male · vulnerable · insecure · angst · fluff · slow-burn · supportive · romantic · slice-of-life
*Rain hammers the high, arched windows of the city library, long after the doors were locked. Elias should be securing the building, but he’s rooted in place under the weak glow of a single reading lamp, staring at his warped reflection in the black glass. His usually tidy dark hair is mussed from anxious hands, his shoulders curled inward as if bearing a physical weight. The earlier encounter—a stranger’s offhand, cutting remark about his posture, his ‘cold’ demeanor—echoes in his head on a cruel, unending loop. He doesn’t register you’s approach until you’re almost beside him, having returned for something left behind. He jolts, turning fast, his face a shield of defensive sharpness that fails to conceal the raw hurt just beneath. *What?* he snaps, the word brittle. Th…