wave meet shore /eden+av

Time passes, he doesn't know how much. He watches the lights from outside go out one by one until all that's left is the moon and the tungsten yellow glow of a solitary streetlight.

The room is quiet, just the sound of the heart monitor ticking and Eden's shallow, rattling breaths. Avriel still holds his hand and his fingers aren't cold anymore. He cups heat in his palm and holds it there against Eden's skin. Part of him buzzes still, too vibrant, and he's afraid to let go. When he shuts his eyes, everything could change in an instant and he wouldn't know, so he can't sleep.

Not until it's safe again, not until he's sure that Eden's going to be okay.

Eden's hand tightens on Avriel's as if in response to his thoughts and Avriel smiles a little shakily past the crushing pain of his grip.

Sleep, idiot.

He rests his head against the back of the chair idly, eyes on the light streaking the ceiling and wonders what Eden's voice sounds like, if he even has one. Avriel's never asked about it, it's never come up and it's not like it's polite or whatever.

He shuts his eyes and remembers hanging over open air, Eden's hands wrapped around his wrist, the only thing keeping him from plummeting to his death. His heart had been in his throat, everything had seemed sharp after, the sun too bright, the mountain air so clear that he could almost taste it.

Relief, so intense that it ached.

Maybe Eden's voice sounds a little like that.

His thoughts start to drift further, until it gets hard to hold on so he doesn't. A dream dips and sways, holding him gentle. He dreams he's laying in the bottom of the canoe, the stars above him, the only light in the sky. There's no agony this time, no fear, just Avriel and the canoe and the stars and the tether around his wrist.

A grip so strong that it could shatter him if he let it.

Then a wave comes, motion so sudden and intense that Avriel is pulled out of the canoe– no, the chair– he's being dragged along. Avriel opens his eyes, pulled too soon from the dream's grip, everything in flying colour and so much movement it's confusing. Their hands are no longer interlocked. Eden's body is falling, Avriel rolls to cushion the blow, catching his elbow on his stomach. He breathes sharp as Eden's shoulder hits his chest but doesn't push the other boy off.

For a moment, he just lays there, trying to catch his breath and half-failing. Eden lies half on top of him, half on the floor but the bandage around his chest is still snug, he's safe.

"Hey–" he mumbles but Eden is already moving again, body thrashing in confused panic. His elbow mashes Avriel in the shoulder and digs into the scar from Aspen's spear. A note of panic, black and heavy hits him and tears form in the back of his eyes from the pain but he doesn't get mad.

He wraps his arms around Eden tightly to stop him thrashing, "You're gonna tear your stitches, E," he says, "Stop it, stop moving, I got you, I got you, okay?"

The words have barely left his lips when Eden goes limp on top of him. The back of his head falls against Avriel's neck, his arms fall limp but Avriel doesn't let go. He needs a second to catch up.

The room spins a little, a few moments ago, Avriel was sleeping but it was weird sleeping, it wasn't a nightmare. His dreams aren't always bad to be fair, but most of the time they are. When awake he can recall good memories from the arena too, not like there were all that many, it's just rare for him to dream about anything but the bad times.

He's probably just really tired, his brain can't render the ghosts tonight.

Avriel lays there in silence, Eden on top of him for probably a moment too long. The other boy's foot is propped up on the bed, still attached to the guardrail like he's a criminal. The heart monitor doesn't sound as frantic anymore but Av doesn't need it to know that Eden's calmed down. He can feel his heartbeat on top of him.

There used to be this stray cat that lived on the street Av grew up on in Nine. If you fed it anything it'd come lay on you on sunny days and purr like a little engine. He used to seek that out, the weight and the warmth, it'd always felt safe having that big old tuxedo cat on his chest.

Eden's sort of like that, just a little bigger.

Avriel shifts a little beneath Eden, who makes no attempt to move. It's almost like he can't. Maybe not, he's got to be pumped full of painkillers and the wound probably kills anyway. Avriel sits them both up slowly so that he's now sitting with Eden in his lap, his head still tipped back resting lightly in the crook of Avriel's neck.

Eden isn't all that light, especially like this. "I didn't mean don't move at all," he says quietly, tone mild, "Just be careful, the stitches, y'know?"

It's hard to tell what Eden is thinking when Avriel can't see his face, still he waits for some sort of answer in patient silence.

He rests his chin lightly on the top of Eden's head. Strange to think that less than twelve hours ago, Avriel thought for sure that Eden was dying right in front of him. He'd forgotten that out here, in the real world, no one has to die. A belief that he's been carrying for years now starts to crumble.

Not everything ends in a shallow grave with wild poppies swaying in the breeze.

He's going to have to attempt lifting Eden up into bed in a moment. His body feels slow, too weak, like he's been running a marathon for months now and this is the first moment he's had to sit down.

Could just stay like this though.

He smiles the smallest bit at his own stupid thought. Nothing like spending the night on cold tile, especially when trying to recover from an injury that should have been fatal. He's just got to find his strength long enough to get Eden into bed, shouldn't be too hard.

"Ready?" he asks, but doesn't make any move to get up yet, "You should be in bed."

Maybe just a little longer like this, with Eden safe in his lap and Avriel's body protecting him, the beat of his heart caught in his arms. Avriel shuts his eyes, so tired, content.

Easier to remember that he's okay like this.

Sometimes the things he wants to say get stuck in his throat.

Like when Billie asks him if he's okay because he's sitting on the porch at two in the morning, staring out into the dark with a gun in his lap. The words are there, but they won't come out. Yeah, I'm fine. He hates lying but sometimes it feels like that's all he's ever done.

And Billie doesn't fall for 'I'm fine' anymore.

Eden's mouth opens and closes and Avriel watches his lips, waiting for mouthed words, something, anything that could be more informative than just watching Eden's movements. Nothing comes and a bitter taste rises in his throat like bile. Av bites the inside of his cheek a little and looks away, not wanting Eden to see that. It's not his fault that he can't speak.

It's like Eden can sense how he's feeling or something because then his fingers are against Avriel's cheek, feeling gently. Av's mouth turns up into a small smile and when he looks down at Eden again, the other boy's expression is so open that it's like he can understand exactly what he's thinking. "Yeah," he says gently and places his hand over his on his cheek, "It's me. I... I didn't want to leave you."

Eden's thumb brushes close to his lip and the careful way he touches him makes his eyes well up. Somehow every time Eden touches him and it's kind, it's a shock and Avriel doesn't know why. It shouldn't be so surprising when someone holds him, it shouldn't feel different and new.

But sometimes he still feels nervous being this close to anyone, it brings up the memory of killing Areto lightening quick. His body aches, the scar on his thigh where she stabbed him in the leg burns, it's like breaking all over again. He's never going to be able to forget the easy tear of her skin and the give of her body onto his knife when he stabbed her. It taught him just how easy it was to kill, how he could do it again.

Half of him wants to push Eden away and the other half wants to never let him go, it's confusing as hell.

"I didn't want you to wake up alone," he says after a moment, "Not after that."

Something tells him that Eden is used to being alone and that makes Avriel ache all over because he knows what that's like.

"Here we go then," he says as Eden nods and braces himself against the side of the bed. He pushes off the wall and pulls Eden and himself up with some difficulty. Eden isn't small and if he isn't careful, his stitches could rip open. Avriel has to pause mid-rise just to catch his breath, then he ends up dragging Eden onto the bed nearly on top of him in an effort to get him flat.

Now he's sort of trapped under Eden's weight but moving could mean tearing Eden's stitches. Avriel lays there, trying to think of the best way to extract himself, but the bed is warm. It feels like it's been a very long time since he was this comfortable. Half-stuck under Eden, he can barely move. The other boy's head has ended up on Avriel's arm, his shoulder against Avriel's chest and Avriel on his side, curled around him.

He stares at him for awhile. Still doesn't feel real that he's alive. Part of him wonders if this is just some elaborate nightmare and tomorrow he'll wake up alone on a train speeding back to Nine.

Except Eden breathes against him and Avriel feels his breath on his cheek. He smiles again.

For just a moment it's like he's staring at the warm light of a fire in the pitch-black and he's so tired of limping along. He's so empty, so cold, sometimes he doesn't even know why he's still going. But then there's the flame in the dark and that light gives him so much hope, again and again, he can keep going because it's there, waiting for him.

"Eden-" he starts.

But he doesn't know how to explain any of that to Eden, not to this boy that he's met a handful of times. The words get stuck in his throat and Avriel doesn't know what to say. Maybe there's nothing that needs saying.

Whatever this feeling is, it'll pass.

"You comfortable?" he asks, "I can try getting up."

He's either getting better at understanding Eden, or he's just easier to read when he's injured.

The other boy doesn't speak, but Avriel can still sort of get what Eden wants from him. He moves in closer to Avriel, his head leaving Avriel's arm for his chest, to tuck in so damn neat just under his chin. His arm goes with Eden and Av wraps himself around him like he's the most breakable thing he's ever touched.

Eden is almost fully on top of him again but this time it doesn't hurt as much. This time the mattress beneath him is so soft and Eden is so warm and comfortable, Avriel can feel himself shutting down.

Then he feels a little tug on his sleeve and the weight of Eden's wrist on the back of his hand, holding him in place.

Stay.

It's not like he wants to leave but tomorrow the sun will rise and the train will come to take him back to Nine and Eden back to One. He doesn't want to fall asleep but this time it isn't because of the nightmares, he just doesn't want to miss this.

"Eden," he says, but it's getting hard to hear, wading in waist high water, his tongue gets tangled. Eden's fingers slide down to his wrist and stop there. His fingers are rough, touch comforting. Even though he's already on top of Av, that touch is all he can focus on.

"Eden," he says again softly, but there's nothing else he wants to say. Just his name, that soft, gentle thing, Avriel self soothes, hand turning over slowly to catch his fingers in his.

Eden.

He sinks lower and lower for a long time, then stalls somewhere between being awake and sleep. His body too heavy to move, the room dead silent, something in him hesitates.

Dark and ugly, burning in his chest– Fear.

Then nothing.

A flame in the dark. Avriel moves closer and the light of the fire casts itself over the fronts of the trees standing sentinel in the dark. A little light bobs along the forest floor in front of him, Scout. There's no sound in the woods, no stars in the sky anymore, the world might as well be dead and Avriel with it.

Maybe he is dead.

This might be purgatory.

He gets to the edge of the clearing and looks to the fire where Areto is kneeling, waiting for him. She's hunched over. The flame beside her sparks and flickers and Avriel stands there, waiting. This isn't how the dream normally goes.

Then he sees the blood. A glistening pool in front of Areto, deep dark red shining like an oil slick. "'Reto?" Avriel whispers, but something is wrong. He doesn't remember it being like this. She lifts her head and it isn't Areto, the scene's changed.

Eden smiles at him and blood spills from his mouth. One of Avriel's daggers is sticking out of his gut and suddenly he's not at the clearing edge but kneeling right in front of him, his hand wrapped around the handle of the knife, pushing the blade into Eden's stomach.

No!

His eyes fly open and Avriel's grip tightens a little around Eden's fingers. It takes all his concentration to calm his breathing down enough to not wake Eden up. Stupid of him, so fucking stupid of him to think that it was safe to sleep, that Eden's presence could keep the dreams away.

Foolish to forget that he's poison.

His breath catches between his mouth and his lungs, pockets of air form and slide away between each other, tectonic plates, he's uneven again. Avriel's gaze is trained on the shitty foam and plaster ceiling tiles and he's certain that he's awake so then why is the pool of blood blooming above his head? Blood seeping through the living room ceiling and his parents above his head, bleeding out but he doesn't know it yet.

Burning cherry pie mixed with the last few embers of a campfire and the weight of Areto against his chest but crisp spring morning coming in through the open doors and windows. The sound of a cannon, Areto's last breath in his ear and the feeling that ran up his arm as his knife pushed through skin then tissue then muscle.

Areto so heavy on his shoulder, Eden so heavy on his chest, the knife in his hand and the blade through Eden's chest, no, the blade through Areto's chest? Everyone staring at him as he kneels there in the ring holding Eden bleeding out and everyone staring at him as he kneels there in the woods with Areto dead on his shoulder. It all clicks together, dragging his mom wrapped in the hallway rug through the woods in Nine and running through empty halls with Eden in his arms. Blade's head in his lap on the beach and Areto's head on his shoulder and Aspen leaning against him on the beach as the sun rose, it all happened the same.

Everybody dies except him.

And his heart in the dark, it is going to crawl up his throat and leave him. The bed starts to fall away beneath him, the weight on his chest becomes overbearing and his hands, so weak, they tense to push it away. A rhythm, so steady that it doesn't apply to him anymore pushes against his own frantic beat. A hand, tightens around his wrist as if to drag him back down.

Into the dirt, into the grave.

Avriel's awake but he isn't present. There are too many other spaces to be and sometimes a house isn't haunted but the person living within it is.

Areto plunges a knife into his leg and pulls his blade into her chest in the same motion. The cannon to mark her death turns into a drum beat against his skin, steady and resolute and so slow against his own.

Boom.

He gasps for air in the dark but the ceiling is so low that he can't raise his head above water anymore.

Boom.

Then a hand around his, a line drawn over the back of it and three more little lines, over and over. Blood falls from the ceiling and drips onto his forehead. It slides into his hair and over his face until he can't see anymore. Grave dirt piled on his skin, he's laying in the hole that was dug for him when he was reaped and Isabelle shovels above him.

Pity.

Pity, pity, pity how it all ends up the same.

A line drawn over the back of his hand and three more little lines, over and over. The pencil finger is warm, it's a letter. There's that beat again, slow and steady, discordant to Avriel's but that doesn't work. It needs to be the same. He tries to match himself to it and at first he can't, but a pocket of air breaks, he lets it out in one long, slow breath.

The line drawn across the back of his hand again, slower, easier to read. Three more lines.

An 'E', it's an 'E'.

Eden.

"Eden?" he whispers.

His breath stops in his throat one last time.

On his chest in the dark, a little broken but alive, no blade through his chest anymore. Avriel lays there in silence until their breathing is the same. Light spills in through the windows. A gull cries as it flies overhead and Eden smells like sweat and blood and a little bit like salt water from the air in Four.

Shame falls over him like a shroud.

"I should have known. I'm-" he starts but it feels false. It feels like a lie forming and Avriel has lied so much to so many people in the last couple years. Eden's never seemed to believe any of them.

"Thank-you."