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

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

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

The healing isn't linear.

And the drug fades from his body slow. Eden's there through it, like he is always. Av wakes up in the night and Eden's hand wraps around his, thumb moving gently up and down across the back of it. "Was running," he murmurs.

"As long as you come back."

He shakes his head, "That's where I was running to."

Wherever Eden is, that's where he's always going.

When he falls back asleep, Avriel laces their fingers together and stays there beside him, thoughts swirling still, but shared now, held.

He's less scared of himself now that he knows how much Eden isn't. The fear that was holding him back so tightly has eased its grip and there's a lightness to him that should have come ages ago, but never did.

Sometimes he needs to be told that he's okay, his own voice doesn't work like it should. He needs Eden's voice, soft and sweet in his ear and he has it, without even asking. Like how Eden will always have his.

Like how his hand in Eden's, it belongs to Eden.

Eden's side against his, is his.

It all seems so simple but trying to say it out loud in a way that makes sense, that doesn't sound so possessive, gets hard. The concept becomes less clear and he just doesn't know anymore what he's trying to say. He has to think longer. He needs to talk to someone about it.

He wants to talk to Billie about it.

For the last five years, he's wanted to talk to her about so many things. She's gone though, in a way that feels permanent. If she can't forgive him in five years, she probably never will and maybe he doesn't need that anymore anyway. Maybe he never did.

She's the one who left.

He'd wanted to leave first but he didn't. Even killed three people to get home, three people who were so alive, who wanted to go home too.

He destroyed himself just to get back to her and Duke only to watch them walk away from him and that wound's still bleeding.

But Eden turns in his sleep and places his palm flat against it, as if he knows exactly where it is under Avriel's skin.

Av thinks that he might lose himself in it one day, the love he has for Eden, like a snake that devours its own tail or the endless turning of a stripped screw.

It doesn't scare him anymore, the idea of giving into that and becoming something else. Whatever that is, Eden will be there through it and he will always, always love Avriel.

He rolls onto his side and pulls his boyrfriend into his chest, burying his face in his neck until sleep finally takes him once again.

In the morning, Scout rattles its head on the side table in sharp little intervals. It's mimicking the sound of an old rotary alarm clock Avriel found in a scrap heap in Nine and then refurbished. The victor's hand finds the kodama's round little head and presses down lightly, stopping the rattling as abruptly as it started. Scout chirps and reaches up to hug Avriel's hand so that when he pulls it back, the mutt comes with it.

It's too early for Eden to wake up but Scout knows Avriel's schedule better than its own.

Six in the morning means it's time to get up and make coffee, feed the chickens and start the day. That's how things go back home in Nine at least and as far as Scout is concerned, anywhere Avriel is, is home.

Scout lands on the blankets and rolls to a stop at Eden's feet. The kodama curls up there, hugging its knees, large blank eyes staring up the bed at Avriel.

Av stares back at it.

Eventually, he disentangles himself from Eden and gets dressed. His thoughts are moving slowly in the morning's weak light but he still remembers to find yesterday's pants on the floor. He checks the front pocket for the same two gold rings that he's carried around for almost three years now, the hammered metal polished by all the times he's reached in to touch them.

Avriel takes them both and slips them into a pair of black denim jeans.

Then, before he leaves to find coffee, he places a note on the pillow beside Eden's head:

rooftop.
- A

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

There are little hands poking at his forehead.

Eden mutters something incomprehensible and rolls over. There's a moment of blessed peace, and then feels a little set of feet cross over his shoulder to get at his face again. He sinks down, pulls the duvet over his head. Scout rattles impatiently from above and starts to tug at it.

The thing is that Avriel always gets up early. Eden never does. There's some kind of deep rooted psychological reason for that. Something about comfort; he doesn't think about it anymore.

But Avriel always gets up early, and sometimes when he goes outside the screen door latch gets a bit stuck, and the weight of Scout's little kodama body isn't quite enough to unstick it. So it's Eden who it'll end up going to, jumping around his head until he gives in and pries his eyes open. The sun will barely be visible through the window, but Eden will still get up all sleepy to open the door so Scout can toddle down the path to Avriel's workshop.

Eden will stand in the doorway watching it go, and then he'll go back to bed for at least an hour.

By the time Eden's fully awake and mobile, Avriel's usually ready for his third or fourth coffee refill. Eden always brings it to him in a new mug, because the first one will be too nasty for him to safely keep drinking from.

The room gets very bright suddenly, and it takes a minute for Eden to realize that Scout has wormed its way into his blanket cocoon and is glowing at full force.

Stubborn little thing.

Eden stretches slow and breaks the cocoon. Scout takes that as the signal to scurry out and get close to his head again. Except Eden's exposed forehead is bypassed, and Scout clamours onto Avriel's pillow beside him, stomping on the note left there.

Right. They're not at home. There's a dull ache in his head and down along the back of his neck. His brain feels a little staticky as pieces slowly come back. The drug. The adrenaline. The feel of the carpet as he knelt with Avriel on the floor and pried a knife from his hand.

Eden folds the note gently and puts it down on the side table.

He grabs a blue AllCaps hoodie from the back of a chair. It's the one from the gift basket they'd sent to try and entice Avriel into doing a podcast episode. Eden had ended up commandeering the fleece, like he does with anything soft, and snuck Scout pieces of the bran muffins also from the basket. That was still sometime in the phase of trying to win that little beast over.

Now, when Eden pulls the hoodie on, Scout scales up his leg and settles itself into the cradle of the front pocket. Its little hands go out in Pavlovian response. Muffin time. Eden gives it his little finger to hold instead and ignores the disgusted look he swears that it gives him in return.

"We'll find breakfast." He promises. "Avriel first."

It rattles in a begrudged sort of acceptance.

In the elevator at the end of the hall, there's an HD screen stuck into the panel across from the buttons. It's day two of the Games already. Things seem oddly quiet. The bits of footage they cycle through are strangely mundane after the mess of the morning before.

There had been a knock on the door last night, and when Eden had opened it there was a meek-looking intern on the other side, wondering if Victor Baptiste had heard about Irene and the laser incident yet, if there was an early statement he wanted to make about it. Eden had practically broken their nose with how hard he slammed the door. He heard them yelp from the other side.

The music in the elevator quiets for the tributes' dialogue. The blonde girl from One reminds Eden too much of Larissa so he spends the rest of the ride up staring at where the numbers above the doors change.

It lets him out at the rooftop emergency doors. Eden pushes them open and steps out and immediately squints against the sun. The sky is a pretty blue behind it, the smell of the Capitol is a strange and always present thing, but Avriel's silhouette is something steady. Eden's steps crunch across the gravel as he crosses over, Scout's little noises get louder and louder.

It's strange how normal the city looks in the light.

Eden yawns and looks out over the buildings, slipping an arm into the bend of Avriel's elbow, "How long have you been up here?"

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"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."

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

Avriel's head tilts back and Eden eyes his discarded coffee cup, the one he knows must be sludge in the bottom, then wrinkles his nose and looks back at Avriel a little too fondly.

He still doesn't quite understand how Avriel can live on that stuff. Too bitter, makes Eden too jumpy, it doesn't even taste good.

Eden's thumb rubs at the spot under Avriel's ear, affectionate. He hums.

Their morning routine continues with the sunrise report. Lots of orange - he likes that. He's not sure when Avriel figured out that he liked that. He's not even sure when he figured out he liked that. Having a favourite colour always felt a bit novel. Trivial. It definitely wasn't important, not in the grand scheme of things.

It feels a little more important now, though. Eden's hand finds Avriel's in the hoodie pocket and he holds it.

"You can show me the next one."

There's an out in the way he says it - Avriel can wake Eden up, and Eden will go with him and sit up here, blanket wrapped around his shoulders still. But if Avriel wants to go through his morning ritual alone, then that's okay too. Eden likes hearing him talk about it, spending time with him afterwards, that's enough.

On the other side of the roof, there's a handful of Avox tidying up the area for the viewing party. The training centre is on that end, with a line of a few telescopes pointed right at it that makes Eden uneasy. The holo-screens that line the pool are all dimmed in the morning light.

Their side of the room is significantly less embellished. There's a water tank instead, some sort of electrical box that faintly hums, the view isn't quite as extravagant. There's a few deck chairs and an umbrella, but no staff. There's a fake hedge that runs through the gravel to separate the areas.

Eden doesn't look to get vantage points. He just looks to look.

There's someone sitting at the pool bar already, but it's too far away to make out any faces.

He looks out at the city again. The people on the street seem so small. The buildings all seem so normal without the technicolour eyesore components that come to life at night.

Avriel, against him, still feels tense. Eden knows that's usually his default state when they're in the Capitol. He knows the day they went through before wouldn't have helped. His thumb starts up a rhythm against Avriel's knuckles.

"Was thinking of planting hostas this year." Eden murmurs, odd-sounding against the span of pavement below, "In the front. The deer will probably eat them, but-" He shrugs into Avriel's shoulder.

"It'll be okay."

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"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.

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

Tomorrow, Avriel promises.

Funny how they keep doing that.

Five years ago, Eden sat in Eurydice's basement, waiting. Echo had stood on the other side of the door, she was shaking because she was so angry, she had a lighter in her fist, she was whispering, over and over again, one more day. Then Eden was running to the outskirts, shimmying under the weak spot of the fence. He spent days in the wilds, always one more day, one more day, he'll hit Nine tomorrow, just make it one more day.

And then one day came, the house and the streetlights and the chickens, tired and concussed and a little scared, he found Avriel. He found Avriel, and the plan was just to see him, just one last time. That's all Eden needed. And then one last time because another last time. Five more minutes. One more day.

It became a week. A month. A year. Five. Eden just never left.

Avriel didn't ask him to. Eden didn't want to bring it up.

Eventually he just stopped thinking about it. He's not sure when it happened - if it was a gradual thing or not. Home became the little potato plot and the blackberry bushes and the squeaky hinge on the porch door. Home became Nine, and Scout, and Freckle. Home became Avriel.

There's still a strange energy coming off of him. Because of yesterday, most likely. The day after the nightmares are always the hardest.

Eden doesn’t really try the are you okay card anymore. That'll just get brushed off with an easy agreement. It's reflexive. It's an unthinking sort of protection, aimed at both of them. Eden knows, because he does the same thing.

"Good idea." He tells Av. "Scout might try to get at them too."

Although, it would just end up eating through the chicken wire.

Eden goes still against Avriel, who seems to be practically vibrating, in some effort at balance. He's had years of experience in soothing without really saying anything. Avriel shares the hoodie pocket, turning to face Eden, and Eden bumps their noises together. Smiling something silly, he whispers back - "Someone has to keep an eye on you."

Then Scout makes a little noise from the table, clattering the discarded fork and lifting up the plate to look for more food. Eden rests his head against Avriel's shoulder, turning into his neck to watch the mutt look inside the napkin next. He huffs out a little laugh.

"We should take it down to the buffet."

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"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."

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

The way Eden tucks himself against Avriel, it looks like they could be dancing. No music on the roof though, just the distance sounds of the staff and a little whistle from the breeze, from being up so high.

The morning before they had left this year, the little radio that Avriel fixed and kept on the kitchen windowsill started playing something static-filled, syrupy sounding. Eden didn't recognize any of the words though. Avriel had started to do a swaying motion where he was washing out a mug at the sink. Eden watched him, the most familiar feeling settling against his chest.

That feeling pops up again as Avriel winds his arm around Eden's waist. It's that dancing posture again. Eden never wants to leave from this spot, he'll be buried like this, memorialized like this, in three centuries, no one will be able to tell their bones apart.

But he knows there's something wrong. Or, maybe just something off.

He can feel it through this strange tension Avriel's holding him through. Eden's had a lifetime of cataloguing body language, and little minute expressions, twitches that barely qualify as a movement. The only reason it hasn't set him on edge yet is because it's Avriel. The hackles of his hindbrain stay rooted. It's physically, psychologically, impossible for anything else.

Whatever this is, Avriel will tell him eventually. He always does. Or Eden, in tune after seven years, figures it out.

Even now, Eden can feel him dancing around it. Getting closer, closer, evading just slightly.

He can remember the first time he heard Avriel laugh. The second time they met. Eight minutes into a walk through Nine's undergrowth while Eurydice was there for some mayoral duty or another. Avriel had given Eden a mushroom, which he knows now isn't a rock, and Eden's face had scrunched automatically at the taste, enough of a reaction to make the other boy laugh.

He's still offended about the mushroom. Not about the laughing though.

He took that sound back to One with him, holding it close the same way Echo holds her tapes close. He played it over and over again, worried about losing some nuance, until he could refresh the memory years later.

Avriel had held out his hand after laughing. A simple offer. But Eden had been off balance still, unwell and paranoid, shakey in his position, and Eurydice had told him to go out with Baptiste, to keep an eye on him, because for some reason he didn't know she wanted him in her pocket, and she wanted any dirt he could get on him.

He could tell her all sorts of things now. Like how Avriel will deny it until the day he dies, but he's very prone to stealing the blankets in the middle of the night, burrowing as far into Eden's side as he can with them. Or Eden could tell her how he's pretty sure Avriel actually likes the bitter sludge that his coffee becomes, or how he really can't cook anything unless it's a two step staple. He could tell her about the list of people Avriel goes around the District to, fixing all their odds and ends, always for nothing in return.

Eden could tell Eurydice that, really, it's her fault that he fell in love with Avriel. He thinks her face would be funny.

He puts his palm against Avriel's chest, like he could steal away all that energy making his heart jackrabbit. Osmosis or something.

"You didn't miss me." He murmurs, "You found me too."

You saved me too.

His fingers work through the fine hairs on the nape of Avriel's neck, creeping up to comb the back of his head. Avriel slips a little further, his grip changing. Eden stays steady.

Sometimes the distracting doesn't quite work. That's alright though, Eden can't expect it to do the trick every time. It would be too easy like that, and Eden doesn't want easy, he just wants Av.

"Please," Avriel says, a prelude.

"I've got you." Eden sets them into a little sway, not quite a rocking, barely even a full movement, "Not going anywhere."

Sometimes, funny enough, it feels like no matter how bad Eden is with words, Avriel is just as bad. It's not something he noticed until they started actually communicating, it's not something that bothers him. It's just that in the face of something, Eden will be silent. He'll go back to non-verbal, like something's choking him. Avriel will ramble, circling his point like he can't get it all out of him fast enough.

And oddly enough, they'll still understand each other.

They shouldn't. It shouldn't work out that way. Nothing in life ever does.

But Avriel says me, and he says you, and Eden understands. He picks out the pieces of Eden that he could never reach for himself.

And Eden can feel that hand start to creep up his throat, just softly, not quite dire yet. It's just overwhelming sometimes. He thinks it might always be. That's just what love is. That's how it feels.

Avril touches his face, his chest. Eden opens his mouth. Closes it. His brow furrows, just a bit.

And then Avriel's hand opens, and then Eden looks down, and then his face slackens all at once.

He realizes, at a distance, that about a week after means that Avriel has been holding onto the set of rings for three years.

Avriel has wanted to marry him for three years.

It's like the sound all fades out at once. Eden might be gaping, he can't stop staring at Avriel's palm.

Avriel wants to marry him.

One part of his brain is going aren't we already? The other part has gone blank and silent and useless.

See, there are several things that Eden, not even in his wildest dreams, imagined he could have. In a strange, roundabout way, this is one of them. He's lived with Avriel for five years, they've been relatively official for three of those. So he's not completely clueless, it's just that marriage was always one of those cotton candy dreams. Only normal people get to have dreams like that. And Eden is still very far from normal.

Imagine telling that little boy, the one spitting out blood in some disgusting underground fight ring, the one who tried to set his own shoulder back into place by shoving a blanket between his teeth and pressing the joint up against where the metal bed frame met the wall, imagine telling that little boy with no future except a pit grave that someday he would meet someone that loved him enough, understood him enough, to want to keep him safe and marry him and be with him forever.

He would probably attack you for saying something so cruel. He'd probably try to take your eye out.

So he stands there very quiet, he's not even sure if he's breathing. The look he finally shoots Avriel is a little uncomprehending. It's a little lost. A little incredulous and a little afraid. It's overwhelming, to look between Avriel and the rings, but Eden thinks it might always be. That might just be what love is. This is how it feels.

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"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."

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

He never means for it to happen.

Seems like a moot point. Of course he never means for it to happen. If Eden truly had that amount of control, his brain wouldn't have started working against him in the first place. He would be normal, and he would have normal people things. A normal house, a normal life, normal things, like his parents and his sisters

Oh god, his sisters.

Echo's going to kill him once she hears.

Like it wasn't bad enough that he ran and left them in One's belly, it wasn't bad enough that he abandoned them for a boy. Now that boy wants to marry him. Wants to keep him. Eden wants to be kept. He'll be a victor's husband. Avriel's husband.

Odd, there's no guilt. No shame. Not for that part of it, at least. Maybe he's greedy that way. He feels bad for leaving Echo and Steel behind, but that's where it ends. He doesn't feel bad for the leaving itself.

Still, he knows, if he saw them again, he would crumble in the face of it.

The seconds pass by sluggishly. Eden breathes into Avriel's neck, feeling more than hearing his humming. He clues into the movement, realizes that Av is holding him again, holds tight to the back of his shirt. The numbness fades from his fingers a bit. Eden blinks and the stars along the edge of his vision start to clear. His throat hurts.

He never means for it to happen. But again, the point is moot.

Eden, inexplicably, starts laughing again.

And it is funny. It's a little silly.

Avriel pulls out a set of rings and Eden is so shocked at the gesture, at the implication, that it veers him towards the edge of a panic. It overwhelms him so neatly. Strangely effective in its technique. It shouldn't be that surprising that someone could love him.

But Avriel knew. He heard Eden go too quiet, felt him go too still, and now he holds him even as his shoulders shake. He waits until Eden is ready.

Maybe he just knows Eden well enough by now. Maybe he expected it. There's a kind of love there too, even in the prediction.

The lightness feels strange. This hollow sort of giddiness, this easy strangulation. Eden's hand brushes against the back of Avriel's neck. He touches the curve of his spine.

He smiles against his skin, whispers - "Ask me properly."

[gamemaker kelsier]

a v r i e l .

"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.

[tick 12a / calla]

e d e n .

"oh my love,
my dearest love,
oh my soul
is wide open."

Eden's hands trail down Avriel's arms as he steps away, lingering little touch. Even when Avriel gets down on a knee, Eden doesn't quite let go of him.

Little worrier still, he'll never grow out of that. Especially not when it comes to Avriel, who, for all intents of purposes, is a four time murderer.

But to Eden, he's just the guy that he rolls over on at night. He's the one who fixes the porch door when it sticks, or the coop wire outside when the chickens get too rambunctious. He's the one that likes to go blackberry picking, and he watches the sunrise every morning. He snores when he falls asleep in the shop, but not when he falls asleep in the bedroom. He likes the aisle seat.

When Eden went through his green smoothie phase, panicked suddenly at the thought of Avriel's health flagging, when he was stressed and eating less and less, Avriel still managed to try a sip of every one of them, even the disgusting ones.

He likes slow music. He does repair jobs around the district for no charge. He's going to build a fence for when Eden plants hostas in the spring.

He's just Av.

Eden's thumb brushes the corner of his eye. He touches the soft spot behind his ear, pushing back the bit of hair that's getting too long.

"Take your time."

Because that's always been the consistent thing.

They're a little bit messed up, the two of them. Maybe even more than a little. But they get that about each other. They get it. Eden gets it. And when everything goes a little loud, and he gets a little too quiet, Avriel gets that too. The nightmares come and go. The chickens stay. They both stay, even when the dusk hours get a bit ugly.

Sometimes time can fix that, sometimes it can't.

Maybe the sad, sorry thing of it is that you need to find someone just as broken as you are.

But maybe that's not so sad. Maybe it's not so sorry, either. Maybe there's something healing in it. Because Eden looks down at Avriel, holds his face in his hands, feels the unsteadiness of him - but there's that sureness too. It's that specific Avriel brand of it. Recognizable from ten feet away. It's that set of his jaw. The way his shoulders sit and his eyes steel.

He's sure of this.

Eden's in love with him.

He wants to get married.

Avriel wants to marry him.

"Yes." He says, an then loses count of it, keeps saying that silly little word between the breaths of an unbelieving sort of laugh. He's pulling Avriel by the shoulders, getting an arm under his arm - "Up." Still laughing, smiling so hard, "Up, your foot."

He's holding Avriel by the chin, kissing him. The wind jostles them both and Eden is reminding him - "Careful." when he sways.