between the shadow & the soul /av + e [95th]

"though I burn, how could I fall
when I am lifted, by every
word you say to me?"

Don't ask.

He already knows about Irene. He heard Eden at the door last night.

Please don't ask me. I don't want to talk about it.

Avriel always does better in the peripheral.

All eyes on him's never suited him. Something about the shadow that he casts feels too large, people make their own stories up and he becomes this thing that he's never claimed to be.

Av's only a victor in the sense that he survived, but it never felt like winning, he's never felt that triumph, just the fall from the pedestal that always comes after.

And no one's there for that, nobody wants to be.

Except for one person.

For him, Avriel unfolds, pieces of himself visible for a brief time in the light cast by Eden's gaze. There's an unfurling that lasts, spanning first days at a time, then weeks, now years. He's different now, different than before, from the boy with his knees to his chest and Aspen's dying breathes on his neck sitting in the sand.

Sometimes he can sleep through the sunrise even, because he's less afraid of missing it.

Av leans forward slightly.

His heels are planted on the edge of the railing, eyes shut, the wind runs ribbons through his hair. Breakfast is cold on a table behind him, under the silver dome of a monogrammed cloche. He told them he didn't need it, "Just coffee, thanks," but what he's wanted never seemed to matter to anyone in the Capitol. They only ever see what he should be.

There's warmth on his cheeks, Av opens his eyes to the sun climbing up from behind a skyrise.

The tight feeling in his chest loosens up. His foot shifts back on the railing. Should have known, but he never really does.

It breaks something inside, the first time you wake up in the dark, and you can't know what that's like before it happens. You think you know, but you don't. You just stop having faith in the smallest of things and building that trust again is gruelling.

He's never known how to explain that to anyone, how some of his worst dreams are just the ones where he's waiting for the sun to rise and it never does.

Feels weird to say out loud that he's scared of the dark.

Footsteps on gravel.

Avriel opens his eyes, shifts his feet back away from the edge and waits, nerves spiking. It's not fear, it's not like that with him. Eden's proximity just still gives him the strangest feeling, like there's a current under his skin.

"How long have you been up here?"

He leans back into his boyfriend, his body warm to Avriel's wind-kissed skin. Scout chirps from inside Eden's hoodie pocket, then wiggles out to go investigate the scent coming off the lukewarm bacon on the table.

Avriel's neck finds Eden's shoulder and he turns his head slightly to give his cheek a soft kiss.

"Awhile," he says, "Two coffees in."

His father's wristwatch is still on the bedside table.

The rings are in his pocket though.

"Sleep okay?" he asks, but he knows already there were interruptions. It's par for the course when sleeping beside him. "Good sunrise, lots of orange," he says, "The fade from dark blue was kinda stunning."

He straightens then and slips a hand into the pocket of Eden's hoodie to warm it up.

"Made me miss you."

"though I burn, how could I fall
when I am lifted, by every
word you say to me?"

He's always been fairly independent.

Or maybe it's more like this: Avriel grew up believing that strength was measured in how much you could carry on your own. At first, it was easy to hold the things that he was handed but as time went on, these things grew in size and weight to the point of it being impossible for anyone to bear all of it alone. The longer he held onto these things though he learned that it was better to suffer in silence, than to ask anyone for help.

It takes bravery to let others in. Av's always figured though that he's not brave at all, he's a coward.

"You can show me the next one."

I want to show you all of them.

He knows he can say it out loud, but Avriel only smiles softly and pushes his fingers up against Eden's inside the hoodie pocket until they hook over his. He's got to let Eden sleep in the morning. He still remembers the nights he'd wake up and the other boy would just be sitting in the doorframe to his bedroom, guarding him against the dark.

Feels like another life sometimes.

"Tomorrow then," he nods.

But the better sunrises are at home, where the sky rises don't get in the way and the neon signs aren't there to try and steal the sun's glory. So maybe when they get back to nine too.

It takes him a moment to realise; the question's not there anymore, it hasn't been for a long while. The nagging one at the back of his mind, that likes to ask, just when is Eden going to leave me?

It's alright still if he does, but he won't. Avriel knows he won't. If he does, because the weather is fine and he feels like flying, then Av knows that he'll come back to him eventually.

Same for him.

He doesn't really know what hostas are.

Everything that Avriel's ever done has always been for survival, the only plants he knows are the ones that are useful to him, the things that he can eat. It's Eden who somehow knows the nice things, all those fancy gardens at the Le Roux mansions, he guesses, doesn't really matter.

It's the meaning behind all of it. The way he says 'this year' because there'll be a next one and a one after that.

Avriel leans into his shrug, he's shaking, it's the caffeine and the poor sleep and the rings in his pocket burning a hole through the denim. It's the aftertaste of coffee on his tongue and the empty pieces of his brain all scrambling to form a sentence he's been trying to put together since the day Eden wrapped his hand around Avriel's wrist and saved him from falling with those slipping rocks.

"I could build it a fence," he offers lightly, "Got some chicken wire leftover from the veggie garden."

He can feel Eden's thumb across the back of his hand, running up and down. The motion is soothing and he stands there in it for a long while, little waves of nervous excitement bumping his brain against the sides of his skull. He turns to face Eden and then Av slips his other hand into the pocket and wraps it around the both of theirs. The sun rises a little higher.

"Thanks for coming to find me," he whispers.

But he doesn't mean this morning.

He means before.

"though I burn, how could I fall
when I am lifted, by every
word you say to me?"

The moment is slipping away.

He knows this feeling so well, the slide of the seconds hand around the clock's surface, moving too quick for his tongue to keep up. Every time he's got something big to say, he always lets the passage of time take it from him. It's easier to do that, let the moment pass, it's safer.

There's fear bubbling now too with the nervousness, this feeling of the ground crumbling beneath his feet again, trying to take him with it- Eden's nose bumps against his, "Someone has to keep an eye on you," he answers. Avriel's heart is so big and heavy that it tries to crawl out of him through his throat.

"I-"

Eden's attention is pulled away from him. Avriel backs off the littlest bit, wincing briefly at the sound. Eden stays with him, moves in close enough to rest his head on his shoulder. The weight of him is barely anything but his hand loosens on Eden's, the moment of fear gone. It's just Scout. Eden doesn't say it like that. It's just how Av hears it.

He laughs against Avriel's neck and the movement shakes the both of them.

"I love that," he says quietly.

Every time Eden laughs it's another sunrise.

He pulls his hands out of Eden's pockets, balled up tight to hide the shake. Av puts one on Eden's waist. He shoves the other one into his pocket and lets out a shaky sigh.

Scout leaves them.

"I think about it a lot, you know? It surprised me the first time I ever heard that," he whispers. Can't even remember now what he'd done or said to make Eden laugh out loud for the first time, it'd just happened in the same way a spark off his soldering iron flickers in and out like lightening. "All I remember thinking is wanting to make you laugh again. Even now, I'm thinking, how do I make that happen again?"

There's a shake in his voice he can't rid himself of, it feels like his heart is beating too fast, so fast it wants to give in and he knows this feeling. First time it happened was in his parent's bed room, iron, burnt, cut grass.

"Almost missed it," he catches himself with a shuddering breath, "I almost missed getting to meet you, I almost missed that laugh, I-?" His voice tilts in a way he doesn't want it to and he has to stop talking. He has to press his forehead into Eden's shoulder and wait for the trees in the planters to the left of them to stop growing. His grips tightens on Eden's waist, too tight, he's holding too tight. He knows that, and Eden knows that, his hand pressed hard against Avriel's chest in answer knows that too.

They wait for it to pass together.

"Please just, let's stay in this for just a sec," he says, "There's something I need to-" This moment, he's been trying to get here for so many years now, he doesn't want to lose it. He's always held on too tight. Everything he was ever meant to let go of has never left him, everything he tried his hardest to keep worked even harder to get as far from him as it could.

But not Eden, not him, not ever.

"This feeling, this... this thing it's like a physical part of me, I can't explain it," he says. Avriel leans back, his hand leaving Eden's waist to cup his cheek, "It's yours? You know? It's the part of me that's you and I don't know anymore." He shakes his head, mouth trembling against a smile that's trying so hard to be brave, "I just don't know anymore where you begin and I end and I never want to figure that out."

The tremor is gone now, his tone smooth. Out loud it still doesn't make much sense, that's okay. Eden'll understand.

"Looking at you, I know why I'm here," he says quietly, "And why I stay."

His thumb finds the curve of his cheekbone and slides under his eye, then back. Again. Touching him is being held. He gazes at Eden, then raises his other hand between them, a bridge between their chests.

"I finished these about a week after I told you I loved you that first time," he says. His hand doesn't open though. For a long moment, they stand there in silence, so close that Avriel's hand on Eden's cheek is his cheek. Av tips his forehead lightly against Eden's; against his.

"But I've loved you from the very start, I think" he says, "From that first five minutes, when I met you on that balcony, remember? That's the first time I ever had to leave you."

He's not scared anymore, of hurting Eden. The nightmares will probably never go away but neither will Eden and neither will his hand reaching out in the dark to find him, to anchor him. There'll always be a way back.

"I hated that. Every time after too. And then I realized something."

His hand finally unfolds. Two hammered circles of gold sit small and shining in the centre of his callused palm, polished by the years spent side by side in Avriel's pocket. A small star with eight extensions is carved into one, it's twin bevelled on the other, fitting perfectly together.

"If we were married, we'd never have to say goodbye again."

"though I burn, how could I fall
when I am lifted, by every
word you say to me?"

His feelings have always been these big, unwieldy things. Too difficult to carry on his own so he'd just lay them back down where he found them, like they could stay like that. It wouldn't work, they'd just fester slowly, getting darker in the sun, curling in on themselves until they became something sharper. From time to time, he'd pick them up again and try to ignore the way they cut him. The secret would be there though on his palms, plain as day.

By the time Eden came along, he was so used to living like that he didn't know there was another way to be.

He didn't know that he could give himself time, he could feel the things he needed to.

Avriel closes his hand over the rings.

"Hmm," he hums softly.

Eden's gone away from him. So close that he can feel his shallow breaths on his cheek, but gone further than Avriel can follow at the same time.

He slips the rings back into his pocket. He's never been good at timing. Knowing what to say and when has always been a riddle he's never understood. This time though he knows he's gotten it right. It's not that.

His feelings are too much. Sometimes their overflow can hurt people, except he knows it isn't that either. This just happens sometimes with Eden, it always has, even before he started talking.

There's a cramp in his arm from the way he was holding the rings for so long. He shakes it out a little. The pain is a rubber thing, soft on the edges and it's gone in seconds.

Then he folds his left hand over Eden's right, his other rests on the small of Eden's back.

The offer isn't off the table, he just needs both hands right now.

Avriel pulls Eden in close, until his boyfriend's chin rests on his shoulder and their bodies are pressed against each other. He knows that Eden needs to feel it, Avriel's heart beating against his. He starts to hum softly, this old song his mother used to play on their scratchy old record player on sunny afternoons. His hand on Eden's back slides up and down, and they stay like that, swaying slowly back and forth.

That's what love looked like to Avriel when he was a kid.

He was lucky to have a mother and father that loved each other, lucky to know what it felt like to be loved so that when Eden holds him he knows without knowing. The kid who grew up dirt poor in Nine's projects could never have imagined any of this. When he was little, Av had thought he'd go to school and then graduate into a factory job like his parents. He had a vague idea that he'd meet someone and have his own family one day but even then he didn't believe it for himself.

He felt different even then, like there was something wrong with him but he couldn't quite put his finger on it ever.

It just always felt like he was kind of just there, but not necessary for anyone. That feeling only got worse as he grew older, no matter how loud he was or how quiet, it never mattered. It was like everyone else had just been born with the right script and the things they needed to fit in. For Avriel, Sometimes it felt like he was standing behind a glass wall, watching life go on from his place on the sidelines.

He convinced himself that he was better on his own, that it was easier.

But he'd watch his father dance his mother around the living room from his spot at the kitchen table and feel this tight little sadness in his chest over the understanding that he'd never have that.

Overtime that sadness just became a dull ache, a feeling he got so used to that he hardly recognised it as pain anymore. He grew older, life twisted him all up in ways he hadn't been designed to be. He became a liar then a killer, finally a victor. For a long stretch of time, Av made himself believe that he felt nothing at all.

Then he'd met Eden and the ache had come back, but it was okay, Eden could see it somehow. He put his hand over the place it'd always lived and he promised to plant flowers, even if the deer came to eat them, he'd still try.

All Avriel had ever wanted was for someone to look at him and just see him for once, nothing else.

Every single time Eden looks at him, with every touch, Avriel knows he is seen for exactly what he is and he is still loved.

"I've got you too, E" he whispers, hand moving up to cup the back of Eden's head, to push his fingers into his feather-soft hair, "Always."

"though I burn, how could I fall
when I am lifted, by every
word you say to me?"

It's the laughter first, then the movement that comes next. Eden's fingertips dancing along his spine, brushing across the back of his neck, Avriel's heart flutters with his touch. It's always trying to keep up.

His mouth is dry.

He thought he'd gotten past the nervousness but it's still there, it was just waiting for Eden to come back to him. It's wound itself tight around his throat, his jaw is tight from the strain of holding it at bay but it's not going away. There's a blooming under his skin, always there, luminescent when stirred up in the way it is now.

Maybe it's not nerves, maybe it just feels like earlier, when his toes were hanging off the edge of the rooftop to a fall stories below. Standing here, well away from the edge with Eden in his arms, he feels that same strange rush of energy coursing through him.

He's hanging out over the edge of a precipice, stories and stories waiting for him below but there's no danger in it. It's just the rest of their lives, waiting.

Av isn't afraid of falling, he's never wanted anything more.

"Ask me properly."

He makes a strangled sound, halfway between laughter and pain. What an idiot, he forgot about the question, easy enough to do though when the answer's already been given a hundred times over.

And isn't that just another yes anyway?

The blooming intensifies, the shake in his hands is back as Avriel steps away from Eden again. There's a thing you're supposed to do here, kneel maybe, have a little box to pop open or something. Maybe he should have gotten champagne, anything more than just his own hand with calluses so thick from manual labour that they almost shine.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," he says lightly, but there's a whisper of fear laced into his tone so tightly that the tremor shows itself. Eden could always say no.

If the sun can choose not to rise then Eden can still say no.

Avriel slides his good foot back, the other sluggish in its response after being near still for so long. Carefully, he gets down on one knee, hand wrapping itself in Eden's pant leg for better balance, "I-"

He looks up.

There's a halo of light enveloping Eden's head. The sun's moved far enough to creep directly behind him, warm rays hold him, folding around his skin and laying down golden morning light on his cheekbones, on his shoulders, cresting off the top of his head.

For a moment, Avriel can't speak, he can only look at him.

His heart is in his mouth. It's taking up every space left.

"I can't imagine my life without you," he says, then a tear slips down his cheek, betraying him. Avriel wipes it away quickly, "I mean I can and it's bad, I'd take the sun never rising tomorrow over that."

He could live in the dark again if it meant he got Eden, he could do it. He'd forfeit tomorrow's sunrise and every one after. The thing is, he knows now, Love doesn't have to mean one thing or the other.

Avriel can have both.

"So-" he starts, then stops. "Fuck I'm so bad at this," he mutters.

Avriel slips his fingers back into his pocket and finds the ring with a bevelled star by touch. The metal is smooth and near soft from the years in his pocket and the hours spent carefully making it. There was never a question of 'maybe' when it came to Eden. There was only ever going to be 'always' for Avriel.

His hand isn't so steady anymore as he holds the ring in his palm, knuckles curled over it, the gold glinting dimly through the gaps in his fingers.

"E," he near whispers. Avriel looks up at him again then, at those eyes that have always looked him over so carefully and seen past all his sharp pieces to find a way in to love him. The tremor in his hand slows to a stop but the falling feeling stays. Av hopes that it never goes away.

"You know I'm already yours," he says, and takes Eden's hand gently in his free one, his thumb sliding slowly over the back of it once. "But will you marry me anyway?" he opens his hand and the ring lies flat on his palm, shining brightly in the sunlight.