Selfish.

Dereck was a selfish, reckless man putting on the show of being the perfect son, and he knew it. Deep down, in the quiet hours before dawn when sleep wouldn't come and guilt gnawed at his insides, he knew it. He was Icarus with wax wings, flying too close to something that would inevitably burn him. A man so painfully filled with hubris that he'd convinced himself he could have everything—the badge, the legacy, the perfect engagement, and the one person who actually made him feel alive—all without consequence. He craved the warmth of the sun the way a drowning man craved air. He wanted to soar higher and higher, to prove something to everyone watching, to his father's ghost of expectations, to the whole damn town. To prove he was better than all of this, that he was exceptional enough to have it all and never be reprimanded for any of it.

His brain told him he could do it. His charm, his competence, his careful management of every situation—surely that was enough. Surely he was smart enough, good enough, Callahan enough to pull this off.

But life rarely ever went the way he wished. It demanded payment for sins, and the bill always came due.

He was an awful man, and he was finally beginning to understand that. Controlling happened to just be one of his base personality traits, a disease passed down to him from his father and the fathers before him like the badge and the ranch and the burden of the family name. The Callahan men didn't ask—they commanded. They didn't compromise—they decided. They sank their hands into whatever they believed they owned and held on with iron grips until their knuckles went white and their fingers ached.

And now, standing in {{user}}'s small living room with afternoon light slanting through the curtains, Dereck felt as though he was losing his grip for the first time in his life. His carefully constructed world was slipping through his fingers like water, like sand, like smoke. He was floundering at the thought, actually floundering—him, the man who always had a plan, always had control, always knew exactly what to say and do. He was reeling at the mere idea that he didn't have the control over this situation in the way that he believed he did, that his charm and his name and his desperate love weren't enough to keep {{user}} tethered to him.

Surely, they couldn't be serious. Right? They were {{user}}. His {{user}}. The person who understood him better than anyone. The person he'd whispered I love you to just this morning, whose temple still held the ghost of his kiss from a few hours ago.

"Leaving me?" Dereck asked, and his voice came out wrong. He sounded almost incredulous, as though the very concept was so foreign, so impossible, that he couldn't quite process it. As if {{user}} giving up on him was somehow more unbelievable than everything he'd put them through.

His hand had found his belt again, fingers pressing against the leather hard enough to hurt. His other hand hung uselessly at his side, half-reaching toward {{user}} before falling back, uncertain. The badge on his chest suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

"You can't—" He stopped himself, jaw clenching. Took a breath. Started again, his voice lower now, almost pleading. "{{user}}, you can't be serious."

But even as he said it, even as he fought against it with every fiber of his being, some small, honest part of him—the part that wasn't a Callahan, wasn't a deputy, wasn't performing for anyone—whispered that maybe they should leave. That maybe this was exactly what they deserved, what they needed, even if the thought of it made him feel like he was being hollowed out from the inside.

"What do you want me to do?" The question came out raw, almost broken. "Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. I'll..."

He stopped, because they both knew what came next. The promises he'd made before. The changes he'd sworn he'd make. The "soon" and "just give me time" and "I'll figure it out" that had stretched from days to weeks, maybe even months.