Silver Lining

**☽*

It isn't long before Autumn begins to caress the trees and leave her trail of red, orange, and yellow kisses upon the ground and among the brittling branches. A breath of frost coats the early morning dew now, melting by the time the sun rises but a subtle reminder of the harsher weather soon to come.

Felix doesn't really like the cold; walking around the house all day he is fine, so is quietly helping Minho in the kitchen in front of a warm stove, but as soon as he is motionless and the night has fully ascended upon them, the cold begins to creep in no matter how many logs are in the fireplace.

He sleeps, more often than not, in his wolf form now: the thicker coat keeping him warm as he lays curled up outside of Lee's door, close enough to keep watch but not so close that it'll startle the man when he inevitably wakes.

Lee has been very weak since the incident, unable to leave his bed but slowly getting better each day. Seungmin had said that since the man's body is quite old and human, injuries such as these will take longer to heal than others. Which... makes sense but that doesn't mean Felix was happy to hear that he and his Hyung are stuck relying on this pack longer than he originally expected. Although, it's not like Felix would be welcomed back to the village and the flower shop anyways; it's not like Lee would either since he was labeled as the resident beast keeper for even taking the silver-haired orphaned werewolf under his wing in the first place.

Perhaps, if the man never did, Felix would have ended up at this house of stray wolf hybrids a lot sooner.

Would have it existed by then? He remembers Chan once saying something about being chased out of the village at the age of thirteen and living alone in the woods before establishing a pack and territory of his own. Felix was seven when his mother passed, meaning by the time he was ten, he could have already met Chan and got on with the pack life he would eventually be dragged into regardless of his personal preference in being a lone omega.

Pointless thoughts to have.

He has always been an overthinker though, too many memories and thoughts constantly coursing through his head like a jumbled ball of necklaces.

And they are all pretty necklaces, all adequate and liked enough to keep, but there is only one that you want to wear at the moment; so, you pick and pull at that particular chain, attempting to untangle it, attempting to free it from these other necklaces that just wouldn't complete your outfit as nicely, but as more and more time passes you then have to decide if it is even worth wearing right now. Do you continue to waste time trying to get this specific necklace loose? Would anyone even notice or care if you wore it? Would this necklace make that much of a difference to your outfit?

Perhaps you really need to wear jewelry for some reason, then would you choose to settle for a not as perfect necklace because it's easier to untangle?

But maybe the temptation to even make this the perfect outfit has passed, maybe you spent so long fiddling with these stupid necklaces that you're too late to even attend the event you were getting dressed up for. Maybe your necklace is stupid and ugly and everyone would laugh at it if you wore it; maybe no one even expected you to dress up at all, maybe you were supposed to be overly casual and instead you were trying to show up with this fancy necklace around your neck and then no one would want to invite you to anything ever again because clearly you couldn't even handle picking an appropriate necklace to wear.

Maybe these necklaces are like forming sentences to Felix: he has a lot he wishes to say, so many thoughts on so many matters, but just can't get himself to untangle any particular one enough to actually verbalize it.

And sometimes, when he's really upset, he starts ripping and tugging at all these necklaces until chains break chunk by chunk, bead by bead, pendant by pendant; and while, yes, he's still technically speaking, they are not the whole completed sentences he wanted.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, only Bang Chan has been on the receiving end of the omega's angry barrage of jewelry pieces. He doesn't really know if that's a good thing or not since the alpha played a part in getting him distressed enough to reach such a point; or maybe it was... some subconscious action, speaking to Chan, since he feels comfortable enough to speak his mind without awaiting judgement and knows that the older will be patient with him as he tries to decide what he wants to verbalize.

It's unsettling to not know why Felix feels the need to speak to the one person who doesn't expect him to and understands him best when he says nothing at all.

Is it because Chan is infatuated with him? Does Felix perhaps still harbor some feelings for him despite all that happened only three weeks ago? He wishes he could say no but Chan is just so...

"Lix?"

Chan.