Rune watched Hyde disappear up the stairs to the encounter he had been dreading for the last six years. He hoped it would go well. Otherwise, if things got worse, it would be his fault that Hyde had to go through that. He came here because of him.

“So, where are you from?”

Rune flinched and turned around to Dione. “Oh, far north.”

“You came a long way, then.”

“Yeah, I had to travel for work.”

Dione turned to go to the kitchen, then back to Rune with a smile. “Like anything to drink?”

“I doubt you have anything I could digest.”

“Can’t you drink water?”

Rune clicked his tongue. “That I can.”

Dione chuckled and continued on her way to the kitchen. She opened a cupboard and grabbed a glass. She filled it with water at the tap. Rune had followed her to the kitchen. She handed him the glass.

“Thank you,” Rune said as he took it. He took a sip.

“How do you know Hyde?”

Rune turned to Tayen this time. She leaned against the counter next to her mother. Rune scratched his jaw. “It’s a long story. But, I’ll give you the short version.”

“You don’t have to keep it short, who knows how long they’ll be talking,” Dione told him.

Rune shrugged in response and sipped his water again. “So, Hyde was staying in a village a couple hours away. And I had a job, it sent me there and we ran into each other. I didn’t want that job anymore, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. Hyde helped me do so. I’ve been staying with him ever since.”

“Why did you want to leave the job?” Dione wondered.

“It didn’t give me any time to go home.”

“Why didn’t you know how to get out of it?” Tayen asked this time.

Rune rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re difficult people.”

Tayen squinted at him.

“How long have you known each other?” Dione asked before Tayen could speak her mind.

“Uhh.” Rune calculated in his head. “Close to two months, now.” He saw the surprised looks they were giving him. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, I know. But it is when you haven’t been apart for more than a few hours, two months straight.”

Dione frowned as she thought of something. “You’re the friend who told him to go home, right?”

Rune sipped his water and nodded.

“Had he not had a friend before, all that time?”

Rune sighed. “Not really. There were people he spoke to, but he never felt comfortable enough with them to open up about all this.”

Dione smiled. “Well, at least he has you, now.”

Rune shyly smiled back.

Dione looked at the lunch she was preparing before. She hummed. “I don’t have enough ingredients now, with Hyde here.”

“You didn’t have to prepare for me, you know that, right?” Tayen asked.

Dione turned to her. “Yeah, I know. I had enough for two people. But now I need more bread.” She looked at Rune. “Could I make something for you, too?”

Rune flinched. “Oh, no.” He put his hands up in front of him to decline. “That’s okay.”

“Aren’t there vampire alternatives for most foods?”

“Well, yeah, but they’re hard to find in the south and quite costly. So, really, please don’t.”

She frowned. “Okay, then. I’ll be going to the store real quick. Play nice,” she told Tayen.

Dione left, leaving Rune and Tayen alone in the kitchen. Rune drank his water. He raised his eyebrow at Tayen suspiciously squinting at him again. “What?”

“You worked for difficult people. They were shady, weren’t they?”

Rune froze.

“I’ll guess your job wasn’t exactly legal.”

Rune frowned down at his glass. “I—I didn’t have a choice.”

Tayen pushed herself off the counter and leaned into his face. “Why not?”

Rune leaned back. “They threatened everyone I care about. You don’t call the bluff of people like that.”

“If you don’t blame yourself, why not tell the truth right away?”

Rune shrugged. “What, should I tell my friend’s family I just met that I’ve done some illegal work? Isn’t the best first impression.”

She still glared at him. “What about Hyde?”

“I haven’t hidden anything from him, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s known since the beginning.”

“What was it?”

“Theft.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

Tayen stepped back. “Okay, fine. But since you’re so worried about his family’s impression of you, I do have to wonder,” she continued.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“What?”

“What exactly is the nature of your relationship?”

Rune was taken aback. “Huh? We’re—we’re friends.”

“Nothing more?”

Rune frowned. “No.”

Tayen smirked at him. “But you’d like to be, don’t you?”

Rune’s eyes grew wide as he felt a blush come to his face. “Eh—”

She snickered. She leaned closer to him again and whispered, “I don’t know if you’ve talked about this, but he’s never been interested in girls. He didn’t see it himself, before. But maybe he does now, so you have a pretty good chance there.”

Rune gaped at her. “Okay.”

“Who’s that?” Fallon asked Hyde after they came through the door to the living room. Some random guy was talking to his daughter in the kitchen.

Hyde looked in their direction too. “Oh, yeah. That’s my friend, Rune.”

Fallon hummed, he leaned closer to Hyde’s ear without taking his eyes off Rune and asked in a hushed voice, “Did you figure out whether you’re gay or not?”

Hyde shot around to him with wide eyes. “Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”

Fallon glanced at him. “No? Okay.”

“Oh!” Tayen called out before Hyde could answer. “You’re back.” She came up to them. “Did it go well?”

“Yeah.” Hyde smiled.

Tayen smiled too. “Good.” She looked at a clock on the wall. “I should get home, Warlon expected me to be away for only a few minutes,” she chuckled. She headed to the door.

Hyde raised his eyebrow. “Warlon?”

“My husband.”

“You’re married?!”

“What—” She put her hands on her hips. “What’s with that surprised tone?”

“I don’t know, you seem young?”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“Right.”

“Just because you haven’t emotionally matured enough for marriage yet, doesn’t mean I haven’t.”

Hyde twitched his head in surprise. “Jeez, I’ve only been back for a couple hours.”

“I thought you were in such a hurry to go home?” Fallon pointed out.

Tayen’s eyes widened. “Oh, right!” She turned to leave again. “See you later!”

Hyde watched her leave, then saw his dad searching around the room with a confused look.

“Where’s Dione?” Fallon asked no one in particular.

“Buying bread,” Rune called from the kitchen. He gave Fallon a little wave as they met eyes.

“Oh,” Fallon responded.

Hyde smiled at Rune. He grabbed Fallon’s hand and dragged him to the kitchen. “Rune”—Hyde gestured at Fallon—“meet my dad, Fallon.”

Rune smiled awkwardly. “Hi, I’m Rune.”

“Yes, Hyde said so.”

“Right—”

The front door opened, Hyde looked into its direction. He heard Fallon sigh in relief beside him. Dione came through the door holding a fresh bag of sliced bread. She noticed Hyde and Fallon and smiled. “Oh, you’re back downstairs! I take it went well, then?”

“It did,” Hyde answered.

“Great.”

She came to the kitchen and laid the bread on the counter. She felt the awkward tension coming off Rune and knowingly glanced at Fallon with a little smile. Seemed like she came just in time.

“So,” she started at Hyde, “you’ve only known each other for two months. How come you’re already as close as you are?”

Hyde scratched his jaw. “Well…” He looked into Rune’s eyes, thinking of how to answer. “He helped me a lot.” He smiled a little. “He kept me company, and I finally had someone to talk to again.”

Rune shyly smiled back.

Dione suspiciously glanced from one to the other.

“Didn’t you have someone to talk to before?” Fallon asked.

Hyde shook his head. “Not really. No one else there was actually interested in my private life. Or if they were, they made me uncomfortable.”

Rune scratched his chin hairs. “I’d say you helped me a lot more than I helped you.”

“Oh, don’t be so humble,” Dione told him. She clasped both her hands around one of Rune’s and smiled up at him, Rune was stunned. “I also wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For convincing Hyde to come home. Who knows how much longer he would’ve stayed away if it weren’t for you?”

Rune tensed up and glanced away. “No problem?”

Dione sniffed for a moment before letting him go. She turned to Hyde. “But I’m sure you two would like some time to catch up now. I’ll finish preparing lunch in a minute.” She turned back to Rune. “You should join us!”

Rune flinched. “Oh—no, I… I shouldn’t.”

Dione frowned. “Why?”

“I can’t eat what you eat, anyway.”

“Eat whatever you can, then.”

Rune rubbed the back of his neck. “I—you should have some time alone together—”

“Nonsense, you’re here anyway. Where else are you gonna go?”

“Uhh…”

Hyde frowned at Rune. Something was up. He grabbed Rune’s wrist as he said, “He’ll think about it, we’ll go to my room, now.”

Dione tried to catch a better whiff of Rune before they walked off. She flinched at a poke on her arm. She turned to Fallon, who gave her a look of What the fuck. “Hm?”

“What were you doing?”

Dione glanced at Hyde and Rune leaving through the door. They were gone now. “Didn’t you smell anything off about him?” she asked.

“Who, Rune?”

“Yes.”

“No, I don’t sniff people like a weirdo.”

Dione huffed and stepped closer to him. “He has Hyde’s scent on him, pretty strongly.”

Fallon shrugged. “So? They’re friends, that’s bound to happen.”

“No, as in, not only friendship strong. As in, Hyde’s been scent-marking him.”

Fallon’s eyes widened.

“And we both know what that means, right?”

“Yeah, but if Hyde does have feelings for him, it doesn’t seem like he’s realised it himself, yet.”

Dione raised her eyebrow. “Why?”

“When we came downstairs and I asked who Rune was, I asked him if he knew if he was gay. And he didn’t get what that had to do with anything.”

“Oh, how forward of you.”

Fallon squinted at her.

“But perhaps he doesn’t even notice himself doing it. Maybe his wolf knows he likes him and is making him do it instinctually.”

Fallon hummed and grabbed his chin. “Could be.”

Dione grabbed his hand with a chuckle. She rubbed the facial hair on his chin. “Don’t you remember how long it took you to realise you liked me?”

Fallon huffed. “I have a good excuse.”

Dione shrugged. “Maybe not yet knowing what he’s attracted to is giving him a similar hindrance.”

“Yeah,” Fallon admitted.

Dione smiled and gave him a peck on his lips. “But what happened while you were upstairs? Did you argue or fight or simply talk, or—”

“Talk. He came to the conclusion that, since neither of us blamed the other, we should try to forgive and forget.”

“Really?”

Fallon nodded.

“So, we’ll just move on from all this?”

Fallon shrugged. “We’ll try.”

“Good.” She caressed his cheek. “Told you everything would be okay.”

Fallon breathed out a chuckle and leaned his forehead down against hers.

----------------------------------------

Hyde walked into his childhood bedroom. It had been tidied up, but all his stuff was still there. His bed, his desk, the small amount of art supplies he barely used anymore, his chair, his closet, the stack of board games he was into for a while. Not that anyone was willing to play them with him, only his dad. His mom and sister thought they were too complicated.

“Aww,” Rune cooed as he spotted the games too and kneeled beside them, he squished his cheeks with his hands. “You were a nerd,” he said fondly.

Hyde’s face flushed in embarrassment. “What, have you never had any geeky interests?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What were you into?”

“My grandad’s old adventure novels at some point.” Rune stood back up. “And not everyone thought playing piano was cool. ‘Why don’t you play something cool, like guitar or drums?’ ” He looked at Hyde and saw his embarrassed face. He smiled a little. “I’m not making fun of you, it’s cute.”

Hyde only blushed more. He took a deep breath to regain his composure before asking, “What was going on downstairs with my mom?”

Rune fell silent. He frowned and looked away.

“I didn’t avoid your family, why are you trying to avoid mine?” Hyde teased.

Rune shook his head. “I’m not avoiding them, I… it’s different with parents.”

Hyde furrowed his brows. “Why?”

“You didn’t have to—couldn’t—meet my parents. Seeing you with yours, it’s”—he sighed—“overwhelming.” He looked up at Hyde’s frown with tears in his eyes. “It reminds me that I can never have that again.”

He shook his head again and wiped his tears away. “I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be supporting you here, I—”

“No, don’t,” Hyde interrupted. He pulled Rune’s hand down from his tears and held it. “Don’t apologise, it’s okay. I get it. You can stay here, I’ll explain it to my mom.”

Rune smiled through the tears. “Thanks,” he whispered. He rested his forehead on Hyde’s shoulder.

Hyde hugged him by his waist. He glanced at his boardgames. “You can look through my games, if you want. While you’re here.”

Rune snickered. “Maybe I’ll find one I’d like to play.” He lifted his head up with a weak smile.

Hyde smiled back, still holding him by his waist. “Could be fun for a sleepover,” he joked.

Rune snorted. He bumped his head against Hyde’s doing so, causing him to realise how close they were. His face flushed. He stepped back, out of Hyde’s hold, and said, “You should go downstairs, they’re waiting for you.”

“Y-yeah,” Hyde hesitated, processing what just happened.

Hyde smiled before walking out, leaving Rune alone in his childhood bedroom. Rune grinned. He would find out as much as he could about young Hyde.