Dante walked for a long time.

In his haste to escape, he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to where he was going, and he was now completely lost. He couldn’t find it in himself to care, though. He just kept on walking, and prayed that at some point he would have walked far enough to leave his painful thoughts behind. So far, it hadn’t worked.

Alexei…

It was all just so much, so very much. So many memories he didn’t want to remember. So many feelings he couldn’t escape. He felt guilty for leaving Raf and Christina behind, but what could he have possibly said to them? There were no words sufficient to convey the enormity of what he was feeling, and even if there had been, he couldn’t bear to stay and see the looks of pity in their eyes. Running away might have been cowardly, but he hadn’t known what else to do.

His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Raf had messaged him. Dante sighed and slipped it back into his pocket. I’m sorry, Raf, I just can’t face you now. Please try to understand.

Raf clearly didn’t understand, because the phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

With a curse, Dante finally pulled the phone back out and unlocked it.

Dante heaved a frustrated sigh. He was going to have to say something back, or Raf would keep texting him all night.

That should do it, he thought. 

Except, it absolutely didn't.

He set his phone to silent and rubbed his face with both hands. Damn it, why did Raf have to be so persistent? Couldn’t he see that Dante wanted to be left alone? Why did he have to insist on trampling all over Dante’s carefully maintained boundaries?

Don’t be such an ass, another part of his brain argued back. After that little temper tantrum you threw back there, it’s no wonder he’s concerned about you. Anyone would be. 

Dante’s cheeks heated up. It was true, of course, but that didn’t make it any less mortifying. 

The embarrassing truth was that he’d completely lost his temper in front of Alexei. It was even more frustrating because Dante had imagined so many times over the years what he would do if he ever saw the man again. Sometimes, in his fantasies, he was righteously indignant and berated Alexei mercilessly for his cowardice. Other times, he was cool and proud, showing just how little he cared about the scars of his past or the man who had caused them. One of his favorite variations was the one where Alexei came crawling back to him, full of regret and begging for forgiveness. In this version, Dante was compassionate and merciful, proving once and for all that he was truly the better man.

In all of these hypothetical scenarios, though, Dante had never once imagined that Alexei would have someone else with him. He was always alone in Dante’s head, always frozen in time as the man he had been 10 years ago. 

Realistically speaking, of course, such a thing was impossible. Alexei had his own life and would have grown and changed in the intervening years, just as Dante himself had. Still, to see him with that woman, to hear her call him “darling”, was…

Unforgivable.

Dante shook his head to clear it. As much as it hurt, he couldn’t let himself fall apart over something so stupid. Alexei was a part of his past, and this encounter changed nothing about the present circumstances of his life.

The more pressing problem, currently, was that he had slipped up in front of Raf and Christina. Maybe there was a chance that they would look past it, and pretend that they hadn’t seen him showing such a disgraceful side of himself. If they didn’t, or worse, if they told others about it...

Well, he really didn’t know what he would do. 

He shivered. His jacket was fairly warm, but he had now been walking around for over an hour and the cold had started to seep through. Moreover, the initial adrenaline rush had finally subsided, leaving him feeling shaky and confused. He supposed he should call himself a cab, but the idea of going back home to his empty apartment honestly felt too painful to contemplate. 

Raf had been right; he probably shouldn’t be alone anymore tonight.

Dante pulled out his phone. There were at least ten more unread messages from Raf, as well as two or three from Christina, all of which he ignored for the time being. I’ll just have to apologize to them later, he decided. He flipped through his contact list until he found the name of the only other person he felt comfortable calling at this time of night.

Thomas answered on the second ring.

“Dante? Everything all right?”

“Hi, Thomas. I’m sorry to bother you so late. If you’re not too busy, do you think you could come and pick me up?”

-----

An hour later, Dante had traded his jacket for a large fleece blanket, and he sat curled up on Thomas’s faded-yet-comfortable couch. Thomas handed him a mug of freshly brewed chamomile tea, and Dante blew on it slowly before taking a sip. 

“So...are you ready to tell me why you were wandering around the city, alone, in the middle of the night?” Thomas prompted after a few minutes of silence.

Dante set his mug down on the coffee table and fidgeted with his fingers. He hadn’t yet decided how much he wanted to say. He knew he owed Thomas some kind of explanation, but he also didn’t want to dredge up all the details of his sordid past. He decided to start with the pieces of the story that he knew he couldn’t avoid.

“I...ran into my mate tonight,” he said finally, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his hands so that he didn’t have to watch Thomas’s reaction to the bombshell.

“Oh, shit.” Thomas leaned back in his chair. “Not a great reunion, I take it?”

“No.”

“Is this the first time you’ve seen him since…?”

“Since he left me, yes.”

Dante braced himself for more follow-up questions, but Thomas simply leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. “That sounds rough. How are you holding up?”

Dante looked up at him, surprised. “You’re not going to ask what happened?”

“Not unless you want to talk about it. I’m more worried about you at the moment. You look like you’re still in shock.”

“Ah,” Dante ran trembling fingers through his hair. Of course. He forgot that Thomas had been doing this for longer than he had. There were protocols for when Omegas came in fresh off a traumatic event. He must look worse than he thought if Thomas had switched into clinical mode.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Thomas asked. His voice was soft, unhurried. Dante understood the question for what it was: not so much an expression of curiosity or even concern, but simply an offer to listen. It was a tone he himself took often with his patients. He knew that whatever he had to say, Thomas would not judge him for it.

He took a shuddering breath. “I was out to dinner with Raf and Christina tonight. We’d just come back from filing some paperwork at the courthouse, and we were all feeling kind of worn out, so I offered to treat them before we went back to the Center. It was…” he paused, trying to mentally recapture that brief feeling of warmth and camaraderie he had experienced in their presence. It already felt like such a long time ago. “It was really nice,” he finished.

Thomas said nothing, just nodded and waited for him to continue.

“On our way out, we bumped into Alexei. It was completely random. I didn’t even know he was living in this city…” He trailed off, then closed his eyes. “He had a partner with him.”

At this, he heard Thomas inhale sharply through his nose. “As in, a romantic partner? Are you certain?”

“She called him ‘darling’.” 

Thomas was silent, but Dante saw him squeeze his hands into fists as he absorbed this news. They both knew what that meant. Seeing one’s bonded mate with another partner was an agonizing experience for Omegas. Not just emotionally, either; it often resulted in literal, physical pain. It was a consequence of the bond, and as far as Dante was concerned, it was just one more reason to hate the damn thing.

“After that,” Dante continued, “I completely lost it. Raf and Christina managed to keep things from turning violent, but I just...I wanted to kill him.” He put his face into his hands. “I wanted to hurt him as badly as he had hurt me.”

“How did he react when you confronted him?” Thomas asked. “Was he hostile?”

“No! He...he treated me like a fucking child!” Dante’s voice finally broke, and the tears that he had been holding back all night started to spill down his cheeks. 

“He said he regretted what had happened between us, that he wanted to ‘make amends’. He tried to fucking buy me off, Thomas! As if that would somehow be enough to fix everything.” He looked up at his friend, his expression utterly broken. “He didn’t even seem upset about meeting me. I could see it in his eyes. There was no anger or recrimination there. Just...pity. He pitied me.”

He held his face in his hands and sobbed. Everything he’d worked for in his life, everything he’d ever accomplished, all of it meant nothing in Alexei’s eyes. To him, Dante was still just a lost, pathetic child. That was all he would ever be.

He felt the cushions shift as Thomas got up from the chair and settled next to him on the couch. Tentatively, he put one arm around Dante’s shoulders, and then the other. Dante leaned into him and continued to cry.

“I’m so pathetic,” he wept.

“You’re not,” Thomas murmured, rubbing his hand soothingly across Dante’s back.

“I’ll never be good enough for him!”

“You don’t have to be. You’re already a better man than he ever was.”

“And I...I didn’t want him to see me like this. Either of them, really, but especially not him.”

“You didn’t--” Thomas’s hand stilled. “Wait, are we still talking about Alexei?”

Dante sniffled into his friend’s shoulder. “Raf and Christina. They saw the whole fucking thing. It was so humiliating that I just...I just left. I left them there, with him. They must think I’m awful.”

Thomas patted his back again. “I’m sure they’ll understand if you explain it to them. Did you at least check in with them afterward to say that you were safe?”

“...Sort of.”

“Dante.” Thomas pulled back and Dante winced as his friend’s sympathetic expression turned stern. “Did you seriously just bail on them and not tell them where you were going? All alone? At night?”

“I told them I would be fine!”

“Oh, my god.” Thomas rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Damn it, Dante, I knew you were awkward with people, but you can’t just disappear like that! Especially after something like this happens. They’re probably really worried about you right now.”

“I can’t face them.” 

Thomas sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was staving off a headache. “You don’t have to. A text message will do. Just something to let them know you’re safe.” 

He took a deep breath and abruptly stood up. “You can stay here tonight. I’ll go get some pillows and blankets to make up the couch for you.”

“Thanks, Thomas.”

Thomas bent down and flicked Dante on the forehead. Dante yelped in surprise and clapped a hand to his head.

“The hell--?”

“That’s for being a dumbass,” Thomas said. He straightened. “You’re not a child anymore, Dante. Whatever else he said, Alexei was 100% wrong about that. You are a capable adult who can find his own way, and make his own choices, and take responsibility for his own actions.” 

He pointed over to Dante’s phone. “Make sure you text them. And be sure to apologize for disappearing.”

“...Alright,” Dante muttered, still rubbing his forehead.

“Good.” Satisfied with the scolding, Thomas turned to go retrieve the extra blankets. Dante tugged at his sleeve to stop him.

“Do you think...they’ll be disappointed in me?” he asked in a small voice.

Thomas sighed again and turned back to face him. “You know, Dante,” he said slowly, “despite what you may think, people were never meant to handle everything on their own, especially during the hard times. When you find worthy friends, it’s okay to show them your true feelings from time to time, and to give them the chance to catch you when you fall.” His face softened and he gave Dante’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You might be surprised at what they’re capable of.”

Dante sighed and looked down at his phone. Let them catch you, huh? Well, it was worth a try. He took a deep breath, unlocked his phone, and opened the messaging app.

Please, just don’t let me fall.