by Watson, Rhea
I exhaled sharply. For fuck’s sake, bro. Across the room and to the left of the main door, there was Gavriel—messy, shit-faced Gavriel—talking to a fucking painting. As if the rest of us didn’t exist, he carried on an animated conversation with the abstract canvas, art that if you squinted, you could maybe make out a face. If he had smoked as much as he drank tonight, the fae definitely saw something in all the colors and squiggles. Laughing, tossing his hands about, swaying side to side, he looked deep in conversation…
Much to the cruel delight of everyone around me.
And it would be easy to let him go on like that, making a fool of himself and totally ruining his campus seduction cred. I mean, the last time we talked, he had told me he didn’t want to be friends, then flipped me off. The guy could be such an asshole. He used liquor and herbs to keep others at a distance, exuding a devil-may-care attitude while peering down his nose at the rest of us just because he was fae.
But I couldn’t leave him like that.
Couldn’t turn my back.
Because seven or so years ago, that had been me talking to a portrait, drunk off my face—broken inside. Hurting, deeply scarred and desperately wounded, in a way no one else could see or understand. I’d done all the same shit: drank, partied, slept around to numb the ache in my soul.
Back then, I’d had friends—true friends—who refused to let me face-plant when I self-medicated too hard. Friends who I shared a dorm with, who were in my herbalism classes, who had their own childhood traumas following them into higher education.
They hadn’t let me permanently ruin my reputation around the academy—and I guess I wasn’t about to let Gavriel do that either. When he was sober, if he wanted to be a fucking douchebag or make a fool of himself in front of everyone, fine.
But this little show was over.
I left the cackling peanut gallery without a word, steadier on my feet now than two hours ago—but still ghosting my fingers along the backs of the chairs, refusing to give the rest of them two hot messes to criticize at once. Sure enough, Gavriel was, in fact, deep in conversation with the artwork, enraptured enough with whatever story he was babbling that he didn’t even notice my approach.
“Hey.” I went for his arm, grabbing tight to bolster his swaying ass when he swung toward me, eyes wild and a million miles away. Hair staticky and finger-combed to death. Tie loose. Suit vest misbuttoned. Someone had either mugged him or fooled around with him at some point this evening—hard to tell. Given his state, neither would have been consensual acts. The fae slurred something at me, fluttering his dark lashes, mouth kicked in a flirtatious smirk, and my brows shot up in response. Yeah, that definitely wasn’t English. I forced a smile and squeezed his arm, nodding just enough not to enrage my steadily sharpening headache. “Okay, cool.” I then looked pointedly toward the door. “Come on, time for bed.”
“Bed,” he repeated, lilting forward and crashing into me before I could stop him. I grunted, bracing for the dead weight of a shit-faced fae, and pushed him upright with my shoulder.
“Yup, bed.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Bed, fury.”
“Oh my gods,” I muttered, marching us around in a circle and dragging him toward the door. “Can you not be a horndog for like two seconds?”
While Gavriel wasn’t the biggest guy on campus, he was solid as a rock, all sinewy muscle and long, elegant limbs that had zero coordination tonight. Fortunately, he must have been almost blackout drunk, because as heavy as he was, as strong as he usually was, he was easy to manipulate; I had him out the door and onto the landing in twenty seconds flat.
As soon as the door swung shut behind us, the party vanished, replaced by a cool, heavy quiet that fell like a ton of bricks. Dim lighting gave way to shadowy stonework, the darkness really highlighting the exhaustion in my bones—and I dreaded the thought of waking up in three, maybe four hours for a full day of classes.
Gavriel would probably sleep the day away. I had seen him intoxicated before, but as he lolled to the side and out of my grasp, crashing onto the wall with a groan, this was the absolute worst episode in our shared history.
Not good.
Something must have happened.
Something that wasn’t my responsibility to fix.
He didn’t want to be my friend, the stubborn fucker, so I just needed to get him safely to bed. That was it.
“Okay…” Hands planted on my hips, I gave him a quick once-over. “What’s your flat number?”
Slouched against the wall, Gavriel tipped his head to the side and grinned. “Fury…” His velvety growl had the hairs on the back of my neck rising. “Fury…” He beckoned me to him with a crooked finger, tongue flicking across his laughing mouth. “Fury.”
The last one came out all singsongy and sloppy, seduction botched by booze. Shaking my head, I moved in and shoved his hands away when he tried to grope me—straight for the boobs, of course—then quickly patted him down. After digging his flat’s skeleton key out of his breast pocket, I tucked it up my sleeve, one step closer to wrapping up this ordeal in a pretty bow, and then huffed at him.
Slapped his hand from my waist.
Watched as he struggled to flail off the wall.
Gods, what a mess.
Been there, buddy.
“Gavriel,” I said slowly, grabbing his face and cradling it between my palms. Skin hot and sweaty, he could have done with a cold shower, but that was a step too far: like fuck I’d bathe him on top of everything. With a deep breath, I gave him a playful little jostle, redirecting his gaze to mine, and smiled. “Tell me your flat number so we can fuck in an actual bed, okay?”
His eyes dipped to my lips, and there they stayed, oddly focused and intense. “Nine A, furyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…”
Ugh, this guy.
Why did I have such a fucking soft spot for him?
Because he’s you.
And he’s broken, too.
Ughhhhh. Stupid… self-awareness.
After dragging his arm around my shoulder, I managed to get him moving, though I relied on the support of the wall to march him down the staircase without losing my grip—and Gavriel inevitably falling flat on his face. By the time we reached the ninth floor, his hand had found a way to cup my boob, but I let it slide if it meant we maintained this forward momentum, his feet disastrously uncoordinated and his eyes blinking at different speeds, seeming heavier and heavier with every step.
Door unlocked, I slipped his key in his pants pocket, then hauled his stumbling ass inside a flat that looked identical to mine and Bjorn’s, only instead of the TV setup, the common area had a two-seater couch, two armchairs, a fur rug, and a massive bookshelf drowning in books between the two windows. The place smelled like dude, like wood and leather and spicy aftershave, and as I kicked the door shut behind us, Gavriel’s boob-cup more of a death grip for balance at this point, I barely had time to process how weird it was to be in his home—his personal space. To the right were the same bedroom doors that I saw every day in my home, and with one shut, I figured Seamus had already gone to bed, which had me guiding Gavriel to the open one beside it.
Passing over the threshold into his private domain sparked another drunken attempt at seduction, only the purrs spilling from his lips were all slurred and incoherent, his head drooping and eyes hooded.
“Right, right, sure,” I muttered, finally twisting out from under his arm and hurrying for the bedside table, the same make and model as mine, on top of which was an identical lamp—same fussy little knob to turn it on, too. Warm yellow filled the room after the click, and Gavriel staggered to the side, slamming into his desk suddenly with a hand up to shield his eyes.
“Owwwww.”
Gods. My academy friends were saints for putting up with my drunk self all those years. Ten minutes with Gavriel and my patience was already wearing thin.
Same as his library office, Gavriel’s bedroom didn’t have the lived-in feel you’d expect for a guy who had been here for,
what, four years? Minimal clutter, academy-issued furniture, no wall art, no clothes out of place. Besides the neatly organized stacks of books on his desk and a few file folders on his bedside table, the room looked brand-new—like he had moved in yesterday and was still waiting for his stuff to arrive. He could take a casual five minutes to clear out and it would be like he was never here.
Which… Maybe that was the point. Maybe he, like the me of ten years ago, struggled to form attachments.
Struggled to identify and claim home.
“Okay.” I planted my hands on my hips and rounded on him. “Let’s get you ready for bed.”
And there he was, sprawled across his desk, legs wide, tie somewhat looser, hooded eyes surveying me like he thought he was king of sexual conquest. Gods. Spearing a hand through his ashy brown locks, the fae smirked, cocked an eyebrow, and crooned something that sounded like a lyrical foreign dialect—or drunken nonsense.
Probably the latter.
“Yeah, sounds great, man,” I said, striding over and attacking that tie once and for all. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Undressing a drunk fae was like dealing with a squirmy toddler. Gavriel was all hands—as usual, honestly—but he lacked coordination and depth perception. No tantalizing caresses. No toe-curling roughness. No masterful grip on my throat, in my hair. Just… a mess. And a lot of flirtatious mumbling that I smiled and nodded at, cataloguing any snippets I might make use of later if we ever got back on speaking terms.
After all, he didn’t want friends.
He had no use for people like me.
I rolled my eyes at the thought, then grabbed his arm and hauled him off the desk. Down to a pair of black silk boxers, his erection halfhearted, his skin like moonlight, Gavriel swayed at my side as I motioned toward his bed—which had been made up with near militant precision at some point, the linens tucked in tight, not a hair out of place.
“Time for sleep, buddy.”
It almost seemed a shame to ruin his hard work, but there was something ridiculously gratifying about ripping the blankets back.
And it wasn’t just ruining his OCD linen tucking that felt satisfying.
It was…
It was the smell of them that made me feel good, the cloud of Gavriel that whooshed up with the rustling of sheets. Unlike his delicious colognes, this was… earthly. Nothing manufactured. Nothing tailored to what women liked. Natural. Soft. Subtle.
Cozy.
Like a forest at dawn, the remnants of a long-dead campfire still in the air and fresh dew on the grass.
Safe.
Which was laughable.
Gavriel was the furthest thing from safe.
Of all the men in my orbit, that inner circle few had ever been welcomed—Jack, Bjorn, and Gavriel, apparently—this drunk idiot had the capacity to do serious damage.
Because tonight had confirmed it: he was me from seven years ago.
And the me of today just wanted to help, but he knew precisely how to hurt. Where to fling the dagger for maximum impact.
“I’m ugly, Alecto.”
He choked out the statement just as I lowered him onto the mattress, so clear and concise that I ended up dropping him the rest of the way.
“What?”
“I’m ugly,” he whispered, suddenly coherent even with the odd slur curling around his vowels. Crouched by the bed, I looked him over—because this fae was nowhere near ugly. He was breathtaking, always had been, from the sinewy muscle to the sharp lines of his face, the layered grey hues in his eyes. Given this was my first time seeing him nearly naked despite screwing twice already, I noted scars on his torso, some rounded and irregular, others long and thin. Surprise trickled through my veins like ice: who knew fae could scar? Not me.
But we all had scars, and they certainly didn’t make him ugly.
“Gavriel—”
“I’m petty,” he whispered hoarsely, eyes closed and brows furrowed like he was in pain. The rest of him had that alcohol-induced looseness, muscles relaxed, arms limp, feet splayed, but he gritted his teeth hard, as if my cautious hand on his shoulder were a knife stabbing down to the bone. “I’m petty and jealous. I covet w-what isn’t m-mine.” I withdrew, frowning, unsure what the fuck was happening, but my absence didn’t make the pained expression go away. If anything, it seemed to make it worse. “I’m ugly.”
“You’re drunk,” I told him frankly, careful not to sound like I pitied him.
Because I didn’t.
If anything, I empathized with him. Not sympathized. I didn’t need to pretend to know how he felt in this exact moment; I’d been there more times than I could count.
“I’m ugly…” He cracked an eye open, the grey orb whizzing around until it found my face. “And you’re the only one who sees it.”
Where was all this lucidity before? Definitely could have used it while I was literally wrestling him out of that suit. I sighed, then grabbed his wrist and squeezed.
“Stop. You’re not—”
“Ugly on the inside,” the fae snapped, wrenching his arm away, then seconds later clawing back at my fingers. I rolled my eyes and patted the top of his hand, then leaned down to share a little secret.
“Yes, shockingly,” I whispered, grinning when he peeled open the other eye, “I understand the nuances of this meltdown.” My chuckle made him wince, grimacing against the sound. “You’re not ugly, Gavriel. You… You’re like…” Not a fae dildo. I’d called him that once before and felt shit about it to this day. “You’re a wounded animal.”
Been there, done that. In fact, I still fell back on old coping mechanisms, even with all the growth and self-awareness I’d slogged through in my twenties. Benedict Hammond really triggered my bad habits, and while I could stand in front of him without panicking now, I was still recovering from coming face-to-face with my parents’ murderer months later.
Maybe once a wounded animal, always a wounded animal.
Gavriel just seemed to be in the thick of it tonight, his wounds fresh and open, while mine had finally started to scab again.
“Ugly,” he hissed. Slowly, his eyes drifted shut, followed by a deep, lung-filling breath and a long, dramatic exhale. I felt for him—really, I did—but why did he have to make being his friend so fucking difficult?
Unless he wanted to be more than friends.
I mean… Sometimes I could picture that, more so lately when I realized we were both broken inside, that our connection could easily go beyond the physical if we put a little work in.
But that would be a disaster, wouldn’t it?
Not something I could do on my own, anyway. To be with Gavriel, I’d need backup to call him on his crap and a support system for when the wounded animals in us both started to howl and snarl and bare their teeth.
As soon as his grip loosened around my fingers, I carefully extracted my hand and shook it out to get the blood flowing again. It was then I caught it—the glint of a metal flask tucked behind his lamp. Frowning, I grabbed it, uncapped it, and risked a quick sniff.
Yup.
Whiskey.
It might take the edge off in the morning, but what kind of friend would I be if I left it here for him?
So, I tiptoed across the flat, in no mood to deal with Seamus’s questions—his stare and smirk that were bound to be accusatory and all too knowing—and navigated their shared bathroom in the dark. After dumping the whiskey and rinsing both the sink and the flask, I filled the little metal jug to the brim with the cold water, then charmed it to stay cold throughout the night with a bit of wandless magic.
Back in his room, Gavriel was dead to the world, snoring softly with an arm thrown over his face.
And that worked just fine for me. Setting the flask on his nightstand, I was just about ready to go, hand ducking under the lampshade and fingers searching for that stubborn little switch, when I saw it.
Light reflecting off something else metallic, this time in his closet through the barely open twin french
doors. I scoffed. Those had to be a personal upgrade, because my closet door was basic as hell and creaked whenever I opened it. Curiosity piqued, I crept closer and pushed one door to the side, just enough to sneak a peek…
At armor.
Literal armor, steel and pristine, on a heavy-duty wooden clothes hanger. Eyes wide, I nudged the doors open completely to get a proper look at a breastplate with fire engraved up its center, obscenely detailed flames surrounded by shooting stars and blazing comets.
So…
This was new.
At the sound of a loud, chainsaw-y snore, followed by a hiccup and a groan, I hastily shut the doors and stepped back as shame burned through me. Snooping through his things when he was this drunk was just bad manners, definitely taking advantage of a usually very tight-lipped fae when it came to personal matters, but straight-up armor hanging next to his—let’s be honest—weirdly stylish, expensive, and metrosexual suit collection was the last thing I’d expected to find in Gavriel’s bedroom.
Arms crossed, I faced him with a steadily deepening frown.
The front he put on for everyone else, me included, wasn’t him at his core.
It was that armor, polished and spotless, lovingly stored alongside his prized wardrobe.
I’m ugly. That, too.
Gavriel was a fae warrior who hated himself.
Why?
Distant bells chimed through the castle, faint but present inside all the flats if you had an ear for them. Nearly three o’clock—way too tired for this mystery tonight.
So I tucked this mysterious, snoring warrior into bed, positioned the flask of water within reach, turned off the light, and left.
Only after I crawled into my own bed, I couldn’t sleep, stuck staring at the ceiling instead, trapped in one persistent thought loop that refused to let me drift off…
Who are you, Gavriel?
And what are you actually doing here?
17
Jack
