment, like a soldier endures the weight of a pack on a forced march. He endured the noise, a cacophony of laughter and shouted conversations that grated against his nerves like sandpaper. He endured the brush of bodies too close, the unwelcome warmth of strangers crowding in, their proximity an unspoken invasion. He endured the reek of cheap alcohol soaked into carpet and breath, a sour, cloying stench that clung to the back of his throat.

This one was no different — some Fox’s birthday, though he hadn’t bothered to remember which. It didn’t matter. It never did. The names blurred, the faces blended, the reasons for celebration faded into the same haze of forced merriment. To him, parties were a performance he had no interest in joining — a play where everyone wore masks and forgot they were wearing them.

The rooftop was quieter. A sanctuary carved from concrete and night air. Cold, hard slabs of grey under him, the surface rough and unyielding — real, solid, grounding. The hum of the city pulsed in the distance like the heartbeat of some vast, sleeping beast: streetlights flickering like dying stars, tires hissing wet on pavement, the low, thrumming buzz of power lines overhead vibrating through the air. The thud of bass from below barely reached him now, muted like a heartbeat heard through layers of skin and muscle — a distant echo of the chaos he’d left behind.

He sat on the edge with one leg pulled up to his chest, the other hanging off the ledge, dangling over the drop like a pendulum measuring time. A cigarette hung loosely between two fingers, its tip glowing faintly in the dark. The smoke curled upward, white and lazy in the night air, twisting like a ghost trying to remember how to speak.

He hadn’t lit it because he needed a hit. He wasn’t sure why he lit it at all. Maybe to keep his hands busy, to give them something to do instead of clenching into fists. Maybe to stop thinking — or at least, to distract himself from the thoughts that circled his mind like vultures waiting for weakness.

But the words had stuck.

"Abusive.” “Manipulative.” “Neil deserves someone better.”

They didn’t mean anything. Not really. Two strangers whispering behind a red plastic cup, their voices low and smug, as if they’d uncovered some great truth. They didn’t know him. Didn’t know Neil. They’d never seen the quiet conversations, the careful boundaries, the way Andrew had always asked — always asked — before he touched. But that hadn’t stopped the words from digging in, lodging beneath his skin like splinters he couldn’t quite dig out. They festered, small and sharp, sending threads of poison through his calm.

They weren’t wrong about the control. That part he didn’t deny. Control was safety. Control was survival. A fortress built brick by brick, a wall against the world that had taught him trust was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Neil understood that — or he used to. Andrew had never forced anything, never touched without asking. He’d built their dynamic with care, with precision, with the kind of attention most people reserved for delicate instruments. But now, with their laughter still echoing in his ears like a mocking chorus, he couldn’t shake the acidic curl of doubt in his stomach. It coiled there, cold and slick, whispering: What if they’re right?

He took another drag. The cigarette burned low, the cherry glowing like a dying ember. His hand was steady — trained, disciplined — but his jaw wasn’t. A muscle twitched, a small betrayal of the calm he wore like armour.

When the rooftop door creaked open, he didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to. He knew Neil’s footsteps — the weight of them, the rhythm. Soft, careful, deliberate. Not hurried, not hesitant — just there, a steady presence in the dark. A shadow in the night that always walked toward him, never away.

Andrew exhaled smoke, the plume dissolving into the air like a confession he’d never voice.