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Harrison laughed before he could stop it, rough, startled and painfully real and Jake smiled at him, deliberately offering him a way out of the darkness without pretending it’d never been there. So Harrison grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him again. This time, there was no desperation in it. No frantic need to anchor himself against the past. He kissed Jake because he wanted to, because Jake’s mouth was warm beneath his and his body fitted against Harrison’s in a way he’d spent far too long imagining.

Then a car rounded the corner, headlights washing over them before sliding away, so Jake pulled back and angled his head. “Come up.”

Harrison glanced up the metal steps leading to the bedsit, then back at Jake, and he thought of every opportunity he’d passed on the walk here. Every moment he could’ve turned around and chosen the safety of being alone.

He didn’t want to be alone tonight.

So he nodded and allowed Jake to take his hand and lead him up the steps.

Once Jake shut the door behind them, Harrison took a steadying breath. Ridiculous, really. He’d sat in interview rooms and given this account to strangers without flinching. Given statements about Chris to the IOPC, senior officers, counsellors, family liaison teams. He’d sat in sterile rooms and recounted every detail until the words should’ve lost meaning entirely. But somehow telling Jake had felt worse.

Because Jake mattered.

Far too much already.

So he scrubbed a hand over his face and looked around the bedsit to take it all in. It was warm tonight. Chaotic. Lived in. Jake. The bed was a complete state, sheets tangled and half hanging off the mattress as though Jake had dressed in a hurry. One pillow had ended up on the floor. Beside it sat Teddy’s half-deflated blow-up mattress, complete with a discarded PE kit and a single trainer overturned on its side.

Harrison found himself staring at it all.

This was Jake’s life. Messy and noisy and crowded with people he loved. And somehow, over the past few weeks, Harrison had been allowed further and further into it.

He desperately didn’t want tonight to be the thing that pushed him back out.

Jake threw his keys onto the counter. “Teddy’s been staying.” He tugged off his boots and threw them away. “Long story. But he’s back at my folks’ tonight.”

Harrison nodded. And felt a sharp twist of guilt that Jake had been dealing with his own mess while Harrison had been busy unravelling.

They should talk. Get it all out.

But he didn’t want to talk. Not anymore.

So instead of thinking about it, he draped his jacket over a chair. Pulled his tie loose. Opened the top few buttons of his shirt until he could breathe properly again, then kicked off his shoes all while Jake went around to his fridge and pulled out two beers. Harrison stepped in beside him and took one from him, taking an immediate gulp.

Exactly what he needed.

He was halfway through another swallow when Jake asked, “You okay?”

Harrison exhaled. “I am now.” He didn’t add why.

He took another swallow of beer while Jake stayed close enough for Harrison to feel the heat rolling off him. Sweat, stale pub smoke, the lingering adrenaline of performing.

Jake leaned back to study him. “Do you wanna…keep talking?”

Harrison held his gaze for a moment. “No.”

“Oh.”

The disappointment was subtle, but there.

Harrison cocked his head. “Do you want to keep talking?”

Jake hummed softly, as if contemplating it. “Wouldn’t mind hearing a bit more about how you’re halfway gone for me.”

Harrison snorted, then shook his head and finished the beer. He placed the empty bottle on the counter as he caught Jake by the necklace, tugging him closer until they were chest to chest.

“How about I show you instead?”

Jake pretended to contemplate that, too. Then, “Aye, reckon you should.”