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Part 3 of JerLan ❤
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2025-09-09
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2025-11-12
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Birthday Blues

Chapter 2: The Morning After

Summary:

The morning after...

Featuring: Jeremy "You're Overreacting" Volkov
If you ever find yourself in this idiot's shoes, don't do what he does :))

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Landon didn’t remember when it happened. When his eyes slipped shut, when he drifted into that strange in-between of wakefulness and sleep, when he let go of reality and the desperate wanting of what could never be. All he knew was that one moment he’d been staring at the ceiling, the taste of too-expensive vodka bitter on his tongue, the hollow chill that one only felt after falling unconscious to the feeling of an empty bed pressing in after too many nights of shared heat. And the next, there was warmth.

Only it wasn’t comfort that he felt. It was invasive, searing. A brand burning into him from behind. It felt like betrayal personified.

He woke to dead weight pinning him down, fingers splayed against the soft expanse of his stomach, breath hot and steady as it fanned against the sensitive skin of his nape.

Jeremy. Motherfucking. Volkov.

For a hazy, traitorous second, Landon let himself believe. Let himself sink into the lie, into the cruel familiarity of it all. That maybe yesterday had been a fever dream. That maybe the birthday dinner, their anniversary dinner, hadn’t wasted away. Half-eaten. Half-forgotten. That maybe he hadn’t spent the day waiting to not be a last resort. That maybe the deception hadn’t come through a screen, filtered for the world to see, but never know how deep it ran. And above all, that maybe he hadn’t gone to bed alone, seething and humiliated.

If he didn’t think too hard, he could almost believe it. Almost.

But here Jeremy was with his arm wrapped around Landon’s waist, holding him close like he was something precious. Too bad no one had ever taught Jeremy how to hold on to what he claimed to hold dear when he still had the chance. And if they did? Then Jeremy had thrown it away knowingly, willingly.

Landon had suspected. He had even gone so far as to expect that Jeremy would return by morning to their bed, wearing that mask of nonchalance, feigning innocence. But hypotheticals, expectations—even grim ones—were easier than confronting this distorted reality.

Questions flooded his mind. He hadn’t heard Jeremy come back last night. When had he returned? Did he really think he could slip past undetected? As if Landon wouldn’t feel the shift the moment Jeremy crossed the threshold. As if he could blind himself to the truth. As if betrayal didn’t have its own burdensome weight.

He was brought out of his spiraling thoughts when Jeremy shifted behind him. his body slowly coming back alive, pulling him tighter into his chest like he’d done a hundred times before, like nothing at all had fractured. His voice was still thick with sleep as he murmured, “Morning.”

Just ‘morning’.
No explanation. No apology.
Just lies dressed in routine.

As if yesterday never happened. As if nothing was wrong.

But something in Landon had snapped last night. A part of him he didn’t think he’d ever get back. A part of him that refused to keep pretending.

Landon felt his body go rigid. He didn’t turn, didn’t give Jeremy the satisfaction of seeing the storm flickering behind his eyes, that mix of hurt and fury sparking in his expression. Instead, his lips curved into a smile—not the soft one that Jeremy had grown accustomed to receiving in the morning, the one that Landon had so freely given him—but the kind that bared teeth.

“Sleep well?”

Jeremy nuzzled into his hair, inhaling him like he belonged there, his breath ghosted over the back of his neck, raising goosebumps where it touched. His voice came light, oblivious to Landon’s inner turmoil, utterly discordant with the tempest in Landon’s chest.

“Best sleep I’ve had in a while.”

His lips dragged lazily across Landon’s shoulder, pressing down a kiss as if it were still welcome. Like it was muscle memory, a ritual ownership rather than affection.

What began as feather-light grazes soon deepened, Jeremy’s mouth suckling at the junction between his neck and shoulder. The same spot Jeremy had always known could unravel him. The same spot that once meant safety, belonging.

And maybe that was what enraged Landon the most. How easy this was for him. How easy it was for Jeremy to crawl his way back into their bed, to entwine himself in his arms, to worm his way back into his life as if it erased everything.

But now, it burned.

Every touch.
Every graze.
Every kiss.

Each pull of Jeremy’s mouth felt like theft, like branding. A familiar cruelty wearing a mask of intimacy and love.

Landon finally rolled over, taking his time to adjust himself until he was facing Jeremy, staring into those infuriatingly clear eyes. Eyes that betrayed nothing. Eyes void of guilt, of shame. Jeremy looked relaxed, smug even, as if his absence had been nothing more than a mere illusion. As if Landon hadn’t spent half the night drowning in vodka and silence.

So, Landon indulged him.

Indulged in Jeremy’s lies for a moment longer, not out of delusion, not out of weakness, never that, but from a place of his own deception. His index finger skimmed idle, loving circles across Jeremy’s chest. The gesture was gentle, practiced, perfectly convincing.

A cold calm settled in his heart. He leaned into it, embracing his inherent nature, the part of himself he’d once feared gone, lost, buried beneath all those pathetic, useless lessons of empathy. Domesticity had dulled his edges, lured him into believing in love, in softness, in permanence.

But this moment proved otherwise. He hadn’t lost his touch.

And, of course, Jeremy fell for it. Basking in the attention, reveling in the lie, like always. Landon's smile sharpened.

“Tell me, Volkov…” Landon drawled, moving to caress Jeremy’s jaw, brushing a thumb over his check with mock tenderness. “Do you always lie so easily, or is it a talent you save just for me?”

For a moment, nothing shifted. Jeremy blinked, his grin still anchored in place, as though his brain couldn’t—or wouldn’t—register the blade hidden in his words. He was a fool. A bloody, arrogant fool to think he would be able to hold onto this secret.

The only sound that could be heard was Jeremy’s sharp inhale. And Landon watched with a grim fascination as the words began to cut through Jeremy’s facade, bleeding the color from his expression bit by bit.

Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Landon cut him off with a single finger pressed to his lips.

“Save it,” he murmured, soft and unwavering, “I don’t want excuses. I don’t want pretty words you’ll never mean. You weren’t here. And I…” His throat tightened—just barely—but his voice never cracked. He wouldn’t let it. Jeremy didn’t deserve to watch him break. “I was.”

The silence that followed was brutal. Heavy enough to choke on, sharp enough to carve.

Jeremy’s arm tightened on Landon’s waist, possessive, like he truly believed he could tether him with touch alone. As if bruising fingers could replace the trust lost. As if the feel of his skin on Landon’s could substitute honesty.

Landon only smiled darker, more feral than fond, twisting away just enough to create distance. Not enough to break the touch, but enough to make the space between them ache like the dull throb of a gunshot wound.

“Happy belated birthday, darling,” he whispered, lips brushing against the shell of Jeremy’s ear, tone dripping with cold mockery, before sliding out of bed, leaving Jeremy sprawled in the crumpled silk sheets, while he made to leave their the room.

“Don’t you dare turn away from me.” Jeremy growled, it wasn’t pleading, it wasn’t guilty. No, it was steely, low and threaded with a warning, it curled down Landon’s spine like a whip. But not in the way it should have, not in fear, but in anger. “Landon. Don’t walk away from me.”

Jeremy’s hand darted out, fingers snatching for him, but Landon wrenched free from his grip with ease.

Landon turned to face him, his own grin lethal. “Walk away? Sweetheart, I did that hours before you stumbled in, smelling like champagne and other people. Heathens.” His gaze dropped, deliberately slow, until he was looking down his nose at Jeremy still lounging in his sheets like this was any other relaxed morning. “You must’ve thought you were so clever. Sliding back into my—”

“Our.” Jeremy cut in.

Landon continued on as if Jeremy hadn’t spoken to begin with, because as far as he was concerned, he didn’t give a flying fuck about anything Jeremy had to say, “my bed, wrapping yourself around me. Pretending that you're innocent. Like you didn’t take me for a fool. Like you didn’t miss our anniversary, you fucking wanker.”

Jeremy’s features shifted, finally understanding this wasn’t just some small slight he could charm his way out of. He sat up, spine straightened, jaw clenched, every line of him taut with tension.

"You’re overreacting—"

“—FUCK.” Jeremy clutched his nose, blood already leaking from one nostril from the side Landon had swung from.

How the fuck did Jeremy think he would react to that. Who the fuck says that. 

‘You’re overreacting.’

It was clipped. Cutting. Dismissive in a way that belied his thoughts, betrayed his tactics: minimize it enough, and maybe it would all dissolve, maybe Landon’s wrath would devour itself into silence.

And perhaps, with anyone else, it might have worked. Might have even succeeded with flying colors. Might have been able to bend fury into hesitation, righteous anger into self-doubt.

But not tonight.

Not with him.

Because he was Landon fucking King. And if Jeremy fancied himself skilled at deceit, then he’d forgotten just who he was dealing with, just who had been a pain in his and the heathen’s overrated asses not that long ago. Landon knew how to whet lies into weapons, could manipulate with only his natural charm and an award-winning smile, could turn truth inside out in his sleep. If he wanted to, he could have been a world-renowned professor teaching a masterclass in gaslighting on any given day of the week.

So Jeremy’s attempt? Laughable. Childish. Like a toddler who didn’t get what they wanted. It only served as fuel to the fire, fuel to his fury.

A sharp, careless laugh tore through his throat, cruel and icy. “Oh? Yes, Jeremy~ please forgive me.” He said bringing his hands up in an imitation of prayer like he was a wanton girl begging her boyfriend to not cheat as if he hadn’t already done so before, as if it wasn’t a serial habit. “Forgive me for not applauding your brilliant disappearing act." Landon ground out. "Forgive me for thinking that the one person I—” His words caught in his throat for half a second, the words heavy, corrosive, before he forced it down and replaced it with vitriol. “The one person I trusted wouldn’t feed me some pathetic lie while cozying up with literally everyone else but me. On our day. On our anniversary. Did you get sudden onslaught dementia or something, was it that easy to forget me?”

Jeremy’s fists clenched until they became white, the sheets bunching up beneath him. That controlled calm of his, the one he always exuded shattered like glass. “You think you’re not in my life? You think you’re not—Christ, Landon. I came back here, to you. Doesn’t that tell you enough?”

That was most definitely the wrong fucking thing to say.

Landon’s eyes flared, callous amusement glinting under the hurt. He strolled forward until he stood at the edge of the bed, leaning down. “Back to me?” he purred, voice venom-soft. “No, Jeremy. You came back to my bed. Because it’s easy, isn’t it? Because you think I’ll still be here. Legs spread open, sheets warm, waiting like a good little secret.”

The space between them grew like a void, a suffocating abyss. Jeremy’s frame thrummed with tension, coiled tight like a cobra ready to snap at the slightest movement.

The smile plastered on Landon’s face didn’t reach the emptiness in his eyes. “Congratulations, oh great ‘King of the Night’,” he spat. The title dripping in venom, conjuring the image of Jeremy’s thinly veiled lie, the image of last night flashed in both their minds, the strobing lights, the deafening music, the cheering mob, the banner with that ridiculous moniker written in a worthless mutt's scrawl. Jeremy’s eyes gleamed—something dangerously akin to regret—edged with desperation at the reminder of the party, the one Landon hadn’t known about. “You’ve finally bored me.”

Jeremy surged forward instinctively, reaching for him, but Landon was faster. Always quicker. Always more evasive. He slipped out of his reach.

“You don’t mean that,” Jeremy snapped, practically pleaded, voice edged, raw, ragged, stripped of the usual elegance of his composure. Stripped of the usual indifference Jeremy tended to view the world. 

Landon tilted his head like a predator appraising his prey, smirk widening by several degrees until it looked wild, a twisted, darker version of the Cheshire Cat. His head canted slightly to the side, almost like a curious puppy, but there was nothing innocent or sweet about the gesture, only danger. There was no hesitation.

“Don’t I?”

The hush that fell over the room was heavier than any shouting would’ve been. Jeremy’s breath sawed in and out, harsh, uneven, rattling the fragile walls of his thinly held control. And through it all, Landon only stood taller, stronger in his restraint.

Then, without ceremony, without pause or apology or explanation, because why should he give Jeremy what Jeremy deemed him unworthy of, Landon turned on his heel. Steps echoing against the wood floors as he crossed the threshold of their room. Behind him, fabric ripped as furious hands tore at the bedding. Sheets, pillows, covers ripped free from the mattress under Jermey’s plight. His control fracturing under the chaos of it all. The air was electric with the threat of something sharp breaking loose, breaking free. Despite this, Landon never faltered.

He moved through the penthouse, making his way to the front door, never once turning back as though nothing behind him was worth the small amount of effort.

His hand was on the door, the handle barely giving way when suddenly Jeremy was on him before he could move an inch further.

The door slammed shut under the weight of Jeremy’s palm flat against it, the sound reverberating through the walls like a gunshot. His body pressed Landon forward, pinning him back until the cool wood dug into his spine. The closeness, not filled with the usual sexual tension, but reeking with panic masquerading as dominance.

Jeremy’s breaths were like those of a drowned man, his eyes wide and unseeing. “I don’t think you understand how this works, Landon,” he hisses, voice dark, fraying at the edges. “You’re fucking mine.”

“I’m not the one with comprehension issues, Jeremy.” Landon’s resulting laugh was a quiet thing, unholy in its contempt, his tone curling around Jeremy’s name like barbed wire. “I understand perfectly. You say I’m ‘yours’. But to whom?” His head tilts, smile too razor-edged to be entirely human “To your friends? To mine? None of them know. To the world, Jeremy, I’m no one. Nothing. Not to them. And certainly not to you.”

Jeremy growled, the distance between them becoming nearly invisible. “I don’t give a damn. You think I’ll fucking let you go, Landon?”

Landon’s gaze turned surgical, dissecting Jeremy’s reaction with cold precision, his smirk turned cutting, flaring like the glint of steel from one of Jeremy’s prized revolvers. His eyes were dead, unblinking, despite being wrapped in triumph. Like a corpse wearing a crown.

“You already did.”

The words landed heavier than any physical blow in the ring.

Jeremy’s hand lingered at Landon’s jaw, his grip unforgiving, firm enough to command. His voice dropped from that ruinous possessiveness into something darker, like an admission dragged from his throat against his will. Like the truth after a betrayal actually meant something.

News flash, Volkov: It didn’t.

“You think I didn’t want you there?” he muttered, tone gravelly. “Of course I did.” His gaze flicked away for half a second—a rare occurrence for Jeremy, as such it felt like an eternity—before locking back on Landon’s. “But you don’t play nice, Landon, you don’t… fit with them.”

Landon’s eyes sharpened instantly, cold amusement surged beneath his skin, hiding the hurt within. “Fit?” he echoed, laughter dry. “I was never made to fit. I belong. And if your pack of second-rate dogs can’t see that… maybe it’s because their ‘golden’ boy never gave them the chance.”

Jeremy’s jaw flexed. “You would’ve hated it anyway,” he said finally, as if that excused everything else.

“You don’t get to make that call. You don’t get to decide for me. You didn’t even tell me.” Landon spat the accusations like poison, chest heaving with exertion, with anger. “You thought you’d what? Get away with it? That there wouldn’t be consequences? Fuck you, Jeremy.”

Jeremy dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel—”

“Hurt?” Landon cut in with a mocking laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s a little too late for that.”

Jeremy reached for him before he could think better of it. Fingers rough, desperate, wrapping at Landon’s throat, squeezing just beneath the line of his jaw, like he didn’t know if he meant to strangle or steady him. Not choking, but not quite gentle either. His grip dragged Landon’s chin up, forcing their eyes to lock. “I was trying to protect you,” he snapped, voice cracking with vehemence.

Landon didn’t blink. Didn’t even bother pretending to flinch.

“Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.” Landon said coolly. “It doesn’t change the fact you are only lying to yourself. You’re not fooling anyone, Jeremy. Not even yourself.”

Jeremy looked like he was at war with himself, ready to shatter from the inside out, ready to come apart at the seams, held together only by sheer stubbornness and his guilty conscience. “They don’t get you the way I do. And I wasn’t—” He cut off, hunching slightly inwards like the burden of trying to convince himself of his own words proved too much to bear.

The weight of his own excuses had finally caught up with him.

The words hung there, unfinished. Shame thickened the space between them.

Ah. There it was.

Shame.

Shame that seemed to engulf him, that clung to him like his own shadow. He could practically smell the foul, acrid stench of it.

Ashamed. Jeremy was ashamed of him.

Landon tilted his head, smile brittle and glinted. Quiet. Dangerous. “Say it.”

Jeremy swore under his breath, grip tightening on Landon’s throat momentarily before softening into something almost tender, thumb brushing lightly against the quickly developing bruise as if to mend, as if to erase the damage. Like an apology that never learned to be honest.

“And I…” He faltered, mouth twisting like he swallowed a lemon, the words tasting worse going down than they did coming up, like the confession meant blood. “I wasn’t ready to deal with that.”

The silence stretched. Heavy. Condemning.

No one moved. No one spoke. They just let the truth settle between them like rot. Like mold. And mold left to fester too long contaminated everything. Tainted anything good until there was nothing to salvage. Not like this.

Landon could feel every unspoken word pulsing beneath Jeremy’s explanation: Wasn’t ready to choose you. Wasn’t ready to be seen by your side. Wasn’t ready to claim you where it mattered.

The smirk slipped from Landon’s mouth like it never belonged there, replaced with something quieter, sharper, meaner. “So instead,” he whispered, “you lied to me. Left me sitting here like a discarded afterthought while you played perfect little Volkov with the people who’ll never understand you half as well as I do, who’ll never understand a fraction of what I am to you.”

Jeremy’s flushed, heat rising to his cheeks in equal parts fury and guilt, his eyes dark as his voice hardened. “I didn’t want to see you torn apart by them. You don’t know what they’d do if they knew. If they saw—”

“Saw what?” Landon snapped. “That you’re mine? Or worse—that I’m yours?”

Jeremy huffed in frustration. “They wouldn’t understand this—you. They’d ruin us. They’d never accept you the way I—”

“The way you what?” Landon sneered, leaning in. “Tolerate me in the shadows? Keep me hidden?”

Jeremy’s breath hitched.

“You think I wanted it this way? You think it’s easy for me?” His voice cracked, splintered down the middle with something too ugly to name.

"You you you, it's all you. And here I though I was the narcissist between us."

"Stop. Landon." Jeremy inhaled. “I’m scared. Scared of what it means to love you out loud. Scared of watching it all go up in flames the second they realize what you are to me.”

And just like that, the words stopped being excuses.

They fractured into something worse.

A confession. A conclusion.

Ugly. Terrified. Unmistakably real.

Landon stilled. His chest ached with something treacherous, but he buried it beneath the same old armor. “So, let me get this straight. You’re terrified to love me in the light… and in return, I get the pleasure of existing in your shadows.” He heaved. "Should I thank you? Huh?"

Jeremy flinched. Visibly, as if struck. But Landon didn’t let him speak.

“You once told me that you told Nikolai he deserved to be loved in the light. Like everyone else.” Landon’s voice dipped, quieter now, barely there. Vulnerable in a way he hadn’t meant to be. “Don’t I deserve that too?”

Jeremy froze, caught off guard by his own hypocrisy, his previous words circling around his throat like a noose.

"ANSWER ME!" 

"I can't..." Jeremy strained. "Landon please..."

Landon’s laugh came out soft, bitter, acidic. “You know what’s pathetic, Volkov?” His name coming off his tongue like a slur. “I cooked for you. I stayed. I—” changed for you. No. Never that. Not for anyone. Never again. He bit the words back before it could betray him. His body had already betrayed him enough, attracted to Volkov? What was he thinking? It’s clear now that he hadn’t been. Blinded by the illusion of love.

Fire surged behind glacier eyes. “And you’ll regret making me this person. Because me? I don’t beg. I don’t wait. And I sure as hell don’t play the other woman to boys too scared of their own goddamn hearts.”

Jeremy’s jaw locked, fury flaring behind his own stormy grey eyes. His hands bracketed Landon’s face, not gentle, just desperate. Shaking with restraint, with the weight of everything he was unable to say. Fingers buried themselves into giving, always giving, flesh. “Landon, please. You think I give a fuck about them? I only—” His voice broke, harsher now, ragged with something too wild, too untamed. “I only care about this. Us.”

Landon let out a bitter laugh. Careless. No trace of humor, just the hollow echo of it. “Us? There is no ‘us’. Not when you have to lie through your teeth to everyone else. When your precious image means more than I do.”

Jeremy’s grip became tighter, pinning him back against wood. His composure wavered. What seeped out wasn’t shame, it was obsession. Frantic. Devouring. All-consuming. “Don’t put words in my mouth. You’re the only thing that matters, Landon. You drive me insane. You’re the only one who—”

“Shut up,” Landon’s voice cut like broken glass. Sudden. Venomous. His hand shot up, nails sinking into Jeremy’s wrist, forcing him to feel. To listen. “If I mattered,” he growled, “you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with me. If I mattered, I wouldn’t have spent the day on my own, while you toasted to a life you don’t want me to be a part of.”

Jeremy flinched, but anger flooded in fast. Defensive. Destructive.

“You think I’m ashamed of you?” He spat. “No. I’m terrified of what you do to me. You don’t get along with them, Landon. All you do is rip them apart. Spit in their politeness. Laugh in their faces. And I—” his voice cracked, rough. “I don’t know what would happen if I had to choose.”

Landon’s smile gave way to something deadly. Too cutthroat. Too cold.

“Ah.” He breathed, chest twisting. “There it is.”

Each word cut, landing like a blade. Merciless and beautiful in their cruelty.

“You don’t know if I’m worth it.”

Jeremy swore under his breath and slammed a fist into the door beside Landon’s head, the crack echoing like gunfire through the penthouse.

“Don’t twist this. Don’t you dare fucking twist this. You’re everything. But I can’t—” He swallowed like the words burned. “I can’t lose everything else too.”

Landon leaned in, close enough to taste the wreckage. His voice dropped, whispering turned soft and serpentine.

“Then you already have.”

His breath ghosted over Jeremy’s ear.

“Because I am not your shadow, Jeremy. I'm not your ghose, or dirty little secret. I’m a King. And Kings don’t beg. I will never beg for half of you. And if you’re too much of a coward to give me the rest… then congratulations. You’ve lost me.”

The words hit harder than any injury he’d received in the past. Being pinned under the table when the mansion went up in flames hurt less than whatever this was.

They landed like a cleaver to his heart. Clean. Unforgiving. Final.

Jeremy’s breath turned jagged, but he didn’t loosen his grip. If anything, it tightened, trembling with the war raging under his skin. His forehead crashed against Landon’s, like violence and intimacy were indistinguishable—the only language he had left.

“You don’t get to decide this ends.” His voice quivered in pain, futility.

Landon didn’t soften in the face of it. Unwavering in his resolve.

“I think that you ended us the moment you chose your audience over me.”

“You don’t get to leave me,” he snarled. The words shook as they left him, wrecked, unpredictable like he was a cornered wild animal.

Landon smiled.

Soft. Cruel. Devastating.

Fingers dragging teasingly down Jeremy’s shirt. Deliberate, mocking, the ghost of past intimacy weaponized. “That’s the difference between us, darling.” He murmured. “You take what’s handed to you.”

A pause. Intentional. Calculated.

“I take what I want.” And then, a breath, just long enough to sear. “And what I want—is no longer you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t silence at all. It was a scream. A detonation on mute. Malicious. Still. Jeremy’s hands trembled where they held him—torn between dragging him closer and letting him go.

Landon leaned in one last time. His voice turned velvet. Sultry. Dangerous. The kind Jeremy got off on.

“Happy birthday,” he purred, brushing his lips just shy of his. “I hope you got your fucking wish.”

Then he shoved him. Hard. Breaking free from Jeremy’s vice-like hold.

Jeremy was startled enough that he lost his footing, stumbling back. Just long enough for Landon to slip past him in one fluid, lethal motion—soft-footed and quiet.

He shut the door softly, no dramatics, no theatrics. Nothing. He wouldn’t give Jeremy any more of himself to take.

“LANDON!”

Jeremy’s exclamation came out muffled through by the barrier of the door.

Landon didn’t look back. He didn’t stop.

Because he wasn’t going to wait up for whatever Jeremy decided to do next.

He was done being second choice.

The sky outside was somber, draped in thick grey like mourning. It wept in slow, pitiful drops, almost like it was shedding the tears Landon might have been able to if he was more susceptible to fits of sorrow, if he were the type to break cleanly.

But he didn’t.

He calcified. Hardened. Cracked in places no one could see.

And right now? He felt hollow.
Empty.
Alone.

Fuck, he hadn’t felt this alone in a while. Hadn’t realized he could even feel like this. Get like this. Undone. Off-center. Stripped bare without the constructed armor of defiance or sex or his trademark smirk to cover the bleeding.

The void that Jeremy had temporarily filled was closing in his peripheral, clawing its way back in. Quietly at first, then louder, more violent, until it’s now consuming the edges of his vision, his heart.

He didn’t know how long he spent walking. Didn’t care.

The streets blurred together. Buildings bleeding into one another like wet ink, signs unreadable, lights meaningless. He didn’t know what direction he was headed—north, south, west, east—it was all the same.

He just moved.
He needed to get away.
So, he walked.

Walked until his feet felt like they’d fall off, until the pain bloomed in the soles of his shoes as if bleeding under the strain of having to carry the mess that was himself. Walked until the chill rain seeped beneath his clothes, promising a terrible cold in the upcoming days. The same clothes he’d worn yesterday, but was too drained to change out of.

His feet took him to the boardwalk, to a bench overlooking the expanse of the Atlantic’s frigid waters before him.

They say that people calmed by water are born of fire. And those who are soothed by flame? Were inherently made of water.

But that never made sense to Landon.

The opposite couldn’t be more true.

He was fire, through and through. Unapologetically, catastrophically so. But the ocean didn’t calm him. It mocked him. All that depth and quiet. Still and deep like it had something to hide.

Like Jeremy.

No, what calmed Landon was chaos. Destruction. Screams over stillness. Passion over peace.

And yet, here he was, empty, washed up on metaphorical shorelines he’d spent his whole life avoiding.

Perhaps the gentle waves of the ocean had swayed him once, but he wouldn’t let it again.

He waited for his heart to stop trembling with anything. Waited for the numbness of his exterior to flood his interior. His fingers were steady when he finally pulled out his phone.

Scrolling past names he couldn’t stand and those who didn’t matter, one-night stands, half-friends who were wary, family who tolerated him because of blood, people who looked good beside him at a party but disappeared the second things got inconvenient.

He only stopped when his eyes landed on the only name that made sense. The only person who’d never turned away when Landon’s head got too noisy, too ugly. When he was cruel. When he was real.

The one person who understood him, the one person who would be able to untangle the turbulent chaos in his head. The person who wouldn’t ask too many questions or push buttons he didn’t want pressed.

Aiden King.

His uncle.

The only person who intimately knew what it meant to feel too little and too much at the same time.

He clicked on the contact.

Waited

One ring. Two.

It was answered on the third.

Notes:

Next chapter will be with Lan, Levi, Aiden + a special appearance