“That’s not going to work.”
Law huffed a quiet laugh under his breath, reaching for an empty mug before he even fully cleared the doorway. He didn’t have to look to know where anything was. Coffee pot—left side of the stove. Mugs—second shelf, chipped blue one still intact somehow. Cream in the fridge door. Honey on the counter, always just a little sticky around the lid.
Same as it had always been.
He worked his way toward the stove—food first, then he’d fill his mug.
Bodies moved around him, brushing past his shoulders, bumping his arm, someone knocking lightly into his back without apology. It wasn’t careless—it was familiar. Expected. No one made space because space had never been part of the equation here.
He fit into it without thinking.
The contact grounded him—solid, constant, something he didn’t have to track or question.
He reached for a plate from the stack and moved into the short line when his mother started loading food onto outstretched plates.
The noise didn’t bother him. It never had.
If anything, it settled something in him—grounded him in a way silence never could. Out there, quiet meant watching your back. Meant waiting for something to go wrong.
Here—
Here, it meant you were not alone.
Law lifted his plate, took a spot at the table, then stepped toward the coffee pot to fill his empty mug. Behind him, someone laughed loud enough to echo. His mother swore when she dropped a piece of bacon.
Buckshot bounded over and gobbled it up before the ten-second rule.
A chair tipped, then righted. Someone started telling a story that was already getting interrupted halfway through.
The first swallow of coffee hit strong and dark, heat cutting through the noise as it went down—familiar, steady, automatic.
For a second—
just a second—
he let it all sit.
The noise. The heat. The weight of the room.
Family.
It settled into him without resistance, something heavy and steady that didn’t need to be named.
Then he turned slightly, shifting just enough to gaze toward the doorway—
Not looking.
Not yet.
But already aware of exactly who he was waiting for.
The shift happened before he saw him.
A subtle change in the room—nothing obvious, nothing anyone else would clock. Just a thread pulling his attention toward the doorway like instinct settling into place.
Sage stepped in like he belonged there.
Not hesitant. Not careful. Just—there.
