the night comes crawling in on all fours [Silas]

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Boston is lit in white light and gold leaf, a cityscape drawn out of harsh shadows and glittering color, all rendered stark against brick facades and alleyways by the cutting lines of headlights and flickering overhead streetlamps. The nightlife of the bustling metropolis cannot compare to the reckless and wild years Nathaniel Hart had spent crawling Vegas’ strip, but where the city of sin had often read as tawdry and over-extravagant, Boston is almost refreshingly simple in its refinement and class. There may be less to do – and the options available may not reek of indulgence and excess – but he has learned to enjoy what the city has to offer. Boston is his as much as Las Vegas ever was.

Still, there’s always room for a little decadence, and it is available for the taking if one knows where to look.

Nathan’s appearance at the club this evening, already riding a hard buzz of liquor and adrenaline before he even stumbles out of the cab, is supposed to be something of a victory. Silas, after a long week of hogging his bed and eating him out of house and home, has at last healed enough to return to his own apartment. Truthfully, the man could have moved out days ago, but there hadn’t seemed to be any rush; the company had been good, the laughter easy, but want of his own things and the ease of living out of his own place had finally driven Silas off. Nate certainly can’t blame him. It was always meant to be a temporary thing – and now the man is desperate to take advantage of his returned freedom, ready to waste an evening away at the bottom of a bottle and end it in someone else’s bed.

The bar had been unsuccessful. Nate had found his attention more on the alcohol than any of the patrons, and a series of drinks and unlucky encounters had ultimately chased him here, with a crowded throng of people pressed in close and a pervasive bassline pounding in his ears. Despite the whiskey in his bloodstream and a clear goal for the night, the werewolf cannot settle; every brush of a body against his sets his nerves electric in a way he cannot stomach, his skin on fire and his thoughts distracted. It is a dark mood that overcomes him, a black thing Nate drowns in hard drinks and halfhearted attempts at flirtation, but each ineffective altercation and subsequent failure only leaves him troubled further. There is no joy in this; every face is unsatisfying, every personality bland.

There is nothing here that Nate wants.

Drinking himself into a blind stupor is not how he’d meant to spend the night – it is not a state he enjoys, despite all appearances – but it doesn’t seem to stop him from losing his wits slumped over the bar, an empty tumbler clutched in one hand. Being cut off is not the worst of his troubles, but it certainly doesn’t help his ruin of a night, and it is with a sigh of resignation that he manages to ungracefully find his feet. Going home seems a worse option than staying, though passing out in his own bed is likely the better idea. In the end, rather than heed any vague sense of responsibility nagging at his sluggish conscience, Nate simply stumbles his way to a secluded corner and collapses at a bench in a huff, hoping to sober up and escape the crowd.

His attempt to merge the side of his head with the cool cement wall is interrupted by the intrusion of a stranger. Though Nate’s words are thick and slow in his head, his guest doesn’t seem to mind; the man is passably handsome, quick in conversation, and even buys him another round. The night seems to take a turn for the better – or Nate’s addled head can’t pick up on any warning signs, his wounded pride too keen on healing – and then the stranger is smiling at him with an off-color grin and reaching into his coat. Under different circumstances, Nate would refuse. The small pill he is offered would be laughed off; the man holding it out to him would be dismissed. Instead, the werewolf swallows it down with a shrug and the last of his liquor, and the two return to the dance floor in a fit of shared laughter and too much bodily contact.

Nate loses the man in the crowd soon after, but by then he’s beyond caring. There is only the throbbing pulse of the music in his head, the slow burn of alcohol in his blood, and the sway of the bodies around him – and with such distractions, it is hard to notice the numbness in his fingers and the racing beat of his heart. It is only when Nate stumbles, bumping uncomfortable into a woman nearby (who shoots him a look aimed to kill), that he realizes anything is amiss; his mouth is dry, his chest tight. As soon as it becomes apparent that the situation is getting worse, not better, the werewolf is stumbling for an exit. Panic is not a feeling that grips him often, an emotion that defies his want for rational thought and logic, but something akin to it settles in Nate’s chest and twists violently as his vision blurs.

He cannot remember calling a cab; he does not know how he pays the man, much less makes it into the building and prevents himself from passing out in the elevator. A shaking hand stutters a key from the pocket of his coat but Nathan can make no sense of the lock. It drops to the floor and the man leans up against the door, trembling palms pressed flat to the wood, before managing the effort to even knock; it is the tempo of a desperate man, and with his heart threatening to burst from his chest and his breath so short, Nate struggles to even find the energy to speak.

”Silas,” he gasps, forehead pressed against the door. ”Silas.” The word is nearly a whine, now, a prayer laced with a concerning amount of fear. There is a spatter of blood on the collar of Nate’s white shirt and his vest is crumpled, and with his sunken eyes and pinpricked pupils he appears like little more than the addict he is. Nathan feels small, terribly small, and the notion turns his gut in disgust.

He could have gone home. He could have ridden this out alone, huddled in his own apartment. But as his breath catches and the hallway spins, his nails clutching desperately at the wood beneath them, Nate wants nothing more than for the door to open – and for Silas to be there.

[Zephyr]

Most of the reason Silas finally goes home coincides with his return to work. It has mostly to do with not wanting to bother Nathan at all hours of the night when he comes and goes from home to work, because he has a lot of damn stuff to get caught up on. It would have been a simple matter to bring clothing over to continue living out of Nate’s apartment if Silas hadn’t thought he’d worn out his welcome. He’s fairly certain that the other man can used a break from his bitching by now, so it is with this thought that Silas finally goes back to work and from there, he would return to his own apartment.

Silas hadn’t taken Matthias for the type with impeccable timing, either that or the kid is just stalking him…and Silas really doesn’t doubt that one much, but he’d shown up the previous day to say goodbye. In a moment of just not thinking and blind panic at losing a friend, Silas had offered the kid his place to stay at. Unfortunately, Matthias seems to have an aversion to couches, so reluctantly, Silas is letting him crawl into the bed with him at night. Still, it isn’t like anything is happening between them. The werewolf is basically relegated to giant teddy bear, and that’s fine.

To say that Silas misses Nate is an overstatement. He’d just excellent at distracting himself with work.

He’s been at work most of the day, and decides to drag himself to the grocery story because fucking Matthias is complaining at the lack of real food in Silas’ kitchen. So he gets the ingredients for real southern food. With all the fixings. Matthias isn’t a big fan of grease…or butter, but Silas uses copious amounts of both in his food, so if the brat insists on him buying food, he’s going to have to deal with what Silas knows how to fix.

Silas is in bed when Nate shows up. He’d worked way too long and hasn’t completely gotten back all of his energy. Matthias is, surprisingly, gone. Silas assumes that he’s off hunting, but the fact that the kid could have gone back to his old habits of sleeping with men for a place to sleep and food even if he has both of those now from Silas without the sex, has occurred to him. But the fact is Silas is just too goddamn exhausted to care. He’s lying face down, sprawled out on his bed in his boxers when he hears the knocking. It barely wakes him up and Silas growls, rolling over onto his side in an effort to ignore the knocking.

Fucking Matthias.

Silas is tempted to just ignore the kid. He leaves, and then comes back at some ungodly hour when Silas is sure to be sleeping. He makes a mental not to get the brat a key ASAP, but knows he can’t just leave him sitting outside the door like that, so he drags himself out of bed, blinking groggily into the dark before he pads to the door, grumbling. His hair is all messed up from sleep, and his boxers slightly askew on his hips when he throws open the door to scowl angrily at Matthias.

Then he freezes and blinks.

Because it isn’t Matthias at the door.

It takes him a second to actually see what’s there. Only a second, because Nate looks seriously unsteady, and the look of irritation disappears off his face immediately as he swoops in to let the man fall against his bare chest. The doctor wraps his arms around the other man, supporting him against his chest. “Nate?” He whispers breathlessly against the man’s temple, pressing a kiss to his head before slipping one hand up to run his palm down Nate’s hair. “What happened?” Concern and fear is thick in his voice, but he realizes he has to compose himself.

“C’mon, darlin’.” He kisses Nate’s temple once more before gathers the other man up more securely in his arms. Silas is trying to keep the panic and fear out of his voice, but it’s just hard as he lifts the other man in his arms without even closing the door and carries him into his room. “What the hell happened to you?” Silas is getting better at not letting the fear through in his voice as he helps the werewolf into his bed and works at undressing him. “Nate, baby.” He runs the back of his fingers over Nate’s face. “Are you hurt?” Silas eyes the blood on his collar, fingers shaking even as he unbuttons his shirt.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Time is a concept that seems strangely foreign, and the apparently arbitrary passage of seconds into minutes into the door finally opening is not something Nate can wrap his head around. For an instant he cannot even remember where he is; the entirety of his world falls away beneath his palms and his stomach tightens at the sudden shifting, his balance faltering as he is forced to stand. The wash of familiar scents that rush up to meet him strike confusion into memory, and then Nate is falling, stumbling forward in the same moment he is wrapped up in a pair of comforting arms. He huffs softly, clutching tight to Silas’ chest, even as his weight sags heavily against him and his muscles protest their continued use.

The words whispered quiet and worried against his skin and hair do not register; Nathan turns to press his face into Silas’ neck, somehow attempting to believe that things will be fine now, that the world will stop spinning and his skipping heart will slow. Instead it pounds harder, his hands shaking where they press tightly to the bare skin of Silas’ back, and he can only huff indignantly as the man hoists him bodily into the air. Any form of protest is muted by Nate’s utter inability to concentrate; he rumbles discontentedly and his fingers scrabble for a better purchase, but even the feeling of being treated like little more than a child cannot penetrate the fog of his mind. Silas places him down and all the fight goes out of him, lost somewhere between the touch of the surgeon’s fingers and the softness of his voice.

With the world now still beneath him, some semblance of consciousness manages to settle inside Nate’s head, a fleeing lucidity drowning in a tide of alcohol and bad decisions. He wets his lips, the concern in Silas’ voice finally dragging him into reality, and grips at the man’s hand with shaking fingers to stop his methodical work. He doesn’t need to be undressed; he needs nothing more than Silas, than the comfort drawn from his presence and his abject refusal to not hide, alone, in the hollow emptiness of his own apartment. The whole goddamn night had been about Silas, about avoiding him, about refusing to admit his own dependence upon him – and here he has ended up, weak and vulnerable and so damned foolish, trembling atop the other man’s bed.

”Just drunk,” Nate explains apologetically, almost plaintively, drawing bloodshot eyes up to fix haphazardly on Silas’ face. As though the doctor might somehow have not noticed; as though the liquor on his breath is not overpowering on its own. ”—and I took something,” he adds dismissively. Not a problem. “Had a nosebleed.” Nate remembers that mistake clearly, even if his words are stumbling and slurred with his want to hide that fact. It is only his frightening, too-fast pulse that encourages him to be truthful; only the numbness in his fingertips and the quivering tremor he can’t keep from his hands that begs for honesty. Silas is a doctor and he is an idiot, and while that is an easy excuse to hide behind, his false attempt at reason and logic has nothing to do with the way Nate clings to his hand like a lifeline.

He has always defaulted to running when emotions ride high and his heart gets in the way of his judgment. Commitment, feelings, relationships – these are concepts Nate avoids at all costs, keeping himself free of both confinement and pain, unchained and independent. It is a lifestyle that has worked for him for years, a method of dealing with friends and strangers alike that prevented anyone from truly getting close. Trust does not come easily, but trust is what has landed him here, under Silas’ gentle supervision and care. That this would be the place he felt most comfortable when operating under instinct and out of fear is more revealing than Nate, were he sober, would ever be willing to admit.

But he had not been able to drink Silas out of his mind, as he has done with so many men and women before; he had not been able to erase the surgeon’s touch from his skin with the caress of another. In the end, his own mind had granted him this final betrayal of pride, depositing him on the man’s doorstep like a beaten dog crawling back home.

”I’m sorry.” Nate drops his hand to his side and allows Silas to finish unbuttoning his shirt. ”I went out.” His eyes, too unfocused to concentrate on any one thing, simply stare unblinkingly at the dark shadows on the ceiling, unwilling to focus on the surgeon’s face or see the worry rendered in the lines drawn there. He is a drunk and he is a fool, and other people are left to pay for his mistakes; this has always been the way of things, his method of driving off anyone who gets too close, but only now does Nate feel an unfamiliar pang of regret. Silas does not deserve any of this, should win a medal for ever having put up with him – but more than anything, the werewolf is openly terrified at the thought of chasing him further away.

”None of them were you,” he murmurs, turning his head to the side and pressing his face into the pillow. The words are half nonsensical, drawn up out of the muddled confusion of his thoughts, but stand with a startling and revealing amount of truth: there had only been faceless crowds and nameless ghosts in Boston tonight. Only shadows that could not compare to memory; only a void to fill with self-prescribed nostrums and physical pleasures in an effort to pretend it didn’t exist. Doesn’t exist.

And in the end he had been left unsatisfied and wanting, for the simple reason that none of them were Silas.

[Zephyr]

Silas’ heart is beating entirely too fast in his chest, and his hands are shaking too much to be of any real use in getting Nate’s clothing off. He’s a doctor. He works under pressure every single day at work. He should know what to do. He should have this. It’s just…different. So different. This isn’t a nameless patient that he can just forget at the end of the day, or even someone that he might see more often than just once, but can separate in his mind.

This is Nate.

It’s a big fucking difference, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to detach himself from this. He cannot be objective. This pressure is in an entirely different ballpark from anything he’s ever had to experience before. But…if he can just get his hands to stop shaking…then maybe…

…maybe.

Nate’s hands are on his, and the doctor reluctantly meets the other man’s eyes. He’s noticed it before, the scent of alcohol heavy on the air between them, the man’s bloodshot eyes and shaking hands. He knew Nate was drunk from the moment he’d laid eyes on him. Nate drinking isn’t much of a novelty, but the man’s other words caused Silas’ brows to draw together. “What?” He asks, his voice not a confident as he would have liked it to be. He licks his lips, stills the shaking in his limbs to meet the other man’s gaze unwaveringly.

He couldn’t be unsure here. Nathan’s life was on the line.

“What was it?” Silas asks, almost dismissing the bit about the nosebleed, because that bit of information, in and of itself, wasn’t extraordinarily important. Whatever it was that Nate had taken hadn’t set well with him…and Silas finds himself having to separate the two halves of himself. The objective doctor and the deeply concerned best friend, lover, fuck buddy…whatever the hell they were anymore. He has to do it to save his best friend. “Nate.” Silas growls, trying to keep his gaze as insistent as possible. “What was it? What did you take?”

Just because Nate isn’t worried about it doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

But then Nate seems to give up, and Silas finishes pulling his shirt off with a more confident hand, brows furrowing in bewilderment at his words. What the fuck is he even apologizing for? Sure, it hurts Silas having Nate sleep around like he does…but Silas knows he does. He knew it before he even got himself involved with the arrogant werewolf. Silas knows he had never had the right to get upset about the fact that they weren’t exclusive, so he hadn’t felt the need to express his jealousy and pain at never being enough for him.

But…it doesn’t change the fact that he’s apologizing, and Nate has never apologized before. “Well, I realized that.” Silas snorts, trying to keep his voice as even as possible as he gets Nate’s shit off and folds it over the nightstand. “Kinda hard not to smell the alcohol radiating from your pores.” There’s a joking tone in his voice, a tone that is entirely forced, but he ignores that for now. He ignores the rapidfire beating of his heart against his ribs, and the way he can’t quite keep his fingers from going numb when he rests a hand on Nate’s chest.

Because he apologized. And Silas isn’t sure if it means anything or not.

Until Nate speaks again, and Silas cannot keep his gaze from lingering on the other man’s face, even though Nate isn’t looking at him now. The words had been soft, barely audible even in the silence of his bedroom…but he’d heard the words loud and clear. It’s like the world is crashing down on him in that second. Everything he’d thought seems wrong, and them here, in this room…it seems so utterly right.

He can’t speak at Nate’ admission…can’t even breathe. His chest is tight with a strange warmth he can’t even begin to guess at, but it comes easier before long and without thinking about his actions, he is leaning over Nathan, gripping the man’s head between his head and pulling his face around so he can kiss him. Silas ignores the blatant taste of far too much alcohol in favor of concentrating of the catch of their lips, the way Nate is so warm and solidly present beneath him, and he focuses on the fact that Nate actually wants him, more than one of those faceless, nameless people he’s fucked in the past.

It’s an amazing feeling, and Silas pulls away from the kiss, pressing his forehead to Nate’s for a second. “It’s okay, darlin’. It’s okay.” He says, repeating himself with breathless words before he slides his head up to plant a tender kiss on Nate’s temple. “I’ve gotcha.”

And for once, he’s content in the simple fact that he is enough. At least for the night.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

There is a gentle palm on Nate’s chest, a set of soft fingertips and the thrum of a familiar pulse to keep him grounded in reality; beneath that hand the werewolf’s heart beats erratically, wildly, painfully, but the warmth in the gesture manages to calm him where determination and thought alone could not. Nate grimaces, shivering under Silas’ touch, and cannot meet the man’s eyes. Owning up to his mistakes is a difficult act at the best of times; regret is a foreign concept, vulnerability a curse. The doctor’s plaintive and worried requests for more information fall upon deaf ears, and Nate’s fingers twist in the bedsheets with his effort to ignore any further recognition of what he has done.

What had mattered, in the end, was his simple want for Silas alone, and the amount of liquor it had taken for him to own up to that fact. Attachment is a frightening notion that Nate avoids at all cost – lest he end up, say, making an awful decision because of it – and heartache is a fear he hides so deep it is nearly unrecognized. He has never needed anyone, never defined himself by any single person, and the idea that Silas has somehow circumvented his best defenses is a startling one. That Nathan is of no mind to fight this blooming affection is even more alarming. He does not know how to handle these emotions and so he simply doesn’t; the man settles back into his bleak and nauseous stupor, letting such thoughts slip through his fingers in favor of the cold sweat that grips him.

Nate is little more than a petulant child, knowing what he wants but finding himself utterly confused at having gotten his way.

His admission had not been meant for Silas, not consciously. It had slipped past lips loosened by fever and fear, stated more for his abject bewilderment at its truth than for Silas’ benefit. The surgeon has never pressed Nate for anything more than what they had, never asked for more than he had been willing to give, and for that the werewolf had always been thankful – but here, imposing upon him so harshly and rendering something of his heart into Silas’ hands, there is only the lurking terror that he will be denied. Nathan cannot confess it outright – his head is swimming with too many thoughts and not enough focus – but it has him clutching to the bed tighter nonetheless, teeth grit and expression wan.

So it is that Silas’ reaction comes as something of a surprise, knocking Nate out of his own dark and muddled musing with a press of fingers and the heat of a body above his. It is not much of a romantic gesture, as far as these things go. His vision is already blurry, his chest tight and his stomach roiling, but when Silas’ lips claim his there is a brief moment where only the other man exists; where the worries of his mind and body both evaporate. Nate tenses in uncertainty before yielding, softening, and is left breathless and stammering when Silas finally pulls away, his fingers trembling for more than the poison in his veins. Soothing words and gentle hands coax him in close, and Nate’s eyes shut as he drops his forehead tiredly to Silas’ shoulder.

”I know,” he whispers, voice cracked and broken. He presses his mouth to the crook of Silas’ neck, palms clutching tight to his back and words muffled against his skin. ”You always do.” The resignation in Nathan’s tone is offset by a certain amount of appreciation, of affection; he quivers against Silas, holding tight for warmth and an unacknowledged need for comfort. It is a long moment, silent and heavy, before he can find the will and concentration to move away, and Nate slumps back to the mattress with his grasping tight at Silas’ wrist. He cannot look at the man, cannot face whatever lies between them, and has to wet his lips before he can find his voice.

”I don’t know what it was. I just—” Nate sucks in a quick breath between chattering teeth, waiting for the latest rush of vertigo to leave him. ”I didn’t want to think. He said I wouldn’t think.” Whatever cocktail he’d ingested, mixed with far too much liquor, certainly hadn’t granted him the oblivion he’d sought; he is paying for it now, body damp with sweat and muscles tense, his wild pulse threatening to burst from his chest. The mark Silas has made on Nathan had proven indelible, unable to be erased by a liberal application of alcohol and carelessness, and the man’s futile attempt at such and simply lead him back where he started.

Back where Nate had wanted to be to begin with; but what damage he has caused, what changes he has wrought, leaves him more uncertain of his standing than ever.

”You didn’t have to leave.” Blinking slowly, Nate struggles to get his erratic breathing under control, staring numbly past Silas’ shoulder. ”You could have stayed. We could have— you—“ but whatever protests he’d like to make do not come, lost in translation between his addled mind and his stumbling mouth. He should have been here tonight. Nate should have been with Silas, not trying to scour him from his thoughts.

Revelations and confessions prove to be too much, and the werewolf releases Silas’ hand to scrub his palm over his face, some rational and lucid piece of his wits begging him for silence. ”Drinking is more fun with you,” he laughs airily, finally managing to meet Silas’ gaze, but where the words are honest they are not the whole truth. His mind is too far gone for games or masks of humor to hide behind; Nate’s face falters, his eyes dropping, and he resists a bodily studder with a grimace and a grunt.

”…it’s cold,” the man adds after a moment, swallowing tightly – and that will be Silas’ only invitation.

[Zephyr]

The anger that is stirring in the doctor in that moment is unlike any anger he’s ever felt. It’s a hot thing that pounds behind his eyes until he’s forced to acknowledge it. He slides a hand from Nate to fist in the sheets. That someone would do this to Nate is a thought that Silas doesn’t particularly want to follow up. He’s pretty sure if he does, he’ll end up tracking the bastard down. And Silas knows he’d be able to find the dick. His scent is all over Nathan…and if that’s the thought that sends his rage boiling over, well, no one has to know.

Even if the bastard didn’t mean harm by giving Nate whatever the hell it was he took, he shouldn’t have been giving anything to anyone. The doctor in Silas surges to the forefront of his brain for a second, but he doesn’t have enough time to think on it…Nate is speaking and Silas loosens his grip on the bed, making a mental note to track the douche down later and showing him what happens when he messes with someone that the doctor cares about so much.

He wets his lips, lifting his hand to brush sweaty hair away from Nate’s face as he thought about his words. “Don’t worry.” His smile is soft, and so unlike a traditional Silas glare. “You don’t have to think if you don’t want to.” Because I’ll do the thinking for you this once, for everything you’ve done for me, and everything you will do, goes unsaid between them.

Apparently, Nate isn’t going to cease to surprise him today. His heart is pounding so hard in his chest that he thinks Nate could hear it if the other werewolf was in his right mind. “I’m not…” he starts, not quite sure how to finish the sentence. “…going anywhere.” He finishes with only a slight pause, learning over to press a kiss to Nate’s forehead. “I’ll always stay.” The doctor murmurs against the other man’s skin, his voice quiet. “All you have to do is ask.”

He sighs softly, pulling away to look down at Nate for a second. His addendum is strange…but Silas is immediately concerned. Whatever the guy gave him, it doesn’t seem to be having mortal side effects on Nate, which he is endlessly relieved by, but it still isn’t good. “Okay.” His voice is somber as he pushes himself up and then shifts slightly to pull Nate’s shoes off and drop them to the floor before he shits to slip under the sheets next to the other man and pulls the blanket over them.

“You need to sleep. C’mon. For me?” That said, he wraps his arms around Nate’s back and rests his chin atop his head. Silas traces concentric circles on the werewolf’s back with his hand and whispers into his hair. “You’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll take care of you.”

And he will. No matter what happens, he’s going to be there for him. This is one of the constants of his life. He won’t leave. “Sleep.” He whispers like a mantra, stilling his motions on Nathan’s back as he waits for sleep to claim the other man.

In that moment, he forgets all of his promises and mental notes to just try and make Nate happy. Because he should never be any other way.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

In the wake of Silas’ absence, Nate is left shaking; the other man pulls back and moves away, and there is a moment where he fears Silas will leave him entirely, will abandon him to this empty bed and the night’s countless terrors. The words whispered between them slip in and out of his head like smoke, remembered for half an instant and forgot in the next, and he can hardly register the motion of the doctor undressing him. Nate rolls his head back and stares up at the ceiling, hissing in a breath between grit teeth, and it is not until Silas crawls into bed beside him that realization and lucidity come tumbling back home.

Turning, Nate allows the man to gather him up in his arms, pressing his forehead gently into Silas’ bare chest. The warmth of their bodies and the blanket around him manages to lull him closer to relaxation, the tremble in his fingers stilled and the frantic beating of his pulse slowed; he nestles in close, utterly exhausted and too far gone to care, and lets the motion of Silas’ hands ease the tension in his shoulders. Nate is unused to drawing his sort of comfort from any one person, unused to relying upon someone else so completely. Were he in his right mind, were he sober, the thought might very well horrify him – it is a vulnerability and a weakness that he can’t normally afford to be seen, but for Silas, he abandons his white-knuckled grip on control. For this moment, he allows things to be simple.

The night has so often been a bastion of recklessness and haste, and Nate has always believed in leaving problems and thought for the rising sun; though this act is nothing like how he normally spends his evenings, he applies the same logic and treats in no differently. The morning can handle whatever doubt and regret will have holed up inside him, just as the morning can handle facing Silas with this new thread stretched taut between them, and deal with the consequences. His arms slowly slide to Silas’ waist, wrapping around and holding him close, and his head drops to the sheets in dull resignation, no longer willing to deny the doctor’s command for sleep.

And it comes for him, almost more quickly than he would like, drowning out the twisted reality of the evening with an all-encompassing blackness. For once, Nathan sleeps soundly, and even dreams do not find him.


Morning can only come too soon, and though a great portion of it is wasted away in the dark embrace of slumber, it eventually catches up to the man sprawled out upon the bed in a series of lights sliced across his closed eyelids. The sun streams in between the closed blinds and crawls across the mass of sheets and comforters, at last rousing Nate into wakefulness; the pounding in his skull turns into a rhythm he can’t ignore, and it is with a grunt and a groan that he slowly extracts himself from the blanket and manages to sit up. Silas’ bedroom is so familiar that the man doesn’t even spare a moment to process his location – his hangover, and the fact that he is still uncomfortably clothed in yesterday’s slacks, are far more pressing matters.

That he is alone is not, at first, immediately concerning. There is a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin on the nightstand; Nate takes two pills with a choking swallow before scrubbing his hand across his stubbled cheeks, trying to make sense of the chain of events that lead him here, of the confusing blur that is the previous evening. Lurking in the back of his mind is some irrational and misunderstood fear that Silas should be here, that there is something dreadfully wrong with his absence, and Nate stuffs the notion down. He swings his legs from bed and rests bare feet on the cold hardwood floor, and slowly, frustratingly, he remembers.

It takes time before he can manage enough balance and drive to even attempt to rise from the bed. Nate’s headache has receded to the periphery of his mind, but what has moved in to replacement is an awkwardness he is so unaccustomed to feeling around Silas – or at all. The strangeness that so often follows a one-night stand has always eluded him, but he has managed to replicate it by bearing a part of his wretched little soul to a man he worries so profoundly about driving away, and he does not know how to face this feeling.

How to face Silas.

Nate stalls, scrounging an old t-shirt of his out of Silas’ closet before exiting the bedroom, padding for the kitchen in wrinkled clothes and naked shame. What greets him is more surprising than his own irresponsibility and bewildering wash of emotions combined; Silas is perched at the stove, cooking, and Nate finally recognizes the scent of bacon on the air. His stomach growls in protest, and after only a brief hesitance, he throws out all thought of simply stumbling through his goodbyes and pretending this whole damned thing hadn’t happened. There is food to be had – and there is the knowledge that he can’t simply slip out and let this go.

Clearing his throat softly, Nate wets his lips and manages a ghost of his usual confident smirk before meetting Silas’ eyes. ”Is that breakfast?” Or lunch, maybe. He’s not really sure what the hell time it is. He pushes off of the doorframe he leans against and enters the kitchen proper, peering over Silas’ shoulder for a peek. ”…any for me?”

[Zephyr]

He didn’t move. Not once that night. He had meant to slip away from Nathan when the man was well and truly asleep to track down the bastard who’d done that to him. He had wanted to feel flesh and bone and blood yield beneath the unrelenting pressure of his fist. The violent thoughts surprise him…because he’s never been that aggressive of a person when he’d actually been a person. He blames it mostly on the wolf, plus something deeper that he isn’t sure he wants to acknowledge at the moment.

The fact that he’s never cared about anyone enough to care about protecting them this fervently.

With his arms wrapped around Nate, he hadn’t wanted to breathe let alone move. He’s never felt this way before and it freaks him the fuck out. This might be what drives Silas out of the bed when dawn begins to rise. It might also be partially because he hadn’t slept, worry for Nate causing his gut to churn and not letting sleep come. It didn’t matter, though. He had been perfectly happy feeling him breathing beneath his hands, because the alternative was almost too terrible to think about.

So he is gone when Nate wakes up, but he makes sure the guy has aspirin and water because he was pretty goddamn drunk, and Silas has no idea what after effects the drug will have on him…so aspirin seems a pretty safe bet all around. It hadn’t been difficult to slide out of Nate’s grasp. The guy was pretty much dead to the world. He felt slightly guilty, but he was pretty sure the breakfast would make up for it.

Silas has always been pretty good in the kitchen. He grew up knowing his mother and grandmother’s recipes, and more often than not, he’d had to fix meals for Elijah and Lilian when his father was too fucking drunk off his ass and too busy beating the kids to actually bother with providing them food. Silas learned pretty early on not to trust his father to be responsible for anything. Everything Silas knows how to cook is real southern food, and as he starts getting the ingredients together, he’s thankful that Matthias made him get up off his ass to get food that wouldn’t give you a heart attack or a hangover.

Cooking is a relatively easy distraction for Silas. It’s easy not to think about Nate sweating and shivering and shaking or Nate in his bed or Nate deciding that Silas really isn’t worth sticking around for, because he actually has to focus on not burning stuff.

He’s concentrating so much on not burning stuff that he doesn’t notice Nate getting out of bed. So, needless to say, he’s pretty surprised when he suddenly hears the werewolf’s voice. He glances over, green and brown eyes studying his face for a moment before he snorts. “No, it’s not. I’m making meth.” There’s an edge of amusement in his eyes as he turns back to the task at hand. He’s half tempted to smack Nate with his spatula when the guy gets right up behind him, but decides he doesn’t really need any more female comparisons, thanks. He’s already wearing Nathan’s gaudy kiss the cook apron…over just boxers…because cooking half naked is always a good idea.

He’s pretty sure he looks fucking ridiculous.

“You don’t expect me to eat all of this?” He growls, motioning vaguely in the direction of the biscuits and sausage gravy he made while he concentrates on flipping the bacon, because it’s almost blasphemy to burn bacon in the first place. “This’ll be done in a little while if you want to go take a shower or something.” His voice is a little softer there, because he knows Nate probably needs a shower right about now.

He remembers the previous night in perfect clarity and all its confessions and promises and the way Nate felt in his arms, still shaking from the aftereffects of the drug. That isn’t Nate though. He doesn’t share shit like that...and Silas wonders how much of it he actually remembers.

…and how much Nate regrets the things he’d said to Silas.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

True honesty and openness have never had a large place in Nathan’s life. It is a deliberate fantasy crafted both for his own safety and that of those around him; the facades he displays are so believed, and his secrets hidden so deeply, that there is little reason to believe his act is anything but absolute truth. Friends and family (though family has been an unknown concept for nigh on a decade) are kept far enough from his heart that they remain only fleeting, temporary shadows on his life, and for as long as Nate can remember that has been the way he has enjoyed living. Relationships are things of the past – he’d ruined enough of those – and there has never been a pressing reason for him to change.

He does not trust, he does not confess, and Nathaniel Hart certainly does not fall.

These are reliable and worn truths, and the mask he dons so often (admit nothing, deny everything) is so familiar he wears it without thinking – and it is this that greets Silas as the man turns to peer at him, a clever smirk on his lips and laughter in his eyes. That the doctor is making jokes is good, even if it’s strangely off-color considering the circumstances, and Nate settles his hands to Silas’ waist to breathe in deep and watch him work. The warmth that radiates between them is comforting and well remembered; Nate’s fingertips linger in the ghost of a touch when he finally manages to break away, too caught up in the feeling and memorized sensation of Silas pressed tight to him to make sense of the situation.

”I never thought you’d actually wear that,” he murmurs, taking a moment to fix a pair of covetous eyes along the bare line of Silas’ spine, ”but you should do it more often.” The statement is accented by a tired chuckle, and at the doctor’s gesture Nate slips across the floor to busy himself with the biscuits and gravy waiting patiently on the counter to be devoured, and it is all he can do to not simply pop one messily in his mouth. He sneaks a taste anyway, a finger drawn across the plate and pressed to his lips, and should Silas catch him he will offer only a coy smile as his defense – and nimbly shuffle away from any consequential spatula beatings.

The brief return of their casual rapport is upturned in Silas’ next words, in the soft way he suggests Nate leave him be, and the man straightens where he stands to feel that awkwardness set in once more. He has no desire to explain himself nor relive the previous night’s mistakes, not when forgetting the whole ordeal had been so within their grasp, and so he simply shifts his weight between bare feet and rolls his shoulders in an attempt at lazy nonchalance. The liquor on his breath certainly hasn’t left simply for a glass of water and a prayer; the cold sweat that had gripped him beneath the sheets still clings to his skin, still leaves strands of his hair limp and disheveled. Whatever Silas’ intent, the man still has a point, and Nate sullenly bends to the wisdom in his words while trying not to focus too hard on their meaning.

”I’m sure I fucking reek,” he laughs, though there is a spark missing from his words. Nate is tired, too tired, and handling any of this seems far outside of his abilities with a bad night and a hangover still lurking in the back of his head – another reason to slip out and spend a few more minutes gathering his thoughts – and retreats with a halfhearted wave to the bedroom door. ”Gimme five. Don’t let that get cold, and don’t you dare change.” He is gone before Silas has a chance to respond, back to the seclusion of the rest of the apartment, back to nothing but the silence of his own thoughts and the endless pounding in his skull.

It is not the best shower of Nate’s life (headaches tend to ruin things), but for the shock he had managed to put his body through the previous night, it is surprisingly satisfying. He uses too much of Silas’ shampoo and spends too long resting with his head against the wall, lost in his own thoughts, but eventually drags himself out – feeling twice as human and far less likely to collapse in an exhausted pile at any given moment. Nate wonders, idly, when the hell he managed to leave a toothbrush here; when the hell enough of his clothes had accumulated that he can pick himself an outfit out of the back of Silas’ closet. By the time he reemerges he is looking less like death warmed over and more like Nate, though there is still a hint of hesitance about him that is both foreign and strange.

There are plates of food waiting, and more than that, Silas is waiting, and Nate runs his hand through his hair and flashes the man a crooked grin before settling to his seat. His appetite, however, stalls, and an unwelcome stillness sets in as the man shoves his meal around his plate distractedly, refusing to meet Silas’ eyes. There is something wrong with this – with Silas feeding him, taking care of him so patiently the night previous – because Nate does not deserve it. He swallows tightly, jaw tense, and wishes for the life of him that he had a cigarette.

”You shouldn’t have done this.” But that’s not it; not how it’s meant to go. ”—you shouldn’t have to do this. For me. What happened last night—“ and Nate doesn’t want to talk about it, wants to let it go between them as a foolish mistake he never should have made, but Silas is owed better. The idiot man who’d dared to let him in at his weakest merits more than hollow smiles and false words, and the fact that Nate is willing to even attempt to explain is terrifying enough on its own. He leans back with a barely contained grimace, his gaze somehow defiant, ready for the other man to toss him out on his ass for daring to bring this all up.

”I’m kind of a shitty friend,” he admits bitterly, trying not to laugh at the obviousness of the statement. ”And I don’t… y’know, you shouldn’t be the one stuck cleaning up my messes. So I’m sorry. For that.” Nate’s eyes drop back to the biscuits scattered on his plate, the visual representation of Silas’ damnable giving nature that sets aching little pins into his heart he’d grown so used to tearing out. ”…but I’m glad you were there.”

Because a simple thank you is too difficult to say.

[Zephyr]

Without really meaning to, he tracks the pack Nathan takes to him with his ears, not bothering to actually look at him in favor of not burning the bacon. It’s a little harder to focus with Nate standing so close, and touching him, no matter how lightly, but he forces himself to focus on the food, and not the way the lack of the man’s touch suddenly makes him feel wanting. He licks his lips, hiding the goddamn flush that colors his ears for a second at the other werewolf’s words. “Don’t get used to it.” Because a simple ‘sure’ is clearly too much for Silas to manage.

He does glance at Nate when he speaks again, brows pulled together silently, and an almost ‘that’s not what I meant’ on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t say anything though, because Nathan is already gone by the time he gets the words to say. The werewolf is hiding it well, but Silas knows him sell enough to pick up the subtle changes in his body language that tell Silas that he is anything but comfortable at the moment, and Silas doesn’t know if it’s because of the previous night, or anything that Silas has done. He growls a little, the sound meeting the empty room unchallenged as he finishes up the bacon before he sets his goddamn apartment on fire.

Silas has always hated having nothing to do with his hands and he contemplates getting dressed for a second while he pulls the apron off and starts to pile food on plates just to give his hands something to do.

When Nate comes out, Silas is in the middle of shoveling some into his face. The man’s smile floods him with relief…until he sits down and promptly does not eat. He resists the urge to glare at the other man, because he doesn’t need the comparisons, and he knows that isn’t going to get things done, so he shoves a piece of bacon in his mouth, working over what he’s going to say when Nate beats him to the punch again. So Silas just listens as the other man speaks, still eating because he hasn’t eaten for a long time and he isn’t going to let his food get…

Most thought skids to a through stop when Nate keeps going. Silas drops his fork, gaze unwavering from Nathan’s form. “You know me better than anyone.” And the obviousness of that statement is something he doesn’t even try to hide. Silas has never let anyone close to him, save Nate. Even Matthias doesn’t know him half as well as the other werewolf does. It’s sad, maybe, that Nathan is the only one who really knows Silas, but it isn’t something he cares about too much. It just figures that Nate would be the only damn one he lets in. “If I didn’t want to do something, I wouldn’t do it.” And apologies aside, it just comes down to that. Silas doesn’t care about anyone besides himself and Nate half the time. If he thought Nate was being a shitty friend, he wouldn’t hesitate letting him know.

Silas doesn’t believe in censoring himself.

He grows quiet then. Sharing and talking about emotions are just things he’s never bothered with. He’s never had a relationship where talking has been such a big part of it. So he gets quiet, for once, seeming to not care if the rest of his food gets cold. “I want to though.” He says at last, voice soft and only a little growly. He lets time pass before he speaks again. “I want to be the one you come to when you need help.” Even if it hurts, he will never deny Nate anything, that’s how deep the damn man’s gotten under his skin. “I want you to know that you can come to me…and I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to.”

He shrugs then, his demeanor shifting. Like it isn’t a big deal. Even if it kind of is. Silas doesn’t want to risk alienating Nate. Pretending like it doesn’t matter seems to be the best bet. He’s never been good with feelings anyway. Then like a master deflector, he tilts his head towards Nate. “You need to eat though. Your body had a rough night. Food will help.” And Silas is completely content at leaving it at that if Nate wants. A non issue.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Nathan has never much liked silence, not in the way it creeps up and settles in every crack and crevasse until the world tremble with the weight of it; there are poignant silences, and there are pointed and intimidating silences, and Nate knows these well enough. He has used them, mastered them. The difference is in their use: this one that builds heavy between Silas and Nate is an uncomfortable stillness born of hesitance and doubt, of uncertainty and weakness and everything the werewolf despises showing. It is for this moment of vulnerability that he expects to be routinely denied; that he will have overstepped some invisible boundary, the one forged to keep their relationship safe and simple and only skin deep, and Silas will uproot him for it.

Nate drops his fork to his plate, biting back both a grimace and a sigh, and steels himself for the fallout. With this feeling welling up inside him, this recognition of the fact that he and Silas cannot stay the same, it might be for the best that he has ended it now, though after breakfast may have been the more opportune time—

Silas is speaking to him, soft and sure, and Nate cannot find it in him to resist looking up at those green-brown eyes. He swallows thickly, unwilling to further address the tension in his muscles or the worries of his mind, but Silas does not let the matter rest. For every inch Nate has wedged himself into the surgeon’s life, it has been reciprocated – furtively to begin, then reluctantly, and now with something like cautious acceptance. There is nowhere else the man would have ended up the night previous, save home, and it is telling that he thought Silas’ bed – Silas’ company – would prove more secure than that. Nathan runs his hand through his damp hair, huffing a sigh, and is about to make some dismissive overture to rid them of this whole affair when the surgeon stumbles on.

It was never meant to be about what Silas wants; he simply shouldn’t have to. Nate knows himself well enough to understand how easily it is for him to take advantage of others – and Silas does not deserve that sort manipulation, the sort of one-sided relationship that is all Nathan can ever hope to give him.

”You shouldn’t.” It is a warning and advice both. ”You shouldn’t – don’t give me anything. I know the sex is great, but I swear it isn’t worth it.” Nate fixes Silas with a small, brazen smirk, trying to smooth over these revelations with levity mixed with truth. ”I bite. You know that.” Silas’ reassurances to something to calm him, to steady the confusion he isn’t quite able to mask, but Nate cannot be swept up in gentle promises so easily. The surgeon knows, better than anyone, just how Nate deals with individuals who get too close; there is a sudden measure of bitter regret in his smile, and the man drops his eyes before his stare can grow too hard. In business, in responsibilities centered on work and duty, he is a sure thing, reliable and steadfast. In matters of the heart – in relationships, in love and lust and emotion – Nathan is little more than a wildfire. It is Silas’ decision to risk the burn.

At Silas’ prompting, Nate returns to his breakfast, the wolf settling back to a drowsy slumber beneath his skin. It seems like the easier way to handle all this, to avoid the problems he has created between them and play at normalcy, but it doesn’t sit right; that silence has crept in again, ominous and heavy, and it wears at him. The werewolf picks through his meal slowly and without any of his usual fervor, and blames it on the continued twisting of his stomach.

”You should let me take you out.” The quiet shatters in an instant, though the phrase is said conversationally, with little hint of true motivation. Despite the earlier discussion, it could read as entirely unrelated for the casual ease with which Nate speaks. ”Not to a bar, I mean. Somewhere nice. Do dinner or something.” Only now does the man raise his eyes, catching Silas’ pointedly, brows raised in invitation. Whatever earlier hesitance existed between them, Nate has cleverly sidestepped it, and a burgeoning cocksure smile spreads over his features – a more honest one than the brittle things that lived there previously.

”I think I’m done with clubs for a while,” he adds with a shrug, like it is some sort of reason for the change, ”and you should let me thank you.”

[Zephyr]

Nate’s words do not fall on deaf ears. The doctor’s eyes slide shut, and he drops his fork carefully to his plate. It pisses him off more than a little that Nathan thinks all Silas wants from him is the sex. It pisses him off that Nate thinks he can choose what Silas should think is an d isn’t worth it. Finally, he opens his eyes, doesn’t meet the other man’s smile with one of his own. Instead, his expression is vaguely irritated. “You think all I want from you is sex.” It isn’t even a question, just a cool statement spoken with very little change in his tone. Silas is trying to pick through the pieces of this revelation.

At last, defeated, Silas drops his gaze back to his plate; picks up his fork. If Nathan doesn’t care about him, or whatever the hell is it they have or could have, Silas can’t make him. He isn’t into forcing people to love him, not matter what his own feelings are on the matter.

Then, deadly soft, eyes still downcast under full lashes, he speaks, “You’re wrong, you know.”

And he leaves it at that, because if Nathan doesn’t care, Silas can’t make him care, no matter how the thought that the other werewolf doesn’t know or care what he actually wants has his stomach all in unpleasant knots. The breakfast is an uncomfortable one, and Silas is unaccustomed to feeling uncomfortable around Nate…dislikes the feeling immensely.

The doctor is on the verge of getting up and leaving. He doesn’t know where he will go, it’s just the silence is suffocating him. His food looks unappealing, and for the first time, Nathan is making him blatantly uncomfortable, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Then the other man speaks, and Silas’ head jerks up, gaze zeroing in on Nathan as effectively as if he had been shocked. His gaze is wary. He isn’t sure what Nate is getting at. They go out all the time. Drink themselves silly and then go back to one of their apartments to fuck the effects off. As much as his body likes the thought of that particular course of action, he isn’t quite sure that will fix any of the problems between them.

Problems that had been cleverly masked by sex all this time.

Silas’ gaze softens as the other man continues speaking. So it isn’t the same as his usual requests. Dinner. The sound is hollow in his own head. They do dinner all the time. Silas is usually the one who has to initiate it if it is to be remotely nice and not just fast food or pizza and a bad movie…but it’s dinner all the same. He’d long ago accepted the fact that nothing between them would ever change, that they would be casual fuck buddies forever, no matter how much he wants.

This rings with a different tone though. Is it Nathan trying? He can’t see how it can be anything else. He is still watching Nate, breakfast completely forgotten for the moment. He licks his lips, looking for the words to respond with. If this is Nate’s attempt at really trying, then Silas can’t honestly think of any other response other than the wry smile he fixes the other man with, discomfort and irritation wiped away in a second…or at least forgotten. “Sure.” And Silas is as powerless to Nathan as he has ever been. “Sounds like fun.”

He’s unaccountably relieved at Nate’s declaration to stay away from the clubs, not only because of the jealousy that burns white hot in his gut when he thinks of it, but the anger that someone could drug Nathan and how powerless Silas had been against it. Soft green and brown eyes land on Nate, and breakfast is forgotten as Silas stands, brushing past Nathan with fingers in is hair that trail down to wrap around the man’s hand and pull him gently along with him. “C’mon.”

If Nathan doesn’t follow along, Silas will let go of him and just make his way to the couch, but if Nathan deigns to follow him, Silas will fall back into soft cushions, body wrapped around the other man’s. “So what are you thanking me for?” Silas would ask softly into the crook of Nathan’s neck.

[♥ Nathan ♥]

Very little Nathan does is unplanned; from his dress to his mannerisms to his very words, he prefers being in control. A night like the last, where so much of that coveted self-possession had been taken from him, leaves him rattled and discomfited in its wake; settling into routine is a standard coping mechanism but nothing here is routine. Silas is familiar and comfortable but everything else reads as strange, a slanted universe where he cannot be sure of the floor beneath his feet or the upset balance in his head. It should be enough – and maybe it is, maybe some of his efforts pass through as telling – that Nathan tries.

With the way Silas seems unable to read through his words, in how the other man diffuses his naked attempt at humor and justification to ignore his warning, the werewolf is uncertain if he’s making sense at all. It’s not that he is incapable of saying things he doesn’t mean – twisting the truth is, after all, fairly standard in his method of operations – but he always speaks with intent. Nathan isn’t sure it can get much plainer than cautioning Silas to keep away, to stop whatever this is from occurring and refraining from getting too close. Offering to take the surgeon out, then, is as far from safe as Nate can get, but he has never been known to deny himself anything.

That he knows better is a fact he is struggling to ignore.

The werewolf’s smile falters at Silas’ delayed response, suspicious of betrayal. Maybe he should have expected it, giving the prior boundaries of their relationship; it makes a certain amount of sense that the doctor would need to pause to analyze his offer, to glean from it what snippets of information Nathan makes available. He wets his lips, leaning back as his plate is cleared, and when the other man finally manages a reply it is met with only the most careful of smirks. Emotions are too high, too in flux for Nate to have an appropriate handle on the confusing crawl of the morning; he knows what he wants, and he knows what he should avoid, and as of late the two seem to be combined more often than not. There is a laundry list of reasons as to why he should disengage – as to why he does not get involved.

He discards every one.

”Great,” the man manages, like this is all no big deal, ”it’s a date, then.” The brief conviction he had managed, that play at his usual cool nonchalance – it evaporates with the deed done, and he drops his eyes to his plate. Nathan is tired, a fact which he is continually reminded of despite his best attempts to avoid it, and meeting Silas’ hopeful stare becomes too much. A rational part of his mind knows he should feel guilty; that he can and will fuck this up, like he has so many times before, and that the other man does not deserve whatever trouble Nathan will put him through. Silas is a frightening amount of comfort and kindness in a world that has otherwise offered only punishment – and maybe it is little wonder that the executive has grown attached. His own ego is so bold as to believe he could change when he is nothing but a creature of habit.

It leaves him powerless to resist when Silas rises and guides him along, but Nathan remains distant as they collapse to the couch. He tucks the other man up under his arm, resting his head back against the cushions, and his focus is all for the ceiling as the doctor poses his question; the werewolf huffs softly, disguising a frown with a turn of his head. The past twenty-four hours have already been too revealing. Nate balks at the prospect of more.

”Letting me wake you up at some ass hour of the morning,” he jokes, turning his head to fix Silas with a smug smile. Further information will not be forthcoming. The easy way Nate picks humor over honesty states that plainly enough, and it is a notion reinforced when the werewolf leans over to pin a kiss on the surgeon’s temple before getting to his feet. ”Lemme know an evening you’re free. I’ll pick you up.” Running a hand through his hair, he considers the mistakes of the previous night and the morning soundly dropped; he evades them, ignores them, and lets himself believe the day might yet be salvaged.

Reaching down, Nathan cups Silas’ chin in his fingers and tilts the man’s head to meet his eyes, thumb arcing affectionately along his cheek. He smirks coaxingly, brows raised in playful invitation. ”I’ll make it nice. You’ll like it.” Though true intimacy eludes him the werewolf is a master at mimicking it – and for Silas, the words ring like a vow.