The leniency showed to him when Logan first arrived at the hospital dissipated over the day. Aden had hoped his last name would hold on to that leniency, but the same registrar from the night prior faced him with aggravated, narrowed eyes, though her customer service smile sat snug in her expression.

“Have a wonderful evening, Mr. Kellington,” she dismissed sweetly.

Aden chose to say nothing. None of it was nice, none of it was necessary.

“Yikes, you sound like shit,” Henry said bluntly on the other end of the line. “Couldn’t imagine what you smell like.”

It was only then that Aden realized his friend…had a point. Maybe it was better for him to go home for the night. Sweat had seeped through his clothes and dried in sheets over his skin and the vague smell of smoke still trickled through his nostrils. A shower was in order, and in that way, Aden felt a little grateful for the boot out the door.

“Shut up,” was the only retort Aden had as his lift pulled up. Aden rattled off the location of his parked car before returning to the conversation. “Henry, I’m worried.”

“Aye. Why wouldn’t you be?”

Aden slouched in his seat. “Tony said there could be jail-time involved…something about drugs.”

“Well, I thought that part was taken care of,” Henry countered thoughtfully, “but the rest of it still seems a bit brutal.”

“I told you about the lawyer?” Aden didn’t recall doing so but, then again, he didn’t remember a lot from the last twenty-four hours.

There was a pause on Henry’s end, but it wasn’t very long. “Aye, so what’s got you so worried? Seems like it might be more than just his condition.”

“He won’t forgive me.” The statement was so matter-of-fact that it surprised even Aden. “He must hate me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Everything, Henry!” Aden felt his cheeks warm as the driver looked back at him with an irritable scowl. “Sorry…” he apologized, forcing himself to calm down. “Everything, every bad experience he’s ever had…it’s my fault. It’s always been my fault.”

“An’ how’s that?”

“I’ve already told you. You know how.”

“Aye. ‘Sposedly, you stopped looking for him,” Henry answered dryly. “Except that’s all a rouse, and you know it.”

Aden grit his teeth in frustration. Henry didn’t know any—

“I might not seem all too observant, but what I do see? Yeah. I’m confident in that,” Henry interrupted Aden’s thoughts. “I’ve seen you, head above crowds, always searching. At first, I never understood what you were lookin’ for. Or who. But the more you talked, the more I realized—it was always him. Every late day, every missed class, every disappointed scowl; all because of your endeavors to find him.”

Henry paused, maybe to give Aden room to speak. None of Aden’s words made it out.

“I don’t know, I’m just some Irishman who drifted until he decided to set up shop in this little but bloomin’ city. But I am confident that you are not a man who ‘stopped looking’. And that’s one hell of a thing to be bloody proud of.”

Stepping out of the car, exchanging thank yous and goodbyes, were all a blur as Aden sunk into his friend’s words. Despite the autumn chill, Aden’s car felt warm as the first wall of self-loathing began to thaw. But…was it alright to feel that way?

Aden could never reply to any of Henry’s words. His tongue felt too dry and swollen to speak even if he even knew what to say. So Henry filled the silence with incessant babble about the class Aden missed during his stay in the hospital. Thankfully, nothing Aden hadn’t already skipped ahead in learning via their textbooks.

“I…made it home,” Aden managed to say as he pulled the car to a complete stop.

“Good,” Henry replied. “I’ll let you go, then. Wash up, get some rest…and I’ll go with you to the hospital in the morning.”

Aden’s brows languidly jumped. “Really? You’ll go-why?”

“Seems like you may need a hand convincing yourself to convince him that you’re not as bad as you make yourself outta be. But we can discuss it more tomorrow, you just get yourself some rest.”

Henry didn’t wait for a response as he hurriedly hung up the phone; an unnecessary endeavor as Aden hadn’t anything to say.

Ruminating on his friends words and the validity they held, Aden realized he forgot a towel and cursed at his absentmindedness. It wasn’t like trailing water now and again was going to immediately damage the wood flooring, but Aden didn’t like the slick but grainy texture of wet skin over uneven wood. Felt too horrifically familiar.

…You can use the flames for that… a timid voice whispered. It was Nick, the outlier of the bird’s incarnates. Abnormal in every way he differed from all of them, Aden included.

Vice versa, the hound’s incarnate at the time, Mason, was a dynamite of explosive, temperamental outbreaks that kept Nick safe from the trauma he faced in the turn of the century. Mason was the loose cannon of the hound’s hosts; a man broken, bled, and then refueled by rage at the pact that made them all suffer. Aden hadn’t witnessed Mason’s fury first hand, not like Logan would have. But he’d seen flickers of the young man’s life after losing Nick. Grief did many things to the Hound’s incarnates over the centuries, but Mason was the first to feel such a wrathful itch he would never be able to sooth. It turned Mason into a poisoned, rabid beast of hate, knowing he was incapable of severing the cycle.

Aden couldn’t blame him for that. It was the very fate he wished to spare Logan from.

Letting out a defeated hiss, Aden called to the flames and let their supernatural warmth dry his skin. He never liked using them for his own good. Every lent spark seemed something Aden would have to pay back, and the bird’s interest rates weren’t something Aden wished to be held under. He also didn’t want Nick to pry further into his thoughts just to see Mason in all the worst lights Aden could paint him in so it became an easy decision to forego the mess it would cause.

Completely and, admittedly, comfortably dry, Aden let his thoughts disperse as he walked through his apartment, grateful most of the curtains were drawn. He dressed warmly before stepping out on the bedroom balcony for a quick smoke. A little green would provide the serenity his mind would need if he were to get any sleep.

And sleep he did…

(To be continued...)