~Dan~
I walked through the door and the apartment hit me like a wall of everything good I'd just decided to burn down. Sky was on the couch, legs tucked under him, wearing my gray hoodie that swallowed him whole, the necklace I'd given him yesterday still around his neck like a promise I was about to break. He looked up fast when the door clicked, face lighting up for half a second before he clocked my expression the red eyes, the soaked jacket, the way my shoulders were hunched like I'd taken a beating on the way home.
"Dan?" Voice small, worried. "You okay? You look like shit."
I shut the door behind me. Locked it. Leaned against it because my legs felt like they might give out if I moved too far. Rain still dripped off my hair onto the floor. I didn't wipe it. Just stared at him like memorizing the last time he'd look at me like that.
"Sit down," I said. Voice rougher than I meant.
He stood instead. "What's going on? You didn't answer my texts. I called. Lena said you left hours ago. I thought… "
"Sit," I repeated, sharper this time.
He froze. Eyes narrowing. "Don't talk to me like that. Tell me what the fuck happened."
I pushed off the door, walked past him to the kitchen counter, braced my hands on it because I needed something solid. "We can't do this anymore."
Silence. Thick. Heavy. Then his laugh short, disbelieving. "What?"
"We can't be together." I couldn't look at him yet. I kept staring at my knuckles turning white. "I'm a detective. You're the key witness in my investigation who should be in the station and not with me. My job has to stay clean. Discrete. No complications. No… this."
He laughed again, louder, and angrier. "Are you fucking kidding me? After yesterday? After you put this stupid necklace on me and said you loved me and we spent the whole day acting like people in love? Now it's 'discrete'?"
I turned finally. His face was flushed, eyes shiny, hands balled into fists at his sides. "Yeah. Now it's discrete."
"Bullshit." He stepped closer. "This isn't about the job. This is about whatever happened at work today that made you come home looking like someone talked to you about it. What did your friends say huh? What did Jax say? Because I know they said something."
I winced. "They reminded me how this ends."
"How what ends? Us?" He jabbed a finger at his chest. "Or you? Because last I checked I wasn't the one with a history of getting played by spies."
The ex thing hit again, fresh wound. "Don't."
"Don't what? Call it what it is?" He laughed, bitter. "You think I'm him? You think I'm gonna sell you out to some bad guys because I let you knot me raw and call me baby? Is that it?"
"No." my voice cracked. "I think I'm the problem. I think I let feelings get in the way and I stop seeing straight and people get hurt. Including you."
He stared at me. Blinked slowly. "Do you trust me?"
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
His face crumpled for a second, then hardened. "You don't. You don't fucking trust me."
"Sky…. "
"Answer the question." Voice rising. "Do. You. Trust. Me?"
I swallowed. "It's not that simple."
"Yes it is." He stepped right up, close enough I could smell my shampoo in his hair. "Either you trust me or you don't. Either you think I'm some manipulative little omega using your dick to get protection or whatever the fuck paranoid bullshit is in your head, or you don't. So which is it?"
I looked away. "I trust you. I just don't trust myself with you."
He barked a laugh. "That's the lamest cop-out I've ever heard."
"It's not a cop-out. It's reality." I finally met his eyes. "If this gets out if anyone finds out I'm sleeping with you, knotting you, falling for you they'll find a reason to pull me off the case. They'll question everything you've said. They'll dig into us. And if the defense gets wind of it, your testimony gets thrown. Is that what you want?"
He flinched. Hard. "Don't use me to justify this."