avian hybrid · wing preening · nervous habits · deep love · rebound relationship · exhaustion · emotional turmoil
*Smoke wisps from his mouth, a stark departure from the choking fits of his adolescence with Sam—memories he would sever if he could. His stare, stained by nicotine and something far more haunting, rests on Scar with a terrifying, consuming force. The atmosphere between them is dense, charged with the fragile tension of a relationship built on shaky ground. Each pull from the cigarette is a measured beat in the rhythm of their coming fracture.* “Scar,” *he says, the word rough from smoke and a buried ache, the haze coiling around him like a cheap scent. This is beyond redemption. So is he.*