lovely, dark & deep /eden + avriel

Eden's been staring at the back of Avriel Baptiste's head for about thirty-three minutes now.

"Don't lose him." Eurydice had said before they left, so Eden's determined not to.

He keeps six paces between them on the trail. Something rustles in the underbrush and Eden's head snaps, hackles rising quicker than steam. But then Avriel takes another step, and there are suddenly seven paces between them so Eden has to jump back to attention and close the gap.

He still looks over his shoulder at the bush, just briefly.

He's uneasy here. In the green. His room at the compound didn't even have a window.

Echo had said that Nine was all factories and stink and Eden had seen that when they'd gotten off the train, sure, but he thought the whole place would be like that - not just the bits with the buildings. Maybe it's like One and how everyone else thinks it's beautiful and grand. But Eden's only ever seen the underbelly of the District, and he'd hardly call the dirty streets and the rundown shops grand.

He's not completely sure why he's in Nine, but he goes wherever Eurydice goes, and she's on mayoral duty, which means Eden is on victoral duty. He doesn't understand why Eurydice wants so badly to get on Baptiste's good side, maybe she just wants Eden to get some dirt on him, but he knows enough to not question it.

At least Avriel isn't hostile. And the quiet here is nice, it seems to amplify every little sound that's foreign to him, makes his muscles ache from being so tense, but it's better than being stuck in another one of the Le Roux cabinet meetings.

He's focusing on the back of Avriel's head, on the soreness of his joints, when the bird swoops. He recoils immediately as the wings graze his head, actually yelping, eyes wide, arms locked, half crouched in the middle of the path.

Eden can practically hear his bones creaking as he holds himself still, frozen like a fawn.

For a brief moment, all he can see is the birds and their wings, flapping around him like some kind of feathered storm cloud. They make a horrible sort of noise that grates against his ears and surrounds him on all sides and he's kneeling in the pit and there's fighting all around him and there's fourteen voices crying out and then it's gone.

Eden opens his eyes - he didn't even know they'd been closed. And there's Avriel, standing further up the path staring at him, hand a little outstretched. And there's a pebble, sitting innocently by Eden's shoe. And there's the birds, spiralling upwards and away, their awful noise echoing into the trees.

Echo, Eden thinks a little dumbly. He suddenly misses her.

But Avriel is still there, just looking at him, asking if he's alright, and Eden awkwardly straightens, moving a little too fast to be natural, and he focuses on a point over Avriel's shoulder to avoid looking at him directly. He makes a little go on motion, feels the back of his neck heat up because he'd just been bested by a bunch of birds? If his sisters ever heard that, they'd hold it over him for the rest of his life.

When Avriel turns back around, Eden picks up the rock he'd thrown and slips it in his pocket. Just in case.

Avriel keeps going down the path and Eden takes a big inhale. He feels a little bit like an exposed nerve, all raw and leaning.

Whatever that means.

He feels cowed but he doesn't know why. He's embarrassed for himself. The gravel crunches under his feet when Eden follows - six paces, but it stops when Avriel stops, sudden enough to be jarring. Eden waits for him to keep going, to keep the distant, but he doesn't. He just stays there.

He moves forward eventually, gingerly almost, making his way down the path one step at a time. He comes to stop behind Avriel and peers over his shoulder to where he's crouched over a cluster of weird looking rocks. He starts picking them up, and Eden watches, confused.

Maybe he's gathering more pebbles to use against the birds. Echo didn't say that the flocks in Nine were especially vicious, but that feels like something important she should've told him. Eden leans a little closer while Avriel collects the rocks. His hand falls to the one he put in his pocket, thumb smoothing over it. He'll need more if the birds come back, then.

But Eurydice said not to let Avriel out of his sight, and so he can't. He doesn't.

Avriel eats one of the rocks. Eden stares at him.

He calls it a mushroom, and sure that's fine, but giving a rock a name doesn't mean it's suddenly food. You don't see them eating gravel, do you?

Avriel splits the one he's holding and offers it, and Eden just kind of stares at him some more before taking it. He holds it carefully and waits until Avriel’s finished his half, watching his face in case he decides to turn purple and stop breathing. This doesn't seem natural. The rock squishes when Eden pinches it between two fingers and he blinks at Avriel again, who is still standing, not poisoned.

Ok then.

Eden pops it in his mouth and waits for something horrible to happen. His face screws up as he chews but he still keeps chewing. He’s the last person to waste food, no matter how disgusting it is. And he does hate this a little bit, whatever this is, this mushroom. It coats his tongue unpleasantly and squeaks against his teeth like a rat caught in a trap.

There's a little bit of betrayal when he looks at Avriel then, a little what-the-fuck-was-that-have-I-been-pranked? He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and decides, very firmly, that he doesn't like mushrooms.

It's a little strange to have likes and dislikes now. It's strange to be a person instead of a number.

Doesn't make the rocks taste any better, though.

Avriel laughs at him, and Eden feels like he should be offended but he isn't. He just ate a gross rock. He probably deserves to be laughed at.

Besides, he doesn't mind the sound.

He's still getting used to people using his name - the name he picked out for himself. He doesn't remember who he was before he was 12, but Steel does. She doesn't talk about it. He knows, objectively, that they had names before they had numbers, but they wouldn't mean anything to him now. Eden is something he chose. It was his first choice after the move. That's what means something to him now.

Avriel holds out his hand but Eden just stands up on his own, barely taking the offer into account. He can move on his own, can't he? He stiffens a little, suddenly wondering if Avriel thinks he's weak. Is that what this is? Eurydice sent him along with the victor to watch him, and now he's being laughed at and coddled and another bird screeches somewhere deeper in the woods, loud enough that it carries across the trees.

He's not used to being treated gently and so his body seems to reject it. He shrugs a little when Avriel wants to keep going, focusing on his shoulder instead of his eyes.

They exist in silence and it's kind of nice how Avriel doesn't feel the need to constantly fill it.

He loves his sister, but she needs to the noise. Eden will sit on his own and watch the rain fall onto the sidewalk and then Echo will fall beside him, talk about her day or her night or play her music loud enough that Eden feels it in his bones. His paperback will crease under the force of his fingers, but Eden will stay there with her until she's done.

Echo will fall asleep eventually, and the Eden's ears will stop ringing, and then they're fine.

The mushroom taste is still in his mouth.

Avriel keeps walking and now there's five paces between them.

Eden doesn't have enough experience to be afraid of heights so he just sort of looks down the cliff face when they come to it, passive, but still reaching. It's kind of nice to be out in the open like that actually. It isn't suffocating like the compound had been, the air comes easier. He puts his feet where Avriel does, two paces between them now so Eden can see where to go.

He feels Avriel fall before he sees it. Maybe it's just his reflexes, or his intuition, but it's like the whole forest inhales at once. The silence changes pitch, like something's shocked it.

Eden moves faster than his mind can keep up with - two paces forward, knees in the dirt, hand down, he grabs Avriel's wrist with one hand and his forearm with the other, holding him up above the drop.

There's one tense moment where they just look at each other, Eden down at Avriel, Avriel up at Eden - it's like that balcony again, where they'd been at a frozen standoff, the air between them still and waiting. Then Eden pulls back and brings Avriel back up to the ledge slowly.

His chest is pounding strangely, like he's just run a long distance too quickly. Eden stands up and Avriel gets pulled with him, Eden doesn't know what he's doing with his hands, they're just there around Avriel's arm. There's less than a pace between them now, and something in Eden's brain screams at that so he lets go of Avriel abruptly and takes a step back up the path.