text: A wall of heat hit Cooper in the face as soon as he opened the door.
  
  "Jesus," Park exhaled, striding past him into the apartment. "It's a hundred degrees in here." Cooper knew it couldn't have literally been the first words he'd spoken since they'd left Santiago's place, but it was close.
  
  "AC must have broken down again." Cooper walked straight for one of the windows and began the arduous process of yanking it up. It was an old building modified for apartments, not ease. He felt a tightness in his gut that hadn't been there a minute ago, shame and embarrassment. Which was ridiculous because the temperature of his apartment said nothing about his value. Their apartment. Theirs. For now, anyway.
  
  One final wiggle and shove got the window all the way up. The late evening air was only marginally cooler than the day, but anything was better than this greenhouse.
  
  "Fuck, where's Boogie?" Cooper turned to see Park shirtless, kicking off his shoes and already unbuckling his belt. He felt his own temperature rise a couple more degrees, which seemed a potentially fatal mistake for his body to be making.
  
  "Um," Cooper said, completely forgetting what he'd been about to say.
  
  "I need to get out of this skin for a bit," Park said, avoiding Cooper's eyes and yanking his pants to the ground. "You don't mind, do you?"
  
  "What? No, of course not," Cooper stuttered. "Have fun!"
  
  Park shot him an odd look but went into the bedroom. As soon as he was out of sight, Cooper yelled silently at the ceiling. Have fun? Jesus fucking Christ.
  
  Boogie jumped onto the back of the couch from seemingly nowhere. "Oh, now you come."
  
  Cooper scooped her up and felt her flop bonelessly backward over his shoulder and stretch. Mentally he ran through the things he'd need to sort out before leaving town, but kept returning to Park. The blankly devastated look on his face. Like the levelling after an earthquake. It was obvious Muñoz's words had shaken him. That he hated being reminded of his time as the Shepherd. Infamous and feared to this day. A time he was never really able to escape. Even at work with the Trust, the other wolves treated him with a wary sort of respect. Nothing like the antagonistic greeting today, but not overly friendly, either. Certainly not relaxed.
  
  Not for the first time, Cooper considered how lonely Park was. Had always been. Was forced to be. How strange that a man like that had ended up with Cooper, someone who took genuine pleasure in alone time. Why? What the hell about him had Park seen and thought, Oh yes, anxiety-ridden loner with a temper sharper than a serpent's tooth and a deep-seated fear of change whose longest successful relationship is with an equally judgmental cat? Swoon. It seemed too improbable for words.
  
  It also wasn't something Cooper necessarily felt comfortable bringing up. He was confident enough in their relationship that he didn't actually believe Park would literally slap his forehead and say, "You're so right. Consider this love curse broken." But...airing out all the ways that they as a couple shouldn't work, didn't work on paper wouldn't feel good, either. Regardless, now wasn't the time to be raising doubts. Their plates were full.
  
  Park had seemed lost in memories on the drive back. Distracted in a way Cooper rarely saw in him. But there was a quiet sort of determination in him, too. Like he had latched onto Muñoz's talk of making amends and would pursue this case to hell and back.
  
  Cooper wasn't sure Park needed redemption. Not to the degree he seemed to crave it, anyway. But exactly because he craved it, Cooper would do whatever it took to help him get it. If it meant earning Park that peace and even just a sliver of self-forgiveness, he'd join him. To hell and back.
  
  A now fairly familiar sound, like the clacking of heavy stones against each other, sounded from the bedroom, and Boogie ripped out of Cooper's gentle hold, throwing herself to the floor.
  
  "Hey!" Cooper made a grab for her, but she was too quick, skittering across the wood and even running in place for a moment like a cartoon.
  
  The first couple of times Boogie had caught sight of Park in fur, she'd stared at him with such wide-eyed shock Cooper had needed to stifle his laughter. She'd quickly gotten over that stage and moved onto being gleefully obsessed with Park, even more so than before. Smart thing that she was, it hadn't taken long to start associating that peculiar clacking sound with this fascinating version of her reluctant best friend, and Cooper had a hard time keeping them separated, much to Park's dismay.
  
  He followed her now, calling her name and being extra loud as he approached the bedroom as much for Park's benefit as Boogie's. A warning that he was coming in. "Boogs?"
  
  Cooper knocked on the partially open bedroom door and stuck his head in. Perhaps one day he would get used to the sight of a two-hundred-pound wolf pacing the cramped space between his bed and the wall, but today was not that day. Even fully expecting to see Park in fur, it was like looking at a surreal painting, feeling that slight hitch in thought as his brain went, Well, that can't be right and doubled back to recheck its inputs.
  
  Park did not break his stride when Cooper entered, he just kept walking back and forth. When he'd get to the wall he'd knock his shoulder against it as if furious at its presence and then stomp back to the bed and knock the same shoulder against the mattress. Boogie was intent on stalking his heels, alternating between staring at Park's ankles and lunging after them in tiny bursts of frantic movement, desperately trying to get her mouth around one. Park didn't even seem to notice her. He was growling, punctuated by an occasional snarl and jerk of his head as if starting to snap at something on his back and then thinking better of it.
  
  Cooper had the sudden, disorientating sensation of being alone. Separate. Monologues were being shouted and all he could see was moving lips. If he asked what they meant, no one would answer. He could only extrapolate what Boogie and Park were thinking. They were each of them alone. Isolated by being the only one of their kind in that room. God knew what Boogie was picking up on and why it had prompted the response of biting mania. And Park? He was obviously saying something, too. Communicating an emotion: anger, frustration, regret, sadness, something. Something that knocked his lips back to reveal vicious teeth. But Cooper could no more understand the nuances of that driving emotion than he could snarl articulately back.
  
  Then Park looked up at him. Pain, that was what it was. Pain. The alone, separate feeling disappeared.
  
  He walked right up to Park and knelt so they were just about eye-level. "Oliver," he said, but Park brushed by him.
  
  Come on, Cooper thought. He's hurting. He needs you to be this...thing for him. So buck up and be it.
  
  Cooper inhaled deeply and straightened his shoulders, trying to picture leader-types. "Oliver, stop," he commanded in his most take-charge voice and reached out his hand. His fingers combed through the fur of Park's neck. Cooper only managed to register the softness of it, the thickness of it before Park's whole body flinched and he let out a high, terrified sound one might expect from a kicked dog.
  
  Cooper whipped his hand back. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
  
  But Park's legs were already buckling and he rolled onto his side, exposing his belly.
  
  Cooper leapt to his feet, hands held awkwardly up, not wanting to hurt him again. Not sure how he had hurt him to begin with, which made the possibility of doing it again all too likely. God, what was he thinking? That he could just fake his way through? He felt inadequate. As a partner, a lover, a friend, an alpha.
  
  Park had come in here to be by himself. Not for Cooper to take a stab in the dark at being something he so clearly was not.
  
  "I'm sorry," Cooper whispered, again. "I'll just—" He gestured awkwardly at the door. "I'll leave you alone now."
  
  Park was still staring at him, but obviously wasn't going to respond. Cooper's arms physically ached with the desire to reach for him, touch him. But the risk of hurting him again, of doing something else that upset him when he could not say no, was far worse than the feeling of keeping his hands clenched and to himself.
  
  Cooper opened his mouth to say sorry again, closed it, and scooped up a furious Boogie. "I'll try to fix the AC." He hurried to leave, feeling Park track his movement from his position on the floor, then stopped. "I'm going to ask Ava to take Boogie to her place tonight, so don't worry about her, you know, bothering you anymore. If you wanted to take your time, I mean."
  
  He didn't know what to do with his hands. Or body. Or mouth.
  
  Get out. Keep walking. You've sufficiently shit all over this for one day. Retreat.
  
  Cooper turned to go, but stopped one last time, just before leaving the room. "Sorry, last thing and then I promise to stop bothering you. I—I love you. And... Well, that's it, I guess." He winced at himself, cursing every song, poem and decorative pillow that had ever told him love was all you need, and quietly closed the door.
  
  Clearly Park needed more, whether he realized it yet or not. Cooper just hoped he could figure out how to be that more while he still had the chance.