Let it end in flames (Matthias)

[Zephyr]

It’d started at home, the drinking. He’d left Nate’s abruptly, refusing to acknowledge the pain in his chest as anything close to heartbreak in lieu of drowning the feeling in some good bourbon. The pain is constricting by the time he gets home and shuts the door, eyes shooting to Matthias’ form on the couch in the living room, and suddenly he can’t breathe. All he wants is to stop thinking, about Nathan, about Matthias about anything other than the cool burn of alcohol on his tongue and down his throat.

The doctor wastes little time pulling his alcohol from the cabinet, downing a full tumbler when he’d usually at least take the time for the alcohol to settle. Silas leans back against the counter, falling with his knees pulled up to his chest and taking another half a glass in before Matthias is there, asking him what’s wrong. Silas can’t speak though. His breathing is still coming hard and all he wants to do is drink the pain away.

This is why he doesn’t get involved.

This is why he hadn’t gotten involved since Jessica.

Fuck him, fuck Nate.

He’s pretty sure he’s said it out loud because Matthias asks what Nate did, but Silas can’t bring himself to care or even to begin to explain. He still isn’t drunk enough for this, and downs the rest of his glass, dropping it carelessly against the floor. Eyes roll back to meet Matthias’ blue eyes, and he just can’t fucking take it. He’s an idiot and a fool, and the wolf scratches and pleads inside him. He needs out, and he needs out now.

He pushes past Matthias, not bothering to even speak to the kid as he emerges into the cool night. Silas figures he should probably be cold, but the alcohol has warmed him, and since he’d been drinking too quickly to feel the effects of the alcohol, he feels he’s perfectly capable of driving to the nearest bar where he’s sure he won’t meet Nathan. It isn’t the classiest place around, but it works for his purposes. There are plenty of large, rowdy men out tonight, and after a few more drinks, and getting cut off by the fucking bartender, it’s an easy enough matter to coax one of them into a fight.

Coax, in this context is basically making some snarling comment about the man’s mother (Silas has never been the most creative, especially inebriated), and then just hauling off and trying to punch him in the face. One would think that someone who gets into as many bar brawls as Silas would know how to actually fight drunk. Usually though, by the time he’s this drunk, he’s pleasantly content with just going along with whatever Nate wants. The thought causes a fresh pang of bitter regret and hurt to slice through his chest, and it’s almost nice…the pain when the man slams his fist right into Silas’ face.

They’re right outside the bar at this point and Silas stumbles against a streetlamp, breathing hard, the blood from his split lip dripping down his chin. He shudders for a second, fighting with the wolf. It’s never been a particularly aggressive creature, but it somehow knows this is wrong, and that it has to stop whether that means the man’s body in a bloody pile at its feet. He pushes it back though, has learned control over the beast, even in this state.

Instead of giving into the wolf, Silas heaves himself up off the street lamp, fixes the man with a vicious glare and sneers at him, the doctor’s voice a hateful hiss that he usually reserves for those unfortunate enough to get in his way. This time though, the hate is hollow. The man is merely a conduit…Silas is displacing his hatred for himself, his hatred for Nathan (though he isn’t sure if he’ll ever really be able to hate the other man, at least not more than he hurts himself), onto this poor man.

“Fuck. That all you got?” He snarls, running his tongue along his lower lip decisively and letting out a hollow laugh, a humorless, dark thing. “I think my dead four year old sister could hit better than that.” And it might not have been the right thing to say, but Silas is beyond caring as he lays into the man again, not planning on dodging any of his blows.

The pain is nice. It keeps him from thinking about anything else.

[Matthias Walker]

It doesn’t take a genius to know when something’s wrong, but it takes a better person than Matthias to matter enough to ground Silas, apparently.

He’s left dry-mouthed and staring at the closed apartment door, brow knitted together in concern, and the thought half-occurs to him to just call Nate and ask what the fuck is happening, but it’s dismissed in the next heartbeat. Mattie’s a hunter and he owes Silas the dignity of his own explanation, however drunk the man is when, not if, he finds him, and Silas even does Matthias the service of driving rather than walking. In dried and cut terms of hunting it’s the easiest job he’s had in years, following Silas to one of Boston’s bars, parking two blocks away, indiscreet, invisible; in every way that matters, though, Matthias is strung tight with the sick confusion, the dread of finding the wolf ripping someone apart or the man bleeding on the floor.

Finding him turning the memory of his younger sister into a weapon against some random asshole is better, then, than the images Mattie’s rampant imagination has been offering him, and there’s an utterly disproportionate surge of relief that stills his steps a moment. The bar fight thing isn’t strange for him—it’s even familiar, the easiest and safest conduit for the stress and guilt that comes with hunting, but Matthias is just enough of a hypocrite to protest Silas throwing himself at this guy drunk off his ass and hurting: The guy probably has no fucking clue what’s happening but that doesn’t mean he won’t hurt Silas in self-defense and if Silas keeps pushing—

“Hey—” There’s no plan, nothing but absolute, stupid instinct that triggers the rapid steps forward, and Mattie refuses to regret it when he gets both arms around Silas from behind, uses his momentum and the scarce element of surprise he’s got to twist them so that he’s between the werewolf and the stranger; one of the other man’s punches grazes against his ribs before he can register the shift of the fight but it’s Silas that does the most damage. The indiscriminate thrash of limbs is not strictly unexpected but that doesn’t make it any nicer when Matthias gets an elbow in the stomach and shoved into a wall for his troubles.

“Silas,” he wheezes, a little winded, fingers scrabbling for purchase in the man’s suit jacket, breaths gasped against his shoulder, the brick wall cold and damp at his back, “Silas, fuck, c’mon, it’s me, it’s me, stop and look at me!” His voice cracks on the half-snarled command, palms jerking Silas back against his body as he looks past the werewolf at the other man who looks just—bewildered, the last vestiges of anger fading into confused irritation on his broad, bruised face. Not the look of a man spoiling for a fight the way Silas is, and not worth the attention—he can stay or he can go but he is not a threat and that’s all that Mattie cares about.

He braces his back against the wall, kicks out to tangle his foot with Silas’s and drops him onto the cement—careful to keep him from cracking his head on the pavement; it’s not his intent to give the neurosurgeon brain damage, however ironic it would be—and falls to his own knees on the small of Silas’s back, fingers tight against the werewolf’s shoulders as he catches his breath.

Then, carefully controlled, ignoring the dull throb of bruises making themselves known—sometimes fighting’s just the only outlet, he gets it and he’s not angling to take it away from Silas but there are safer ways to get what he needs, “Roll over and look at me, Silas,” with a guiding tug at the man’s shoulders to get him there. Matthias licks his lips, swallows, says evenly, “You need to fight someone, you fight me, got it? Look at me. Still need to hit someone? I’m all yours, old man, you can try and hit me or you can fucking talk to me, but I’m not letting you leave.”

[Zephyr]

In all honesty, he should have realized that Matthias was going to follow him. The kid is too good of a friend to just let him fend for himself intoxicated. But, because he’s drunk, the very last thing Silas is expecting while he’s getting punched full on in the mouth is a pair of hands grabbing him from behind. The doctor’s entire body tenses up at the intrusion. A growl escapes his chest as he immediately thinks that one of the guy’s buddies has grabbed him so that the guy can wail on him. It might not be the most practical of assumptions, but Silas isn’t often practical when he’s in all out ‘everyone’s an enemy’ mode.

He flails as he’s twisted, not realizing the implication of the act in favor of just blindly trying to get away at whatever cost. Like an animal caught in a trap, Silas flails and twists and lashes out with hands and elbows. There’s a feeling of twisted satisfaction when he nails the guy with one elbow and throws him against the wall in the same motion.

But he has little interest for whoever it was who’d grabbed him. The surgeon’s focus lies solely on the guy he’d targeted initially, no matter if he’d actually done anything to deserve it. Silas hadn’t done anything to deserve what he’d gotten from the other werewolf, so why should he give a shit about some nameless bastard on the street.

It isn’t like he’s actually laying any punches on the asshole.

Before he’s able to get another punch in, he’s being pulled, and Silas has a moment of pure panic. He needs the pain, needs to stop thinking. There is blood dribbling from his mouth, and lower lip, and there’s a sizeable cut above his eye, but he doesn’t give a shit.

He needs more.

It’s the fact that the person says his name that gives him pause. Fists closed with knuckles white and chest heaving, he allows himself to be pulled against Matthias. He might be in shock, but it only take him a second to get over it and roar out. “No!” He struggles against Matthias’ hold. “Fuck you! Let me go! I need…” But he doesn’t finish what he’s going to say, because he feels his feet being swept from under him and a moment later he’s on the ground, face down on the cement.

The surgeon roars, and tries to scramble to his feet, only to realize that he is well and truly pinned.

It gives him a moment to think. The one thing he’s been trying to avoid doing all day. He pants and growls and threatens Matthias with certain death, but the fact that he is bitching at the kid instead of actually throwing him off and acting on his threats is proof enough of the man’s boasts.

Silas is breathing hard by the time Matthias tells him to roll over, and petulantly, Silas considers just staying on his stomach. He doesn’t want this; doesn’t want to stop. He wants to push and push until he has nothing left to push with, or, alternatively, until he’s a bloody pile of limbs on the ground. Thinking is too hard, and it leads to emotions that are better left avoided. Fighting and pain are simple. Anger and hatred and adrenaline are easy.

It’s the rest that’s hard.

But even trembling, even recklessly trying to ignore the slow slide of hurt through his heart, he's unable to ignore an order from Matthias, so deeply has the brat wedged himself beneath Silas’ skin and into his life. So Silas rolls over, staring up at Matthias with a heaving chest and eyes wild and full of feral intent. The realization that he’d hurt Matthias in his desperate bid to make it hurt strikes him deep, but it’s another thing he wants to bury away.

“I’m not gonna fight you.” Silas snarls at him in his rage, still breathing hard, but not trying to get away any either. Even though he says he isn’t going to fight Matthias, his eyes are still wide and wild and look like he’s looking to punch something. He licks the congealing blood from his lower lip, growling as the kid goes on.

“And why should I talk to you!” He snarls in Matthias’ face, finally twisting and writhing beneath the kid. This has gone on too long, and Matthias’ simple request for Silas to talk to him is clearly too difficult to comply to. He wants out again. “You’re just going to leave!” His voice only gets louder and more desperate as he goes on. “You’re going to go off hunting and you’re going to leave me…so why should I waste my time talking to you?” His snarled words are filled with bitter regret and a sorrow that he’d never admit to.

Silas then half tosses Matthias off and half rolls out from under him, scrambling to his feet in the last second. Random asshole number one is forgotten in the moment as Silas turns his attention to Matthias, fists balled up…but he’s backing away from Matthias, not approaching him. “I should be used to it though.” He growls, spitting blood out onto the sidewalk. “Everyone leaves me. Why should I ever bother getting closed to anyone when they just drop me at the drop of a hat when I’m no longer convenient, when I get fucking boring? Nate’s finally seen that I’m nothing, not enough, a failure.” The words leave his mouth in an angry rush, spat out with little regards to who might be listening.

“Now it’s your turn. Go. Go hang out with Cesan, or fuck, or go hunt. Whatever the hell it is you do without me, because I’m fucking over being humored, being treated like a child and forgotten about.” He’s breathing hard. “Just leave me the fuck alone because you’re going to leave anyway, and I’ll have no one.”

He’s still panting, staring at Matthias with wide, angry eyes when he hears the car coming and simultaneously realizes he’s drifted into the road with his speech. Two things happen at the same time. 1) Silas dives out of the road to avoid being smashed into it because even drunk he knows that being hit by a car is a little too much pain even for him 2) Matthias dives towards him to presumably push him out of the way of the car. This means that they collide in mid-air, and luckily for them, Silas’ weight and sheer strength take them the rest of the way to the sidewalk and he grips Matthias tight as the roll away from the car.

Silas growls, rolling onto his back, away from Matthias and breathes hard as he stares into the dark sky, heart racing in his chest. “Fuck.” He groans the word out, trembling violently before pulling himself onto his knees and vomiting in the street, his head spinning. “Just go.” He says at last, retreating into his own head with pleading words and a vulnerable shake of his head. “I can take being alone…” With alcohol. With work and fights. “I just can’t take being left again. It’s too much.”

[Matthias Walker]

It’s usually easier to tune out the snarled threats, but not when Silas is thrashing under him, too, out of breath and still fucking trying to get away. Matthias shoves his weight forward, fingers tightening on the werewolf’s shoulder, knuckles white with the tension as Silas finally rolls over underneath him. Blue eyes sweep over the cut that promises to bruise above his eye, the slick red of blood over his lips and chin, and Mattie lets out a breath shaky with relief. Silas will have a hell of a hangover tomorrow and a rainbow of bruises but the damage is largely superficial. Thank God for random fuckers who had no actual ability to fight, Jesus—or just no motivation to hurt Silas other than a few insults.

The snarl behind Silas’s words have Mattie’s gaze snapping up to meet his eyes, lips thinning, the adrenaline still hot in his veins because Silas doesn’t look like there’s any truth behind his words at all; he looks like he’s on the edge of bolting off a goddamn cliff to get away from Matthias. It’s very not reassuring, and even if Mattie’s grateful that Silas doesn’t plan on decking him and moving on, it’s a very weak sort of gratitude when there’s still the half-expectation that Silas is going to shift into a wolf on the spot and rip him open, half-made truces of cuddling be damned.

The abruptly renewed struggles throw him off balance, palms scraping over the cold pavement as Matthias hisses at Silas, dumbstruck. Where the fuck is this even coming from? They’d been okay, they’d figured out some kind of equilibrium so why is this a goddamn problem, why is he a waste of time again?

“I’m asking you to tell me what happened because I’m your goddamn friend, not turn me into a fucking therapist,” he snaps, bristling defensively, eyebrows tightening into a sharp furrow, and makes the mistake of shifting his weight up because his palms are fucking stinging where he’s rubbed them raw on the cement. The next breath finds him laid out flat on the sidewalk, Silas gone, and Matthias half-expects the punches again, is even half-wondering what the fastest way to the hospital will be once Silas is through—but the werewolf’s backing away from him, still ranting about being left behind and Mattie picks himself up slowly, licks his lips, eyes hooded and wary.

Lets him talk, because the spew of venom is less harmful out than in, and hey, if it fucking burns that Silas thinks so little of him, well.

It’s good to know.

And here he’d been figuring they were friends or something.

The steady thrum of engines is almost ignored, waved aside as so common to Boston that it’s not worth acknowledging, until the flood of headlights sprawls over Silas’s feet and panic sweeps into Mattie’s stomach before he can comprehend why. His movements to intercept Silas (distressingly heroic a la every goddamn movie cliché ever, he thinks in a bizarrely distant second) are aborted by the man’s self-preservation finally kicking in, and Matthias finds himself flat on his back for the second time in as many minutes—this is getting to be a very bad habit—fingers clutching tight against the back of Silas’s jacket and his head throbbing to the rhythm of the blinking stars, the air caught in his lungs and muffled against Silas’s shoulder.

He lets go when Silas pulls back, closes his eyes for a moment, focuses on breathing and listening to the rustling sounds of the werewolf shifting beside him, sits up at the soft rasp of his voice.

“Silas,” he says, weary, aching, and shifts to half-roll and half-crawl over to his side, hesitates a moment before Mattie threads his fingers through his hair and rubs his thumb over the nape of his neck, wrinkling his nose at the smell of vomit and sweat and blood. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? And I’m not humoring you, you know you’re the first person in five years who’s asked me to stay anywhere for anything and I’m not going to leave. I’m not. Seriously just—God, just tell me what happened.” His palm slides down the blurred curve of Silas’s back, draws the werewolf against him; the instinctive desire to comfort outweighs the sliver of sensibility that points out being vomited on is fairly likely and also incredibly unpleasant, “Let me take you home. Please.”

[Zephyr]

He tenses when he feels Matthias touch him again, but the man’s words seem to sap all the energy out of him. Silas sags with a weary tremble, goddamn tired of being mad at the whole entire world, at least for the moment. Exhaustion has replaced the intense desire to not think, and in this, Silas finds its own peace. Now he’s too tired to think, too tired to do anything but half curl into Matthias when the other man pulls him against him. Oh course, telling Matthias what happened requires him to actually think about it, and once he starts, the thoughts blur through his head too quickly for him to process.

“Sorry.” He whispers harshly into the empty spaces carved out by their bodies, letting his eyes slide shut. He isn’t sure what it is exactly he’s apologizing for…for yelling at him…maybe for the entire goddamn thing. He doesn’t know, but the apology is out, hanging on the air between them, and he isn’t about to take it back when he’s too tired to think.

“Okay.” The word comes out breathily, and Silas half pulls away from Matthias, trembling. “Let’s go home.” He doesn’t care that there are people watching them, that the driver of the car that almost hit them has gotten out to yell at him. The surgeon is seemingly drained of all fight as he follows Matthias to his car because he doubts his ability to drive at the moment. He doesn’t even make any jokes about how he’s going to get syphilis from Matthias’ car.

That might not be the best thing in the world.

As soon as he gets inside, he thinks about going for the bourbon. But one look at the empty glass and bottle he left on the floor and his stomach twists and head spins. Drinking will not happen right now. He hadn’t drank so much since before Nate, and that thought has his stomach churning on its own. He falls into the couch. The cushions smell like Nathan and Matthias, and Silas buries his fingers in the cushion until his knuckles go white. He isn’t sure what Matthias expects of him, even though he’s probably still drunk off his ass, he feels sober as hell. Too sober. It’s probably the adrenaline still in his veins, keeping the fog of drunkenness out of his mind, something he’d welcome with open arms at the moment.

“He…” Silas starts, picking his words carefully. They sound exceedingly stupid coming out of his mouth. “…slept with other people.” And it sounds ridiculous. Getting all worked up over an arrangement that was tenuous at best seems crazy…but he can’t help it. “We’d been doing good. I think he’d stopped sleeping around. I was proud of him.” The words are shaky, trembling with restless energy. “He left on a business trip. I don’t even know where the hell he’d gone, didn’t bother to ask, trusted him. He came back today…smelled like other people.” His teeth gritted and he pressed his head hard into his knees, pulled up to his chest. He wanted to find who those scents belonged to and rip into them, tear them apart bit by bit.

He knows this isn’t a strictly healthy response, but he can’t help it. “It was all over him. I can’t…” He licks the blood off of his lip for a second, pressing his fingers into his eyes until pain and dots forming behind his eyelids stopped him. “I shouldn’t be upset. I knew how he was…is. But I thought I was enough…I thought…” He thought, he thought Nate thought more of him than that. Thought Nate cared, thought this was something more than the fuckbuddy arrangement they’d had before. His head drops, and he lets out a shaky breath that causes his body to tremble. “I love him.” Was said with a defeated tone. Not loved, because no matter what, it isn’t so easy to erase that kind of emotion.

[Matthias Walker]

He’ll take the time later to be grateful that Silas doesn’t just turn to him and vomit in his lap.

“Okay,” Mattie echoes, quietly, eyes still bright and wary in the light of the shifting stars and streetlights, and he rubs the pad of his thumb across the nape of Silas’s neck again, sighs because thank God. Silas may not be sober but he’s still coherent and pliant as he lets Matthias pull him to his feet, wrap an arm snug around his shoulders, and guide him past the distorted, unfamiliar faces of concerned strangers. This is not—in any respect—how Mattie intended to spend his night, and he thinks with faint hysteria that it’s more draining trying to keep Silas in one piece, rescuing him from his own bittersweet destruction, than it is wrestling with any given vampire or werewolf. Just fucking figures.

Matthias never has been good at the responsibility that comes with friendship, and for once he cannot find the familiar quips and easy smiles to distract Silas on the way back to his apartment. The drive is mercifully short, and Mattie lingers a step in Silas’s wake, quietly locks the door behind him once he’s followed the doctor into his apartment.

There’s a silent resignation settling in the pit of his stomach as he tilts his head, watches Silas throw himself onto the couch. He’s accustomed to the bitching and the growling but Silas has never struck him as so uncommunicative before as he does right now, and Matthias isn’t sure he wants to keep pushing. It’s easier to distract himself digging a scrap of cloth and hydrogen peroxide out of the first aid kit and settling himself in the foot-space between couch and coffee table. The strange parallels of breaking and fixing go unspoken; the silence is far from the familiar comfortable quietness Mattie’s used to but it’s still safer than the venom of words.

He’s just wetted the cloth with disinfectant when Silas speaks, and Mattie looks up at him. Just stares, for a moment. This is not—his forte, this is not the kind of confession he wants because there is nothing he can do. He’s a hunter, not a fucking relationship therapist, and knowing his luck, his getting involved would just massively fuck it up even more. He does not involve himself with this kind of thing, does not even usually allow himself the bias of how his sympathies play because it should not matter. It’s not his job or his right to judge other than in who is dead and who is not.

Doesn’t mean that seeing Silas like this, hurting and bleeding and miserable, is easy.

Or that it’s easy to be objective.

“Let me,” he says, instead of anything that matters, and sets down the bottle of hydrogen peroxide slip his fingers around the curve of Silas’s jaw to hold him still so he can dab at the cuts, eyebrows knitting together in a show of fastidious concentration—it’s easier to think if he’s not expected to talk at the same time, if Silas doesn’t realize how fucking useless he feels. It’s not until he’s done that he drops his hands and crosses his arms on the edge of the couch, looks at Silas carefully through the veil of lashes, the lines of his mouth settling into tired sobriety.

Then, quietly, “I’m sorry.” It’s not empathy but it’s not pity either; the why is less important than the simple fact that Silas is falling apart and that’s not okay. (What the fuck was Nate thinking?) Careful, shuttered eyes sweep over the hunch of shoulders, the miserable heap of werewolf stretched out on the couch, and meet Silas’s gaze again. Cheating is not—well, he’s not sure it’s cheating the way Silas phrases it, but the semantics don’t really matter, either. It’s just not supposed to happen. (Mattie’s never suffered the indignity of being cheated on but he has been the irresponsible asshole who couldn’t keep it in his pants before when the boundaries of a relationship became too blurry.)

It’s a story still laced with the memory of guilty regret but Matthias thinks in terms of sheer heartache seeing Silas like this beats out seeing that girl crying and furious any day. The weight of responsibility has never felt so heavy before.

He laces his fingers through Silas’s, squeezes. “What’re you gonna do?”

[Zephyr]

He knows this isn’t Matthias’ area of expertise. He might not have known the man for long, but in that short time, he’s gotten to know more about him than probably any of his patients ever. The hunter’s silence isn’t enough to stop the werewolf from rambling on and on, and though he knows this probably isn’t something Matthias is comfortable hearing, he can’t help the words coming out of his mouth. He knows he should stop, he’s making Matthias uncomfortable, and he can’t handle pushing someone else away today. He’s pretty sure the way he left Nathan’s is enough to have tipped the other man off that something was wrong.

Silas doesn’t want Nathan to know something’s wrong. Not yet. Not when he isn’t sure himself what he’s going to do with this information except attempt to get himself killed at the nearest bar. And yeah, now, with the cuts and bruises on his face flaring painfully, and the alcohol pounding away at the back of his skull, he can tell that that had been a pretty fucking awful idea.

But, he isn’t known for the soundest ideas when he’s upset and irrational.

And it’s irrational to be upset with Matthias for not knowing what to say…but the kid is the only friend he has besides Nathan…why shouldn’t he expect him to have some advice for him. He’s considering being stubborn when Matthias offers to clean his cuts and just keeping his head in his hands…but it’s always been difficult for him to refuse Matthias anything besides the sex he’s turned down in the past. So, without a word, Silas lifts his head in silence and lets Matthias do his thing with the peroxide. He doesn’t make a sound when he dabs the peroxide into the wounds. There’s pain, but it’s a small thing when compared to the pain of the cuts themselves and the congealing blood…

…and the pain he can still feel in his heart, that no amount of liquor had been able to wash away.

Matthias’ words should make him feel worse…like the kid couldn’t think of anything better to say; couldn’t give him any advice…but they don’t. The words should stink of pity, but they don’t. He’s shaking again by the time Matthias finishes. He isn’t sure if he’s shaking because of all the alcohol and adrenaline in his system, but he feels the drowsiness now. He’s so fucking tired now that he lets himself think about it. Now that the surge is wearing off, his body is shutting down, and Silas is powerless to do anything for it. Sleeping would be a blessing right about now, though, he isn’t looking forward to the nightmares that will inevitably come in the night.

He doesn’t know the true extend of the nightmares. That they have him trembling violently in the night; the sounds he makes. No one’s ever told him, and he’d be quick to flat out deny anything anyone says to him.

The doctor’s eyes slide shit, he starts to grip his thighs tightly until he feels Matthias’ hand in his. Eyes blink open at the squeeze, and he looks blankly down at their joined hands for a moment. He licks his lips, silent, ignoring the taste of peroxide there as he lets out a shaky sigh, letting the man’s words process for a moment. His thumb rubs absently over the back of Matthias’ hand for a moment as he thinks before shrugging his shoulders in a defeated manner. “I don’t know.” He sighs at last, still rubbing the back of Matthias’ hand in concentric circles, like he isn’t aware that he’s doing it.

“Nothing.” He says at last after a moment of silence. Doing nothing is so unlike Silas. If someone hurts him…he isn’t shy about letting them know. He just feels so helpless here, always has with Nathan…like pushing the other werewolf away is just one sentence away. “What can I do?” He murmurs, leaning against Matthias tiredly. “I don’t want to lose him.” His voice is deadly soft, the tremble of certainty in there. Telling Nathan he knows about the other men and letting him know that it bothers him is a sure way to drive the werewolf away.

Silas is as sure of this as he is that the sun will rise in the morning.

…even if he isn’t quite sure of that anymore.

“I don’t…” He starts, sighing and shrugging. “…want to think about it right now. Don’t wanna think about anything. Can we just…sleep?” He asks, turning exhausted eyes to Matthias before quirking the ghost of a grin, lifting their joined hands and pressing a light kiss to Matthias’ hand. “Thanks.” His words are soft and meaningful.

Matthias isn’t his, no matter how much jealousy he feels when he thinks of the kid with other men. He’s never been his. He attributes the jealousy to the fact that Matthias spends most nights in bed with Silas. Nate is his and he is Nathan’s. That isn’t something he’s willing to just give up because of a little jealousy. Sure, it doesn’t occur to him that just being honest with the werewolf for once instead of bottling it all up and hoping it goes away will be better in the long run. He just knows that giving up isn’t an option.

Just like staying awake right now isn’t really an option.

He’s doing a great job of keeping his eyes open though, really.

[Matthias Walker]

Silas looks absolutely dead on his feet.

Which is, really, a marked improvement to the way Mattie found him twenty minutes ago, spitting blood and insults at some random asshole and asking for the flames and fury, but it’s still not healthy or remotely stable. So yeah, asking him to actually think when he looks like he’s drifting off—and honestly being asleep might be a good thing; he might not be able to sleep off the stress but at least he can sleep off the alcohol—is probably not the best way to go about all this but…hey, Matthias has never claimed to be anything but invested in this, and his quiet biases are all the louder in the silent empty spaces carved of someone else’s mistakes.

But—nothing? Really? Nothing? He’s okay with Nate fucking around with other people and reducing him to this kind of mess and he’s not going to do anything about it? It’s not even the inherent betrayal that’s the issue; Mattie gets that some people do the open relationship, monogamy-sucks thing, is not exactly a stranger to it himself, but that Silas is this upset is not okay. He drops his gaze from Silas’s before the defensive anger can reach his eyes, lips thinning as he watches the play of shadows over their hands instead.

For a moment Matthias almost says something (because Silas deserves better than to feel like he’s constantly clinging to Nate, and he doesn’t think his strange, skewed role in the entire thing changes that—it’s just not a stable balance for any relationship and if even Mattie knows that then he figures it’s got to be pretty damn logical). But Silas sighs, shifts along the couch, and the need for sleep eclipses the need for Matthias’s twisted sense of justice, so he lets the indignation fade and nods instead, meets the werewolf’s eyes with the faint upturn of a smile on his lips.

“No problem, old man,” he says, keeps his voice light despite the steadily building necessity of doing something and fixing the damn cracks settling resolutely in the pit of his stomach. “C’mon, let’s get you up off the fucking couch and to bed, okay?”

That, he finds, is something much easier said than done. Silas is cooperative but generally useless, and it’s only twenty minutes later that Mattie manages to strip Silas down to his boxers and tip him into the bed, wondering if he’s going to wake up in the morning to a pool of vomit and a doctor in the throes of severe alcohol poisoning. Or just in a goddamn coma; by the time Matthias crawls into bed with him Silas is already essentially dead to the world, snuffling into his pillow like an overgrown dog, and Mattie is pretty sure as he kisses Silas on the temple and tucks himself along the curve of the man’s spine that he could host a fucking party with elephants for entertainment on the bed and Silas would be none the wiser.

Instead he mutely presses his lips against the nape of Silas’s neck and curls around him. He’s not sleepy—could not imagine being less so, in fact, with the restless nameless desire to do something running through his veins—but Matthias is no stranger to Silas’s nightmares. And this night, of all the nights he’s stayed, he doesn’t want Silas to have to wake up alone. Everything else can wait till morning.