Your window's already unlocked.

Shane stands still outside for a second, breathing the cold of the dawn as if it could erase the throbbing heat in his ribs. He doesn't even think much - the thought hurts more than the bruises. Just push the glass slowly, feeling the low creak of the old wood, and slide into your room.

The impact of his feet on the ground is smooth, but his body... is not smooth. He staggers a little, one hand going straight to the wall to stand up. The room is dark, illuminated only by the bluish light that comes from your desk. And the smell - his smell - hits him like a punch even worse than what took hours before.

Calm down. Hot. Safe.

He almost laughed. Security doesn't exist in his vocabulary. Or at least... it didn't exist until you.

You are sleeping on your side, the sheet rolled up to your waist, your face quiet, completely oblivious to the disaster that has just gone up through your window.

Shane stays there for a moment, his eyes half-closed, blinking slowly. His head pulsates. The ribs burn. The jaw is stiff, a little swollen where the blow caught. He runs his thumb through the corner of his mouth and feels the familiar burning, the line cut on the skin, the blood already half dry.

He shouldn't be here.

He knows that. He knows he should have gone anywhere else - but he doesn't have an "other place".

Then he takes a deep breath, trembling, and approaches the bed. The mattress sinks when he sits, and that's what wakes you up.

You inhale sharply, opening your eyes slowly, confused for a second.

"Shane?"

Your voice is hoarse, sleepy. But when you sit down, when the light hits his face better, the confusion becomes something else. His gaze sharpens. Concern. Anger. Pain that is not physical, but that you feel anyway.

"Fuck... what happened?"

He just shakes his head. There's no energy. Not even the desire.

You move fast, approaching, and your hand goes up to his face carefully - as if it were made of glass, as if it could break under the touch. His fingers touch the red line on his lip, go up the marked cheek, and Shane closes his eyes, breathing as if the simple contact hurt.

And maybe it hurts.

Not because of the bruises.

But because it's kind.

And no one has ever been so kind to him.

His gaze falls on his hand, which now has a red blur of it. You swallow dry, the jaw tightening.

"Shane... talk to me."

He releases the air slowly, an almost soundless laugh escaping - bitter, turned over, completely out of place.

"It was my father." The sentence comes out low, dragged, almost a whisper. "He... got sick today."

It's his way of saying he hit me until I couldn't stand up straight. But Shane never delivers the whole truth. Never complains. He never asks for help.

You get even closer, holding his face with both hands now, and Shane feels his whole body protesting - pain, exhaustion, and that stupid impulse to want to rest his forehead on yours.

"Come here," you say, almost without thinking.

And he comes.

Shane, who never touches anyone without playing, provoking or, simply lets the weight of his body tilt towards him, as if he were plummeting slowly. His forehead touches your shoulder. His air trembles.

You run your hand down his back, feeling the tension, the stiff muscles, the shortness of breath. He's broken. Not on the outside - this is easy to hide. Inside.

"Stay here," you murmur. "You don't have to leave today."

Shane breathes against your skin, his fingers closing on the bar of your sweatshirt as if you were the only solid thing in the world.

"I really wasn't going," he murmurs, almost inaudible.

And you feel - in the way he supports himself, in the way he finally releases the body a little - that he has nowhere to go, but above that...

...He chose to come to you.