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When he returned to his room once again, Kai had shifted positions. The kitten was sprawled out on the bed, still asleep and content, pressed into Kai’s chest where he lay on his side. His head was propped up by an arm, eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy as his other hand rubbed the kitten’s fur.

“She’s sweet,” he whispered as Atticus propped a pillow up against his headboard. He sank back onto the bed, letting himself relax a little more than he had so far.

“Yeah,” Atticus said softly, reaching out to run a finger across her forehead. She pushed into the touch without opening her eyes. “I wasn’t planning on a pet right now, but I sort of hope she doesn’t already belong to someone else.”

Kai smiled. The small one again, the one that Atticus loved best. The smile that barely reached his eyes, the one that seemed to just break through any attempts to hold it back .

“Me too.”

Kai woke with a start. The room was dark, the television stuck on a black screen that simply asked if they were still watching.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. Didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember pressing up against the other body in the bed. He lifted his head, eyes barely adjusted to the dark.

The kitten was curled into a ball on Atticus' pillow, right up against the back of his head. Atticus was asleep as well, breaths even and deep. He lay so close that Kai could feel each exhale against his own hair as he let his head fall back to the pillow.

At some point he had moved, pressed himself close to Atticus' chest. A strong arm was wrapped around his shoulder, holding him tight, their legs tangled together.

It stirred something in Kai, something he couldn’t sort out. Something he was unwilling to sort out.

His traitorous mind took him back, forced him to remember what it had been like to sleep this close to someone every night.

Forced him to remember how it had felt to wake up with someone else, to not be alone in his bed.

But instead of thinking about how he could have that again, how he could reach for that with Atticus, his mind brought up a different face.

Sly eyes that looked so soft in the mornings. Raven-dark hair that was always even messier after sleep. Waking up to a soft grin, an even softer press of lips to his own.

Kai hated himself a little, for thinking about Nicholas while he was wrapped in Atticus' arms. While he was so comfortable in Atticus' bed, their bodies pressed so close.

He hated himself for the constant reminders, for not being able to look past them, for not being able to just forget and move on.

He felt so broken. Like something within him had shattered a year prior, and the pieces had fallen in a way that wedged the hole inside of him wide open. A gaping wound that refused to close.

His jaw began to ache from how hard he was clenching his teeth, a manifestation of the frustration he lived with daily. A part of him wanted to close his eyes, try to just go back to sleep, let them wake up together in the morning and see where things went.

A bigger part of him knew he couldn’t do that. Knew that he couldn’t let Atticus think that something more was happening, not when Kai couldn’t give that part of himself to the other man.

Kai slowly, carefully untangled himself from Atticus' hold.

Neither he nor the kitten woke. Atticus only shifted a little, his arm moving as though he were reaching out.

It made Kai burn with resentment. At himself, at Nicholas.

Maybe even a little bit at Atticus, for being so good.

For being everything that Kai needed, and everything that his mind and heart refused to let him have.

He made sure to close the door on his way out of the room.

Best to keep the kitten in there where she couldn’t get into anything.

He figured they would spend a portion of the next day cat-proofing the house.

The thought normally would have brought a smile to his lips, but he was too wrapped up in the spiral his brain had him trapped in.

Kai slipped into his own bed. He knew it would hurt, but he pulled out his phone anyway. Pulled up the message Nicholas had sent him that morning.

I’ve missed you so much .

Fuck him. Fuck Nicholas for thinking that saying something like that was okay.

That it in any way compared to what Kai had been through in the last year.

They’d both lost a friendship, a friendship that ran so deep it had felt ingrained in their souls.

But Kai had lost more. So much more. Because in the end, when it all had come to a crashing halt, it had become glaringly clear that Kai’s feelings had been so much more.

That what he’d felt had pulsed deeper in his veins, had sung louder with every beat of his heart.

And Nicholas had taken it all away. Had ripped the rug out from under the entire life Kai had seen spread out before them.

How do you ever move on from that loss? Kai hadn’t just lost a lover, he’d lost everything they had planned together. He’d lost the only person he’d ever let in like that, the only person he’d ever let see him in a way that laid him bare completely.

He’d lost his future.

Kai tossed his phone onto the other side of the bed. The empty side.

He fell asleep wishing he still felt an arm wrapped around him, holding him and keeping him safe, even from himself.