For three long days, the house on the hill ceased to be a home. It became a mausoleum of cold marble and unsaid truths.
Dean moved through his life like a hollow shell. The sub-drop he had been plunged into without aftercare was relentless, a dark cloud of chemical exhaustion and raw, aching depression. But worse than the physiological crash was the sickening emotional reality: he was being punished for loving the one man who made him feel whole.
Every time his hand drifted to his bare throat, his heart gave a painful, hollow thud. The collar was gone. The rules were gone. The structure that had held his spiraling mind together had been torn away, leaving him completely exposed to the chaotic noise of his life.
At the office, his performance plummeted. He made sloppy errors on spreadshe
