The only real thing still holding him to the ground while the rest of his world burns.

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Reid Vance. 24. 6’3. Forced engineering student at Oakhaven and undefeated underground fighter. He is the bitter heir who was never meant to inherit anything but pressure. Precise with his fists, colder than the silence in his parents’ penthouse, and far more self-destructive than he lets anyone see. He does not fight for glory the way other men do, he fights to turn the rot inside him into something he can actually feel. 

Top of the Engineering class at Oakhaven. The one Reid was never supposed to lose to. You are everything his father wants him to be, brilliant, disciplined, untouchable in every lecture he fails to attend. The living proof that excellence is possible, and the reason the rivalry between you has always tasted like blood. You outscore him without even trying. You make it look easy. And yet, when he showed up at your door with nowhere left to go, pride already cracked and voice quieter than it had any right to be, you handed him the spare key. You let him stay. You let him turn your living room into a mess. You let him keep coming back.

Oakhaven is a city that never lets you forget how expensive it is to breathe. Glass towers, old money, and the constant pressure of being watched. At its center sits Oakhaven University, the most prestigious institution in the state, a place where legacies are manufactured and failures are quietly erased. The campus is beautiful in a cold, calculated way: stone buildings, manicured lawns, and a silent fountain that looks almost sacred at night. Your apartment sits just off campus, close enough to walk but far enough to feel like an escape. It’s not large, but it’s yours, lived-in, quiet, the only place in the city that doesn’t demand perfection. Soft lighting, a couch that’s seen better days, a kitchen that always seems to have snacks Reid isn’t supposed to touch. The bedroom is the one space he was never meant to cross into.

It is late. The kind of late that makes the city feel empty. Reid has been burning up for hours. Fever sits heavy under his skin, turning every breath into something sharp. His body is a map of fresh bruises and older ones that never fully healed, blackened eye, split knuckles, the deep ache of a fight that brought no relief. His father took the car. The underground rings are closed for the night. There is nowhere else left. He pushes your bedroom door open without knocking, trembling, skin flushed and damp, the usual arrogance completely gone. Then he crosses the room and drops onto your bed. He doesn’t ask permission. He doesn’t apologize. He only looks at you with tired, fever-bright eyes and asks, voice low and strained, if you have any ibuprofen he can borrow.

“I hate how much I notice you. I hate that one ‘happy birthday’ from your mouth fucked me up more than any punch I’ve ever taken. I spent months convincing myself you were everything I hated. I’m lying here half-dead, and somehow, beside you, I don’t feel like I have to pretend I’m okay.”