(Third Person)
Lucian’s hands went white-knuckled on the wheel. "What?"
Max’s head lolled sideways against the seat, eyes barely open, a small, sleepy frown tugging at his mouth like he was working something out. "You asked why I said brother so much."
"I didn’t ask that."
"You were thinking it." His words slurred soft at the edges, already halfway gone. "I meant it like — brother-love. Family-love." His hand flopped weakly against his own chest. "Not — not the other kind. I’m not stupid drunk."
"You’re exactly that drunk."
"I know what I meant." His eyes slid shut, breath evening out fast. "Brothers can love each other."
He was asleep before Lucian could decide whether that answer had made anything better or worse.
Lucian kept driving, jaw locked, eyes flicking sideways every few seconds to the slack, peaceful face turned toward him in the dark.
"Idiot," he muttered, low, to no one. "You absolute idiot."
Max didn’t stir.
The house was dark except for one lamp burning in the sitting room when Lucian pulled into the drive.
He got Max’s door open, hooked an arm under his shoulders, and hauled him upright, Max’s whole weight sagging into him, head lolling against his collarbone.
"Walk," Lucian muttered. "Come on. Feet."
"Feet," Max repeated, and made a genuine, if useless, attempt.
They’d barely made it through the front door when Damian’s voice cut across the entryway, sharp enough to make Lucian’s shoulders go rigid.
"What is this."
Damian stood at the base of the stairs, robe cinched tight, arms crossed, eyes already dark with the particular fury he reserved only for his son.
"He’s fine," Lucian said. "He had a few drinks."
"A few?" Damian crossed the space in three strides, taking in Max’s slack face, the way his knees weren’t fully holding his own weight. "He can barely stand. You were supposed to be watching him."
"I was watching him."
"Clearly not closely enough."
"He’s an adult, he can drink if he wants to—"
"He is new to this world," Damian snapped, voice dropping into something colder. "New to clubs, new to Alphas, new to everything you grew up already knowing how to survive. And you let him get like this?"
"I didn’t let him do anything. I got him out of there. I drove him home."
"After he was already this far gone." Damian’s jaw worked, disappointment settling harder into his face than the anger had. "This is exactly what I was afraid of, Lucian. You resenting him so much you’d rather watch him make a fool of himself than actually look after him."
"I wasn’t even supposed to be there." Lucian’s voice climbed despite himself. "He went with Knox. I showed up on my own, found him three drinks in, and got him out before it got worse. That’s not neglect. That’s the opposite of neglect."
"Then why does it always land on my doorstep looking like this?"
"Because you never ask what actually happened. You just look at the result and decide what story fits."
"That’s not—" Lucian’s voice cracked sharp across the entryway, Max stirring faintly against his shoulder at the volume. "I got him home safe. I’m always the one who gets him home safe. You don’t see any of that, you just see whatever confirms what you already think of me."
"Because you make it easy."
Lucian’s jaw tightened hard enough to ache. He didn’t answer. He just hitched Max more securely against his side and started for the stairs, taking them two at a time, leaving his father standing alone in the entryway with whatever he wanted to say next unheard.
Max’s room was dark, blinds half-drawn, and Lucian navigated it by memory, easing Max down onto the edge of the bed.
"Okay. Lie back."
Max’s fingers closed weakly around his wrist instead, a stubborn, sleep-heavy tug that caught Lucian off guard enough that he lost his balance, one knee hitting the mattress, and then they were both falling, Lucian’s hand catching the headboard barely in time to keep from landing directly on top of him.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Max blinked up at him from the pillow, hair a mess, cheeks still flushed from the club and the cold outside it, lips parted slightly around a breath he hadn’t quite let out yet. He looked — Lucian made himself stop finishing that thought halfway through it.
"You’re heavy," Max mumbled, not letting go of his wrist.
"You pulled me down."
"Did not."
"You did."
Max’s eyes were already drifting shut again, a small, unguarded smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Lucian stayed there a beat longer than he needed to, just looking, before he carefully pried his wrist free and pushed himself upright.
"Idiot," he said again, quieter this time, no real heat in it, more resignation than anything else.
He tugged the blanket up over Max’s shoulders, adjusted the pillow under his head, and stood there another few seconds longer than the task required before he made himself leave, pulling the door shut soft behind him.
In his own room, he showered fast, water too hot, and lay down in the dark with his arm over his eyes.
Max’s face kept surfacing anyway — flushed, laughing, blinking up at him from the pillow.
"Shut up," Lucian told the ceiling, to no one, and eventually, fitfully, slept.
******
Max woke to a headache that felt like a fist behind his eyes and a mouth like sandpaper.
He lay still for a full minute, staring at the ceiling, piecing together the night before in fragmented, mortifying flashes — the club, the argument, a car, his own bare shoulder in dashboard light.
He checked the clock, swore, and checked Lucian’s room out of habit — empty, bed already made, no sign he’d been there in hours. Lecture started in twenty-five minutes.
He showered in record time, dressed wrong twice, and caught the campus bus with thirty seconds to spare, forehead pressed to the cool glass the whole ride, silently negotiating with his own skull.
Max slid into the lecture hall two minutes late, breathless, scanning for a seat, and found Lucian’s eyes already on him from halfway back, unreadable, tracking him down the aisle.
Their eyes held for a second too long before Max crossed the room and dropped into the seat beside him, wincing as the movement jostled his headache.
"Why did you even come," Lucian said, low, not looking over, jaw tight, gaze fixed straight ahead on the slides going up at the front of the room.
"I can’t miss the lecture."
"You can barely sit up straight."
"I’m managing."
"You look gray."
"Thank you, very flattering." Max rubbed a hand over his face, blinking hard against the light coming through the windows. "Lower your voice, please. Everything’s very loud today."
The corner of Lucian’s mouth almost moved. Almost.
He didn’t answer that. He just faced forward, arms crossed, and stayed that way for the entire hour, not one glance, not one word, while Max sat beside him with a headache and a slowly sinking feeling that something had shifted overnight that had nothing to do with alcohol.
The second the professor dismissed them, Lucian was up and moving, bag over his shoulder, cutting through the aisle before most people had even closed their laptops.
Max caught him in the hallway, fingers closing around his wrist. "Hey."
Lucian stopped. Didn’t turn around.
"Why are you angry?" Max asked, trying for lightness, though it came out thinner than he meant it to. "Did I do something wrong?"
Lucian turned then, slow, and whatever was in his face killed the teasing right out of Max’s voice before he could try again.
"How many times," Lucian said, quiet and cold, "do I have to tell you to be careful around people you don’t know. And you go and get drunk. Dancing with strangers. Taking your shirt off in a moving car like it’s nothing." His jaw flexed. "What did you think you were doing?"
"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—"
"Sorry." Lucian’s mouth twisted, something bitter underneath it. "That’s all you’ve got. Sorry. You weren’t the one standing in that entryway at midnight getting told exactly what kind of brother I am for letting it happen."
"I never meant to make you fight with your dad because of me."
"I didn’t have a choice." His voice rose, sharp enough that a couple of students glanced over on their way past. He caught himself, dropped it back down, though nothing about his posture softened. "You think I wanted to stand there at midnight getting lectured like I’m still seventeen? That happened because of a decision you made."
"So this is my fault."
"I didn’t say that."
"You basically did." Max’s chin lifted, some of the headache-dulled softness burning off into something steadier. "I said sorry. What else do you want from me?"
"I want you to actually listen when I tell you something matters." Lucian stepped closer, voice dropping instead of rising, which was somehow worse. "Do you have any idea what would’ve happened to you last night if I hadn’t been there? Half-dressed, drunk, surrounded by strangers — an Alpha always—"
He stopped himself hard, jaw snapping shut around whatever the rest of that sentence was going to be, something flickering fast and furious behind his eyes.
"Forget it," he said instead, low, and pulled his wrist free.
He walked away before Max could ask him to finish it, and Max stood there in the emptying hallway, headache pounding, replaying the sentence Lucian had not let himself finish.