He tore open one of the packets, fine powder spilling into his palm before he leaned over Acheron, brushing it deliberately across the exposed skin of his stomach. Pale skin against white dust, a contrast that made his smile widen.
Then he lowered his head. Inhaling slowly and deeply.
As he did, his control slipped in a different way.
His pheromones surged out.
They didn't just linger; they flooded into the space. Thick, suffocating and curling through the room like something alive. They pressed into every corner, every breath, saturating the air until there was no escaping it.
Acheron felt it instantly.
It hit him harder than anything else.
His body reacted before his mind could even register why. His breath stuttered, chest tightening as if invisible hands had closed around his throat. His instincts tried to flare, tried to push back, to resist, to fight—
But the drugs dulled everything.
Slowed everything.
Blunted the edge of his fear until it couldn't cut deep enough to matter.
He shifted weakly, a barely-there attempt to pull away, but it was useless. His limbs didn't obey. His strength wasn't there.
The pheromones wrapped tighter.
Claiming space inside him that wasn't his to take.
And Acheron—
Acheron could do nothing but feel it happen.
Before Acheron could gather what little strength he had left, Hadeon pinned him down onto the couch.
The movement was swift. One moment, he was barely upright; the next, his back hit the cushions, and the air left his lungs in a shallow, useless breath. Hadeon's hand closed around his wrists, dragging them above his head and pinning them there with effortless strength. Acheron's body resisted in fragments, a delayed, stuttering response that never quite reached his limbs in time.
He looked up. For a heartbeat, everything sharpened.
Hadeon's face hovered above him, close enough to touch, close enough to see every detail that had once been softened by familiarity. But there was nothing soft left now.
There is no mask now. No carefully created affection.
What stared back at him felt... wrong.
Not wholly unfamiliar either. That was the worst part. His features are stripped down to something raw and ravenous. Like watching a door finally swing open to a room you were never meant to see. Something that had always been there, waiting and patient.
Acheron froze.
Not because he chose to.
Because something in him understood.
Hadeon wasn't pretending anymore.
With his free hand, Hadeon grabbed the fabric of Acheron's shirt and tore it open in one brutal motion. The sound split through the room, sharp and final. Cool air hit Acheron's exposed skin, but it barely registered before Hadeon's mouth followed.
He bit wherever he could reach, not enough to mark permanently, not yet anyway, but enough to hurt, enough to claim space that didn't belong to him. Each contact sent sparks of distorted sensation through Acheron's already compromised body. Pain tangled with that heightened sensitivity, blurring into something disorienting, something he couldn't separate or process.
Acheron dragged in a breath, ragged and uneven.
He tried.
He really did.
He gathered whatever scraps of control he could find, forcing his limbs to respond, forcing his mind to focus. His legs jerked, kicking out with what little strength he could muster, aiming blindly, desperately, just trying to do something.
Anything.
The movements landed, but it didn't matter. Hadeon barely shifted; it did nothing but annoy him. It flickered across his face, quick and sharp, before it morphed into something colder.
His free hand curled into a fist.
The first punch landed square against Acheron's chest, knocking what little breath he had left clean out of him. Pain bloomed instantly, deep and crushing, radiating through already weakened ribs. The second followed without pause, lower this time, into his stomach.
Acheron folded as much as he could under the restraint, his body reacting violently to the blows. The world narrowed, sound dropping out entirely for a moment, replaced by a high, ringing emptiness.
Hadeon followed up with a few more blows.
Acheron wanted to keep fighting.
The thought was there.
But his body... his body gave up first.
Pain flooded everything, drowning out resistance, swallowing whatever fragile determination he had managed to build. His muscles slackened, strength draining out of him like water through cracked stone.
Acheron shut his eyes.
Tears slipped free, quiet and unstoppable, tracing warm paths down his temples into his hair.
He knew.
Even through the haze, even through the drugs and the fear and the pain, he knew exactly what Hadeon wanted.
And he also knew he couldn't stop it.
Something cold brushed against his skin, followed by a pause, then a sharp, invasive sting of a needle.
Acheron flinched weakly as more drugs were pushed into his system. It burned differently this time, not like the alcohol, not like the earlier haze. This spread fast. Almost too fast. It chased through his veins like liquid lightning, stripping away what little clarity remained.
His body went limp.
His thoughts went quieter.
The world dimmed.
—
When Acheron opened his eyes again, the red haze was gone. Cold replaced it; it was hard, unforgiving and seeped through his clothes and straight into his bones.
The staircase behind the community centre came back into focus in fragments, grey concrete, chipped edges, the faint hum of distant traffic. Reality returned slowly, like something reluctant to settle.
Aviv's arms were around him. They were warm, solid and real. A hand moved gently along his back, steady and patient, anchoring him to the present.
"And then?" Aviv asked softly. The tone was careful and strangely familiar, the exact same cadence as Dr Pace used.
Acheron swallowed.
His throat felt tight, but the words came.
"At some point... he pinned my head into the armrest," he said, voice rough and uneven. "I couldn't move. I could barely... think."
He paused, eyes dropping to his hands as if they might steady him.
"He grabbed the bolt cutter," Acheron continued, quieter now. "And cut my collar off."
The memory flickered behind his eyes, vivid in all the wrong ways.
"It took... effort," he added, almost distantly. "Precision. He had to angle it just right."
His fingers curled slightly.
"He didn't just cut the collar."
He took a shaky breath.
"He cut into my gland."
The words settled heavily between them. Acheron's gaze stayed fixed on his hands.
"Because it took so long," he went on, voice barely above a whisper, "he didn't get the chance to inject his pheromones properly after biting me."
Another pause.
A fragile, almost disbelieving note slipped into his tone.
"He didn't complete the bond." For the first time, something lighter touched his voice.
"Thank goodness," Aviv murmured, the words quiet but sincere.
Acheron nodded faintly.
"My dad and my brothers..." he continued, blinking as if grounding himself again. "They pulled him off me."
The memory shifted, urgency threading through it.
"Right in time, in fact", he added. "I had already overdosed."
His lips pressed together briefly.
"Kai-kai had Narcan on him. He started carrying it after he found out about my drug use."
Acheron pulled away from Aviv then, sitting up, creating just a small distance. Not out of rejection, but just enough space to breathe.
"If he didn't..." He exhaled, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. "I wouldn't be here."
The words landed plainly; there were no added dramatics. Just a fact.
"But I didn't get out unscathed." His gaze dropped again, quieter now.
"The drugs, the pheromones... everything together," he said. "It shut my body down."
"Around a month," he added after a moment. "That's how long I was in a coma."
His fingers tightened slightly against his palms.
"Broken ribs," he went on. "And my gland..."
He hesitated, then finished it anyway.
"It was damaged when he used the cutter."
Silence settled after that.
"Shit," Aviv muttered, the word slipping out like a spark hitting dry ground. He dragged a hand over his face, then let it fall, jaw tight. "That... piece of shit."
It wasn't elegant, and Aviv usually had a sharper tongue when he wanted one, but this wasn't the kind of anger that needed polish. It was blunt and protective in a way that didn't try to hide itself.
For a moment, he just looked at Acheron, really looked, as if trying to map the damage that couldn't be seen.
"How are your glands now?" he asked, the edge in his voice softening into something careful.
Acheron exhaled slowly, the breath leaving him heavier than it should have.
"It's... healed," he said, though the pause before the word made it clear the truth wasn't that simple. "As much as it can, anyway."
His fingers brushed absently against the side of his neck, not quite touching, just hovering there like the memory of pain still lived under the skin.
"There is a permanent scar," he added, his voice didn't break. It didn't even waver much. If anything, it grew quieter, more contained, like he was folding the weight of it inward where it couldn't spill out.
"The bigger issue..." Acheron continued, eyes lowering slightly, "Is that my pheromone levels are... Low."
He let out a faint, humourless breath.
"And if they don't stabilise enough, I probably won't have another heat." The words landed softly, but they carried a quiet finality.
"Doubly shit," Aviv said immediately, the response almost automatic, his brows lifting in disbelief. "That's—"
He stopped himself before the sentence could spiral into something harsher, into something that might make it worse instead of better.
Acheron nodded once.
He didn't react much beyond that. There were no visible cracks or outward collapse. He just... accepted it, at least on the surface. But it wasn't indifference. If anything, it was the opposite. The kind of stillness that comes from holding too much at once, from knowing that if even one piece shifted, everything else might come down with it.
So he kept it locked in place.
Aviv studied him for a beat longer, something thoughtful flickering behind his eyes. Then, as if deciding the air had grown too heavy, he tilted his head slightly, a glint of mischief threading into his expression.
"Well," he said, tone turning deliberately lighter, "I could always stay with you during my next heat."
A small pause, just enough to let the idea settle.
"Might kick yours into gear. Like... jump-starting a stubborn engine."
The image was ridiculous enough on its own.
Acheron blinked.
Then the laugh broke out of him before he could stop it.
It started small, almost like a breath that got caught, then unravelled into something unrestrained. He doubled slightly, the sound spilling out in uneven bursts, the tension that had wrapped tight around his chest loosening all at once.
For a moment, the past lost its grip.
"I think that would be a complete disaster," he managed between breaths, laughter still clinging to his voice.
In the distance, the wall did not end where it should have. It seemed to breathe. Or perhaps something within it did.
A shadow clung there, too deliberate to be natural, too still to be empty. It stretched long and narrow, tapering into the unmistakable silhouette of a man who seemed carved from absence itself. He did not move, yet the darkness around him shifted, as if it recognised him... as if it made room.
From that quiet pocket of gloom, he watched.
On the short staircase, two Omegas leaned into one another beneath a fragile yellow light that flickered like a dying heartbeat. It painted them in soft gold, turning their closeness into something warm, something almost sacred. The distance swallowed their voices whole, but he did not need to hear them.
He could see enough.
The way they clung.
The way Acheron's laughter spilt out, bright and unguarded, ringing through the night like something that did not belong to it.
It curdled in his chest.
And yet... he smiled.
Slowly, almost reverently, long fingers rose from the dark and guided a cigarette between his lips. The flare of the lighter split the night open for a heartbeat, a brief, violent bloom of orange that revealed him in fragments. Pale skin. The sharp suggestion of a mouth pulled too wide. And then—
Red.
Bright, burning red hair caught in the glow like embers refusing to die.
He inhaled.
Then his hand fell, and the light vanished. Just like that, he was gone again, swallowed whole by the shadows that welcomed him back without question. Only the faint pulse of the cigarette remained, rising and falling like a quiet, patient breath.
But his grin...
His grin lingered.
It curled in the dark like a promise.
"Hello, my love."