Correct me if I'm wrong, but ayden and Carver used to date in the lighthouse verse right? I want to know about their breakup
i am still dying at the way you prompted specifically for the part of the timeline most likely to take u out without realising. SO this one contains ur mirevas, and @hightowerqueen's bea.
(AO3 link)
The funeral isn’t for a week after Felassan dies, but for Ayden it’s the first day that feels for sure like he won’t come back. It feels stupid, maybe. It should’ve felt real at the hospital—they’d never seen Mirevas cry before and haven’t seen her cry since. But maybe that had just made it feel more unreal. Their whole body had filled up with a shocky, indistinct anger; numb hands, and unsteady breathing. They hadn’t had it in them to try and be comforting. They weren’t good at that anyway, especially compared to the others in their scraped-together family. They’d let the rest of them take care of it. Stayed pressed against Mirevas’ spine instead, eyes on the corridor. Like a guard dog. Like they were back in that last group home with Bea again, her sleeping while they watched. But the unreality all comes crashing down at the funeral.
It’s so much bigger than the memories of their mother’s. They can’t begrudge Felassan that; there are so many people that loved him.
It’s been enough that they’ve left their phone stuffed under their mattress for the last three days. All the important discussions have happened in person anyway. In a crowded room all of the rest of the world comes crashing back in.
Carver must’ve been at the ceremony but he doesn’t find them until the cemetery, after most everyone else has dispersed.
He says, “I called.”
Ayden says, “I haven’t been checking my messages.”
“I get it,” he nods.
He probably does. They were just out of high school when he’d lost his dad. Ayden remembers a sick sort of jealousy that he’d had a father worth losing at all.
They should’ve known they were jinxing themself.
—
After the wake, The Lighthouse is closed for two weeks.
Ayden and Bea have both been staying at the house instead of their apartment, but it’s getting choking. Ayden doesn’t even make it to the weekend before they take their work keys, slip out the door when no one’s paying attention, and head into the bar. In lieu of anything more productive, they take their Vyvanse for the first time since the funeral and start doing stock take. Surface a few hours in to their phone buzzing angrily on the country.
They answer with a clipped, “Hey.”
Carver says, “Where are you?”
“Work.”
There’s a brief pause before he says, “Thought the bar was closed.”
“It is,” they say. Hold back a sigh before they elaborate; “I was going stir crazy. Came in to do something useful.”
“Want company?” he asks.
They don’t, really. But he’s like a dog with a bone sometimes, so they might as well throw him one.
“Sure,” they say. “Front door’s unlocked.”
He’s there quickly enough that he had to have been nearby, which is a red flag enough without a sheepish edge to his expression. Ayden eyes him carefully, finishes the note they were making on the inventory log.
“What’s going on?” they ask, casually.
Carver, to his credit, doesn’t even attempt to hedge. “Bea text me. She was worried about you.”
“We have that stupid tracking app,” Ayden says, scowling. “She would’ve known where I was.”
“I don’t think where you were was what she was worrying about.”
“I’m fine,” they say.
Carver says, “Ayden, c’mon,” and closes the rest of the distance to the bar. Leans on it, braces on his elbows next to the log they’d been taking notes on. “You’re not.”
How sure he is about it stings no matter how right he is. Ayden’s never enjoyed the feeling of being known too well. Bea’s the only exception—at least now that Felassan is gone—and even that rankles when she calls them out on something they don’t want to talk about.
This thing with Carver was supposed to be fun, had been fun, even if the transfer from occasionally blowing off steam to something exclusive, something softer, hasn’t felt exactly natural for them. But Carver wanted it, and Ayden cared about him. The conversation almost feels like an extension of that; he’s watching them across the bar like he’s waiting for something.
They say, “I gotta keep doing inventory,” and turn back to the fridges.
—
It takes three days for them to finish a full stocktake.
Carver had driven them back to the house the first day and the second, but the third they’d asked him not to come by. Then they’d gone autopilot on the subway and ended up back at their apartment instead. There’s a few unanswered texts on their phone. They’re trying not to fall completely out of contact. They also aren’t sure if they can face heading back out into the world to get back and see the others. There’s a miasma of grief that feels like it hits from the subway stop closest to the house onwards.
They message Bea instead, just sleeping at the apartment tonight, and then ride out a few hours taking stock there as well.
The milk in the fridge is off, there’s bread going mouldy in a cupboard, they’ve missed two trash collection days. That’s all easier to think about. They clean the bathroom and the kitchen and bleach and artificial lemon starts to overtake the musty smell from them not being home much. It starts to feel a little easier to breathe.
Another key scrapes in the door and they look up to see Bea letting herself in.
There’s a pang of guilt there, for ditching.
Bea hadn't ever seemed to have the trouble Ayden did attaching herself to the family they'd stumbled into. No question mark behind the word dad like it felt like there was for them. That feeling like they were overstepping, that the adoption papers should've washed away but they hadn't. They'd never say it in words, because they knew it'd only make the people they loved feel terrible, but part of them never stopped feeling like they'd arrived at it all by tagging along with their sister. Not that Mirevas and Felassan didn't love them, that they'd loved Bea first. Ayden was a belligerent bonus. Bea loved like breathing and was easy to love in return. Ayden just lucked out she loved them too.
And Bea had already spent too much of her life looking after them. Especially when it meant leaving Mirevas back at the house.
They manage a, “Hey.”
“Thought there might not be any food here,” Bea says, lifting up a bag of take out. “And I wanted an opportunity to eat something that isn't grief-casserole.”
“Thanks,” they say, past a suddenly scratchy throat. “You staying tonight, or are you gonna head back?”
“I’ll stay,” comes the response. Easy and casual as it's been every other time she'd taken care of them.
And even past the regret, it’s the first night that’s felt normal in a bit, somehow. Crammed on the couch with Bea, picking at takeout, the TV tuned to something neither of them are watching. Ayden lists towards her as the exhaustion starts to hit, ends up with their head pillowed on her shoulder. It's familiar as any other time they've ended up falling asleep together, especially when they're most of the way there and she pokes them into getting up so they can move to her bed, instead. Better than it would've been by themself.
Nice to realise things could feel like that again.
—
Bea and Ayden both quietly agree to work prep to close on the first day the bar reopens.
There’s something there lodged in Ayden’s heart. They never would’ve found their family if it hadn’t been for sneaking in way too young, if it hadn’t been for Felassan, Mirevas, Dorian, and Fintan spotting them and taking an interest instead of kicking them out. Giving them a soft landing when they’d ditched their group home—Bea and Ayden still would’ve run, they’re sure of that, but all of their options would have been worse. The bar still feels like home in a way even their apartment doesn’t, sometimes. The idea of it without Fel hollows out Ayden’s ribs; they owe it to him to see the first night through.
They’re a little surprised Mirevas shows up, though.
Maybe they shouldn’t be. She’s never one to have idle hands; she likes to work through her problems the same as Ayden does. But she looks lost, checking the set up on the bar floor, in a way she never has before.
Eventually she makes her way over to where Ayden’s unloading clean glasses.
“Everything ready for tonight?” she asks.
Her voice is as controlled as ever. Still.
“Ready as we can be,” Ayden says.
They’re not playing it like some kind of grand opening. None of them would have been able to cope with that. But it’ll still probably be a busier night than normal. Regulars who haven’t been able to come in. Most of whom will know. Doing all the prep kind of feels like another mini-wake. Not quite mourning, more recognising the new normal. Fel had been sick for a while, but it had still always felt like one day he’d be back in the dressing rooms again. That Ayden would be slicing garnishes while Bea did his nails. That he’d swan around the floor getting opinions on wig options. But that’s never happening again, and it feels like something’s missing.
Maybe that’s what’s bothering them about Mirevas.
They haven’t seen her cry since the funeral, and she’s acting the same as she ever did, but there’s a void there all the same. Some spark, something solid in her that Fel took with him when he left. It isn’t like Ayden hasn’t seen it happen before; when their mum died everything that had been propping their dad up went with her. He’d never gotten better. Mirevas is covering it up more but it’s all the fucking same in a way that scares them.
Maybe how much you lose depends on how much love it takes to fill you up; there’s a hunger for it in their chest that scares them. They feel like they’re more like their dad than Mirevas.
She grips their shoulder for a long moment, then she heads upstairs, and it takes Ayden a minute to refocus on their prep. By the time Bea comes bustling back in ready to fill the ice buckets they’ve wiped their face clean.
(She still notices, because she always does, but she doesn’t mention anything. They appreciate it.)
There’s plenty of regulars who show up. But even with them, the oddness of the evening gets acknowledged with their first drink and melts away by their third. Ayden’s exhausted, by the end of the night. It’s been more work than usual to hold up that smile, to fire back when people make jokes, earn their tips. Carver showed up halfway through the night, has been lingering near the bar for a couple of hours. Wanders over after last call, posts up by where Ayden’s stacking a tray of empties to take out back.
“You want company tonight?” he asks.
The annoying thing is; Ayden kind of does.
But they want company in the way it would’ve been before. When they’d fuck and Carver would-or-would-not spend the night, and it’d be fun, and it’d get some stress out, and it didn’t need to be anything more that that. When Carver had asked, just a few months beforehand, if they could do more than sex, it had felt simple. Maybe like a natural progression, even. Definitely how things were supposed to go. There’s too much concern in his eyes now; if Ayden takes him home he’s going to ask them things he doesn’t want to when the bar’s full of people, and Ayden doesn’t have any answers that come easy. And there’s that void in their chest. Feels like it could swallow him alive if they let it. Like he’ll get lodged in there and then if he leaves he’ll crack all their ribs open on the way out.
They shouldn’t have fucked him in the first place, probably.
Then nothing would’ve gotten this complicated.
They say, “Not tonight,” and don’t elaborate, and focus on the rest of their close tasks instead of looking at him.
—
They could’ve predicted the downfall.
It’s their day off and they’re alone in the apartment when Carver knocks. Bea’s working with a couple of the casual staff, and Ayden’s been weighing up heading to the house and checking in on Mirevas versus just burying their head under their sheets and not surfacing until tomorrow. They let Carver in and watch their shitty kitchen fill up with a weird, antsy energy that enters with him.
“You haven’t been answering my calls,” he says.
Which is true. To be fair; Ayden hasn’t been answering many people’s calls. They see Bea in the apartment every day; they’re still spending a lot of time at the house; most everyone else important to them either works at or at least frequents The Lighthouse. But they know that’s not really the point.
“I’ve just been busy,” they say.
He says, “You’re shutting me out.”
Ayden looks away.
There’s another issue; nowhere in the apartment is safe to look.
They wanted to hide in their bed because they’re tired, yes, but there’s also a sketchbook Fel had given them that’s been on the coffee table for over a month. They’d last used it before he died; it hurts to look at but they can’t bring themself to move it. There are photos in thrift store frames on the walls, all the most important nights of Ayden’s life, only now every time they see them he’s the only thing they notice. There’s a jacket of Bea’s that he’d made slung over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Ayden’s not even sure if it was her or them that last wore it. Every single surface in the apartment has been touched by him and now it all feels like it’s there to be wiped away. They don’t know if they want that, if it’ll feel better if they’ve pruned him from their life, root by root, dug all of him out like an old stump. It’s not like the hole will fill. It’s scarred into them either way.
Now there’s Carver standing in the middle of the kitchen.
Before everything, Ayden had been working on calling him their boyfriend in their head. Because he was, their brain just shied away from the words for it. But then it’d gotten more and more clear that Felassan wasn’t getting better, and that had superseded everything else.
Carver says, “I know you’re not coping, I want to help.”
Ayden snaps, “I’m coping fine.”
It’s about the stupidest way they could’ve responded and they know it.
He says, “Are you actually trying to ghost me? Now?”
They say, “Carver, you’re in my apartment.”
“But you didn’t exactly invite me.” He turns away, a scowl on his face. Like looking at them is difficult. “Or are you trying to be enough of a dick that I break up with you.”
Probably that idea should hurt more than it does. They say, “Do you want to?”
“No,” he snaps, looking at them again. “I want you to talk to me.”
Ayden scrubs a hand over their face, bites out, “I don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” they say.
“Anything,” he shoots back. “Literally anything. That isn’t just avoiding me.”
They take a deep breath. Look away. Eyes catch on sketch propped up on a shelf, something they’d roughed out at a family Solstice day celebration; Mirevas and Felassan, lying on their backs on the stage. Ayden had been sketching to avoid scraping dishes; they’d given the drawing to Bea at the end of the night almost as an afterthought.
“I can’t keep doing this,” they say, low and hoarse. “I think—”
“Can’t do what?” Carver asks.
Ayden says, “Us.”
He flinches. Says, “So you were trying to get me to break up with you.”
“No,” they say, “I just—It’s too much right now, I don’t—”
“It doesn’t have to be too much if you let me help,” he says, and it’s probably supposed to be reassuring but it comes out angry.
“I don’t want help.” They can feel themself getting louder even though they don’t want to, matching the anger. “I don’t want anything from you right now.”
It comes out harsher than they meant to. Carver’s face goes white and then red.
Carver says, “I think you never actually wanted to start dating me, and now you’re just using your dead dad as an excuse,” all in a rush. There a set to his mouth that Ayden knows means he’s trying his best not to let his lips wobble, tears standing out in his eyes.
But the words feel like fucking ice water dumped all over them.
Whatever’s on their face has him backtracking. Starting to say, “I shouldn’t ha—” before they shake their head to cut him off.
They say, “You should leave.”
He says, “Ayden.”
They say, “I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”
—
Carver keeps calling.
Ayden's curled up next to Mirevas on the couch at the house. Every show they'd tried to put on it had felt like there was a ghost on the couch with them, so neither of them are paying attention to the random channel they've changed to.
They haven’t spoken to Carver in weeks. He’s messaged a bunch of times, left more than a few voicemails. Angry and apologetic in turns. Shown up at The Lighthouse a couple times, never gotten quite bad enough to ask Davrin to kick him out. Lately, Ayden mostly deletes things without reading them. He’s been persistent, for whatever reason, this night specifically. It keeps draining their phone battery, keeps distracting them. Mirevas keeps glancing at their phone when it buzzes. Keeps glancing toward the hall like she's expecting someone else to come in. There's something burning in their stomach, that she might decide whatever's going on with them is the important thing, like they're not there trying to watch out for her.
"Everything ok?" she asks, eyes dropping to their phone like she's trying to get a look at the screen.
"Fine," they say.
Ayden’s phone buzzes again. They decline. After a second they swipe through to his contact and block his number. Slip their phone back into their pocket. Shift on the couch so they’re pressed a little into Mirevas’ shoulder.
Watch the rest of the room like a guard dog.