yurnatty

“Death wasn’t the worst part.

It was knowing someone had been waiting for him to see it.”

Death’s Song

Written in the Margins

Azriel

They never call it dating. 

No labels. No definition. 

It’s just a thing that happens.

Eris never says mine . Azriel never asks what are we? Because to ask would make it real, and if it’s real, it can be ruined.

So they live in corners and pauses. Half-shadows and half-truths.

Eris touches him when no one’s looking.

A thumb at the small of Azriel’s back as he passes by, heat through thin cotton. Fingers circling his wrist beneath the kitchen table when the room is empty, pulse skittering under someone else’s hand. A lean-in-too-close in the pantry on Tuesday afternoon—Azriel’s mom vacuuming upstairs—machine-hum filling the walls while Eris presses him to painted drywall, mouth urgent, breath tasting faintly of mint and something sweeter, hands firm where they shouldn’t be.

Azriel never initiates. Not because he doesn’t want to. Because he knows the rules. 

Don’t ask. Don’t linger. Don’t be the one who wants more.

There are places they’ve learned to go. Quiet streets that forget names. The back lot behind the library after closing, where the exit signs glow tired and red. The backseat of Eris’s car smells like cedar and old cleats; the seatbelt buckle is always cold against Azriel’s thigh.

Once—only once—Eris comes to Azriel’s bedroom.

His mother’s on a double at the diner. Eris texts, dropping off that book you told me to read , like he’s returning something borrowed. Azriel opens the door and Eris steps in already reaching, cologne and grass and clean sweat, bag thumping to the floor. He kisses Azriel before any of it can be named.

Later, they lie on the narrow twin bed, close but not touching. The fan ticks. Streetlight cuts a white bar across the ceiling. Eris traces the frame of Azriel’s glasses, then slips them off gently.

“I like your face better like this,” he murmurs. “Less distance.”

Azriel stares up where the paint spiderwebs at the corner—water leak from last winter—and says nothing.

At school, nothing shifts. The hallway still smells like sanitizer and pencil shavings. Lockers slam; shoes squeak; laughter spikes too bright.

Eris doesn’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t nod. If their eyes meet, it’s only as part of something rehearsed—a joke launched across desks, a smirk for the crowd. It’s theater, and Eris is good at theater.

Azriel plays along. He’s always been good at pretending.

But sometimes—sometimes—he catches Eris looking. The glance is quick, a flare that dies before anyone else can register heat.

Azriel sees it. Worse, he waits for it.

On bad days he tells himself it’s a trick light. That the Eris who holds his face like it’s careful work, who breathes his name like he shouldn’t, is just another performance.

When it’s only them, it isn’t.

Late Tuesday. Eri’s room in the house carries lemon cleaner and laundry heat, something warm and domestic that makes the place feel smaller. Azriel sits on the carpet, back to the couch, book open in a pool of amber lamp light. On the side table: a chipped mug, two receipts, a curl of orange peel he never threw out.

The door eases open. Soft hinges. Eris slips inside and the evening shifts a degree warmer.

“You’re late,” Azriel says, finger marking a line.

“You’re reading again,” Eris answers, heel-toe knocking his shoe off until it skids under the radiator.

“You always sound surprised.”

“I always am.”

Eris crosses the room, shadow leaning over Azriel. Pockets. Tilted head. “Why the floor?”

“Furniture’s too soft,” Azriel says. “You sink.”

“That’s the point.”

“Not for me.”

Paper rasps as he turns a page. The fridge clicks on; the window rattles in its frame.

Eris watches him a breath too long. “You wanna sink into me instead?”

Azriel looks up. The air tightens like a string.

Eris’s mouth twitches. Not the usual sharp grin. Crooked. A little nervous.

Azriel sets the book down. He stands.

Eris lifts a hand. His palm is warm, callused from tape-wrapped handles and field drills. He touches Azriel’s jaw, then his cheek, knuckles grazing like a question, thumb brushing Azriel’s mouth as if he can memorize it by touch.

Azriel doesn’t move. Doesn’t help. Doesn’t stop him.

Eris kisses him. Not a game. Not a dare. Something slower. Something that feels like choosing.

Later, they end up on the couch. Azriel’s head tipped back against threadbare upholstery; Eris curled toward him, ankle hooking his calf, breath evening out into Azriel’s T-shirt. Eris can’t seem to stop touching his face—temple, cheek, the faint notch at the bridge of his nose where the glasses sit. Like counting reasons.

It feels real here. Easy. Like the lamp hum is a kind of permission.

Azriel’s mouth shapes the question he doesn’t ask. What is this? What am I to you?

He swallows it. The room holds the shape anyway.

Eris keeps touching him like he doesn’t know how to stop.

Eris

He tells himself it’s not fear. It’s logistics.

This town counts everything. Grades. Goals. Names on plaques. Boys like him don’t kiss boys like Azriel where it can be tallied.

He is Eris Vanserra. Captain. Vice president. Son of a last name that opens doors and closes others.

Azriel is the quiet kid with a spine-cracked paperback and a mother who scrubs Eris’s floors on Tuesdays.

Which is exactly why it works.

He tells himself that when Azriel is warm under his hands, shirt half-open, glasses angled somewhere on the nightstand, mouth already kissed-red. When Azriel makes the soft sound he isn’t supposed to make and Eris feels it ring down his spine.

When they’re like this, it’s honest. He can pretend afterward is the lie.

Afterward, air sticky with sweat and detergent, he says too casually, “You should head out. Mandray’s coming over.”

The words land like a glass set down too hard.

Azriel

He sits on the floor, back to the bedframe, shoulder blades damp where Eris’s hands had pressed. His heart is still wrong in his chest.

The cold arrives fast.

He buttons his shirt. One. Two. Three. The plastic moons the lamp.

“So?” he says, eyes on his hands. “Let him come.”

“I don’t want it to be weird,” Eris says from the bed, knuckles whitening around the sheet edge.

“Weird that I’m here,” Azriel asks, “or weird that we’re together?”

Silence. It isn’t neutral. It has teeth.

He fastens the last button. Stands.

“I should’ve seen this coming,” he says, voice steadying into something sharp. “You don’t even bother hiding it anymore—how ashamed you are.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Eris snaps. It’s too quick to be true. “I’m—careful.”

Azriel laughs once. It’s not kind. “Careful would be not falling into bed with someone you’re terrified of being seen with.”

Eris flinches like a muscle spasm. He drags his hand through his hair and leaves it worse. “Don’t make this a big thing.”

“It is a big thing.”

“Az—”

“I’m not your mistake, Eris.”

“You’re not—” Eris stops. Swallows. Looks away.

Azriel is already at the door. He turns enough that Eris can see his face—everything neatly packed away behind the glasses, contained but not invisible.

“I’ll save you the trouble next time,” he says softly. “You won’t have to ask me to leave.”

He leaves. He doesn’t touch the banister on the way down.

Eris

The door shuts like a period.

Mandray never comes over. The house is loud with nothing.

Eris sits on the edge of the bed until his back hurts. His phone glows, darkens, glows, like it wants to breathe for him.

He doesn’t pick it up. Not because he’s punishing anyone. Because he knows—really knows—Azriel won’t answer.

The worst part is knowing he might be right not to.

He doesn’t text. It feels like strategy. Space. Air where a conversation would choke.

He types hey . Deletes it. 

Types I didn’t mean— . Deletes that too.

At school, Azriel doesn’t change. He sits at the cracked table by the windows with a paperback that looks like it’s seen rain. He walks with that quiet, purposeful gait—heels not scuffing, backpack strap adjusted twice at the same spot on his shoulder. He doesn’t look at Eris.

It feels like omission at first.

Then it feels like choice.

Eris watches Cassian shoulder past Azriel in the cafeteria—too much energy for one body, always—and Azriel laughs, the sound small and quick as a static spark. Not for Eris. For someone else.

That laugh used to be his.

He tells himself his life still fits. Team. Parties. Briallyn’s polish. Lucien’s commentary. Names that open doors.

It should be enough.

Tuesday

The kitchen is all hard surfaces and the slow tick of the old wall clock. The stool at the end of the island—Azriel’s stool by accident, then by repetition—is empty. No paperback. No water glass sweating a ring on granite. No glasses to catch the stovetop steam.

His mother scrubs something that doesn’t need scrubbing. She isn’t humming.

“Where’s Azriel?” Eris asks, reaching for an apple he doesn’t want.

“Didn’t come today,” she says. The sponge squeaks. She glances up just once. “I think he needed a break.”

“Right,” he says. “School’s probably—”

She rinses the sponge. The faucet drowns the rest.

Eris leans on the island and spins the apple slowly. The stool is only wood and metal and a set of legs, but the empty of it punches him low. The room’s gravity has slipped. The air sits different in his mouth.

He sits in the seat. Just to see. The view is the same—the sink, the fan chain, the fridge magnets—but it isn’t. He stands again.

He leaves the apple on the counter with one bite out of it and doesn’t notice until later that it browned.

When his phone buzzes that night, he lets his heart jump and hates that it does. It’s Lucien. It isn’t Azriel.

He doesn’t admit to anyone that it stings.

He doesn’t admit it to himself.

Azriel

He makes friends with Cassian first. By accident.

History class smells like dry marker and dust. Azriel sits in the back where the overhead lights flicker. His notes line up clean; the edges of his index cards are stained a little blue from the pen.

“The moral ambiguity of empire,” the teacher says, writing it across the board.

“So empire was basically the World Cup, but with swords,” Cassian mutters, three seats up and to the right, leaning his chair back on two legs he shouldn’t trust.

Azriel, without looking up, says, “And instead of trophies, they kept the countries.”

Cassian’s chair slams forward. “Holy shit,” he says, delighted. “You do jokes.”

“I wasn’t—” Azriel starts.

“Doesn’t matter.” Cassian gestures at the empty seat nearer his. “Sit closer tomorrow. I need that to survive.”

Azriel hesitates. He’s learned what happens when you move toward heat.

The next day he sits one row closer.

Cassian is loud, yes. Cocky, sure. But not edged. He talks like everything is potentially a conspiracy or a miracle—pancakes, offsides calls, his older brother’s terrible band. He splits gum by instinct, slides a pen over when Azriel’s dies halfway through a sentence. He’s easy in a way Azriel doesn’t trust and then does.

On Friday, Rhysand appears at lunch like he’s always belonged at their table. Smooth voice. Easy smile. Tray balanced on two fingers like he’s auditioning to be the person who never drops things.

“Azriel, right?” Rhys says. “Cassian says you’re smarter than all of us combined.”

Azriel lifts an eyebrow at Cassian.

“He is,” Cassian says, mouth full.

Rhys pulls out a crumpled worksheet like a card from a sleeve. “You’re not obligated to rescue me, but if you wanted to teach me how not to fail, I’d be forever grateful and mildly insufferable.”

“Are you asking me to do your homework?” Azriel asks.

“I’m asking you to humiliate me less gently,” Rhys says. “There’s a difference.”

Azriel rolls his eyes. He takes the worksheet anyway. The paper is still damp at the corner from a spilled drink.

They don’t ask about his house. Or why he checks his phone and then doesn’t. Or why he never invites anyone over. They make space without making a scene; they let him say nothing and still be there.

It feels like someone set a chair out for him without commenting on the empty one he’s used to.

One afternoon, Cassian jogs backward in front of him on the way to the doors. “You coming to the game?”

“What game?”

“Last home match before break.”

“Not my thing.”

“You’ve got friends on the team now,” Cassian singsongs, nearly colliding with a trash can.

“Shameless,” Azriel says, surprised at the smile in his voice.

“Correct.” Cassian points finger guns. “So yes?”

Azriel nods. “Fine.”

“Hell yes,” Cassian says, like Azriel gave him a gift.

Rhys texts the time. Cassian adds: Bring a book if you’re gonna pretend not to care.

Azriel: I’ll bring a highlighter to be unbearable.  

Rhys sends a single period. Cassian sends twelve fire emojis.

Azriel doesn’t realize he’s smiling at the screen until his mother looks up from wiping the counter.

“Who’s that?”

“No one,” he says, and the lie doesn’t feel like a lie. It feels like something he’s allowed to keep.

He shows up early and sits high enough that he can leave if he needs to. The bleachers are cold through his jeans. The air smells like damp turf and nacho cheese and cold metal.

Mor spots him anyway—impossible not to—and waves like she’s seeing a brother off a plane. Elain offers a steaming paper cup. Nesta lifts an eyebrow the way judges do.

They let him sit. They let him belong.

The field lights bang on with a tremor that rattles the bolts. Eris jogs out with the team, jersey clinging, hair wind-rough. He scans the stands like he always does before kickoff.

Azriel keeps his eyes open this time. He doesn’t look away.

Eris sees him.

Something in Azriel’s chest loosens and tightens at once. He takes a breath that tastes like cold aluminum and spice from Elain’s cup.

“What is it?” Elain asks, soft.

“Cardamom?” Azriel guesses, surprised at how pleased she looks when he’s right.

“For focus,” she says. “Birds use similar oils during migration, apparently.”

“That’s… comforting,” he says.

“Exactly,” she says, and turns back to the field, cheeks a little pink.

Mor drapes an arm behind Azriel’s shoulders without asking. “Okay, mysterious. Give me your prediction.”

“We’ll win two-one,” Azriel says, guessing. “Cassian will celebrate like he invented soccer.”

Mor lights up. “You get it.”

Nesta takes a measured sip from her thermos. She doesn’t smile, but her shoulder relaxes half a centimeter.

Azriel watches the match with his hood down. He doesn’t count the minutes to leaving. The metal is cold under his palms; the night is clean and mean. For the first time in months, he is not waiting for someone to look at him.

Eris

Warmups are muscle memory. High knees. Ladders. The stretch that always pulls in his right hip.

He looks up, scanning the bleachers like a bad habit, and there Azriel is. Middle row. Hood down. Glasses fogged at the edges from the steam of Elain’s drink. Mor’s chin on his shoulder like she’s allowed. Nesta’s patience sitting at his side.

Azriel laughs at something Elain says. He ducks his head. Mor knocks her knuckles against his knee.

He doesn’t look at Eris. Not once.

“Hamstring?” Lucien asks as Eris falters.

“Fine,” Eris says, lying easily.

The first half he plays like he can’t remember how to be here. Missed assist. Sloppy touch. Rhys yells something he deserves. Cassian shoots him a look that means pull yourself together without needing a speech.

Second half, the rhythm returns. Speed slots into place; his foot finds the clean line of the ball like it always has. Twenty minutes to go, he curves a shot low and cruel to the left corner. Net snap. Stadium noise opens like a mouth.

Cassian smacks his back hard enough to bruise. “Way to go, man!”

Stupidly, Eris turns to the stands.

Azriel isn’t looking. He’s smiling at something Mor says, head turned away from the field, mouth easy.

Eris lets the team pull him into a huddle. Feels all of it from somewhere three inches outside his skin.

After the game, bodies and voices smear into a moving wall. He catches glimpses of Azriel by the snack table, glasses catching light, arms folded but not defensive, real smile soft in the harsh white. Like none of it ever happened. Like he is not carrying a secret for two.

Eris doesn’t go over. He doesn’t know what his mouth would do if he tried.

That night he lies on his bed and doesn’t answer anyone. The phone weights his chest like a small, mean book.

This is what left behind feels like. It’s smaller than he thought and somehow heavier.

Azriel

He keeps going. Tuesdays used to be Eris. Now they’re bleachers and noise and people who do not expect him to be anyone else.

Rhys texts updates even when Azriel is five feet away.

Rhys: Cassian’s down again. Drama queen.

Azriel: You noticed.

Rhys: Touché.

Before the game starts, Cassian saves him a seat like he’s guarding it from the weather. “Az-man, you’re late,” he says, even when Azriel is early.

“Late in friendship time,” Cassian clarifies, handing over trail mix like a communion.

Mor is a blanket made of chaos; she leans against him without asking. “You know,” she says, head tipped, “you have this soulful, probably writes-letters energy. It’s unfair.”

“I think that’s just me being uncomfortable,” Azriel says.

“Exactly,” Mor says, pleased.

Elain brings cardamom again and tries not to look at his mouth when he thanks her. Nesta watches the field and says only what matters.

“She likes you,” Nesta says, after Elain lifts off to throw something away.

“I know,” Azriel says.

“She doesn’t expect. But she hopes.”

“I’m not the one she’s waiting for.”

“No,” Nesta agrees. “You’re not.”

They sit quiet, which is the nicest thing anyone has given him in a long time.

He doesn’t scan for Eris anymore. He lets the night do what it wants.

He belongs to himself here.

Eris

Practice runs late. The locker room is sweat and echoes. The outside air is knife-cool, clean in a way fluorescent lights can’t be.

He doesn’t hit play on the music. He likes the evening as-is: the ping of a wayward ball, the scrape of a bench, Rhys telling Cassian to hurry up like an overworked parent.

He’s passing the equipment shed when he hears his name.

“Az’s coming to Mor’s party, right?” Cassian says. Loud as always.

“Yeah,” Rhys answers, lower. “Elain’s probably planning their wedding.”

Cassian barks a laugh. “Nesta is gonna lose her mind.”

“Too late,” Rhys says. “She already has.”

They laugh. It’s friendly. It’s nothing. It lands like a stake through Eris’s ribs.

He stands a second too long in the shadow of the shed, letting something ugly crest and recede. Then he keeps walking.

At the car, he sits without starting it. The keys clack when he drops them. He sees Azriel walking into Mor’s house in his head. Mor dragging him toward the bad karaoke. Elain’s careful smile. Rhys’s easy banter. Cassian’s arm thrown heavy and unthinking over Azriel’s shoulders.

Azriel not enduring. Azriel enjoying.

He puts his forehead to the steering wheel and breathes like he’s waiting out a pain he should’ve expected.

He could text. He could show up. He could tell the truth and let it wreck him.

He doesn’t. The room he would walk into has already decided something, and he isn’t brave enough to ask what.

Mor’s house is chaos. String lights sag between trees; the bass thuds in the drywall; condensation rings bloom and multiply on every flat surface. Someone’s glitter is on everyone.

Eris is on his second drink he doesn’t really taste when Azriel walks in.

No glasses. Hair messy from wind or hands. Hoodie and black jeans. The room notices in a soft, collective way—faces turning a fraction, voices bending around him.

Mor whoops and catches his hands mid-song; Elain tucks hair behind her ear and leans in like she’s collecting details; Nesta passes him a drink with a nod that means temporary approval.

Eris watches from the far wall. The drink sweats cold in his palm. Azriel laughs—real, head tipped, the sound full in his throat. Eris closes his eyes for a second like that might make it miss.

It isn’t that Azriel is with other people. It’s that he looks whole without Eris in the picture. It is a better hurt than some; it is still a hurt.

Rhys says something clever; Azriel’s mouth opens around another laugh. Eris tightens his fingers around plastic until it complains.

Azriel

He is not good at parties. He knows this. Too many rooms, too few exits. People who want to be seen by being loud.

Tonight doesn’t scrape like usual. Tonight, people fold around him without pressing. Cassian shoves a cup into his hand and narrates the dance floor like sports commentary. Mor crowns him with a paper hat and then rescues him from it. Elain asks if he likes the playlist and listens when he answers. Nesta stands guard at the doorway and lets him pass without taxing him for it.

He feels watched, but not hunted.

Azriel ends up in the kitchen, which is always where the worst things happen at parties. The air smells like beer and pizza grease, the floor tacky with old spills. He’s halfway to filling his cup with water when Tomas Mandray slings an arm around his shoulders.

“Az, my man,” Tomas says, voice too big for the room. “You’ve been holding out on us. Haven’t seen you take a real drink all night.”

Azriel blinks at the cup in his hand. Define real.

Before he can answer, Briallyn appears, blonde hair shining under the bad light, one eyebrow arched. “He’s too mysterious for cheap vodka,” she teases. “Bet he drinks something expensive in secret. Whiskey. Neat.”

They laugh. Not meanly—just the kind of laugh that makes you want to be in on it.

Eris is with them, red cup dangling from his fingers, grin just sharp enough. He doesn’t say anything. His eyes flick once to Azriel’s, then away.

Azriel raises his plastic cup in surrender. “Sure.” His voice comes out steadier than he feels. 

Tomas whoops like Azriel just scored a point. He tips a splash of liquor into Azriel’s cup before Azriel can pull back. “There we go. That’s the spirit.”

The liquid burns on the way down. Azriel coughs once, covers it with a crooked smile. “Tastes like nail polish remover.”

Briallyn smirks. “Exactly. That's how it’s supposed to taste.”

Eris’s mouth twitches, caught between amusement and something else.

Azriel tips the cup again. His stomach knots, but when Tomas claps his back, he makes himself laugh. It almost feels real. Almost.

So this is what fitting in costs, he thinks. A burning throat and pretending you like it.

Eris

They’re all laughing, and he should be too. This is what being normal looks like—Azriel leaning into Tomas’s shoulder, Briallyn grinning like she’s found something new to be entertained by.

But Eris can see the strain under it. Azriel’s smile is a beat late, his grip too tight on the cup. He’s trying so hard it hurts to watch.

Eris shifts his weight against the counter, words caught in his throat. If he says anything— hey, leave him alone, don’t push it —he’ll sound soft. If he doesn’t, Azriel keeps drinking like this is the only way to matter.

Briallyn bumps Eris’s arm, laughing. “See? Told you he could be fun.”

Eris bares his teeth in what passes for a grin. His chest feels tight.

He doesn’t realize Azriel disappeared until Elain bursts in from the yard, cheeks wet, words tumbling.

“Azriel’s sick—he—outside—sorry, I tried—”

Mor is drunk enough to be interesting and draped over Nesta, who refuses to move an inch for anyone’s emergency. Rhys is upstairs triaging a wine-bottle murder.

Eris doesn’t ask permission. He cuts through the bodies, through the back door, into the cold.

Azriel is near the fence, on hands and knees, hugging the earth like it’s the only stable thing left. He coughs once, twice, wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve like a kid, and sinks back on his heels. His hoodie is damp at the collar. He looks too pale under the cheap backyard lights.

“Hey,” Eris says, crouching until they’re eye level. “Az. With me?”

Azriel blinks like he’s waking up wrong. “Eris?” The word is small. “Oh. Right.”

“Why did you drink that much?” Eris asks, trying for light and missing.

“Wasn’t trying to impress anyone,” Azriel says, the shape of a smile without the heat. “Just… didn’t want to be the weird kid tonight.”

Eris wants to be angry for both of them. He wants to be gentle. He ends up being useful.

“Come on.” He gets an arm around Azriel’s waist. “We’re going home.”

“I’m fine,” Azriel says, falling into him like cooperation.

“You’re not,” Eris says, and doesn’t let go.

Azriel smells like vodka, cold air, and the same laundry soap from Azriel's house. It flips something in Eris that he pretends isn’t there.

The car is loud with silence. The heater sighs. Streetlights pass in firm intervals.

Azriel curls against the door, breath shallow and stubborn. His hand trembles once on his knee and he stares at it until it stops, like he can will himself into steadiness.

“You okay?” Eris asks eventually, voice soft enough to be a secret.

Azriel doesn’t answer for a while. Then, eyes on the window, he says, “Why are you being nice to me?”

“Because I care about you,” Eris says, before he can clean it up.

Azriel huffs. Not quite a laugh. “Didn’t seem like it.”

“I know.” Eris’s fingers tighten on the wheel. “I know what I did. And what I didn’t do.”

Azriel closes his eyes. His mouth presses into a line that looks like a knot coming undone, or tightening. Eris keeps his hands where they are. He doesn’t touch him. He wants to. He doesn’t.

Azriel deserves more than apology-in-traffic.

Azriel

The streets near home are quiet like they’re pretending to be kind. The living room lamp is on—a low, warm circle—because his mother is someone who leaves lights on to point the way.

Eris cuts the engine. The sudden silence has its own sound.

“Az,” he says.

“Stay,” Azriel says, messy and plain.

Eris goes still.

“My mom’s working late,” Azriel adds. “You don’t have to talk.” He fumbles with the door and misses the handle, then finds it. “Just… stay.”

Eris should say no. He nods instead.

Inside, it is what it always is: dish towel draped over the sink edge, radio dial set to the classical station, stack of library books that aren’t due yet. The floor creaks at the third plank no matter how carefully you walk.

Azriel toes off his shoes, misses the mat, leaves them crooked. He sways once in the hall. Eris’s hand is there, steady between shoulder blades.

“I’m fine,” Azriel says.

“You’re drunk.”

“Still fine,” he says, and smiles without meaning to.

The bedroom is small enough that the bed makes most of it. Azriel collapses onto the quilt without ceremony. He smells like the party, like the laundry room from weeks ago, like himself.

Eris stands at the door. Last time he was here, he left before morning. The thought sits in his mouth like something too hard to chew.

“You gonna hover or sit?” Azriel mumbles into the pillow.

Eris slides down the wall until he’s on the carpet, back to the dresser. The carpet presses its pattern into his palms.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Azriel says, voice drifting.

“I didn’t think you’d ask,” Eris says, and feels how true it is.

Silence. The kind that isn’t empty.

“You hurt me,” Azriel says at last. The words are careful. Not a blade; a fact.

“I know,” Eris says. “I didn’t mean to.”

Azriel turns his face toward him. His eyes are heavy-lidded and honest. “Doesn’t matter.”

Eris doesn’t argue the technicalities. Intention is a thin blanket. He says the only thing that belongs here. “I’m sorry.”

He stands and lifts the corner of the quilt like shifting a sleeping cat. “C’mon. Arms.”

Azriel raises them. Eris peels off the hoodie, works the sleeves over hands that don’t want to cooperate. He unlaces Azriel’s shoes and slips them off. Azriel lets him. It feels like trust, or exhaustion, or both.

Eris hesitates at the edge of the bed.

“Stay,” Azriel whispers again, softer.

Eris climbs in on top of the covers, careful not to touch. Not close. Not far. The mattress dips and the bed seems to breathe.

Azriel turns toward him by instinct. His fingers brush Eris’s forearm under the blanket—just a graze. Not asking. Saying here .

Eris stares at the ceiling where an old glow-in-the-dark sticker of a star is missing one point. He doesn’t reach for Azriel.

He doesn’t move away.

Weight. That’s the first thing. Warm against his side. A leg tucked behind his knees. A breath fanning his shoulder through cotton.

Azriel knows before he opens his eyes. The night is all there: the party blur, the yard cold, the car, the apology you’re not supposed to say out loud. Eris didn’t leave.

He turns his head. Eris is curled at an angle the narrow bed allows, face half-buried in Azriel’s pillow. He’s still in yesterday’s jeans and shirt, stretched and bunched at the waist like he pulled it on in a hurry and forgot to fix it. Without the poses, he looks young. His mouth is soft. He sleeps like he hasn't a day in his life.

Something in Azriel aches in a way that is not pain.

His head throbs. His mouth is dry; his tongue tastes like every bad choice he made after the second drink. The room smells like laundry and last night’s air.

Keys in the front door. The click is unmistakable.

Eris stirs; Azriel’s heart vaults.

“Eris,” he whispers, urgent and quiet. “Get up. My mom.”

Eris blinks against the light, brain catching up to body. “What—?”

A knock. One polite tap. “Az?” Grace’s voice. The handle turns before the answer arrives.

The door opens a hand’s width. Stops.

Grace Shade stands in the gap in her navy polo and black apron, hair escaping the bun at the nape of her neck. Takeout boxes stacked in one arm; her name tag crooked. She was going to leave food and a kiss on the hairline and go to sleep.

Her eyes take in the bed. The bodies. Eris in Azriel’s bed. Azriel bolt-upright with the sheet clutched like that could rewind anything.

No one breathes.

Grace tips her head, the way she does when she’s deciding between two brands of dish soap.

“Do you want waffles?” she asks, steady as the floor.

Silence ticks once. Twice.

Azriel stares. Eris makes an awful half-laugh, half-cough into the pillow. Grace raises a single eyebrow that says well?

“You’re not… surprised?” Azriel manages, voice scraped raw.

Grace shrugs with her mouth. “Sweetheart, you’ve had a crush on that boy since you were sixteen.”

Eris turns his head so fast the pillow complains. Azriel puts both hands over his face and considers ceasing to exist.

Grace sets the takeout on the desk, straightens the lid that wasn’t crooked, and says, “I’m making coffee. Come out when you’re ready.”

The door closes. The apartment remembers how to hum.

Azriel groans into his palms. “I want to die.”

Eris’s laugh is small and astonished. “You told her?”

“I didn’t,” Azriel says, hands still up. He drops them. “She just… knows. Sees me, I guess.”

Eris looks at the ceiling. He swallows. “You’re lucky.”

Azriel softens. “She didn’t always.”

Eris nods, once. Something he isn’t saying sits careful in his mouth.

He reaches out, slow, like they’re back at the edges of everything. Azriel meets him halfway. Their fingers fit the way they always have—like they remember.

They lie there another breath, another. Outside the door, coffee works the room soft. It smells like mornings where nothing hurts.

Azriel squeezes once, the smallest answer. Eris squeezes back.

In the kitchen, cabinet doors knock politely. A drawer slides. The radio switches itself on to a violin that has too much ache for this early.

Hello! I finished a one-shot I started a couple of weeks ago. (I’m still doing final edits to the other character study Summer Didn’t Count. Fun fact: I drafted it while brainstorming claws, which is why it’s so simple and short. Which means it should be up very soon.)

This new one-shot, though, is something I’m unsure about publishing. It isn’t like what most of you know me for. It’s darker, more horrifying; a study in prose, horror, grief, and the body (fae or human) in visceral detail. It looks at war, battle, and tragedy. Content warnings include character death, body horror, and war.

From those details, you can probably guess where I’m heading. It’s a Mature, emotional piece. I may post the entire story, or I may not. But I will share the first segment, which focuses only on war, grief, and loss.

Without further ado, here’s the first segment of the one-shot:

The Fall of Prythian 

The sky burned red and did not move.

Smoke clawed down Azriel’s throat with every breath. Ash clung to his lashes and hair, worming into the seams of his leathers until it wore him like a second skin. The ground bowed beneath his knees—charred, wet, unstable, as if it too wanted to give way and vanish.

Timber crashed in the distance, one heavy strike like the beat of a war drum. The air reeked of iron and rot, of blood baked into mud.

And in the center of it all, Azriel knelt.

His shadows curled to his ribs, weak, thin, dragging against the smoke as if even they feared to wander. His wings hung limp as though the sky itself weighed them down, soot turning the membranes gray. Sweat streaked in black lines from his nape to his collar.

He bowed his head until his breathing leveled into something steady. Then slowly, heavily, he looked up.

His face looked carved—brows drawn tight, jaw locked, lips cut into a sharp line. The tremor in him betrayed nothing but fury and grief laced too close together.

When he spoke, it sounded as though each word carved him from the inside.

“You have painted the world red with blood and flame.”

The field did not answer. A roof collapsed in the distance, sparks scattering like dying stars.

Then—

Boots crushed ash and bone.

Azriel froze. His hand twitched toward a blade that wasn’t there. Shadows stuttered at his wrist, then fled.

Through the smoke, a figure approached. Tall. Straight-backed. Deliberate. Firelight tried to cling, but slipped away into the blackness that held him tighter still. The air cooled around him, each step leeching heat from the ruin.

Azriel’s heart bucked. His wings twitched open, nerves screaming—then dropped under the weight.

The figure halted. Slowly, the glow from the fire revealed the whites of his eyes. A grin, too sharp, too wrong.

Azriel’s mouth worked. The questions— how, why, what did you do —died before sound.

The figure laughed.

It started low, a hollow vibration that rattled the air. Empty. Without joy, without warmth. It rose, sharp and echoing. His hands spread, palms up—not in surrender but in presentation. Behind him, Prythian burned—hills glowing like coals, the Sidra running red with blood, towns collapsing into ash.

Azriel clenched his fist. Skin split under the force, blood slicking until ash dulled it. His shadows swirled, tried to harden, then unraveled again, waiting.

“You killed them,” he forced out, breath ragged. “You killed them all.”

Shadows bled from the figure’s steps, starlight winking out as if light refused to follow him. Darkness climbed Azriel’s body until he shivered despite himself.

When their eyes met, Azriel saw too much.

Violet eyes blown wide, veins burst red at the edges. Anger tight at the lids. But deeper still: the hollow of grief, the manic flicker of euphoria, a twitch of brows dragged down and then spasming upward. A face torn between rage, sorrow, and something far worse—clarity.

“I do not think you would understand, brother.”

The word brother landed like salt in an open wound.

Rhysand reached out, fingers cool, steady, brushing soot and stubble along Azriel’s jaw. For a heartbeat, almost gentle. Then the grip locked hard, bones pinched tight, tilting Azriel’s face up like he was nothing.

Azriel’s breath broke. “Tell me why.”

“You should know better than to ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Smoke shifted. Somewhere, a scream split the quiet, then ended.

“I did the world a favor.” His voice was low, conspiratorial. A secret between them.

“It wasn’t your choice!” Azriel snarled, louder now, voice breaking. His throat closed on the name but he forced it out. “Feyre would hate you for this. You didn’t have to become a monster—you should’ve trusted us. Trusted me. Trusted them. We were your family. ”

Rhysand stilled, eyes narrowing with a strange light, violet swallowing black. For a moment—calm. Almost pity. Then his hand clenched, nails scraping into skin, pressing to the brink of fracture. Azriel’s teeth rattled, vision sparking white.

Rhysand leaned close, voice soft. “You never knew how to follow orders quietly, Spymaster.” The words were silk around a garrote.

Azriel’s jaw screamed as the thumb ground harder, cruel enough to crack bone. And then—just as suddenly—the pressure was gone. Rhysand withdrew, smoothed his fingers across the same bruised skin like he might soothe what he had just nearly broken. His tone slipped back into evenness, chillingly composed.

“You see slaughter,” he murmured, spreading his hands as if unveiling the ruin. “I see seeds.”

Rhysand paced through the smoke, boots dragging ash. His hands flexed, opened, curled again.

“Feyre was proof.” A sharp turn of his head, eyes catching the firelight. “The Mother wove a bargain, thread to thread—we would live and die. Together.”

Rhysand stopped. Breathing hard. Shoulders lifting, dropping. “And when she needed it, it failed.” His hand cut the air. “Left her. Left me.”

Azriel shifted, throat working, but Rhysand spoke over the quiet.

“The Mother gave me life,” he said, softer now, like it burned his mouth. “And then she betrayed me.”

His gaze raked the ruin. “The world weighed her—and said die. It weighed me—and said live.”

He smiled, wild and thin. “So I’ll burn what made that call.”

His nails scraped along his jaw, as though trying to claw out the words before they rotted in him.

“You ask about children. The innocent.” His eyes darted back to Azriel. Unblinking. “There are none. Not in a world that let her die alone.” A breath. A swallow. “This is mercy.”

Rhysand stopped moving. Stillness so sudden it felt wrong.

“I did not become a monster.” The words were gentle. He tilted his head, lips parting, smile thin as a blade.

“I only stopped pretending I wasn’t one.”

He looked back to Azriel then, shadows deepening his smile. “I didn’t lose my soul. I laid it down. An even trade. A new world for her name.”

The silence that followed was worse than the speech.

Tears carved tracks down Azriel’s ash-streaked face. He didn’t hide them. He didn’t look away. His voice, hoarse and desperate, broke. “I know you’re in there, Rhys. This isn’t you.”

Rhysand closed his eyes, as though humoring the notion. When he opened them, they were empty.

“No. I’m not. ”

I also want to apologize for not being the most consistent with fic updates or staying “active” on Tumblr. I mentioned this back when I first started Flesh and Bone and Death’s Song, but I originally turned to fanfiction as practice before beginning my first novel. Because of that, I tend to jump between projects when inspiration strikes, and recently, I’ve actually begun drafting that novel.

What this means is that updates will likely stay sporadic, shaped by when inspiration hits and by the specific tone I’m trying to polish. If you haven’t noticed, each of my fics has its own tone, message, and stylistic focus, which makes me especially prone to writing in bursts.

Azriel

School starts in September.

The building is loud on purpose: lockers slam, sneakers squeak, laughter too sharp. Sun lingers in the windows like summer won’t let go. Everything smells like sanitizer and pencil shavings.

Azriel keeps his head down. He’s good at it—walking the halls like a ghost while the world performs around him. He adjusts his strap, counts tiles, lets the noise roll past. School is where you disappear. Everyone’s watching themselves.

So he sees Eris first.

The hair is gone. The new cut hardens his jaw, exposes cheekbones. Not a bad look. Azriel looks a breath too long, then blinks hard like he can undo it.

On the first Thursday, Eris passes, laughing too loudly with Tomas Mandray and Briallyn, who flips perfect hair like she’s on TV. He doesn’t slow. Doesn’t glance.

Azriel tells himself it doesn’t matter.

Tuesdays are separate.

School is real life. School is where Eris has a place and Azriel doesn’t. Eris is golden, loud, easy with his smile. Azriel is the kid with glasses and a quiet no one knows what to do with.

He can live with that. He has.

Except.

On Tuesdays, Eris is still there. Perched on the counter while Azriel’s mom scrubs grout; sprawled on the rug while Azriel reads. Still stealing chips from Azriel’s plate if lunch ran late. Still poking until Azriel snaps back.

Sometimes they talk books. Azriel always brings one; Eris pretends not to care, then twenty minutes later asks, “Wait, did she actually die?” or “Is the monster a metaphor or are we meant to believe it’s literal?”

Azriel rolls his eyes less.

Sometimes music. Azriel names a band. Eris, genuinely stunned: “You listen to things made after 1970?”

“You have a very specific idea of me in your head,” Azriel says, turning a page.

“I didn’t peg you for Spotify,” Eris replies, leaning on the counter with a peach. “You give off vinyl-only energy.”

“I do have vinyl.”

“Of course you do.”

“That a problem?”

Eris bites the peach, loud. “Nah. Kind of hot.”

Azriel turns a page he doesn’t read.

They circle people, too—never directly.

“Mandray’s an idiot,” Eris mutters while Azriel scribbles in a dog-eared Secret History.

“Then stop hanging out with him.”

“I can’t.”

Azriel pauses. He wants to ask why. He doesn’t. Eris won’t answer. Azriel isn’t the person Eris can be honest with at school. He’s just Tuesdays.

He’s the quiet in the background.

Azriel closes his book. “Then don’t complain.”

Eris shoots him a quick look. Hurt skims his face like a stone across water.

Azriel doesn’t apologize.

The hush that follows is edged, not cold.

Later that week, in the library, Azriel passes Eris laughing with Lucien, boots on a table like he owns it. No flicker of recognition. No sign of Monday’s sunlit kitchen and old-radio music.

Azriel keeps walking, shoulders tipped like his bag’s too heavy.

The weight of being erased presses at his chest.

The next Tuesday, Eris drops Dune on the counter.

“Fine. Convince me to care.”

“Is that your way of asking me to hang out?”

“No,” too fast. “I need a distraction. School sucks. Tomas is an ass. Mandray tried to pants some kid in gym.”

“Still hanging out with him?”

“Don’t start.”

“You brought him up.”

They sit. It feels like something real wants to speak and doesn’t.

Eris shifts, glances over. “Don’t pretend you’re not flattered I’m reading something you like.”

“I’d be more flattered if you understood it.”

“Ouch.”

They keep going. The talk is casual.

The pattern of Eris showing up is not.

Azriel doesn’t know what this is.

It’s not nothing.

Eris

He doesn’t notice the line when they cross it.

No neat before and after. Just a slow awareness, moss on the underside of a rock—one day it’s everywhere.

It’s not flirting.

Azriel doesn’t flirt. He exists with such complete self-containment it’s infuriating—and compelling. He reads like the world outside the book isn’t happening. He walks through Eris’s house like it can’t impress him. Like nothing can.

Every time Eris tries to crack him, Azriel doesn’t.

He doesn’t look at Eris like he’s charming. He looks like Eris is a puzzle solved badly.

It gets under his skin.

So this Tuesday, with Azriel in his usual island seat, another dark cover, another tragic title, Eris leans across the counter.

“Are you always like this?”

“Like what?”

“So quiet. So sure you’re better than everyone.”

No bite—just something restless, something raw.

Azriel pauses. Closes the book carefully, fingers resting on the spine. Looks up.

Not angry. Not smug. Calm, like he knows the ending. “Are you always this desperate,” he asks softly, “for someone to like you?”

The air tightens. Humidity before a storm.

Eris starts to speak, stops. The way Azriel watches—unafraid—leaves him suddenly, stupidly exposed.

Azriel’s mother wipes the stove, humming. The fan fills the gap.

“Done for today, Az,” she calls. “Get your shoes.”

Neither moves.

Staring.

Azriel stands, takes his book, heads for the door. The kitchen is narrow; shoulders brush. Heat jumps.

“It’s not desperate,” Eris says, lower now, “to want people to like you.”

Eris swallows. His mouth tastes like peach skin and metal.

Azriel turns just enough to look back. Voice lower, too, like it costs something: “No. Just lonely.”

He leaves.

Eris stays where he is, heart banging hard for a two-minute conversation.

Something shifted. The room knows it.

Azriel

They don’t talk at school.

Not halls. Not library. Not lunch. Not even on the way to English when Eris is flanked by Lucien, Briallyn, Mandray, and Azriel walks alone with a book under his arm and his eyes trained on nothing.

School is performance. Tuesdays aren’t.

The week before winter break, sleet tries to drown the parking lot. Azriel stands near the curb—curls dripping, glasses fogged, coat heavy with melt. Buses are late. Teachers shout about delays.

Tires hiss through puddles. A car door slams. Quick footsteps.

Eris passes him—hood up, cheeks pinked from cold. He glances once, keeps going.

Relief and disappointment hit at the same time.

Halfway across the lot, Eris stops. Turns. Hands disappear into his pockets.

“Want a ride?”

Azriel blinks water off his lashes. “What?”

“I’m driving. I can drop you. You live near me, right?”

He should say no. They don’t talk here.

“Sure.”

The car is warm and smells faintly of cedar and some expensive note stolen from his father’s sink. Azriel buckles in; his coat squeaks on the leather.

Wipers beat a slow metronome. Music low and ambient. The glass fogs; Azriel swipes a sleeve across his lens.

Eris glances over. “You really never take those off?”

“My glasses?”

“No, your force field of emotional repression. Yes, your glasses.”

“Only when I sleep.”

“Huh.” A quick file-away. “Kind of hot, honestly.”

Heat climbs Azriel’s ears. He answers too late to sound smooth.

Eris smiles like he’s scored.

At a red light, rain drums the roof. Eris’s fingers tap the wheel, off-beat.

“I didn’t know you noticed things like that,” Azriel says.

“I notice a lot of things.”

“Do you always flirt like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like you pretend it isn’t flirting.”

A beat. “Do you always call people out when they’re trying?”

Azriel exhales; his breath fogs the window. “No. Just you.”

Eris idles in Azriel’s driveway. The front room glows; dinner’s probably started.

“Thanks,” Azriel says, hand on the door.

“Yeah.” Too quick. “Don’t tell anyone I was nice. Ruins the brand.”

“No one would believe me.”

He opens the door; cold air slides in. He leans down. “You should drive me home more often.”

He shuts the door before Eris can answer.

Eris

He kisses Azriel in March.

Of course it’s after an argument. With them, it always is—words too sharp, tension like a string about to snap. Never the surface thing—the book, the music he mocks and secretly adds to his playlist. Always the underneath.

This time it’s a party Eris didn’t invite him to. He hadn’t even mentioned it—Friday night, Lucien’s place, bad beer, Mandray’s arm slung like they’re best friends. Azriel found out the usual way: by not being told.

Now they’re in the kitchen, door shut. Azriel leans against the counter, arms crossed, glasses off, hair in his eyes. He looks past tired. Braced.

“I don’t get it,” he says, low. “You act like you want me around. Like you—” He shakes his head. “But the second anyone’s watching, I disappear.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It is to me.”

“Of course it is. You get to exist however you want. People already expect you to be weird.”

Azriel laughs, brief and sharp. “Right. I’m the problem.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said.”

Eris paces. Palms itch. Chest too tight. Words the wrong size.

“You think it’s easy,” he mutters, “to not care what people think.”

Azriel watches him.

“You don’t even know what hard is,” Eris snaps, too loud. Bitter.

Azriel’s laugh is a knife. “Money doesn’t make your life hard. Choosing to perform all the time doesn’t make you brave.”

Eris stills.

Azriel steps in, one pace. Controlled voice, every word clean. “You’re scared of your own friends. You think that makes you fearless.”

Heat presses behind Eris’s eyes. Not tears—pressure.

If he doesn’t move, he’ll—he doesn’t finish the thought. He kisses Azriel.

Not soft. Not planned. Desperate—teeth bumping, breath catching, too much too fast. His hands fist in Azriel’s hoodie like an anchor.

Azriel stiffens—half a second—then moves. Kisses back. Slower, deeper. Hands find Eris’s shoulders, hesitant, then firm. His mouth is warm, sure, like he’s been waiting without letting himself believe.

Eris sways forward. Presses closer.

It’s worse than he expected.

Because it means something.

He thought it would be heat and anger. A collision he could file as a mistake.

It isn’t.

It’s Azriel breathing like relief.

It’s Eris finding air.

Terrifying.

When they pull apart, quiet fans the room. Azriel’s lips are reddened; hair a mess; lenses smudged—when did he put them back on?

“You’re not going to joke about it?” Eris asks, voice rough.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Azriel steps back. Not far. “You don’t get to act like it didn’t happen. Not this time.”

Eris nods, slow.

He doesn’t have words.

Azriel leaves. The door sighs.

Nothing is going back.

Azriel

They don’t define it.

But it keeps happening.

A hand lingering too long. A glance that says more than it should. Mouths brushing in shadow, pulled back before it’s seen.

Then—another Tuesday.

Not like the others.

His mom is off this week—“The Vanserras don’t need me. I’m finally reading that book you gave me”—so Azriel has no reason to go.

Except Eris texts anyway:

ERIS Come over. My parents aren’t home. Just for a bit.

Azriel stares. Debates. He knows what it means.

He goes.

The house is still. No clatter. No heels. No citrus peel in the disposal. Just held air.

Eris opens in a hoodie, barefoot, hair damp like he’s just showered. His eyes track over Azriel like he’s surprised he came—or that he didn’t hesitate.

“Hey,” he says, stepping aside.

Azriel steps in. The room steadies around them.

Eris pads ahead, glancing back. “Water?”

Azriel shakes his head.

Eris leans against the counter. “We don’t have to—if you don’t—”

Azriel crosses the space. “I didn’t come to talk about the weather.”

Eris’s jaw ticks; he looks away.

“This is probably a bad idea,” Azriel says.

“I know.”

They do it anyway.

It happens in the laundry room.

Of all places.

The tile is cold beneath their knees, the lights too bright overhead, the hum of the dryer in the background like a heartbeat too fast. The detergent box rattles when Eris’s back bumps the shelf. They don’t speak much. Just touches and breath and the kind of closeness that doesn’t feel like pretending anymore.

Azriel’s glasses end up folded carefully on the shelf next to the detergent. Eris handles them like they’re made of glass.

He kisses Azriel like it’s a question he’s been asking himself for weeks.

Azriel answers with his whole body.

Afterward, they sit on the floor.

Not touching. Not speaking.

Azriel curls his fingers around the hem of his shirt. His breath still uneven. His chest tight in a way that has nothing to do with what just happened.

Eris looks at the floor. His back pressed against the cabinet, knees pulled up to his chest. He’s not glowing. Not smirking. Just quiet.

Azriel says, “You don’t have to pretend like this didn’t happen.”

“I’m not,” Eris says, almost immediately.

But he’s not looking at him.

Azriel studies the side of his face. “But you don’t want anyone to know.”

Eris hesitates.

Then says, too carefully, “It’s not about you.”

Azriel exhales. “I know.”

And he does.

He’s always known what this is. What he is, to Eris.

A secret. A safe place. A quiet boy with quiet hands who doesn’t make demands.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

He just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.

He leaves a little later.

Eris walks him to the door. No script left.

Azriel slides his glasses on. The world snaps into focus.

Gray sky. Heavy air. He steps onto the front stoop and turns back.

Eris stands in the doorway, one hand on the frame, face unreadable.

Azriel wets his lip, thinks better of what he almost says.

The First Night That Mattered

The window gave a drawn-out creak as Cassian eased it open, just loud enough to make him grit his teeth. “One day that thing’s gonna grass us up.”

Rhys was already halfway out, feet balanced on the ledge. He shot a grin back. “Only if you keep running your mouth like you’re auditioning for the bloody Royal Opera.”

Azriel didn’t say anything. Just swung one leg through, coat pulled in tight, careful not to knock the glass. His breath left a faint fog as he passed, gone before it settled.

They dropped into the alley like they'd done it a hundred times—quick, quiet, all sharp edges and heavy coats. The lamps overhead buzzed with that sickly orange glow, painting the bricks in rust. The sky pressed down low, heavy with mist, the kind that soaked in slow and stayed with you.

Cassian pulled his cap lower and scanned the street. “So?”

Rhys reached into his pocket, fished out a flyer bent in half twice over. “Dalston. Boleyn Road. Pub gig. Some lot from Manchester. Supposed to be loud.”

Cass groaned, stretching his neck. “Manchester? Bet they all sing through their sinuses.”

Az glanced sideways. “Got a plan B?”

Cass shrugged. “Nah. But if one of ’em pulls out a tambourine, I’m leaving.”

They covered the walk in silence mostly, two miles of damp pavement underfoot and the occasional roar of a night bus cutting too close. Streetlights flickered as they passed, throwing thin shadows. A Shell station gave up a bag of crisps easy—Cass slipped it under his coat while the clerk argued with a cabbie. At the next light, Rhys flashed a grin at a girl in a leather coat.

She laughed right in his face, sharp and fast. “You’re pretty, posh boy—but boring.” Then she winked before the walk signal changed.

Cassian climbed halfway up a phone box, boots scrambling for grip. Azriel pulled him down by the collar before he could bring the whole thing over.

The pub showed up just past the rail bridge—more noise than building. Sound hit them before the door did, thick bass thudding through the bricks like a heartbeat gone wrong. The sign read “THE HUNGRY DOG” in crooked neon, one letter stuttering. Below it, scrawled in black marker on a sheet of warped plastic: LIVE TONIGHT — THE CHEMISTS (FROM MCR!)

Cass squinted up at it. “That’s tragic.”

Rhys shrugged. “Better than naming a bar after a mangy mutt.”

“I like dogs,” Cass muttered.

Az didn’t bother responding.

They waited at the side entrance, by the bins. Eventually a kitchen lad stepped out, apron smeared, fag already lit. Rhys passed him half a pack of Players with a look that said he’d done this before.

The lad gave them a once-over—three boys in oversized coats and wet shoes—then stepped back. “If you lot get caught, I weren’t here.”

The door clicked.

Inside, the pub smelled like beer mats that hadn’t dried since ‘57. Everything was damp—walls, floors, people. The bar stuck to your elbow if you leaned wrong. Boots skidded slightly on beer-slick wood. No one looked twice at them except the bartender, who glanced up mid-pour.

Cassian slapped the bar like he owned it. “Three of whatever passes for drinkable.”

The bartender didn’t blink. “You got ID?”

Rhys leaned in, smile still sharp. “You really wanna play that game tonight?”

“You look like your dad’s lawyer’s in the car outside.”

“You’re still pouring, though.”

The man snorted. Three pints landed on the counter.

They grabbed them and found space near the back—just enough room to stand, shoulder to shoulder. Cass took a sip and coughed. “Hell. It’s warm.”

Az said, “That’s how they serve it.”

Cass frowned. “You been here before?”

Az didn’t answer.

The lights dipped. Conversations thinned. A distorted voice hit the speakers: “We’re The Chemists. Manchester-born, bad-tempered, and not leaving until someone makes us.”

Cheers lit up the room like a fuse. A pint went airborne. The first chord came screaming out of the amp.

It was rough—wrong, even. Guitars clawed through the mix, feedback bleeding at the edges. The singer shouted more than sang, voice cracking with every other word. But it grabbed you. Held you.

The bass didn’t walk; it stomped. The drums were all fists.

Cassian just stared, pint halfway to his mouth. Rhys leaned forward, eyes fixed on the lead’s fretting hand like he was trying to memorize it.

Azriel didn’t move. Not yet.

Then, almost without realizing it, he did—just a fraction. Shoulders forward. Chin lifted. Eyes locked dead ahead. Like he was trying to hear something buried under the noise.

Halfway through the set, the singer leaned into the mic and shouted, “This one’s called ‘Bastard Teeth.’ It’s about my mum’s boyfriend.”

The room howled back like they all knew the bloke.

Az grabbed Rhys’s sleeve. “Left side—what’s he playing?”

Rhys leaned in, barely audible over the volume. “Fender Jaguar!”

Az nodded, sharp and sure, like someone had handed him a name he’d been chasing for years. His fingers twitched at his side, the same restless tap-tap rhythm he used to beat out with a guitar pick against the bedframe.

Cassian bent toward him, grinning. “You’ve got that look. Like someone just lit a flare in your skull.”

Az didn’t blink. Just kept watching.

The sound hit him in waves. Guitar ripping through the speakers, quick and mean. Drums thudding like fists on a locked door. The bass crawled under his ribs. His fingers twitched harder, like they were already playing along. He didn’t know what the feeling was—just that it carved something open inside and left the edges raw.

Four pints later, Cass was wheezing from laughing at his own joke. Rhys was busy trying out lines on a girl with thick eyeliner and a bored expression. Az stood still, face blank, eyes glassy, ears still buzzing.

The cold caught them harder once they stepped outside. The street was empty, lamps humming, mist curling low. They walked for a while without saying much. Then Az stopped short.

Cass turned around. “What, you gonna be sick?”

Az tilted his head back. Stared up like the sky had just asked him a question. “No.” A pause. Then—

“I’m gonna do that.”

Rhys squinted. “Do what?”

“Music.”

Cass frowned. “You mean play it?”

Az gave one slow nod. “Yeah. That.”

Cass laughed. “You don’t even own a guitar.”

“I’ll sort it.”

Cass raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been quiet for hours, and now you reckon you’re the next Beatles?”

Az met his stare. “No. I reckon I’m me. Turned up.”

Cass looked at Rhys, then back again. His face shifted—less mockery now, more thought. “Alright. I’m in.”

Az smirked. “You?”

Cassian shrugged. “Someone’s gotta hit things.”

They both turned to Rhys. He crossed his arms. “Don’t look at me. I’m not playing backup while you two thrash around like you’re on fire.”

Az tilted his head. “We’ve heard you sing. Shower walls don’t lie.”

Cass grinned. “And you’ve got that face. People stop and stare before you even open your mouth.”

Rhys rolled his eyes. “That’s not the same as fronting a band.”

“You’ve already got the voice,” Az said. “Just need a mic instead of shampoo.”

Cass clapped him on the back. “Come on, prince charming. Time to stop hogging the acoustics. Lead the bloody charge.”

Rhys looked at them both—two scrappy idiots high on noise and beer, half a plan between them, standing under a dying streetlamp like it meant something. His jaw shifted. Then he gave a sharp breath and a crooked smile.

“Alright,” he said. “We’ll play a gig before we’re eighteen.”

Cass whooped. Az just smiled, slow and steady.

Under a broken lamp, in a dark and forgotten alley, three boys shook on it.

They didn’t have a name. Didn’t have gear. Didn’t have a clue.

Rhysand Enters The System

The moment Rhysand stepped through the hallway door, Cassian said, “He’s not gonna last.”

Az didn’t answer. Just kept flicking his guitar pick against the bedframe in a steady tap-tap-tap.

Rhys stood at the edge of the corridor like he expected someone to announce him. He wore a dark peacoat that probably cost more than the monthly food budget. His shoes were polished. Actual laces. Not Velcro. Not taped.

His suitcase had brass hardware. Cassian wanted to kick it.

“New meat,” muttered a voice down the hall.

Rhys’s head turned, slow. Eyes narrowed, jaw tight. Not scared. Not smug, either. Just… sharp.

Cassian folded his arms. “You lost, Your Highness?”

Rhys turned his eyes on him. “Cassian, right? I read the intake sheet.”

Cass’s brow twitched. “You read it?”

“I like to know who I’m stuck with.”

Az set his guitar pick down.

Rhys noticed him. He noticed everything. “And you’re Azriel. Quiet one.”

Az said nothing.

Rhys nodded, just once. “Right. Knew I liked you better already.”

Cass snorted. “You’ve been here five minutes.”

“I had a car crash last week, lost my entire family, and now I’m here,” Rhys said flatly. “I’m not exactly settling in for a long stay.”

He walked past them, straight-backed, suitcase wheeling behind him with a polite little squeak. He stopped by the bunk opposite theirs. Empty. For now.

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “You don’t get to pick.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Az finally spoke. “You think you’re different?”

Rhys met his eyes. “I am.”

Not a brag.

A fact.

Like he was still waiting for someone to come rescue him. Like this was all a bad detour before the world snapped back to how it used to be—nice schools, jazz records, maybe a housekeeper who smelled like soap.

Cassian stepped forward. “Listen, prince—”

“Rhysand.”

“Whatever. You’re not special here.”

Rhys set his suitcase down. “Noted.”

He looked around the room. Paused. Then reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver lighter.

Az’s eyes tracked it. The only other person who had anything like that was Tony, one of the caseworkers, and he didn’t even bring it inside.

“You’re allowed that?” Cassian asked.

“Who said I asked?”

Az’s mouth twitched. Cass caught it and groaned.

“Oh no. You like him.”

Az shrugged. “He’s not stupid.”

“Yet,” Cass muttered.

Rhys flicked the lighter open, flame dancing, then clicked it shut again without lighting anything. Just a habit. Hands needed something to do.

“I’m not here to make friends,” Rhys said. “I just want quiet, and a room that doesn’t smell like piss.”

Cassian grinned, toothy and dangerous. “Then you’re in the wrong postcode.”

There was a beat of silence. Then—

Rhys cracked a smile. Just a sliver. “Figured.”

Az stood, picked up the extra blanket from the bed, and tossed it to him.

Rhys caught it without a word.

Cassian groaned louder. “Oh come on, now you’re roommates?”

Az sat back down.

Rhys dropped his coat, folded it over the bunk rail. Clean, practiced. The way someone does when they’ve never had to sleep in their clothes. Yet.

Cassian pointed a finger. “I give you a week.”

Rhys raised an eyebrow. “To what?”

“To stop brushing your hair.”

Rhys shrugged. “Two days.”

Cassian blinked. “Seriously?”

“It’s all downhill now, isn’t it?”

Az looked between them. “Play cards?”

Rhys nodded. “I’m terrible at it.”

Cassian sat back, crossed his legs, and began shuffling.

Tuesday again.

Azriel reads the text twice.

eris: bring swim trunks this time

No context. The message assumes a yes.

He considers ignoring it. Doesn’t.

At 9:56 he’s at the door. Paperback in one hand, black trunks rolled in the other.

Eris is already outside, toweling his hair.

“You actually brought them,” he says, half-surprised.

“You asked.”

“Didn’t think you took requests.”

“I’m unpredictable.”

A real grin, quick.

The water is cooler than Azriel expects. He inhales when it hits his ribs.

Eris floats. Watches, not casual.

Azriel has left his glasses on the table with his towel and book. Nothing between him and being seen.

“You’re different without them,” Eris says. Quiet. Unsure of the word.

“Everyone is.”

“No—” Eris shakes water from his ear. “You look like… you.”

They drift. Knees brush, once. Neither of them moves.

Not a moment. Could be one.

Sunlight breaks itself across Eris’s collarbone. Freckles show, damp and flushed.

“You’re full of secrets,” Eris says.

Azriel’s mouth barely tilts. “You’re not great at keeping your thoughts to yourself.”

Eris breathes out. “You’re not that hard to think about.”

No reply. Azriel turns and swims for the steps. He sits on the lounger, towel over his shoulders, water gathering at his feet.

Eris follows. Not close. Near enough that the space tightens.

They talk about nothing: the mosquito, the way Azriel’s mom hums three notes and stops, Lucien once falling into the pool and breaking his phone.

The fridge motor ticks on. The air thins.

When Azriel slides his glasses back on, Eris watches five full seconds.

Azriel notices, and lets it pass.

Eris watches the car roll down the drive at four.

Windows down. Azriel’s mother small and upright in the passenger seat.

He sits on the lounger until the heat loosens and the cicadas get loud.

Inside, upstairs, he stands under water that’s too hot. Scrubs until his shoulders sting. The mirror fogs; he doesn’t look.

Later, the second car. Beron. Not loud. Inevitable.

By six, the table. Lucien slouches without relaxing. Their mother with pearls and the half-glass she never finishes. Beron at the head. The power is in the sitting.

Food arrives from hands that don’t belong to anyone here.

“You missed the foundation meeting,” Beron says.

“I was in the pool,” Eris says.

“And before that?”

“Reading. Killing time.”

The knife scrapes the plate. The sound cuts the room in half. Lucien flinches, and then doesn’t.

“You weren’t alone,” Beron says. “One of the staff saw you. Boy from the kitchen crew.”

“That’s Azriel,” Eris says, keeping it even. “The cleaner’s son.”

“You’ve been spending time with him.”

A setup, not a question.

“Not really. He reads. I swim.”

Beron looks at him like fitting a puzzle he already hates. “Be careful. Too much time with people beneath you and you forget what you are.”

Eris swallows water that tastes like metal. “I don’t believe anything.”

“Good,” Beron says. “Keep it that way.”

Silence climbs onto the table and sits with them until the plates clear.

After, Eris dries his hands at the sink and stares at himself in the oven glass. Too straight-backed. The posture of someone waiting and determined not to give it away.

He smooths his hair. Adjusts his collar. Walks out like he’s fine.

Upstairs, he lies on the bed without undressing. The fan hums. The room steadies.

He doesn’t text Azriel.

He thinks about Azriel without his glasses on. How everything shifted for a second and then pretended not to.

Tuesday.

Azriel arrives at 9:58. Book in hand. Trunks already on.

The door opens before he can knock.

Eris barefoot. Towel at his neck. Hair flattened as if he dunked his head , not even bothering a towel off.

There’s a fading bruise on his wrist. It wasn’t there last week.

Azriel sees it. Doesn’t look long enough to make it a scene.

“You’re late,” Eris says, without smiling.

“I’m early.”

They stand a second, then move.

They swim. They don’t talk.

Eris does laps like he’s outrunning something that can swim. Azriel stays in the shallow end and watches without showing it.

The bruise flashes when Eris climbs out. Towel slips; the shape is clear. Fingers.

Azriel looks away. Not out of shame. To give him back what little privacy he has.

They stretch out on towels. The stone is hot. Cicadas loud. A plane threads the sky.

Azriel closes his eyes and knows where Eris is by the shift in air. Being watched is not the same as being touched. He lets it happen.

You want something you’re scared to want, he thinks, and opens his eyes.

Eris is looking at the sky now. Wrist hidden.

“I got this book,” Eris says, late by a beat. “You should see it.”

“What book?”

“You’ll see.”

He stands. Dries his hands like they need a task. Azriel follows.

Upstairs, the hall is cool. Filters click. The room is too tidy, hotel-clean.

There is no book.

Eris closes the door. Turns the lock.

Azriel doesn’t speak. The air already said it.

Eris stands with his back to the door. His hands flatten there like he’s holding it shut.

Azriel waits.

“I want to kiss you,” Eris says, as if testing what the room will do to the words.

Azriel’s heart spikes and steadies. Clarity more than fear.

He doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t move away.

“Not yet,” he says.

Eris nods. The breath goes out of him. He looks younger, then older.

Downstairs, a door closes somewhere. Noise thins.

They stand there a long moment, not touching, the fact of wanting out in the open and still intact.

A voice from below: “Azriel? I’m finished.”

They leave without speaking. The fan fills the gap. On the stairs, they look like anyone.

At the door, Azriel wipes his lens with his sleeve. “See you,” he says.

The word hangs. Not a promise. Close.

He steps into the afternoon. The glass shuts on its quiet hinge.

Azriel

The first time he sees Eris Vanserra up close, it’s a Tuesday. Not at school, where they’ve passed each other for two years without speaking—Eris always surrounded, always in motion—but here, in the Vanserra house. Or mansion, really.

Azriel hovers just inside the front door on glossy stone tile that belongs in a hotel lobby. The foyer ceiling climbs high enough to echo; sunlight pours through windows like the house is trying to outshine the world. Everything smells too clean—lemon polish, money. Even the air-conditioning hums, a steady undertone that makes him feel like an intruder.

He’s not sure whether he’s supposed to take his shoes off.

His mother hadn’t told him the Vanserras would be home. She’s already in the kitchen, head down, unpacking cleaning supplies. Like she’s invisible.

Azriel is not invisible.

He shifts his weight, pushes his glasses up. She’d said, “You can’t spend the whole summer brooding, Az. If you’re going to sulk, do it while vacuuming someone else’s stairs.”

She’d meant it gently.

Mostly.

He’s still debating where he’s allowed to exist in a house like this when Eris appears.

Barefoot from the backyard, damp and gold with late-June light. Hair long—ginger, wet, clinging in waves to his neck and collarbones. Swim trunks. A half-buttoned shirt that probably costs more than Azriel’s entire wardrobe. Water beads trail down his skin, leaving ghost-prints on the tile.

He doesn’t look surprised to find Azriel in the foyer.

Annoyed, maybe.

Not dramatically—just the casual disdain of someone who doesn’t expect you to matter.

His gaze takes inventory—pale skin, dark curls, too-thin arms, an oversized hoodie in a heat wave. Azriel’s lenses flare.

Eris tilts his head; wet strands shift. He looks like a portrait—one of those boys who know they’re beautiful and a little tragic.

Azriel stares back, unreadable.

They hold each other’s look.

Eris breaks the hush first. His voice is low, faintly amused, like he’s winning without trying. "What are you doing here?"

“You’re dripping on the floor,” Azriel says, flat.

Eris blinks, mouth curving slow and sharp. “I live here.” A loose gesture at the hallway. “I can drip wherever I want.”

Azriel nudges his glasses higher. “It’s still annoying.”

Eris lifts an eyebrow. “You’re in my house.”

“Not by choice.”

The words hang—class, rules, a thousand lines neither of them drew, both of them feel.

Eris studies him again. Sharper now, like he hadn’t expected Azriel to talk back.

Azriel looks toward the kitchen; his mother hums under her breath.

Eris moves past, bare feet whispering over tile. Wet footprints spot the stone.

Azriel doesn’t watch him go.

He remembers the sound.

That’s the first time they speak—barely a conversation—and it lodges under Azriel’s skin.

Eris

 He hadn’t expected Azriel to be like this.

Quiet, sure. Brooding, fine. But not the kind of quiet that makes the air heavier when he enters a room. Not the kind that makes Eris feel seen. Not liked. Not judged. Not exactly. Noticed—like Azriel collects data whether he uses it or not.

Infuriating.

Eris is sprawled across the cream couch, one leg hooked over the side, scrolling aimlessly. Cushions warm from sun. Lemon cleaner and rosemary from the garden ride the air. He’s half-damp from the pool, only athletic shorts and a white tank. He knows how he looks—and Azriel hasn’t looked once.

Azriel sits at the kitchen island, elbows tucked in on granite, reading a paperback with a cracked spine. Glasses low. A little curl at the nape of his neck. His mother scrubs the stovetop like erasing it.

Eris waits. Azriel doesn’t.

So Eris speaks first. “You always wear your glasses here,” he says lazily. “Not at school.”

“You’re very observant.”

“I’m bored.”

“That’s not my problem.”

Eris drops his phone on a pillow. “Why do you wear them?”

“Because I need them.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I’ve got.”

“You’re so dramatic. Like a sad, stuck-up poet.”

“You’re the one comparing me to a poet.”

“Well,” Eris says, stretching until his shirt rides up, “you read sad books and brood in corners. It fits.”

A flicker touches Azriel’s mouth. Easy to miss.

“You think I’m funny,” Eris says, narrowing his eyes.

“No,” Azriel replies, finally glancing up, voice cool. “I think you’re loud.”

“You’re kind of an asshole.”

“And you’re needy.”

That knocks him off-balance.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Azriel looks fully at him now. Through the lenses, his eyes cut clean. Not cruel. Just knowing. “You act like everything’s a performance. Like you’re waiting to hear who’s clapping.”

Eris swallows.

“Do you analyze everyone,” he manages, “or just the ones you find tolerable?”

“Who says I find you tolerable?”

That should sting. Maybe it does. It doesn’t make Eris retreat. He leans forward.

“You never ask me anything,” he says, voice softer, almost thoughtful. “Every week you’re here. You sit. You read. You watch. You don’t ask.”

Azriel closes his book, deliberate. “You ask enough for both of us.”

It knocks a laugh out of him—real, unguarded. He sprawls back like he owns the room.

“You’re weird,” he says.

“I know.” No defense. No pity. Just fact.

It should end the moment.

It doesn’t.

Eris keeps watching: the thumb on the book’s spine, the glasses slipping a fraction when Azriel leans, the way his quiet holds—intentional, not empty.

Annoying.

Addictive.

A riddle Eris doesn’t want to solve and can’t stop turning.

Azriel

He doesn’t tell Eris he used to talk more.

That he once had an ordinary voice. That before the thing with his hands—scalding water, blistered skin, hospital soap—and before his father decided he was too strange, too fragile, too much—he’d been loud sometimes. Laughing. Full of words.

Now he keeps them.

People assume shyness. Or arrogance. Or trauma.

None of those are exactly right.

He’s quiet because other people never leave room. Because quiet is safer. Predictable. It won’t get twisted. It won’t disappoint.

Eris treats quiet like an allergy.

By the fourth Tuesday, Azriel knows: Eris never shuts up when he’s nervous. Which is often, even if he doesn’t know it. He fills air—school, soccer, Lucien stealing socks. He scrolls when he’s bored, but Azriel can tell when he’s just waiting for a reaction.

Azriel rarely gives him one.

He knows the house’s rhythm now. Eris’s mother floats in and out, brittle and perfumed, clicking her tongue at dust that isn’t there. His father is never there. Eris lingers near the kitchen like a cat—waiting, half-interested, half-guarded.

Sometimes Azriel’s mom sends him upstairs to vacuum. He doesn’t mind. Quieter. Easier to listen.

He’s wiping smudges from the upstairs vanity when footsteps stop in the doorway.

“I got gum in my hair.”

Azriel turns, rag in hand.

Eris stands with his arms crossed, holding up a snarl of red-blond—and a glob of neon green.

“Spearmint,” he says flatly. “Or watermelon. Lucien thought it was hilarious.”

“That’s a lot of gum.”

“Thanks.”

“You could cut it out.”

“Tried. It’s at the roots.”

“So cut it all.”

Eris stares. “My mother already said that.”

“Then why tell me?”

His mouth opens, shuts. For once, he seems unsure. “I don’t know. You’re less annoying than Lucien.”

“High praise.”

“You’re not very helpful.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

“You’re good at that.”

Azriel faces the mirror again and swipes a streak clean. “If you care that much about your hair, don’t let a six-year-old near it.”

“He doesn’t ask permission,” Eris mutters.

The vacuum hum fills the hall; cleaner scent lifts from the counter. The air holds.

Eris watches him in the glass, working something out.

“It’s been like this since I was a kid,” he says, quieter. “Everyone made a big deal about the hair. My dad said it made me look ‘distinguished.’ My mother paraded me at parties. An ornament.”

Azriel glances sideways. The hair made Eris look older, flashier, cinematic. Everyone noticed.

“And now it’s getting chopped off,” Eris adds, softer. “Feels like losing a limb.”

Azriel dabs at an imaginary spot. The room steadies.

He hears Eris step away.

Later

Azriel carries the vacuum down the hall when Eris passes him.

The hair is gone.

Shorter than Azriel’s; neck bare; cheekbones sharper, as if carved.

Azriel stops without meaning to.

Eris meets his gaze. No smile. Something raw under the new edges, as if he’s waiting to be judged.

Azriel holds the look.

They stand too long on that strip of hallway.

“You were right,” Eris says.

He keeps walking.

Eris

Now it’s a game.

Every Tuesday, Azriel arrives like clockwork—quiet knock, shoes at the door, glasses on, paperback in hand. Always a different spine, corners creased, that faraway look that says he’d rather live halfway out of the world.

He doesn’t speak unless spoken to. Even then, it’s pulling teeth. Beautiful, condescending teeth.

Eris keeps a tally. Eight words. Thirteen. Nineteen, when he “accidentally” spills orange juice just to provoke.

Azriel had barely glanced up. “Hope that was worth whatever point you’re proving.”

“Got you to talk,” Eris had said, smug.

Azriel had sighed, wiped his lens with the edge of his sleeve.

This Tuesday, Eris sprawls dramatically, watching Azriel like a cat that refuses affection—fascinated by his refusal to be seen.

“You know,” he says around a bite of apple, “with those glasses you look like a moody librarian who judges life choices by reading lists.”

Azriel doesn’t look up. “And you look like a golden retriever expelled from obedience school.”

Silence thins—then Eris barks a laugh, sharp and surprised. His mother isn’t home, so the only noise is the radio in the kitchen and Azriel’s mom humming as her mop skims the tile.

Azriel turns a page. The corner of his mouth almost moves.

“You had that ready,” Eris grins.

“Since the first week.”

“You were waiting to call me a dog?”

“Inevitable.”

Eris flings a throw pillow; it skids, useless.

“You’re so weird.”

“You’re one to talk.”

The air charges.

Eris watches the careful slide of Azriel’s finger along the page. The light across his cheek. The curl just over the rim of his glasses. He’s still, not checked out. Always paying attention.

It unnerves Eris.

“What are you reading?” he asks, giving up the pretense.

Azriel lifts it. The Bell Jar.

“Huh,” Eris says. “Didn’t think that was your type.”

“What is my type?”

“Lord of the Flies energy. Broody boy in the wilderness.”

“You say that like it’s bad.”

“The kid with glasses dies, so—”

“Spoilers.” The book snaps shut.

“You’ve read it.”

“Still.”

Eris taps a drumbeat on the couch back, restless. He doesn’t know what he wants from Azriel—only that he wants.

Maybe because Azriel never asks for attention. Never competes. For once, someone isn’t centering Eris—and somehow that makes him want to prove he could be.

“Why read here?” Eris asks, lower. “Leave your mom. Go home. Be a teenager.”

“You’re assuming I have something better to do.”

Eris opens his mouth, closes it, then: “You could hang out with me.”

“We’re in the same room. Isn’t that enough?”

The tone—dry, a little amused, a little daring—says he knows exactly what Eris is doing and hands him just enough rope.

Eris can’t find the joke. He watches Azriel’s jaw set over a line. Watches his slow, deliberate breath.

The fact of Azriel—the refusal to be liked, the stillness while everyone scrambles—gets under his skin.

It makes him talk.

It makes him want to be seen.

Tuesday again.

Azriel sits at the corner of the island, paperback open but not moving.

Slaughterhouse-Five.

His thumb holds the page. Ten minutes, same line.

From the couch, Eris watches him not read.

The ceiling fan ticks. Outside, the pool holds a sheet of light. In the hall, Azriel’s mother mops in slow strokes; the tune she hums never quite resolves.

Eris is still damp, towel looped round his neck, white tank faintly see-through.

Chlorine hangs in the air, clean with something sharper underneath.

He drums his fingers on his thigh. Stops. Starts again.

“You going to sit there all summer?”

“Possibly.”

“You’ll get rickets.”

Azriel glances over the rims. “That’s not how rickets works.”

“Still. You’re practically translucent.”

Azriel closes the book just enough for the paper to click. “You always this worried about my vitamin D?”

Eris throws the towel toward a chair. It misses. “Come outside.”

An eyebrow. Nothing else.

“To the pool,” Eris says. “You can sit in the shade and judge me.”

“I don’t swim.”

“Didn’t ask you to.”

Azriel studies him—tone, posture, the place where bravado slips. A habit. Then he stands. Slides the book into his back pocket. Follows.

Heat presses different outside.

The pool is flat until Eris drops in without warning.

Water breaks high and falls away.

Azriel doesn’t flinch. He takes a shaded lounger, knees up, sleeves pushed back. The faint scars on his forearms catch a little sun.

Eris notices, and doesn’t stare.

“I think you’re allergic to fun,” he calls, slicking hair back.

“Not allergic,” Azriel says. “Immune.”

“That was almost a joke.”

Azriel exhales. Watches the ripples, not Eris.

“You’d look better without the hoodie,” Eris says, casual like it isn’t.

“Is that a compliment?”

“No. You’re sweating.”

Azriel peels it off in one motion. A thin black T-shirt underneath, worn soft. He folds the hoodie. Sets it beside him, neat.

Eris floats a moment, still.

Azriel picks up another book but doesn’t open it. Thumb on the edge.

“I think you like me,” Eris says, lighter than it should be.

“I think you talk too much.”

“But you came outside.”

“I didn’t say I disliked you.”

Eris kicks to the edge and props his chin on his forearms. Elbows drip on stone.

Azriel feels the look land. He doesn’t move under it. Doesn’t invite it either. Just meets it, steady, like he could wait longer than this for someone to decide who they are.

The sun tilts.

Inside, filters click on. The fan fills the gap.

When Azriel’s mother calls softly from the hall, he stands like he’d counted down to it.

He ties his laces by the door.

“Same time next week?” Eris says.

Azriel meets his eyes. “Probably.”

Not yes. Not no.

Cassian Meets Azriel, First Blood Shared

On AO3.

Origins. Essex County Council Home for Boys

They dumped the new kid at the foot of Cassian’s bed.

Didn’t even say his name—just, “That one’s yours, Cass. Play nice.”

The boy didn’t speak. Just stood there, small, silent, coat two sizes too big, arms stiff at his sides. One eye swollen halfway shut. Lower lip split. Cheek raw and red like someone had used a back hand, or worse. The kind of face that made you want to hit something just for looking at it.

Cassian squinted at him from his bunk. “You a mute?”

Nothing.

He sat up, scratching the back of his neck. “You’re in my spot, you know.”

Still nothing.

Cassian swung his legs down and stood. He was taller, broader, always had been. Already had that look of a kid you didn’t want to sit next to on the bus. He’d been in three homes. Broke a kid’s nose once for calling him a mongrel. This place was supposed to be stricter.

He stepped close. Real close. Nose to nose.

The new boy didn’t flinch.

Didn’t move at all.

Cassian tilted his head. “You deaf, or just rude?”

“…Azriel.”

The voice came low. Not hoarse. Not cracked. Empty.

Cassian blinked. “What?”

“My name’s Azriel.”

Then silence again.

Cass stared at him. The kid looked maybe eight, nine tops. But there was something in his voice—older. Not like schoolboys. More like… someone who’d stopped pretending to be one.

“Cassian,” he offered. “But you can call me Cass. Or don’t. S’up to you.”

Azriel nodded once. Still didn’t move.

Cass reached behind him, grabbed the second pillow, and tossed it onto the other mattress. “That one’s yours.”

Az didn’t thank him.

Didn’t sit down, either.

“Your old man do that?” Cass asked, jerking his chin at the boy’s face.

Azriel’s mouth twitched. Not quite a frown. Not much of anything.

He just said, “Not anymore.”

Cass didn’t press.

He’d learned fast: you don’t ask questions unless you want to bleed.

Instead, he flopped back onto his mattress. The springs groaned. He picked at a hole in his sock.

“You fight?” he asked the ceiling.

No answer.

He turned his head, looked at Az again.

Az was still standing.

“…I do,” Cassian added.

Still nothing.

“I threw a brick at a kid once. He was bigger than me. Said I looked like a mutt.”

Azriel blinked. Slow.

Cassian frowned. “You gonna sit or what?”

Az looked at the mattress. Like it was unfamiliar.

Then he moved. Sat down stiff. Feet together. Hands in his lap.

Cass made a face. “You sit like a girl at church.”

Az looked at him then.

Not hurt.

Not annoyed.

Just—looked.

Eyes too dark, too still.

Cassian looked away first.

Silence hung for a long while. A shout echoed down the hallway. Someone crying. A door slammed. The usual.

“You ever play cards?” Cass finally asked.

“No.”

“Good. I’ll teach you. You can lose your first match to me, feel like part of the family.”

That almost got something—Az’s mouth twitched again.

Cass grinned. “You’ve got a weird face when you almost smile.”

Az looked at the floor. Said nothing.

But he didn’t stop sitting there.

Didn’t leave.

Didn’t flinch when Cass reached over and dropped a deck of battered cards between them.

Didn’t speak again for the rest of the night.

But he stayed.

And Cassian never asked another question about the bruises.

Claws Act IV, Act V: Chapters 20-31

Now on AO3. A completed work.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66491386/chapters/172410820

Origins.

Rhysand had been pissed off about the suit.

He hated it. Too stiff. Too shiny. The buttons made his wrists itch and the collar felt like it was choking him. His mum insisted. “It’s just for photos,” she said, brushing his hair like he was still ten. “Smile for Leah, yeah?”

Leah grinned with her front teeth missing, one sock halfway down her ankle, and jelly on her chin from breakfast. She looked like chaos dressed up in patent leather.

“You look dumb,” Rhys had told her.

“So do you,” she chirped, and tried to steal his pocket square.

He let her.

The photo turned out fine. Everyone smiled. His dad even looked... not tired. Not politician-tired. Just regular dad-tired. It was a good day.

That was three days ago.

Now the house was too quiet.

Too clean.

It reeked of flowers—big, stupid bouquets from people who’d never been inside. Letters piled in the foyer. Cards with trembling handwriting. Condolences. Thoughts and prayers. Like anyone inside the house gave a shit what some old church lady from Surrey thought about fate.

Rhys sat in the living room alone. Still in that bloody suit.

He hadn’t changed. Not really sure why. Maybe because he didn’t know what else to wear. Or because the idea of getting undressed felt... wrong. Like they might still come back, and if he wasn’t ready—

He swallowed hard.

The clock on the wall ticked. It wasn’t loud. But it was the only sound in the room, and it made his teeth hurt.

Mor sat beside him on the floor, cross-legged, flipping a gold bracelet over and over in her fingers. She hadn’t said anything since she came in. She hadn’t cried, either.

Her parents were talking with his uncle in the kitchen. Grown-ups whispering. What to do about Rhys. What to do with Rhys.

He already knew.

He’d heard the phone call. Or enough of it.

There was no one. No proper guardian. No one who wanted to rearrange their life for a fourteen-year-old boy with no living family and too many books. His dad’s relatives lived in Wales and didn’t pick up. His mum’s people weren’t an option.

He was going to a council home.

Just like that.

Rich yesterday. Or at least, upper middle-class with a holiday home and a fridge full of orange cordial. Now?

“Did they... do they know where I’m going?” Rhys asked. His voice sounded too calm. It made Mor look up. He almost hated her for it.

“Somewhere in town,” she said after a second. “They said not too far.”

He nodded.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

“I should’ve gone with them,” he muttered.

“Rhys—”

“I should’ve. I was supposed to. Leah wanted me to come.”

“It was just a market run—”

“I always go to the market.”

She didn’t argue. He wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

He could still smell the leather of his dad’s gloves, tossed on the bench. Could still hear Leah's laugh echoing from the kitchen where she’d chased the cat with a paper crown.

He wanted to break something. But the room was too clean. Too glass and china and grown-up. Nothing to shatter without being missed.

“I should’ve—” he started again, but it cracked in the middle.

Mor slid closer. Didn’t hug him. Just sat there until their shoulders touched. She didn’t say it would be okay.

She was smarter than that.

A while later, someone knocked.

He didn’t move.

His aunt stepped in. “Rhys... they’re ready.”

He looked up. His eyes burned. Not from tears—he wasn’t crying. Not here. Not now.

He stood.

The suit still fit.

Origins.

The big house always smelled like lemons. Not fresh ones—just lemon-scented something. Wipes, polish, Mum’s kitchen soap. Azriel didn’t like it. He liked how the school cloakroom smelled, with wet wool and the sharp tang of marker pens.

The kitchen tiles were cold on his bare feet. He had socks once, but they got holes. He didn’t like asking.

Mum was at the table. She wasn’t moving much—just sat there in her bathrobe, staring at the wall. The robe had sunflowers on it, faded now. One sleeve had a tea stain that wouldn’t come out. She clutched her mug in both hands like it was the only thing keeping her together.

He climbed onto the chair across from her.

"You're not dressed," he said.

She blinked slow. Her voice was soft. “Bit tired, love.”

“You didn’t eat.”

“I’m not hungry, Azzy.”

She always called him that. His brothers didn’t. They called him “shit-stain,” or “mistake,” or once, “the bastard with the broken mum.” That one got him punched at school. He didn’t tell.

He looked at her. She was still pretty, he thought. Long hair. Pale skin. She looked like the ladies on the old records in the living room, the ones with sad eyes and red lipstick. She didn’t wear lipstick anymore. She used to.

“Want me to make toast?” he asked.

“No, love. Go play, yeah?”

“Dad’s not here.”

“He’s busy.”

He always was. Politics, the office, the men with suits who came by sometimes and shook hands too hard. Azriel remembered once standing in the hall during a dinner party, listening to the laughter and clinking glasses, and wondering why nobody had noticed he didn’t eat that night.

“I saw Tommy take my books,” he said suddenly.

She blinked again. Slower this time. “What books, baby?”

“The ones for school. He threw ‘em in the fireplace.”

A pause. Something flickered across her face, quick and raw, but then it was gone. She looked away.

“I’ll talk to your father.”

He almost said he won’t listen, but bit the words back. He looked down at his hands. The pinky was still purple from when Tommy slammed it in the drawer last week. By accident, Tommy said. Dad believed it.

"Are you sick?" Azriel asked, very quietly.

Mum didn’t answer for a long time. The silence felt sticky, like the air in the hallway closet. Then she smiled. It was slow and didn’t touch her eyes.

“No. Just tired.”

She looked okay. Tired sometimes. Sad sometimes. But not like his friend Michael’s mum, who had tubes in her nose and stayed at the hospital. She didn’t cough, didn’t limp. She smiled sometimes. She laughed when they listened to jazz records together. She held him like she meant it.

“Okay,” he said.

He slid off the chair. She reached out suddenly, wrapped her arms around him, pulled him into her lap. Her bathrobe was soft and smelled like her—lemon soap, maybe, but sweeter under it.

She held him close and didn’t say anything. Just rocked.

Azriel didn’t move. He didn’t understand it then, not really, but something in her hug felt like goodbye. Not the kind you say when someone goes to work. The bigger kind. The heavy kind.

Later, his brothers came home. Tommy elbowed him in the ribs walking past. Jamie called him a ghost. Dad didn’t say anything.

Mum didn’t come to dinner.

Origins.

The hallway smelled like boiled meat and floor wax. Always did. Cassian knew every crack in the green linoleum, every dead fly caught in the corner cobwebs. He walked it with his fists clenched, head down, feet scuffing as slow as he could manage. If you walked slow, maybe the next hour wouldn't come so quick.

"Oi, Cas!" Alfie shouted from the common room. "You comin’ to footy or what?"

Cassian didn’t answer. Just shrugged, kept walking.

Behind him, Alfie made a noise like a goat being strangled. "Suit yourself, sulker."

He wasn't sulking. He just didn’t want to run around and pretend everything was fine when his stomach still hurt from the rice pudding that tasted like ash, and his left cheek still stung from Miss Keller’s backhand this morning. Talking back, she’d said. Talking too loud.

He hadn't even spoken.

Room 17’s door creaked when he pushed it open. Three bunks, six boys. Two of them were out front. One—the little one with the cough—was asleep with his thumb in his mouth. Cassian flopped onto his bed hard enough to rattle the springs.

He stared at the ceiling.

Paint peeling in a long curl above the light.

He picked at the frayed edge of his jumper sleeve. It used to be red. Now it was… brownish.

Back in whatever-before-this, when there’d been a woman with long dark hair who smelled like cigarettes and always promised she’d come back next week, he'd had a jumper with a robot on it. Or maybe it was a dog. He didn’t remember what the woman’s name was now. He’d stopped saying mum because it didn’t feel like the right shape anymore.

They’d called her a flight risk in the file he wasn’t supposed to see.

That was three homes ago.

The first one had a man with yellow teeth who called him “boy” and never smiled. The second had been better—until the shouting. The third? That one liked locks. Doors with locks on the outside.

Cassian had learned quick: keep quiet, eat fast, don’t cry where they can hear.

Now it was just this. Boys shouting in corridors. Socks that didn’t match. Adults with clipboards who called him “son” but never looked him in the eyes.

The handle turned.

Mr. Jameson stepped inside, tie crooked, shoes muddy.

“There you are.” He looked tired. They always looked tired. “Thought you were outside.”

“Nope.”

The man crossed his arms. “You should play, Cass. Can’t be holed up all the time.”

“I like it here.”

“You like staring at plaster?”

Cassian didn’t answer.

Jameson stepped in further. Sat on the edge of the bunk across from him. “Social worker’s coming Thursday. Said they might’ve found a spot. Couple in Reading.”

Cassian’s stomach twisted.

“Good people, they said. Bit older. No kids.”

He nodded slowly.

“You want that?”

He shrugged.

Jameson studied him for a long second. “You know, most lads your age wouldn’t be this quiet about it.”

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “Most lads don’t get sent back.”

Jameson didn’t deny it.

“I won’t unpack,” Cassian added.

“What?”

“If I go. I won’t unpack.” He kicked his foot lightly against the frame. “Saves time.”

Jameson stared at him, like maybe the weight of it had finally landed.

Cassian wasn’t crying. He hadn’t cried in over a year.

Not when that man slapped him hard enough to make his ears ring. Not when the first foster mum gave his birthday biscuit to the dog. Not even when that one home had locked him in the shed because he’d taken too long to brush his teeth.

But he could still feel it, sometimes. That lump in the throat. Like something was trying to get out but didn’t know how.

“You don’t have to unpack,” Jameson said finally. “Not unless you want to.”

Cassian didn’t nod. Didn’t move. Just pulled his knees up to his chest and watched the plaster peel a little more.

He waited.

Waited for the shouting downstairs to fade.

Waited for the rest of his life to show up.

Claws Chapters TWENTY-SEVEN: Glass Houses. & TWENTY-EIGHT: A Goddamn Gentleman.

Now on AO3.

Authors Note:

OPERATION: NIGHTFALL - Azriel vs. The Secure Customer

Chapter Two now available on AO3.

Velaritech has survived bad inventory days, Black Friday mobs, and that one time someone microwaved crab legs in the breakroom.

But nothing prepared them for: – a Nerf grenade – Pineapple – and a very real arms dealer in aisle eleven

“We’ve got a situation.” “Pineapple?” “Full pineapple.” “PINEAPPLE!” Nesta yells. “Repeat—PINEAPPLE!”

Azriel’s seeing top-secret weapon schematics in his head. The firemen are suspiciously tactical.