golden hour /avriel post 92nd

A week passes.

And part of him still exists in that night. It’s not rare for pieces of him to go missing, he’s made a habit out of losing himself at this point. It’s just strange to lose so much all at once.

Avriel sits there in the early morning chill of summer bending its knee to autumn. His hands rest open on his knees as if in offering but there’s no one there to receive it. Eden is back down the garden path up the stairs and in the house. He’s sleeping. Good for him.

Sleep has only gotten harder for Avriel. He shuts his eyes and he’s too much in the dark. He’s back at the party, surrounded by people in pig masks and a condescending voice laying it on thick. The knife is back in his hand and instead of the Capitolite it’s Eden choking on his own blood at his feet.

He shudders, cold all of a sudden and squeezes his hands too tightly into fists. One of the hens struts in through the open door of the workshop and then pretends to lose interest as she notices Scout standing on the end of the work bench. She turns slowly and goes back out into the yard.

His fists loosen and Avriel stares down at his open hands again, at the calluses on his palms just where the fingers join and the hardness of them from trying to hold on to things too tight.

He can’t decide if the darkness in the crevices of his nails is motor oil or blood.

Possibly both.

Hinges squeal.

Avriel looks up and Eden’s across the garden, standing in the back door. His hair is messy, kind of flat on one side from resting on a pillow. His arms are crossed against the cold and he looks like he must have woken up only minutes ago.

They stare at each other for a long moment. It’s still a little tender, everything between them. They’ve been living together for awhile already but it turns out things really do change when you say something like ”I love you,” to someone. It’s a little like a reset, a little bit not.

He doesn’t regret saying it but he does know now how unfair it was. It was like finally figuring out how to stand and then trying to sprint on fresh legs in the next moment, he doesn’t know how the fuck to be in love.

"Morning,” he says finally with a nod of his head.

Avriel lays an arm casually over the work bench in front of him, trying his best to make it look natural. There’s a solder hidden by his sleeve and when he pulls his hand back across the wood, he scrapes two bits of gold into his lap.

"Sorry, I couldn’t sleep, I-” Avriel falters as Eden walks through a gauntlet of flowers towards him and then through the open double doors of his workshop. The sun lays heavy still on the horizon behind Eden, cutting past him and foiling his angles in gold. He can’t remember what he was going to say.

Eden stops just in front of him, gaze turning to fall on the near-empty coffee mug beside Avriel on the bench. His finger finds the rim of it and Avriel watches, mesmerised as he dips a finger in to test how long Av’s been awake.

But Avriel knows it became undrinkable twenty minutes ago. He drops his gaze when Eden looks back up at him, a hand tightening around the strips of metal he’d secreted into his lap only moments before. A hand finds his chin slowly, tugging gently to make Avriel look at him again.

There’s this disapproving look on Eden’s face. Same kind of one that was on it four years ago when he wanted Avriel to go back inside because it was too cold on the balcony.

Eden’s thumb slides from Avriel’s chin to the line of his jaw, then back again.

”The chickens wanted feeding,” he tries, there’s a tremor in his voice though and it gives him away.

But it’s hard to hide nightmares like Avriel’s.

Eden’s hand drops from his chin and Avriel leans forward, letting his forehead fall against Eden’s chest. His shirt smells like sleep, dregs of it still cling to the both of them. Eden’s hand finds the back of Avriel’s head, and he holds him in place, cradling him.