Private Finished Yeah he's a looker, But I really think it's guts that matter most

Lochlann had not forgotten that day he'd been so close to getting everything he'd ever wanted before the rain washed it away. But the rain didn't wash everything away.

It didn't wash away his hope.

Hope was not a thing Lochlann had often. The feeling was unfamiliar and fragile. Lochlann felt like someone had given him a baby bird and asked him to care for it and keep it alive, but left him with no instructions or even the faintest idea of how to nurture this faint hope until it could grow into something stronger and with wings.

Lochlann did know what happened the last time he tried to keep secrets. He still dreamed about the taste of her blood in his mouth. Now, Lochlann dreamed about the taste of her mouth on his and he wanted to keep it this way. He wouldn't poison this hope with his secrets. Not this time

He was carrying this hope as he approached the address Addy had left him. He was also carrying a bottle of whisky with a bow on it....and, a carnation with the stem slipped into the bottle. He brought her the good kind of whisky, the kind that she used to do shots of at the bar with the scary owner who Lochlann still couldn't look in the eye after he'd made Addy late for work that one time. He considered that a better house warming gift than a plant.

He'd spent a long time looking at plants but kept getting overwhelmed by the idea to bring her flowers instead. Would she even like them? Addy was a very hands-on, practical kind of girl. It's what he liked about her. She was his best friend.

And Lochlann had no idea to express to her that he kind of wanted to be more than just best friends.

He was dressed in his normal ensemble: jeans and a dark shirt with his necklace tucked beneath it. His shorter hair tickled the back of his neck. He glanced at the paper he'd written the address on.

Here went nothing.

Lochlann held his hope tight to him as he wrapped his fingers against the doorframe.

@Trahnael

Addy had dirt or oil or something on her and...

fuck.

Lochlann wasn't prepared for just how hot she looked like that.

He gave her a very slow grin that spread across his face like butter.

"Not exactly," Lochlann said. "But I wanted to give you your housewarming gift in person at least."

She opened the door wider and he nodded, accepting her invitation and stepping inside. Lochlnann had been in a shop like this once or twice with Lawrence, but places like this usually had a disgusting amount of iron in them so he tended to avoid them.

"I was also wondering if I could, uh, talk to you about some stuff," Lochlann said. He looked around the place where Addy was living and it was like he had been looking at her though a lens of a camera and someone had widened that lens for him. This was filling in so many missing pieces.

He realized she'd known about the iron which is why she'd invited him upstairs. The smile he gave her was a little bit embarrassed, but grateful. "Thanks, Addy. Oh!"

He handed her the bottle.

"Welcome home."

Lochlann followed Addy upstairs and, he had to admit, the relief he felt was palpable. Even though he hadn't touched anything, being in a room with a lot of iron could make him feel a little bit off. He didn't always notice it, but sometimes parking garages, elevators, and boiler rooms made him feel off. He'd never really thought about where that unexplained panicky feeling came from before, but as he was walking upstairs, Lochlann considered that maybe it wasn't something wrong with him. Maybe it was just his body's way to reacting to a place that could kill him.

Lochlann waited in the living area, with those dark red couches like blood and the sleek glass table. His own place was generally spartan in quality. Lochlann never considered that, maybe, a place he lived in could be more than temporary.

Addy had him thinking about the future and it was an unusual experience. That fragile hope clutched in his chest fluttered its tiny wings.

"That's up to you," Lochlann said, giving her a grin. "I work nights so the afternoon is basically my evening. But I'd only drink if it was with you. I've uh, cut back on that a bit."

When she asked what he wanted to talk about, Lochlann shifted for a moment. He stretched out his bad leg, even though it wasn't really that bad anymore, but it was a habit. He rubbed it while he thought.

"I didn't tell you what I was before," Lochlann said. "And that was a mistake, one I will never stop regretting. I don't want to have that happen again. So I'm...I'm going to tell you what happened over the last two years. And I'll tell you anything you want to know about me."

He swallowed.

This was hard. Very hard. he resisted the temptation to get up and start pacing, or to walk over to the window.

But he was ready.

He was going to do this right this time.

Addy gave him the option to back out at any time. It was an escape loop, like an open window, and just the thought of it relaxed him considerably.

He was still tense, because this did not come naturally to him, but he wanted to try for her. For them. For..us? Even the possibility of us.

"Okay," Lochlann said. He took a deep breath, then blew it up and mussed his own hair. He gave a small, nervous laugh, and tried to start over.

"After I tried to eat you," he said this part matter-of-fact, which sounded easier than it really was. He couldn't hide the pained look that slipped onto his face. "I was sent to juvie for about two months for rehab."

Lochlann leaned forward and picked up the empty cup and sloshed the ice cubes around it slowly. It gave him something to do. He was fidgety. He wanted to get up and paced, but if he did that, he figured he'd get closer and closer to the window.

"I spent a long part of that rehab in the hospital, too. I had, uh, some liver...problems," he said. At this admission, he dropped his eyes down to the cup. He hated that he was proving Dr. Hart right by telling her this. He cut out the other details--how long he'd been in the hospital, how close to dying he'd come again. Lochlann had no idea how to handle being alive. "But when I recovered enough that they sent me back, I met another fae, a banshee, and her name was Dani and...I really liked her, Addy."

He took a deep breath.

An exhale.

He was about to say you could probably guess what happened next but he needed another moment to think. He hadn't killed Dani, not exactly, but she'd still been with him and she died.

He needed to tell her that he was afraid he killed someone only two short months before she came to the island. He needed to tell her that he had killed, that his fighting off the urges was a battle he constantly loss. Lochlann didn't know how innocent he was in her eyes, but he wondered if she understood the level of guilt he had.

The air in the room felt heavy, and the worst part is that Lochlann still wanted to kiss her.

"Dani was--"

The door clicked open.

Lochlann froze.

And there he was.

Lochlann had met a lot of demons in his life. None of them invoked the feelings of malice within him that just the site of Alaude fucking Cross standing there in his sweatpants summoned within Lochlann's chest.

Oh we were too quiet, Lochlann mocked Alaude's voice in his head. On the outside, his face was blank, as though his body didn't know how to process the sheer amount of feeling it had when Alaude opened the door.

It was as though all of the want, all of the lust he felt for Addy, he had for Alaude. Only instead of sexual desire it was the desire to fucking push Alaude off a bridge.

"There's no need to worry," Lochlann said, his voice surprisingly neutral. "If we were doing something worth your suspicion, do you really think we'd do it on the couch in your home?"

It was a subtle challenge, a result of Lochlann's heritage as an animal. This might be your territory, the implication suggested, but you can't stop me from doing what I want outside your house. Lochlann was surprised by the fact that he'd wished they'd been doing something suspicious just to see that smug look on that smug fucker's face to know that someone else was going to get laid on his couch before him.

Lochlann hated himself in these moments.

He hated how Alaude being there made Lochlann feel even more that his desire, his want, his need for Addy was an unnatural, foul, dirty thing, as though his very touch would leave a stain on her.

Addy had distanced herself considerably and Lochlann shifted as he turned, closing that distance between them enough that his thigh brushed against her.

"Anyway," Lochlann said, as though he was about to pick up from where he left off, as though Alaude wasn't there. But there was no way he was going to expose himself like this, no way he was going to be so vulnerable when Alaude could hit him where it hurt. "I hope you like the whiskey. I figured it was better than a plant. My sister would have been disappointed, though, because she's apparently become really interested in succulents and would have been much happier if I'd brought you like those instead. But I think this is more practical."

A slip of his accent caressed the word succulent. It was not something he'd ever said before and he couldn't get his tongue to form the word correctly.

This perturbed him.

Not as much as Alaude, though.

Fucking Alaude.