The sun hadn't yet crested the eastern hills when Jett made his way to the breaking corral, boots crunching through frost-stiff grass. His c...

“So,” Caius says, sharp as a snapped quill, “unless you have a very good reason for interrupting me—shoo.”

“Walk with me,” he said; not command, not request, but something in between. “If you have the time.”

It was the pale gold of curiosity, the color of a hesitant dawn. He willed it to be a steady, impressive glow of a confident and dominant male, but it flickered with his nervous heartbeat. ...

“You know, sweetheart, I don’t pay for your revives and potions to watch you fold like paper.”

Canalave is a city of steel and saltwater, where noth...

They weren’t disruptive. They weren’t loud. If anything, they moved through the apartment in a way that unsettled him more for how easily it tugged at his attention.

“You’ve got a real talent for making my job hell.”

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“Did we... y’know? Birds-and-the-bees it up?"

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“I was running my mouth, huh?” A crooked grin. “Shocker.”

✦•···········...

She had timestamps, footage, a motion log. Half of it was automated. It didn’t even feel invasive anymore—it just was. Like watching the weather.

...

“You ever sit through a storm like this when you were a kid? When everything goes out and you just... sit there. Nothing to do but count the seconds between lightning and thunder.”

“I—hi— —hi—I wasn’t— , it’s not even that spicy, I swear!”

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Maybe they were watching. Maybe they weren’t. He wasn’t going to look too long in case he found out which it was.

...

“Seriously. You just flung half a bar at me. The least you can do is help contain the damage.”

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“I don’t expect it will be like that again. The first time never repeats itself quite the same.”

✦•················•✦...

“Here. Just, like, ignore the top part. That’s—whatever.”

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“They’re mine, yeah? I'd rather play without some fat getting handsy with the leftovers.”

✦•··············...

The first time he felt their name echo through the Lattice, incomplete and raw, it had caught in him like a thorn under chitin. It hadn’t let go since.

“I kept dropping my fork because you kept licking that spoon like a fucking menace. My menace. Mine.”

He looked at them finally. Just looked. Just to let them see what was already understood. His eyes flicked once toward the puppy, then back again.

He'd told himself, again, it was concern. That the member was still new to the choir. Young. Susceptible to influence. There was nothing wrong with vigilance.

“I don’t suppose you’d mind terribly if I bled on your floor a while?”

✦•··········...

“Okay, yeah, I went full rom-com. Mock me now or forever hold your peace.”

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“I thought he might come in late, like always. Half-drunk and grinning. Jacket inside out.”

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“I should’ve deleted it,” he admitted, low and hollow. “I should’ve known better. I just...”

“You know, you could at least pretend to be impressed. I don’t do charity cases often.”

Everyone in the band knew what it meant when someone called after midnight. Nothing good ever followed the buzz of that line.

He didn’t know how to be safe. He didn’t know how to be clean. But he did know how to love. That part was easy.

"Hey, loser! Wakey, wakey!"

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"Maybe the dishes can wait until tomorrow..." he murmured, voice rough with the kind of longing that always came from her mere presence. "My papers, too."

“It’s binding, if you accept it. But if not... I’ll just ask again tomorrow. And the next night. And the next. Until the stars agree with me.”

He wanted to tell them he watched the way they looked at the stars. That he remembered every sticker on their lighter. That their laugh made the whole room feel easier to breathe in.

They looked like summer. Like warmth. Like trouble. Fucking trouble.

✦•···...

He had not wanted lineage. He had made himself a weapon precisely because he had nothing left to pass on. No kin. No peace. No softness.