His body was shaking and he didn't know how to make it stop. God, withdrawal was a bitch, but it was even worse when he had already given his body a little taste of what he'd been denying himself -- now, the hunger set in with a vengeance, consuming him almost before the hangover even let up from the day before. He spent the morning puking, the afternoon trembling and hating himself for giving in so close to the two week mark, and that evening swearing that the hallucinations had started again. There was only one thing he wanted, his appetite shot, but there was no way in hell he was going to give in again. He couldn't stand himself if he did.

He could barely stand himself now, and every time he swallowed he tasted the tang of wine once more, a taunting reminder of his slip-up. Fuck. He'd been so convinced he could do it, that he didn't need to wean, that he was strong enough to resist. Zaniel hadn't even forced him over the edge, he was certain -- things were hazy but he was almost positive he had broken down all on his own. Pathetic. How Hazel hadn't torn him apart was a mystery to him, and when he clenched his hands into fists he could still feel the phantom heat of her fingers laced through his. He still didn't know what to make of the willing touch, the lack of fear -- of much fear. Bastille wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd felt that flicker of fear again last night, and his mouth tasted sour. He didn't want to find out.

Perhaps it was her quiet acceptance last night, or perhaps he would have gone to her anyway. He wasn't so certain himself. All he knew was that he was shaking so hard that sometimes his balance was unsteady, and his skin was on fire, and he just wanted to sit with her and remind himself why he couldn't give in again. Wanted the reassurance that she could save him from himself, even if she didn't particularly want to. He kept trying to tell himself to believe her, believe that she cared, but it was a hard notion to accept. It was easy, however, to believe that she had a good soul and would try to help because she had the heart to help even those who didn't deserve it.

He inhaled a shuddering breath and stood outside her door for a moment, biting the inside of his cheek. He hadn't visited her room in... a while, actually. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd sat reading to her, nor was he entirely certain if her panic attack here had been before or after that all stopped. It was all very... distant. A blur. He missed her, and he swallowed against the knot in his throat as he knocked on her door softly.

"Haze," he called, low, "Can I come in?" It was possible she was angry with him and unwilling to let him near her, not after he'd broken down once more, but he could only hope she wasn't that angry. "Please?" he added, trying not to reveal just how desperate he was and likely failing.

[b]BASTILLEPRISONER AURELIUS — ASTRAL SERAPH — THE ASCENDANTS — TAGS

Hazel wanted to say her experience of withdrawal was easier. She wished it was, at least. And maybe it wasn’t on the same level of intensity as her counterpart, but there was a certain amount of mentality that she struggled with; a certain reason why it made the room spin and her head ache. Why she leaned heavily against the filing cabinets, sweatpants slung low on her hips in a reckless, impatient fashion and breath coming heavy in the stead of trying to make it slow and rhythmic. Why she could feel the bond pulsing, itching, leaving her nauseous and jittery in the wake of his withdrawal. The withdrawal she knew was imminent the minute she realized he had let alcohol touch his lips again.

Because she used to be scared of him drinking. Terrified of it, in fact. The concept of him downing a bottle like Mother horrified the living hell out of her, thinking that the only aftereffect of it was violence and misery. As it turned out, she was only half right. And now? Now all she could think of was what he said in the stables that one day. About his souls, about Starrynight. About he’d never had a friend before and how he was unprepared for how said souls would react.

About losing her.

That was what struck her — right where she didn’t know could ache. All her childhood, Mother had tried to get rid of her. Or, at least, cover up her existence as much as possible. All Hazel had done up to this point was to try and appease people, to make sure that they didn’t have a reason to ignore her. She’d never considered the idea that someone might worry about losing her. She’d worked so hard to keep friends in the Ascendants, and upon learning that one of them actually wanted to keep her, too, she latched on. Literally.

Earlier that day, Hazel had been so terrified that she would lose Bastille to Playerone that her only mindset was to separate them. Because touching him? Touching him was like setting her hands on the sunset: warm and alive and steady with the thrum of a constant heartbeat. She remembered that heartbeat, pressed against her ear; remembered its rhythmic thudding, how it sped up and slowed down as Bastille cycled through emotions. She remembered feeling so lost and turned around that she’d clung to the first thing in her immediate reach that would ground her. And ground her, he did. That smoke and pine scent that clung to his shirt filled her nose with something other than alcohol — the rhythm of his heart and low timbre of his voice gave her something to focus on. She’d begun to associate Bastille’s touch with something unmovable...something rigid. It was slowly moving in, pushed by the fear of losing her best method of coping and her best friend as well as losing him because he would finally notice how broken she was.

And it made her nervous. Nervous because the deeper her connection to him ran, the harsher it would be to lose him. And she wasn’t just thinking losing his attention, his care. She would literally lose him. His laugh, his sarcasm, his wit; the way his eyes lit up when he rambled on about classical literature and how he loved that Ovid was a sarcastic shithole and the way he stood up for her; his care for others, his want to be a better person, his friendship with Arion and Octavia; the way he called her Princess and how he held her when her world felt like it might end and she couldn’t breathe. There was so much she wasn’t ready to lose, and yet? All of it hung on the edge of a cliff, tottering. Threatening.

Hazel had realized that somewhere along the line, she was really content with knowing that he was on his feet every morning. He might be hungover or sick via withdrawal, but he was still up. And that was...more than enough for Hazel to build on. More than enough to prove to her that he cared about his clan and his job.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t torn in half about this. She could touch him now, but was still scared of the potential he held. She wanted to give him his space to heal, but found that her fear of losing his want kept her near him almost around the clock. She also dealt with Titanium who, on a damn near constant basis, was whispering “You’re in love — get over yourself,” as well as her crippling self-depreciation.

Crippling self-depreciation that meant she was standing over a drawer of broken art supplies, staring at the one piece of paper that hadn’t been ripped to shreds yet: a charcoal sketch from some of her first days here. It featured Margy, Suite, and Bastille — the first people she met. Now Hazel couldn’t bring herself to tear it apart. She’d already cried over it once today, wishing she could go back to being that little girl who was so happy all the time. A girl who didn’t have head voices and nightmares that woke her up with a soft French lullaby on her tongue.

Suddenly the bond was warming, tugging, the fizz underneath her skin dissipating. She knew before he knocked who was on the other side of the door. He sounded wrecked and broken, and nothing at all like the happy-go-lucky Bastille she found earlier. Hazel felt the bond tug her towards her door, pulling it open to reveal a disheveled seraph on the other side. Her heart stuttered at the sigh of him, but that was beyond the point.

She wondered what he wanted. Was he here to talk about what she did earlier today? Because she really didn’t want to bring that up. Hazel wandered back to her filing cabinet, trying to step evenly with her shaky legs. She shoved a small stack of unfinished Ovid books out of the way, knowing they belonged to Bastille. She rummaged around in the drawer of broken things, sorting sketchbooks and broken erasers and pencils.

She didn’t say anything.

He wanted to touch her. The second she opened her door, it was all he could think about. He could feel the phantom heat of her touch from the night before, burning through his skin, anchoring him; with it was the wave of every other time she'd touched him, the weight of her head against his chest as he carried her back to the Observatory and she let him, curled in close like she had no idea what kind of fear she might harbor towards him. He wanted to touch her even if it burned, even if he knew he couldn't have her and something in him withered and died at the reminder. He wanted so badly, and he might have reached out to her, just then.

But then she turned away, wordless, and the temptation died in his throat. He reminded himself why he couldn't, that she didn't want him to, even if she'd touched him first, even if she'd offered little tokens of contact. He was likely in trouble, he had to remember. He couldn't imagine she was happy with his relapse or with the withdrawals that she had to feel on some level, too. Bast swallowed, and shifted his weight, choking back the desperate urge to beg for her to hold his hand again. He'd live with the memory of it.

There was an awkward moment where he was at a loss for words, not sure what he wanted, what to do. And then he followed after her a step, taking her silence and departure as an indication that he was allowed inside. She hadn't slammed the door in his face, which was improvement, and he watched her silently for a moment as she fumbled in the drawer. Things rolled and clattered against the sides as she shifted things around, and for a moment that was the only sound there was, over his soft breathing. Eventually, he couldn't take it.

"Can I..." A pause. He cleared his throat, at a loss, unsure of how to ask for what he wanted when he knew he didn't deserve it. "Can I stay here? For a bit?" Bastille held up the peace offering he'd brought: The Aeneid, last on his list of classics to explain yesterday. His throat was dry at the reminder, but he pushed on, "I just-- If I'm alone, I know I'm going to break again, and I don't want to."

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to ask her to deal with him because he couldn't fucking control himself on his own, but he was miserable and shaky and wanted the radiance of her golden aura to warm him. If he were a better person, he might have left her alone, but he wasn't. He was an awful person and he wanted and now he was here, forcing his problems onto her as if the bond wasn't bad enough. "I'll read to you, if you want," he offered, quieter, because he didn't think it was a worthy trade, even if she did want to read. She could easily just take the Latin and read it herself.

[b]BASTILLEPRISONER AURELIUS — ASTRAL SERAPH — THE ASCENDANTS — TAGS

She could feel his desperation.

Part of her thought that it might be herself; that it might be that part of her brain that tossed everything she’d been through in her life right out the window for the boy that drank to feel happy. The part of her that somehow managed to drown all her self conflict to see him smile, to hear him laugh, to finally feel it from his side of the bond.

Truth was, she had no idea if it was her or him. There was no other part to that metaphor — she was desperate for him, to see him happy. To have his comfort and reassurance that he was her friend and he would never abandon her for someone else. And maybe that made her possessive, but fuck it if it wasn’t true. Maybe it made her weaker and maybe it made her a horrible person, she didn’t know. She’d hear about it from Titanium later on, anyway.

Hazel felt his gaze follow her as she walked back to her drawer, and her skin burned with the knowledge. She could feel his hunger, his hesitation and confusion — she’d done something so incredibly conflicting to him he didn’t know what he was allowed to do and what he wasn’t. That was horrible, too.

She almost broke, her hands stilling over the broken art supplies in the drawer as she watched him take a shaky step in. Almost walked over and pressed herself against him, just to feel his warmth, to hear his heartbeat. To smell his shirt and remind herself that not every part of him smelled like wine and alcohol. That every time she looked at him, she wouldn’t have to remember that he broke his unspoken promise of staying sober. That she put her faith in him and he broke it, piece by piece, and how it was well and truly starting to crumble.

But she didn’t break.

Hazel set her hand against the edge of the filing cabinet to steady herself against the sudden wave of dizziness that threatened her vision. She stared down at the broken pencils and torn paper in that stupid drawer, remembering how she almost went to Bastille and presented him with every drawing she owned and asked him to burn it to ash. Burn it so she would never have to look at it again and hear Genevieve’s words. But she kept them, as a reminder. A different form of self-punishment. Had she burned them, it would have been classified as running from what she didn’t want to deal with. But Genevieve had been right, and Hazel needed to learn to deal with the fucking truth. So she kept the supplies, but never told anyone.

Her hands stalled again as Bastille spoke, low and miserable. Her heart cracked; he’d been so happy and excited when he was with Player, so eager to be with someone new and willing to learn. Hazel couldn’t do that for him — she’d only make his misery worse.

Still, at his question, Hazel finally looked up. Finally met his eye across the room, locking on those startling babe blues that shone at her from underneath a mop of curly bangs. Could he stay here? Here, where Hazel would be forced to think about him the entire time he sat five feet away? Where she would be unable to touch him, because she didn’t deserve it at this point. Where he would be able to feel her every mood shift and thought and heartbeat through the bond. ...Where her skin stopped itching so uncomfortably because he was finally near. Where she could keep an eye on him and look after him and have the chance to make both of them feel a little better.

His explanation confirmed her answer. It even brought a small spark of surprise and light, hearing that he didn’t want to fall off that cliff again. Something inside Hazel rejoiced, screaming I knew it! He is a good person with good morals at heart, he just needs help getting there. And by the gods, was she willing to play the roll.

Her expression remained neutral, passive, but the hard line of her mouth softened, the hardness in her eyes melting just a little. She swallowed, throat dry. “Sure,” She finally managed. The word cracked with her voice, a side effect from her parched tongue.

She probably should have offered him a seat or something for him to do to distract him from the jitters, but Hazel could only stand there, rooted to the spot as he held up a book. She sucked in a breath, sharp and lashing against her throat. He hadn’t read to her in...weeks? Months? A very long time. Easily giddy at the idea of sitting so close to him while hearing a Greek tale, Hazel smiled to herself, mouth pressing dimples into her cheeks. “Yeah,” She mumbled, thumb rubbing against her forefinger. “I’d like that.”

It wasn’t much; this was still awkward, but something felt a little more familiar now. Carefully climbing on her bed and grabbing a blanket to wrap around her shoulders felt like walking down an old known road, and she wanted to bask in the feeling forever.

As she looked back to him, hand at the ready to invite him over, she finally noticed the book he was holding. Equal parts of her withered and fell prey to confusion, because...wasn’t that...? “Wasn’t that the book you were going to read to Player?” She asked softly.

Faith was a strange concept to Bastille. He believed in nothing, stood by nothing: subtle acknowledgement to the existence of the gods and divinity did not correlate to belief or faith in his mind. One did not need to be faithful to accept that something existed, and he could see gods, could touch gods; Grimm carried stories and brushes with divine power and had probably been hosted by demigods in the past, if Bastille really bothered to look through the memories, but he didn't care to. He wasn't curious. He wasn't searching. There was no god that he would stand before and plead forgiveness from.

A goddess, maybe.

There was only one thing he truly believed in with any certainty, and that was the cruel reality of fate. Fierce goddess who might rip him apart, who dictated his life, who would sink her claws into him and pull; there was no escaping the grasp of fate. He was not stupid enough to believe otherwise, and therefore he knew with steady clarity that there was no hope for him. His souls were fated for failure, and so was he. This was not something that he could or would debate, and therefore there was no higher destiny to have faith in. Bastille had no faith.

But Hazel. Hazel had faith, somehow, faith in him -- he could see it shining in her eyes, feel the warmth seep through the bond, and it was a notion that he couldn't understand. He wanted to ask her how she didn't see the threads of fate woven around him, how she didn't see the darkness in his aura: shouldn't she know? Shouldn't she know he was a loss cause, unworthy of something a delicate and pure as faith? Warring impulses: the desire to recoil, disgusted that she could actually trust him, so put off by her stooping to his level; the desire to push forward, to let her faith give him faith too, to let her be his religion; the sudden suffocating pressure on his chest, the breathlessness that could only be cured with her breath, from her lungs to his. It was a dizzying, confusing heartbeat where he looked back her at her, as he saw it and he waited and had the ridiculous notion that faith or not, she may still turn him away.

But she didn't. She didn't, and Bastille felt his air come a little easier at the realization that she wasn't angry enough to send him away, to damn him to struggling and failing on his own. It was a funny thing, the realization that he could lean on her a little bit, could trust her to be there. He thought of the heat of her skin against his and the lack of fear as she held onto him and swallowed hard, suddenly at a loss now that he knew he was allowed here, in her space. His hands were shaking and everything was just a little bit out of focus and he felt untethered for a moment, gaze following her as she shifted to her bed. [b]"Okay," he said after a moment, finding his voice weakly, throat hoarse from the abuse of vomiting that morning. He cleared it and added, after another moment, "I-- Thank you. I know you..." A pause and a bitter smile as he tilted his head down slightly, "I'm sorry. For yesterday."

He flipped the book over in his hands restlessly, and stopped at her prompt. The look he gave her one was just vaguely confused, head cocking to the side. "Read to Player?" he echoed, dubious, before he said matter of factly, "You're the only person I read to." Bastille stopped, felt vaguely as if that was a confession somehow, and added, "She just asked me about the different time periods. I wasn't going to read anything to her." He felt like he had to explain, to say that no, he read to Hazel and only Hazel, that this was still something he considered theirs. But he bit it back, still keeping a bit too exposed at the moment. He wasn't sure how she thought he would read to anyone else, but then again, wasn't that what he wanted her to think? That it didn't matter to him either way?

[B]ASTRAL SERAPH — THE ASCENDANTS — [color=#e2e2e2]TAGS — [color=#e2e2e2]MOODBOARD — [color=#e2e2e2]PLAYLIST

Faith was...odd. Hazel's sense of faith was closely linked to her sense of divinity, of a higher power. Because sometimes, there were things that interferred, things that she witnessed, that could not be from a mortal. It was those things that made her question what her purpose was, if anyone was watching over her. It made her wonder if she really was being tugged along on a string of fate, destined to meet an end or demise that she had no input in.

But Hazel didn't have faith in the divine. She didn't have faith in what she couldn't see. Hazel had faith in people, because she could touch them. They were real - they had a beating heart and pumping blood, proof that they could function on their own. She had faith in people because people had the intelligence to make their own decisions. They could change their entire life if they really wanted to. She'd witnessed it in her Mother, and so she would keep her faith in Bastille. It didn't always make sense and it was evident that he didn't share the same point of view, but it didn't matter. All it took was one motive.

Some days, Hazel thought that he might never find that motive. That Bastille would wallow in himself and his alcohol until his days were brought to an end. And it was days like those that her mind split two ways: either convince him of her faith and show him that he could be better, or let him fall flat on his face until he learned. Weeks ago, she had considered the latter every time she was faced with the option - but now? Now she was tethered to him. She was dragged through his hell right alongside him, step for step, hangover for hangover. She didn't have a choice to be passive anymore.

And she hated it.

Which was bound to bring trouble, because Hazel knew that she didn't hate him for it, just what he did. It hurt, what he put himself through, and she could feel that now, that emotional turbulence and restlessness jostling her alignment, wherever it may lie. She couldn't understand why he did it; why he kept going back instead of searching for an alternate solution, a safer way to get that numbness he craved so much. Hazel wished she had the answer for him. She wished she could cork it in a silver bottle and give it to him like a present, hype it up like she'd found the solution to the world, that it was his turning point to being a better person. But if she knew Bastille - and she did - then he didn't just turn on his heel. He didn't turn over a new leaf at the drop of a hat.

Restless, Hazel watched him from underneath a canopy of lashes, absently scrubbing the heel of her palm against the scars on the back of her left hand. His awkwardness was palpable without the bond, and she really wished he'd just sit down and stop fidgeting, because it was making her question her decision more and more, like he might be holding back something. Then he apologized. ...For yesterday.

Hazel swallowed hard aganst the back of her throat. She had absolutely no idea where the events of yesterday had unfolded from or why; all she knew was that she'd done something completely out of character and incredibly embarrassing. But that didn't change the phantom weight of his hand in hers, of the heat that radiated off him. It didn't change the fact that she could still feel the tickling whisper of the pad of his finger as he traced the scars on her hand, near reverent with his fascination. And it certainly didn't change the fact that she wanted him pressed against her again, surrounded by the warmth he had to offer, hungover or not.

"No, it's - " She started to say, fumbling over her words. "- fine, it's fine." It wasn't. "I'm sorry that I interrupted your conversation with Player, it was...rude of me." And it was rude, that was true. But it wasn't what she wanted to say. How did she apologize for pressing her fingers between his, forcing his attention on her because she was so convinced that he might leave the delicate thing they had between them for something easier? How did she apologize for craving his touch and his touch only because she wanted to hear his heartbeat again? That she wanted to feel needed, loved, before she shut herself away from the concept forever?

People didn't just say that. It felt like too much of a confession. And maybe there was a deeper message there, a deeper meaning. Something that demanded an explanation of the nickname lumen; something that dragged her heartbeat into a stutter and made her skin flush hot. Something that said I want to spend the rest of my life with you and your stupid self-destructive tendencies.

Hazel tugged on one of her loose curls as he spoke, rubbing the curl between her forefinger and thumb until it was frayed and broken with frizz. "You're the only person I read to," he said. "...I wasn't going to read anything to her." The words felt too honest to be coming from his lips. She almost asked him to repeat them, to make sure she heard correctly, but then felt his hesitation immediately after, and knew she had heard right. The realization was muddled though, clouded against the seeping warmth of satisfaction that tugged at the corners of her mouth, though she refused to smile. It washed over her like praise, dousing her insecurities for the time being. It sang in her veins, thrummbed in her chest. She hummed her response, eyes flicking back and forth to the piece of hair she was still fiddling with and his tired expression. She reveled in the feeling for a moment, wondering if this was what it was like to know that you were special.

She wondered if it meant something more to him.

"Are you...going to sit down, or are you going to flip the book around until you wear the leather away?" She mused, finally exasperated with his hesitation. At this point, she was beginning to question if she even wanted him to read, or if she wanted to use this moment to ask him something before he began to tiptoe around her for the next two weeks. Hazel drew her knees into her chest, pondering this. In the core of her heart, she wanted him to read to her until his voice was raspy and she'd fallen asleep against his shoulder. She wanted things to be easy and smooth between them, with no awkward fumbling and fear of broken glass.

And eventually, a question welled up in her throat, one she was sure he might have answered in the past but couldn't remember the answer to. And it would be a cruel thing to ask him, especially in his current state, but Hazel's curiosity burned. She lowered her knees, folding her legs and resting her elbows against her thighs. She rubbed her thumb against the opposite forefinger, hating the uneven topography of her skin caused by the pale scars. "Hey, Bast?" She finally asked, voice so, so quiet and unsure. "Why do you drink?" It was a child's question, but an honest one.

Golden eyes traced the slight curve of that bitter smile, wondering just exactly it was that he found so smile worthy. It couldn't be this situation - the weird, odd atmosphere of this scene. This scene that felt like a confession with no words and too much context. He smiled, but he looked pained; exasperated, even. He smiled like he was trying to hold back the words you don't get it, which, frankly? Hazel was expecting to hear. Waiting for it, really. Because fuck, wouldn't it be true? That she didn't get what was going through his head, his mind? That she wasn't linked at the hip with him, waiting for something else to set him off like a time bomb?

And yet, as blatantly obvious as it might seem, Hazel still felt like she was watching through a foggy, dirty glass wall. She could vaguely find his motive, could vaguely feel the pull of emotions that he struggled to shove under the bed so much. But she could never reach him, which was...distressing. She could never put her finger on the exact thing, could never find the exact trigger. They might be linked by an invisible string, but that didn't mean she could pinpoint the source of that grin.

That was, until he spoke. And when he did, the raw refusal of her apology made goosebumps rise along her skin. "It's not fine." Blunt, bitter, frustrated. He finally looked up and her eyes locked, stuck on his. Because he was right.

Something in her cracked just a little - from relief or disappointment, she didn't know. Maybe a little of both. Because he got it. Finally, he understood, and he was answering that burning question she wanted to fucking scream at him sometimes: he knew. This whole time, through everything, her aversion to contact was something he (and...probably most of the clan) had picked up on. He wasn't being oblivious, something in his brain was just...overriding his self control. At least he knew.

The flip side of this coin was that Hazel now had the physical proof she was confusing the shit out of him. She was messing with his sense of right and wrong, and definitely should have explained herself to him before then, but Deus, how? How did she explain that instead of dreading the brush of his fingers against her skin, she craved it? How did she confess to the shame of missing the only form of physical comfort she'd ever known? How did one just explain the sense of security had overcome the sense of fear and peril? She wondered if that would even sound valid, or if it would sound stupid.

In the short pause he offered, Hazel dragged her nails against her scalp, letting her forehead fall onto her kneecaps. "I know, I know, I'm sorry - " He cut her off, and she let him. Her apology died in her throat as she rubbed her thumb near viciously against her temple, gently shaking her head at herself. She felt guilt for messing with him like that, even if it wasn't on purpose and knew she'd have to explain at one point or another, even if it was painfully awkward and embarrassing.

Taking a deep breath, Hazel raised her head, blowing the air back out with a puff of her cheeks. She could faintly feel the exasperation and confusion roll through him, nearly turning into anger. Hazel didn't realize she was holding her breath until she visibly watched the tension roll off his shoulders and the corners of his mouth cant upwards in a dry smile. Huffing, Hazel flopped back against her pillow, barely mirroring his grin without noticing. Her head shook at his next words, a little scoff escaping her lips at his rhetorical question. "It's usually more like dragging your butt back home after you catch something on fire." She muttered to the ceiling.

Hazel chewed on the inside of her cheek as the mattress dipped with his weight, barely recognizable from where she sat. She hated that he sat all the way down there, where she couldn't see the pages and more importantly, felt like there was a barrier between them. However, her separation anxiety was rapidly moving to the back of her mind as she sat up again, waiting for the answer to her question. As he simply gazed back at her, Hazel rapidly found herself ready to stay that way for a while, content with the knowledge that his attention was focused on her.

Then he was confessing his answer, only...it didn't feel like a confession. Speaking more than he had the entire time he had been here, giving up what should seem like a secret, only sounded like fact with his nonchalance. It smoothed the subject over, made it seem like less than it really was. It...made it easier to handle, to put into perspective, almost.

It occurred to Hazel then that it wasn't just Pollie that haunted Bastille. He probably had multiple ghosts, like her. She wondered what was so severe about Zaniel that had Bastille ready to drink himself to numbness. What was so bad about him that pushed Bast that close to the edge.

"That's when Rad started giving you the pills..." She murmured under her breath, like a mere afterthought. That's why he'd gone to Radeken, in search of uppers so strong it could make everything look like cloud nine. Hazel hummed to herself, feeling her brows furrow.

Bastille was so strange, so...contradicting. He claimed that he was angry for letting himself care about someone, but then he turned and cared so deeply about another person that the slightest move against him felt like the worst kind of betrayal and made him upset with himself all over again. It seemed like a self-destructive cycle he wasn't prepared to stop. Hazel wondered then if she'd ever be one of those people. The people that hurt him. She didn't want to hurt him...not ever. But she'd done it already; she could feel it. Maybe that was why there was a gap of constant, underlying tension. Like they were both holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But if she hurt him - betrayed him - already, why did he keep coming back?

Hazel's gaze snapped upwards from where it had fallen to a point just over his shoulder at his words about Beck, visibly frowning. Beck? Excuse me? She thought against the backdrop of her own mind, affronted. Her brain took her back, back to the day Bastille's heart stopped. Back to her birthday. He'd told them it was an overdose, an accident. Hazel immediately felt her curiosity peak, her temper threaten the careful atmosphere they had created. She shoved it down, desperate not to let it get the better of her, knowing that it didn't matter now because that was a long time ago.

"I don't think you're like Zaniel." Hazel said after a moment, voice thoughtful. "You never...loved it. I mean, I'm not you, so I can't say for sure, but you were never trying to convince others to drink." She shrugged. "That doesn't really define "not loving it," but it's something. The display of happiness you put on was a side effect, not a celebration. I don't know. To me it always looked like you had retreated to the last resort, though i didn't know what for. Took me a little while to figure out my perspective, but when I did...I wasn't nearly as afraid anymore." She sighed. "You seemed sort of lost; at odds with yourself. It's weird to explain."

Hazel brushed her thumb over her bandana, letting another soft sigh tumble off her lips. "I hated being afraid of you," She admitted. "I hated...I hated thinking of Mother every time I watched you put a bottle to your lips. I hated feeling the phantom pain in my arms every time you looked in my direction when you weren't sober. I hated it." She sucked in a short breath. "And I hated not being able to get close enough to help you put the bottle down. I wanted another chance, since I couldn't save - couldn't stop - Mother."

She ran her hand over her face, brushed her fingers over her lips, swiped her thumb over the tip of her nose. "I thought I could help you, but I couldn't. Not really, anyway." She glanced to the side, her hands falling to her lap as she twiddled her thumbs. "During my panic attacks..." She frowned, nearly wincing, feeling like she needed to apologize for those, too. "During my panic attacks, that fear just melted away. I mean, not at first - you hugging me generally makes it worse for a split second. But then it was like...I don't know. Everything changed. I don't know how to explain it." She rubbed her arms. "I've never let anyone get that close to me before - literally. But you were so..gentle. Proved it to me. Melodramatic girl crap, I know." She curled her knees to her chest again, now refusing to look him in the eye. "I guess that's just what it takes. I'm that broken."

Just that broken...just that useless. Not that it mattered, but whatever. She was missing part of her explanation - the part that said so that's why I can touch you and that's why I interrupted you: because you're the only person I've ever gotten this close with before and I'm terrified out of my mind that I'll lose you because you'll realize just how broken I really am. But he didn't need to hear that.

Sometimes he looked at her and could feel the way she was searching for answers. Her golden stare was just a bit too inquisitive, and her brow would furrow in the manner it did when she was struggling to work out the answer to a particularly complex question: confusion, mingled with careful thoughtfulness, the gears of her brain working through something. She looked at him as if he was a puzzle to figure out, had looked at him like that since nearly as early as meeting her; he still remembered the way she'd pondered over him coming to offer her a tour, the way she got that look on her face that she said didn't understand what he was doing and was trying to figure it out.

It was almost funny, really. Bastille wondered at what point she would give up trying to find some deeper meaning to his actions. There were times where he did something wrong, like drunkenly try to touch her when he knew better, and there was no deeper explanation. He was simply wrong, and lacked any semblance of self-control. Sometimes he lost his collective shit and yelled at Margy, and she might hope that there was more to it, that he was actually a better person and there was some complicated answer for his behavior, but there wasn't one. The answer to most of her questions about him could be neatly summarized in that he just wasn't a particularly good person, and she was wasting her time in trying to riddle out if he was.

He shook his head at her apology, at a loss for what she was even trying to apologize for. Thankfully she didn't seem too insistent on carry it on, as she left it be, and Bast was offering her a weak half-smile in response to her retaliation. [b]"That's fair," he agreed, adding idly, "Your response time is pretty poor, isn't it?" He flashed her a slightly more earnest smile, though he still wasn't quite at ease. It was easier to focus on fact, and to simply tell her the truth, and he was ironically more at ease in discussing his faults than pretending everything was fine and joking with her.

He offered her a nod at her guess, saying dryly, "Yeah. Couldn't quite mute everything out with just vodka, and later I needed her uppers to feel anything at all." He shrugged, providing as an after-thought, "'Sides, Rad was willing to let me nap with her if I took her trials." He wasn't sure if she quite knew the extent of his tactile nature, aside from what she'd witnessed when it was more prominently on display, but he assumed it wasn't really important enough to offer as explanation for his aside. Bast felt almost pressingly as if he needed to clarify that it wasn't really Rad he was interested in but the contact, but he bit his tongue: there was no reason Hazel should care, and explaining might imply he thought she did, so the best case was to just carry on.

Bastille looked across at her for a moment at her assertion, and found himself offering her another of those ironic smiles. He couldn't help it: it might be nice, the faith she had in him, if not for the fact that she was wrong. She was giving him undue credit, and he gave a slight shake of his head. "I am Zaniel," he pointed out, though he didn't really feel like trying to war with her on the nature of his souls and his relation to them; it was a messy matter that he didn't even know how to fully explain — even if he himself had said that he didn't want to be like Zaniel, that was only because he knew he could be because he was Zaniel.

"You're wrong, you know," he said after a moment, "I do love it. I always knew I would, if I let myself try it, but wishing I didn't doesn't mean I don't." He glanced away from her then, back down to his book, and added, "I love the taste, and the weightlessness, and the disconnect. It's only so much harder to stop because I do like it." A crooked smile, humorless. "It's in my nature to, thanks to Zaniel."

He could offer no protest to her analysis that he often seemed at odds with himself, because that was more or less true; he was consistently at odds with his souls, battling his inclination towards them and their lives, even if he knew it was pointless to resist his own nature.

Her words brought his attention back up, though, and he stared at her as she confirmed his assumptions. He'd never been entirely certain of who had harmed her in the past, assuming one parent or the other or both, but it was obvious that the alcohol and touch seemed linked to her scars. Bast wasn't sure how he felt about her confession, somewhat gratified that she didn't agree with the fear but irritated with himself all the same for prompting it in the first place. He wanted to be able to argue with conviction that he would never hurt her, but the phantom press of her throat under his fingers weakened that resolve. The truth was that he would like to believe that he wouldn't.

He was momentarily at a loss for words, not really certain how to receive her admission. On some level he had assumed that contact helped to calm her down in the middle of hysteria, given that it had worked before, but it was easy to explain that away as simply the jarring nature of it; she seemed to focus more on his touch, however, and that was not something he knew how to deal with. In the end, he found himself saying, "You know, I almost tore down the Observatory when my elementals kicked in." There was a beat, because he wasn't particularly fond of Suiteheart at the moment, but he carried on anyway, "I couldn't focus on anything other than the chaos, was totally lost, and Suiteheart tackled me. I was so startled that she yanked me out of it immediately." He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug, and supplied, "I didn't really know how to help you other than to hug you, too, aside from breaking into your thoughts."

He looked away, considering for a moment, and then added, "I don't think I would hurt you. I wish I could say that I never would, but I just—" A rough exhale, his gaze trained absently to the side as he struggled to hold back the flicker of memories. "I don't always get a say in who I am, sometimes. And I don't trust the part of myself that is Pollie." The explanation was there, on the tip of his tongue; he could so easily confess to her the real reason he'd been so shaken from his overdose, why he seemed to have lost faith in himself, but he didn't. He couldn't look her in the eye and admit it.

He could look at her, however, when he heard her concluding statement. His gaze snapped to her with a scowl, and he disagreed immediately, "You're not broken. Don't be ridiculous." Bast didn't even bother to further argue his point, deeming the notion too misplaced to even pay it any attention to combat it.

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She didn't satisfy him with a reaction to his disagreement on Zaniel. Hazel hated listening to him talk about himself like that: like he could never overcome what his souls had done, even though it seemed so obvious to her that he could. She didn't understand why he tied ropes around his own wrists and acted as if he was at peace with it. She didn't understand why he didn't fight a little harder to break that dangerous cycle he seemed stuck in. It didn't make sense.

Hazel didn't want to go off on a tangent about how she didn't believe him; she didn't want to start an argument about how he was wrong, about how she had proof that she was broken, that she literally had scars like cracks in a vase. Because it would be pointless - pointless and depressing. She just wanted him to read to her.

And so, in an ugly shift of mood and desperation to focus on something else, Hazel asked: "What page were we on again?"