Page 92 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

“You like soft shit.”

Kenny chuckled. Tickled his neck. “Don’t fret. You’re not completely transparent. You still have parts I’m baffled over. Still trying to figure out.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“How you turn the softest touch into a battleground. How you kiss me like I’m the last good thing, then pick a fight over something ridiculous like which way the toilet roll should face.”

“Against the wall.”

“Wrong.”

Aaron tilted his head. “That’s not mysterious. That’s me being consistent. And you being a pedantic bastard.”

“Or how you can cry in my arms and still call me a smug bastard five minutes later.”

“Balance.” Aaron shrugged.

Kenny laughed under his breath. “But mostly, how you let me in… but only right to the edge of the fire. Only when it’s burning. Then you bolt. Every time.”

Aaron went quiet. The fire snapped.

“Still working on that one.” Kenny stroked his fingers through Aaron’s hair. “Still figuring out if it’s fear or habit. Maybe both.”

Aaron finally looked back at him. Eyes clearer now. Tired, yes, but less guarded. More open. “Probably both.”

Kenny nodded once, not pushing, not over-filling the space. “Agreed.” He let that linger, then tilted his neck. “What are you afraid of with me?”

Aaron gave a short, humourless chuckle, biting down on it as quickly as it escaped. He reached for his toast and took a bite, chewing as if it gave him something to do while his mind skated the edge of panic.

Then, deliberate, quiet and nowhere near to answering the question asked, Aaron said, “Blackwell touched me.”

Kenny stilled. He gave no outward reaction, but inside a knot of heat cinched hard behind his ribs. Rage. Disgust. Protectiveness. All of it. But he held it. Aaron didn’t need fire. He needed ground.

And this was the pattern.

Because instead of naming the thing he was afraid ofwith Kenny, Aaron chose the safer battlefield. He shifted the conversation away fromtheiremotional intimacy and onto something he could explain. Something factual. A bruise someone else had left. Something that happenedtohim, not something hefelt.

And Kenny saw it for what it was: a brilliant, broken sort of misdirection.

A way to talk withoutreallybeing seen.

To cry without sayingwhy.

And God, Kenny loved him for that. Even when it hurt. Even when it left more questions than answers. So he listened and tried to read between every line.

“Not the first time, either,” Aaron went on, voice dry. “Told him early on I didn’t like it. Didn’t want to be touched.” He shrugged, but Kenny saw the tension in his shoulders. “But he kept doing it. Little things. On my back, my arm, shoulder. Like it was nothing. As if it didn’t count.”

“It counts.” Kenny rubbed his knuckles along Aaron’s neck. “Every touch you don’t want counts.”

“How do you even get mad at someone for something that… light?” He focused his gaze on the flames within the open fire. “It’s like I couldn’t justify the anger. Started wondering if it was real. If I was just being—” he broke off. “Difficult.Me.”

There it was.

Kenny felt it like a sharp tug in his chest.

He knew this pattern, too. The micro-boundary violations. The strategic harmlessness. The intentional erosion of self-trust. It wasn’t just contact. It wasconditioning. To destabilise without ever raising alarm.

“That’s not accidental,” Kenny said, tone shifting, clinical without losing care. “It’s a control tactic. By keeping it light enough to fall under the radar, he makes your discomfort feel disproportionate. He wants you second-guessing. So when you eventually do push back, he can make it aboutyourreaction. Nothisviolation. That’s gaslighting. Psychological manipulation. Classic low-grade predator play.”