Aviv and Trudy lingered in quiet conversation for a little while longer, their voices low and familiar. Acheron drifted a few steps to the side, giving them space without quite knowing where to put himself. A few members passed by on their way out, offering small waves and soft goodbyes. Acheron returned each one with a shy lift of his fingers, his smile gentle but fleeting.
A yawn crept up on him without warning. He tried to swallow it down, but it escaped anyway, and he quickly covered his mouth with both hands, blinking a little as if caught doing something embarrassing.
He hadn't realised how much the day had taken out of him. The turmoil on the internet, the meeting, the stories and of course, Aviv. It all sat quietly in his chest now, heavier than before.
Acheron reached for his phone out of habit, fingers brushing against empty fabric. He paused, then let his hand fall. he remembered now that he had left it at home. A added measure to keep himself from wandering back into places he shouldn't be. From seeing things he wasn't ready to face.
"Would you like to sit outside with me for a bit?"
Acheron looked up, slightly startled. He hadn't even heard Aviv approach.
"Sure," he said, nodding softly.
They slipped out through a back door Acheron hadn't noticed before. He glanced at it briefly as it closed behind them.
'I really should start paying more attention', he thought, a little amused at himself.
Aviv led him down a short set of steps at the back of the building. The world felt quieter here, tucked away from the street. He dropped onto one of the steps and, without much ceremony, tugged lightly at Acheron's sleeve until he sat beside him.
Acheron didn't know how much time had passed, but they had yet to start talking. Time stretched quietly between them, soft and unhurried. The sky melted slowly into gold and amber, the last light spilling across the asphalt like something warm being poured out.
Acheron's gaze wandered. Catching onto a small yellow flower pushing stubbornly through a crack in the concrete. Its stem was thin, almost fragile, yet it swayed gently in the breeze as if it belonged there.
He tilted his head slightly, watching it.
Aviv, meanwhile, was watching him.
He noticed the way the fading light caught in Acheron's eyes, turning them brighter for a moment. The small, thoughtful tilt of his head. The quiet way he existed, like he never wanted to take up too much space.
Aviv reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. The soft flick of the lighter broke the silence, then a small flame flared and disappeared as he inhaled.
Acheron's head turned almost immediately, his nose wrinkling faintly at the unfamiliar scent.
"I didn't know you smoked," he said, his voice curious rather than critical.
"Used to," Aviv replied, exhaling slowly. "Stopped years ago."
He glanced down at the cigarette between his fingers.
"Just… felt like one tonight."
Acheron watched the thin trail of smoke curl into the evening air.
"Do you always carry cigarettes with you?" he asked, a little surprised.
Aviv blinked once, then burst into laughter.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Simon gave me a pack after I asked him for one."
"Oh." Acheron's cheeks flushed almost instantly. He looked down, fiddling slightly with the edge of his sleeve, clearly embarrassed.
Aviv's laughter softened into a small smile.
They fell into silence again, but it wasn't uncomfortable or empty. It felt… full.
Like there were too many things sitting between them, waiting for the right moment to be spoken.
"What happened afterwards?" Acheron asked tentatively.
Aviv drew in a slow breath, the cigarette ember flaring to life between his fingers like a tiny, defiant sun. Smoke curled from his lips in lazy spirals, but there was nothing relaxed about the way his shoulders held, tight as a drawn wire.
"They were charged with trespassing."
Acheron blinked, the word landing wrong. "Trespassing?"
"Yeah..." Aviv's voice thinned, trailing off as if it had somewhere better to be than in this conversation. He glanced down at the cigarette, watching it burn rather than looking at Acheron. "Their lawyers argued it was an instinctual override. Said they were in a forced rut. Said it was your standard biological storm, no steering wheel, no brakes." His jaw tightened. "Claimed it only happened because of my pheromones. So at worst…" He flicked ash to the ground, sharp and impatient. "At worst, they wandered onto school property where they shouldn't have been."
Acheron's brows pulled together in confusion. "What?" The word came out too fast, almost tripping over itself. "But they didn't just wander. They knew about the cabin. They came looking for it. They knew Omegas were kept there during their heat." His voice picked up pace, breath catching between sentences. "That's not trespassing, Aviv, that's—"
"I know." Aviv let out a short laugh, brittle as cracked glass. It held no humour. "We know." He dragged another inhale, deeper this time, as if he could pull something solid out of the smoke. "But they argued it was curiosity. Just the wrong place and wrong time. Our lawyers couldn't prove intent. There was no clear plan or written confession, nothing neat enough to package for a judge." His lips curled faintly, disgust threading through the motion. "So it became a 'tragic accident.'"
The last words are spat out like poison.
He ground the cigarette into the dirt with the heel of his shoe, slow and deliberate, like he was trying to bury more than just ash.
Silence followed, thick and heavy.
Acheron leaned back, his gaze drifting upward. The sky stretched wide above them, ink-dark and pricked with hesitant stars just beginning to show themselves. They were distant. Untouchable and completely indifferent to everything beneath them.
"Tragic accident..." he murmured, the phrase barely more than breath. "Will they say the same thing about me?"
The question hung there, small and devastating. Aviv didn't answer right away. Instead, he moved.
He pulled Acheron into his arms. It was sudden and firm, like he was closing a door against something trying to get in. His hand slid into Acheron's hair, fingers threading through the strands, the motion almost rough and protective. A grounding motion more for himself than for Acheron, his movement refused to be gentle in the face of something so cruel.
"No," he said, low and certain, the word pressed into Acheron's temple. "Of course they won't."
Acheron shifted slightly in his hold, just enough to speak, not enough to leave. "You don't even know what happened."
Aviv's hand stilled for a fraction of a second, then resumed much slower now. "Then tell me." His voice softened, losing its edge, becoming steadier. "What happened?"
Acheron stayed quiet at first. The night seemed to lean in, listening. Even the wind felt like it had paused, caught between breaths.
Then, slowly, carefully, like pulling thread from a wound that never healed right... he began.
Loud and aggressive base filled the club; it didn't just play, it occupied the space. It throbbed through the club like a second heartbeat, heavy and insistent, crawling into ribs and settling there until it felt impossible to tell where the music ended, and your body began. Each beat landed like a command, instructing you to stay, move and feel nothing else.
Light fractured across the dance floor in restless streaks, neon blues slicing into violent reds, flashes of ultraviolet catching on sweat-slick skin before vanishing again. Everything beyond that pulsing epicentre dissolved into shadow, as if the club itself had teeth, swallowing anything that strayed too far from the light. Laughter echoed, warped by the sound system into something sharper, almost unrecognisable. Glass clinked. Someone shouted. Somewhere, a door slammed, muffled but still there.
This place thrived on contradiction. It was famous for the DJs who could bend a crowd to their will without saying a single word, but more than that, it was known for what it hid. The private rooms. These little pockets of dim safety, or danger, depending on who stepped inside. You could disappear there without ever leaving the music behind. You could pretend you were unseen, and people did more than just pretend.
Acheron felt like he was dissolving at the edges.
His head hung heavy, thoughts slipping through his grasp like water through open fingers. Nothing stayed long enough to make sense. Names, memories, even the sharp instinct to be afraid, all of it blurred into a distant hum. But his body… his body remembered the rhythm. It swayed, obedient, caught in the tide of movement around him. He didn't decide to move. He simply... did.
The crowd pressed in, too close, too warm. Hands brushed past him, strangers melting into strangers, and he couldn't tell where one touch ended and another began.
Behind him, Hadeon anchored him in place.
Arms wrapped around Acheron's waist, firm and unyielding, guiding the sway of his hips as if he were nothing more than an extension of the music itself. Hadeon moved in perfect rhythm, but there was nothing fluid about his attention.
His gaze did not wander. Not to the other Omegas scattered across the floor, not to the bodies brushing past, not even to the shifting lights that painted the room in restless colour.
It stayed on Acheron. Sharp and possessive in a way that felt less like desire and more like certainty. As if, in a room full of distractions, there had never been anything else worth seeing.
His lips brushed against the side of Acheron's head, a touch that might have been gentle if not for the way it lingered too long.
"Sorry I took so long to get to you, my love," he murmured, his voice slipping easily between the beats, curling straight into Acheron's ear.
Acheron hummed in response. It was soft and vague, not quite an agreement or even an acknowledgement. Just… sound. Something done automatically. Everything about him felt delayed, like he was living a few seconds behind the world.
There had been a time, not long ago, when things were different. When his parents had found out, when the word addiction had been spoken out loud like something poisonous. They had acted quickly and decisively. They pulled him out of school and set him away. To a sterile facility with quiet halls and careful voices. A month in rehab of clarity was forced into his veins before being sent home.
A week later, Hadeon found him.
He knew exactly where to find him. He always did.
Hadeon, never let him stay clean long enough to remember why he should.
Acheron shifted back without thinking, leaning further into the warmth behind him. Hadeon's scent clung faintly to his skin, familiar, grounding in a way that made no sense and yet felt like the only solid thing left in the room.
Hadeon smiled against his hair.
He had missed this. Missed the way Acheron fit so easily into his hold, the way his resistance had worn down into something softer, quieter. Absence had its uses, it seems. It sharpened the cravings and made the return that much sweeter.
It made Acheron need him.
"Come," Hadeon said lightly, though his grip tightened just enough to guide. "Let's get you something to drink."
The crowd parted for them in uneven waves as he steered Acheron toward the bar. The music didn't fade there; it only shifted, vibrating through the counter, through the glasses lined up like soldiers waiting to be emptied.
Hadeon ordered without asking.
The shots arrived quickly.
He downed his own in a single motion, barely reacting to the burn, then turned his attention back to Acheron.
"Open."
Hadeon tapped against Acheron's bottom lip.
Acheron obeyed instantly, his mouth parting without hesitation, without question. The motion was smooth, practised. Learned.
Hadeon placed the pill on his tongue with careful precision, then pressed the cool glass into his hand.
"Drink."
The command slipped past whatever barriers Acheron might have once had.
He swallowed.
The alcohol burned viciously on the way down, sharp and unforgiving, dragging heat through his throat and settling like fire in his chest. His body reacted before his mind could catch up, a cough tearing free, shoulders jerking with the force of it.
But there was no pause.
Another glass was already in his hand.
"Drink."
The world tilted slightly.
Acheron's thoughts tried to gather, tried to form something coherent, but they slipped apart before they could take shape. All that remained was the echo of instruction.
He drank again.
The coughing came harder this time, folding him in on himself as his body struggled to process the assault. His lungs burned, eyes stinging, the edges of his vision flickering. Hadeon's hand came down on his back, firm, almost reassuring in its rhythm as he guided him through it.
"There you go," he murmured, his voice low and pleased.
When the coughing subsided, he pulled Acheron back against his chest, holding him there, steadying him just enough to keep him upright.
"I'm sorry, my love. The pain will pass soon... and then you'll feel good." Hadeon's voice slipped through the noise. His fingers threaded into Acheron's hair, massaging his scalp in slow, circular motions that might have been comforting in another life, under different hands.
"You know that, right?" he added, with the quiet certainty of someone who had never once been questioned.
Acheron nodded. He hadn't decided. It was reflex. Ingrained into his bones.
Already, sensation was shifting in strange, uneven waves. His limbs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else entirely, heavy and light all at once. The tension in his muscles unravelled too quickly, melting into a loose, unsteady softness that made it hard to stay upright without leaning into something, someone.
His head tipped slightly, his balance slipping.
The alcohol burned low in his chest, but the sharper edge of it was fading, replaced by something slower and thicker. The drugs curled through him like smoke, blurring the edges of everything it touched. His thoughts dulled first, then stretched thin, like threads pulled too far apart.
And his skin—
His skin betrayed him.
Every brush of fabric, every shift of air, every point of contact felt amplified, almost electric. The heat of bodies nearby, the ghost of Hadeon's hands, the press of his own clothing... it all registered too much and not enough at the same time. Hypersensitive, yet disconnected.
The music that had once been overwhelming began to sink, as though it were being dragged underwater. The bass was still there, still pounding, but it felt distant now. Muted almost.
Everything was slipping away from him.
Hadeon's grin sharpened as he felt the shift.
He pulled Acheron close again, arms wrapping around his waist with practised ease, guiding him away from the bar and into the narrow corridor that branched off from the main floor. The lights dimmed further there, the air cooler, quieter in a way that felt deceptive. The music still bled through the walls, but muffled now, like a heartbeat heard through skin.
Doors lined the hallway. Some are closed, and others not fully.
Hadeon didn't hesitate. He already knew which one was his.
The door clicked shut behind them with a soft finality.
The room was painted in low, crimson light, the kind that swallowed detail and left everything feeling unreal. A large red plush couch dominated the space.
Hadeon pushed Acheron down onto it without ceremony. Acheron's body gave way easily, collapsing into the cushions. His head tipped back, missing balance, and he knocked against the armrest.
A small sound slipped from his throat. It wasn't quite a word. Not quite a protest either. Something in between. A fragile, broken attempt at something that never fully formed.
His mind tried to catch up.
Something was wrong.
That thought flickered weakly, like a dying lightbulb. He couldn't hold onto it. Couldn't shape it into anything solid. But it was there, faint and insistent.
His fingers twitched uselessly against the fabric beneath him. His body didn't respond the way he wanted it to. It didn't listen. It lagged behind his thoughts, or ignored them entirely.
A thin thread of confusion tightened in his chest.
Then fear followed, quieter, more insidious.
It wasn't sharp or loud. Just a creeping awareness that he was losing control, piece by piece, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Hadeon noticed everything.
And he enjoyed it.
He moved quickly, already turning to the corner of the room where a backpack sat waiting, exactly where he had left it earlier. He unzipped it and tipped it over, letting the contents spill across the floor in a careless scatter.
Small packets, syringes, and a bundle of rope littered the ground. Between that are a pair of metal cuffs that caught the red lights with a dull glint and a cable cutter, heavy and out of place.
Hadeon crouched, selecting what he wanted with the ease of habit.