In the Shadows of Nevermore
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✦ Pairing: Isaac Night x Reader
✦ Requests: Open | I’ll gladly answer them 🖤
You’ve grown used to the glow of candlelight spilling out from Isaac’s corner of Nevermore’s workshop. It flickers across brass gears, coils of copper wire, and parchment scrawled with frantic notes. He hardly sleeps anymore, eyes sunken but sharp, hands trembling not from weakness but from the relentless pace he sets for himself.
And always, the name on his lips: Francoise.
“Isaac,” you say softly, leaning against the wooden beam of the doorway. “It’s past midnight. Again.”
His head jerks up. Shadows carve sharp lines into his pale face, the hollow of his cheek catching the light. He’s been working for hours, the same mechanism laid out before him: a machine of whirring cogs meant to harness power, meant to strip away Hyde blood, meant to do the impossible.
“I can’t stop now,” he mutters. His voice is hoarse, like gravel dragged across stone. “I’m closer tonight than I’ve ever been.”
You take a step closer, folding your arms over your chest. “You said that last night. And the night before. And the week before that.”
He stiffens. “This time it’s different.”
You can hear the unspoken part: this time, she might be saved.
Your chest aches, torn between admiration and worry. You love him,you’ve never doubted that,but his obsession gnaws at him like rot beneath the skin. And it gnaws at you too, leaving you lonely in the very moments you want to be closest.
“Isaac,” you say, firmer this time, “you need to rest. You’re burning yourself out. What use is saving your sister if you destroy yourself first?”
He freezes, shoulders rising, tension like a drawn bowstring. His dark eyes lock on yours, cold, gleaming. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m not saying stop,” you whisper, reaching for him. “Just… pause. Sleep. Eat. Let me help carry some of this weight.”
For a moment, you think he’ll soften. His lips part, a shadow of your Isaac flickering there, the boy who used to walk with you through Nevermore’s woods, murmuring secrets under the canopy of leaves.
But then the shadow vanishes. His jaw hardens.
“You don’t understand,” he snaps, pulling away from your touch. “None of you do. If I stop,even for a moment,it could mean losing her forever. Do you think I care about sleep? About myself?” His voice rises, sharp enough to cut. “I don’t need your pity, Y/N. I need you to stop distracting me.”
The words slice through you. Your hand drops. You open your mouth, then close it again, because what is there to say when the boy you love looks at you as though you’re standing in his way instead of at his side?
Your throat tightens, eyes burning. You step back from the table, back into the shadows of the workshop. “Fine,” you breathe. “If that’s what you want.”
He doesn’t stop you. Doesn’t call after you. The only sound is the relentless clicking of gears as you walk away.
You don’t remember how you got back to your dorm. The hours blur into a haze of muffled tears, the sound of your sobs pressed into your pillow so no one will hear. You curl against the cold wall, knees tucked to your chest, and let the grief pour out.
You love him. You’ve given everything you have to stand by him, to hold him steady when the obsession claws at him, to remind him that he’s still human. But tonight, he didn’t want to be held. Tonight, he wanted only the machine.
And for the first time, you wonder if there’s any space left for you in his fractured world.
It’s late when you hear the knock. A hesitant, uneven rhythm.
The door creaks open anyway.
It’s his voice,lower than usual, rough around the edges. You swipe hastily at your face, but your tears have already left streaks. You keep your gaze fixed on the blanket bunched in your lap.
There’s a pause. Then the sound of the door shutting, the shuffle of boots against stone. He doesn’t leave. He crosses the room and sinks to the floor beside your bed, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off him.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” he whispers. His voice trembles, stripped bare. “I was cruel.”
Your lips press into a thin line. “You think?”
He flinches. But he doesn’t retreat. “I’ve spent so long chasing this dream,saving her,that I forget… I forget I’m not the only one paying the price.” He looks up at you then, eyes glistening with guilt. “I hurt you. And that’s the last thing I ever wanted.”
You finally meet his gaze. He looks exhausted, yes, but there’s something else there too,fear. The kind that comes from realizing you might have pushed too far, from realizing the one person who’s always been in your corner could walk away.
Your voice cracks when you speak. “I don’t need you to be perfect, Isaac. I don’t even need you to stop fighting for her. But I do need you. I need to know I matter to you. Because when you look at me like I’m nothing more than a distraction…” Tears well again, spilling before you can stop them. “It feels like I’m already losing you.”
His breath shudders out. He reaches for your hand, hesitant, as though afraid you’ll pull away. When you don’t, he laces his fingers through yours, gripping tightly.
“You’ll never lose me,” he says fiercely. “Do you hear me? Never. I get lost in my work, in my guilt, in all the ways I failed her,but you… you’re the only thing that pulls me back. You’re the reason I haven’t let the darkness eat me alive.”
Your heart aches at the raw honesty in his words. He leans closer, pressing his forehead against the back of your hand.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, voice breaking. “I’m so damn sorry. I should have listened. I should have seen how much it was hurting you.”
You brush your free hand through his hair, tangled from long nights bent over schematics. “You’re stubborn, Isaac Night,” you whisper. “But I love you anyway.”
His eyes flutter shut, relief washing over his features. When he looks up again, there’s a fragility in him you rarely see, a boy stripped of all his armor.
“Stay with me,” he pleads softly. “Even if I stumble. Even if I forget to look up from the machine. Remind me when I lose sight of what matters.”
You nod, tears slipping silently down your cheeks. “Always.”
He climbs onto the bed beside you then, curling against you as though afraid you might vanish. You hold him close, your fingers tracing gentle patterns against his back, and for the first time in weeks his body loosens, the tension draining away.
The machine can wait. The world can wait. Tonight, it’s just the two of you, clinging to each other in the quiet heart of Nevermore.
And though the shadows still lurk at the edges of his mind, for now, you are enough to keep them at bay.
