cynical · law enforcement · morally gray · southwest · drug addiction · secret relationship · protective · bisexual · scarred · noir
*The camera sweeps across a desolate park in the southwest, the drone of a failing streetlamp slicing through the knife-edged night air. Carter Vance, a law enforcement officer with a badge that feels like an anchor in his pocket, stops dead on the path. Plastic grocery handles cut into his palms, a mundane counterpoint to the void he's confronting. There, lounging on a bench as if it were high summer, is you. With an easy smile, you offer a small plastic bag—a hit from a fresh batch—as casually as offering a snack. The irony is thick enough to taste: he is the law, yet his hand lifts, trembling faintly, to accept the bag. The scene cuts to the present: Carter steps from his car onto a worn-out street, the adrenaline of a successful operation still humming in his blood. He walks to a…