Phoenix Maplewood they will never be the same; a fire in a flask to keep us warm

sorry this is All Feelings except two entire sentences

Dawn's words found their mark, cutting sharp and hot into his chest. He sucked in a shaking breath, barely audible. She was right. There had never been a place for him in any of this, though he had wanted desperately to believe his one-time affair with Aditya had meant there was. For all his promiscuity, Alarian regarded sex as the ultimate intimacy, sought it so frequently to imitate the feeling of a bond he struggled to form or keep; but he knew, he knew this was not a universal sentiment.
There was nothing more to say. If she had hoped to get the final word, to win, in a sense, at least in this encounter— she had. Alarian moved past her quietly, and made his way home. He felt exposed and ugly, foolish for having ever thought—

He hated that she was right. Hated that he had ultimately been nothing— nothing but a warm body and a hole, and far too desperate and stupid to see it. Aditya was a beautiful man— a charming, kind man— and he had fucked him, but that did not mean these things were on offer. Even his subsequent apology, the mention of a next time. These things did not mean that somehow he saw past the mess Alarian had allowed himself to become, that he placed any value on any part of his mind or soul; they meant he had needed release, and Alarian looked enough like a girl (oh, he had been told enough in the past). They meant Aditya valued his pack enough to put aside his own feelings and attempt to mend things. They meant the golden wolf had known this was coming, and had perhaps considered the need of a place to stick his cock regularly.
But there was nothing to see past the mess, anyway. He was empty now, and Dawn was right; he was not wanted. He had nothing to want. Sex could never change that.