BETTER
syml
0:00 ───|────── 0:00
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
"Look at that, Oreo," Nyx said to the little puppy that was snuggled in her cold arms, diverting his attention from her face as he followed her finger that was pointed up.
There was no prettier canvas than the sky tonight, a beautiful midnight blue, glistering with dazzling stars infinite, a radiant half-moon adorning all that was bewitching about it.
Azriel had driven them up on a hill far away from the city lights where only nature could be heard, a place that was so much like the wonderland they'd always only imagined and never had.
The raven monster felt struck every time he glanced at the nyctophile sitting next to him in the truck, window rolled down completely, hair left open to dance with the wind that combed through it, eyes admiring all that lay beyond her reach, nothing but a smile on her lips as she owned her element - the night.
Currently, they were parked on some open ground, small but sufficient, that was bordered by trees and a broken fence.
They were surrounded by darkness and the cries of the creatures that were sheltered in the shadows. The moon's radiance was the only source of light around. The weather up here was body-trembling and teeth-chattering cold.
Nyx's uniform was not enough to provide her with the slightest bit of protection against the gusts of every icy breeze that whipped past her occasionally.
But then again, it's not like she knew that a certain raven-haired boy with the most gorgeous eyes would drag her into this bitter night without warning.
Licking her frozen lips, Nyx pulled Oreo closer to her chest, letting the pup nuzzle deeper into her shivering arms, wanting to pass on the little bit of warmth from his fur to the girl who needed it more.
She turned around to check on Azriel.
He was shuffling around on the bed floor of the pickup, setting up blankets for them to sit on.
He looked so snug in his baggy hoodie and his beanie, and Nyx let out a misty chuckle as she wondered if he'd ever tripped because of his open laces.
Feeling her eyes on him, partly wanting to check on her, Azriel looked in her direction.
She was about to give him a small smile but a crisp wind whooshed past her, sending her stumbling a step forward on her shaking legs, making her chattering more obvious than before.
With a concerned furrow in his brows, Azriel dropped the blanket from his hands and placed his palm on the tailgate, effortlessly jumping down and landing on his feet before walking over to the girl.
Nyx gave out a small sneeze that took Oreo by surprise, making him let out a small bark.
Azriel's eyes swept over her face once he was standing close to her, their chests a hand's length apart. Her cheeks were tinted red as if blushing from the cold, her nose was redder, and her peach lips had lost color because of how numb they'd become.
Lifting his bandaged hand, he touched her cheek with the back of his palm. "You're freezing, you idiot," he scolded.
"R-Really? I didn't n-notice," Nyx tried to joke, failing badly when another breeze whipped past the pair, sending multiple chills down her spine and worsening her trembling.
A foggy breath escaped her quivering lips when she spoke, going against what she was claiming.
"You didn't bring a sweater?" Azriel asked, frowning at her state.
Unaware to them both, he was stroking her cheek with his thumb gently, scared to break her, as if she were wafer-thin ice.
When Nyx shook her head, Azriel instructed softly, "Go wait inside the truck, take Oreo with you. There's a jacket in the back for you to wear. I'll be done in a few minutes,"
Not needing to be told twice, the brunette jogged over to the Mercedes on wobbly legs, obeying the boy.
After placing the ball of fluff down on the seat, Nyx shut the door and sighed of relief, rubbing her palms together.
Oreo pawed around the seat for some moments before finding a comfortable spot to sit his tiny bottom down, nuzzling closer to himself and closing his little black eyes, now looking like a furry cloud.
Next to him was the jacket that Azriel was talking about. Nyx reached for it and pulled it in her lap. She unfolded the hooded denim jacket, slipping her arms through the thick grey sleeves, feeling warmth engulf her instantly. The jacket matched her uniform, falling down to the length of her skirt.
Azriel's scent put her at ease immediately as she slumped back in her seat.
As promised, Azriel appeared by Oreo's side of the truck and opened the door, glancing at his sleeping puppy before looking at Nyx.
"You can come out now if you want to," he informed the girl who nodded and stepped down from the vehicle.
"Hey, buddy. . .that's a good boy. We'll see you in a bit, alright?" Nyx's eyes widened when she heard Azriel coo to Oreo once she'd shut the door.
The only time she'd seen his voice drop down so delicately was back at the mall when they'd met that little girl. The boy clearly had a soft spot for children and dogs, it made her smile.
She pretended not to have acknowledged it though, knowing that he hadn't meant for her to hear.
The pair walked back to the tailgate that was left open. Azriel got on first, holding his hands out for Nyx to take before helping her up.
He sneaked a glance at her as she stood there, wearing his jacket that was longer for her, almost her skirt's length, but looked away quickly because he didn't want to get caught.
Once again, Nyx pretended to not have known his actions.
Instead, she took a look around at what he'd done. A couple of blankets lay spread out on the bed floor neatly, a few puffy pillows were scattered around without much of an order. It wasn't perfect but it was just what they needed.
With a wide grin on her face, Nyx complimented the boy, "You, Azriel, are amazing."
She appreciated what he was doing, it was more than what most had done for her.
Not knowing how to reply, Azriel settled for simply taking a step forward and laying down on the soft blankets, his head resting on one of the pillows that sunk with the weight of his troubled mind.
"It's easier to watch the stars this way," was all he said.
Nyx's grin turned into a small smile. She mirrored his actions.
For the following heartbeats, the pair lay next to each in silence, shoulders touching, listening to the song of the night, eyes gazing at the realm above.
"It's beautiful," Nyx breathed out, mist dancing past her numb lips.
Her face, the daze on it, was evidence enough to how deeply content and awestruck she felt.
Azriel tilted his head to look at the nyctophile.
He loved how her cinnamon hair rested sprawled on the pillow, a few strands reaching out to the sky. His glistening eyes traced the outline of the side of her face, the way her lips were slightly parted as if under a trance, the fire in her eyes that was ablaze with a glint. He tore his gaze from her face and looked up at the stars that twinkled mischievously.
On one of the most beautiful nights he'd ever seen, with Nyx Hayden by his side, them slowly becoming each other's haven, Azriel Logan could best express his feelings - feelings that he was still embracing steadily - in only one word.
"Perfect."
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
Azriel and Nyx had lost track of time as they talked about what they loved most - stars.
These very stars that they'd fallen for were the ones smiling down at them, shining brighter just for the pair.
They'd lost all concern for the rest of the world, and all that mattered was wandering off in the night for as long as they could.
Azriel was about to point out one of the biggest, brightest stars when he heard two sneezes in a row come from right next to him. His head whipped in Nyx's direction. She had her mouth covered as she let out a muffled breath, blinking sheepishly.
He quickly sat up, motioning for her to do the same.
"You're still cold, aren't you?" he inquired, narrowing his sight.
"No," she denied, the thickness of her voice calling out her lie.
He rolled his eyes, "Don't bullshit me, Nyx."
Moving a little closer to her, Azriel brought his palm up to the crook of her neck, eyes widening at how icy it felt against his skin. He then proceeded to place the back of his palm on her forehead lightly, wanting to smile at how she looked up at him, blinking.
"You'll turn into ice if we stay out here any longer," he frowned.
"It'll be worth it." she smiled.
"You look like you're wearing a clown's nose," Azriel teased plainly, eyes skimming over her flushed face.
"That bad?" Nyx asked, chuckling a little.
Without hesitating, Azriel removed his hand from her skin and used it to take off his beanie from his head, releasing the waves of his ruffled hair. Instead, he slid the thick, soft fabric down on her cinnamon locks, adjusting it properly to secure her ears from the cold.
He noticed the widening of her grin.
Reaching behind him, the boy grabbed the only spare blanket that he'd gotten along for a situation like this and unfolded it. He wrapped the small, fuzzy blanket around Nyx, tugging it on tightly enough to warm her - and it did, it felt nothing less than sitting around a fireplace.
"Still cold?" he confirmed. "Me? No. But you are," she answered.
Before either of them could think any further, Nyx had shifted closer to Azriel and had draped the little bit of empty portion of the blanket around him too. For both of them to fit in it, she had to rest her knees on top of his as they sat cross-legged, her hands dropped down in her lap and brushed his fingers in the process. Her forehead bumped into his chin when she looked up at him.
"Now we're both not cold." Nyx gave Azriel a grin which he thought was adorable.
Not knowing what else to do, the boy only gulped at their proximity but didn't dare to move away. He liked having someone this close to him, he liked sharing warmth with the nyctophile. He simply brought his finger up to flick her on the head.
"Can I ask you something?" Nyx asked softly.
Azriel rose a brow teasingly, "Will you not if I say no?"
When the former shook her head honestly, the latter just stared at her and waited for her break, sighing when she stood her ground.
"Ask away, then," he permitted.
"That night at the camp," the girl began. "You said you liked the black hole. I'm not trying to cross any boundaries. . .but why do you like it?"
Azriel licked his lips and looked up at the sky. "Do you know what a black hole does?" The tone of his voice hinted at how he was letting his guard down for the moment.
Nyx nodded, "It absorbs light because of its heavy mass."
"Replace the heavy mass with everything about me and I'm as good as a black hole," he told her.
Her brows furrowed, "What do you mean?"
Instead of telling her to stop talking about it like he would've done to everybody else, Azriel found himself wanting to let it all out - no matter how deluded he'd sound.
"Your happiness is the light, I'm the darkness. Anyone with this light that risks stepping closer to this darkness has their happiness sucked dry by me - the black hole," he explained what his mind had always told him he was - a bottomless void full of all things unhappy and unwanted.
"That's not true." Nyx frowned.
Azriel shut his eyes and continued, "You're all bound to be disappointed, Nyx, everyone who takes a chance with me. That's all I fucking do - I drive people to a point where the only way for them to get their light back is by detaching themselves from me."
"But you do it on purpose," Nyx revealed. "You do things to push them away on purpose. You make them think of you as something bad without letting them give you a chance. You're not scared of what they'll lose, Azriel, you're afraid of what they might find,"
When the boy didn't reply, she asked, "Is that why you don't want to let anyone in? Or is it because you don't want to risk knowing what they'll expect from you?"
"I don't want my shoulders drooping with the weight of someone else's happiness," Azriel admitted. "Let's face it, Nyx, there's hardly anybody happy around me,"
"I'm not unhappy," the nyctophile corrected honestly.
Azriel opened his eyes and locked them with hers, "You're not happy either."
Nyx gave him a small smile, "I'm stargazing with you on the most beautiful night I've ever witnessed. It wouldn't have been possible without you. Trust me, Azriel, I'm the happiest I could be."
Azriel held her gaze for a couple of moments, searching for a lie in her eyes to comfort himself with. When he didn't find any, only the truth that he wanted nothing more than to accept, he looked up at the stars for strength.
"It's your ruin, Nyx. Have it your way,"
"It's a ruin that's worth it," she didn't hesitate.
When Azriel glanced down at her, his attention wandered around her face as she admired the night. The twinkling of the sky matched the embers in her eyes.
"You're lonely, aren't you?" he asked her, his tone far from harsh or taunting.
He wanted to know what kept her going, what made her stronger.
"I think everyone's lonely." Nyx shrugged. "We all have somewhere within ourselves where we feel most alone and defenseless. Nobody likes to show it, though,"
"It takes the right person to see it," Azriel mumbled.
He was taken off-guard when the girl smiled knowingly while saying, "Guess I found mine, then."
He tried to convince his racing mind that the irritating heat in his cheeks and chest wasn't because of what she'd said, that the quickened pace of his heart was to be blamed on the cold.
"Do you mind showing it? That you're. . .that you're alone?" he trod carefully, not wanting to hurt her by prying into matters that weren't his to prod.
Nyx thought for a while before answering, "Loneliness is no bad thing, the world's just made it the worst place to be. It hurts, it really does, not having anyone by your side. Then again, since when did we need somebody else's limbs to walk our own path? So no, I don't hide it. . .everyone sees it anyway,"
Azriel bit his lip when he recognized the longing in her eyes. "They're all stupid little runts, anyway, fucking morons." he scoffed while saying, wanting to comfort her by letting her know that nobody at their school was worth being sad over.
"What about you?" Nyx asked him. "Why don't you give anyone apart from Warren a chance?"
"I literally just told you they're all moronic fucks," he repeated in a tone that pointed out how ridiculous it was for her to think even for a second that he'd want to catch whatever virus his classmates had by letting them in.
"You know," Nyx began. "You're just as afraid as I am alone. You fear bonds, attaching strings scares you, you're most terrified of allowing someone to see past your facade. You try every day to stiffen up your walls, to make your guard obvious. You've made yourself seem impossible to crack. It's not just about causing damage, Azriel, it's also about not wanting to be damaged,"
She dared to unriddle the puzzle that was Azriel Logan.
The demon in Azriel took a step back in horror upon realizing that the girl had seen through him, that she was right.
"There's nobody worth breaking for in this world," he defended his reasons, seeing no point in doing so.
"I believe that there's one person in this world, one for everybody, that makes them happy. Someone that'll tear through our walls, break past our guard, someone that will not only understand our dark side but also embrace them - it's the person we'll shatter for. There's always that one person who makes every painful day easier and worth scraping through, someone that makes all the bad seem good. You'll find your person too, Azriel, and you'll see just how happy you can be." Nyx let the deepest thoughts of her heart out with a tired smile.
Azriel let the weight of her words sink not only into his tangled mind but his lost heart too.
Sure, he thought that Nyx talked a lot - or, maybe it was because he hardly did - but he also had to accept that everything this girl said had always made sense to him, no part of it was meaningless.
She'd either reveal parts of herself, having her troubles concealed underneath her loaded words, or she'd lead him a step closer to all that he was running from.
"Why does our happiness have to depend on somebody else?" the raven monster found himself asking.
He wanted to know, for he'd given the best of him to the one that did not deserve any of it.
Looking down at her empty hands, Nyx licked her lips and tried to find a way to explain.
"Do you have a friend?" she asked him, earning a nod from the boy who thought of Warren for that short moment. "A family that doesn't run away from each other's existence?" Once again, nodding in answer, Azriel thought of his little sister, their parents, and their two pups.
He didn't know what these questions meant, but he didn't bother prodding because he knew that she'd defog his doubts, and also because he didn't want to poke something that may be a touchy subject for her.
"Can you, then, turn to your friend and family whenever you feel low or like the world's just not yours to be in?"
"Yes," Azriel confirmed without missing a beat. "But that doesn't mean I deserve them,"
Nyx shook her head, "That's what you and only you think. They love you for who you are, you just have to work on admitting to yourself that they'll never, no matter what happens, abandon you or feel differently about you."
"So, you have a content family and a reliable friend that you can call on whenever you need them?" was her last question, to which the boy nodded slowly, still uncertain of where they were heading with this.
"Then you wouldn't know why." Nyx gave him a wrenching smile.
She untangled further, "You've never been lonely enough to desperately want someone else's presence to be right by yours, to know what it's like to have absolutely no one who'll understand your deepest cries, to have no one to be your shoulder. As wrong as it seems, Azriel, we all need our person by our side. Life otherwise is just a meaningless void,"
Azriel searched the nyctophile's face for what she was hiding, burning through her soul to look for what she wasn't letting out.
But, there was just that one damn broken smile.
"What about your family. . .your parents?" he found himself asking before he could think better of it.
Nyx's smile had never faded faster.
She shook her head a little, "Let's just say that they know I'm alive and I know they're alive. That's probably all there is to us."
The boy frowned, "What do you mean?" He sounded more worried than he wanted to show.
"It's a story for another time," Nyx brushed off. "For now, I just want to be in this moment a little longer, one that I know I'll want to hold on to for as long as I've got. This right here, Azriel, the stars and you, is all I need for the moment,"
The corner of Azriel's lips lifted the slightest bit, "You're not alone, Nyx."
"No?" she mirrored his smile that almost wasn't there.
Growing flustered under her gaze, the boy began fumbling with his words. "O-Of course not. The way. . .the way I've got Warren, you've got him too,"
"Only Warren?" Nyx teased softly.
Azriel waited for a few beats of his heart before locking eyes with her. "And me. You've got me. For as long as you need,"
What the girl did next made his eyes widen, it knocked his breath right out of his lungs but in the best way possible, there was a spark of lightning surging through his veins.
He felt more nervous than surprised.
Nyx brought her arms up, making Azriel hold onto the blanket to keep it from falling, and gave him the happiest, most adorable toothy grin he'd ever seen her wear. And just like that, she embraced the raven monster by wrapping her arms around his neck and shifting closer to him.
"This is to tell you that you're not alone either, that I've got your back just as much you've got mine," she promised him, neck craned up to rest her chin on his shoulder because he was taller.
It came as a surprise to the pair when Azriel brought his arms around her waist to hug her smaller figure back.
It had been so long since he'd felt this sort of comfort, it felt familiarly foreign but so much better than everything he'd had before.
His demon lost the battle the moment the boy pulled her as close as he could, nuzzling his face further into the crook of her neck.
Even though he craved her aroma of stupefying blueberries, he didn't mind one bit how she was engulfed in not only his jacket but his lemon-and-mint scent too.
He'd forgotten what hugs like these felt like, those that came from someone other than his family.
He didn't know if all of them felt this right, or if it was this particular one.
Whatever it was, he didn't care.
Like Nyx had said earlier - he wanted to be in this moment that he knew he'd hold close to him for as long as he'd got, just her and the stars.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•
That night, Nyx sat cross-legged between the boy's legs that he stretched out on either side of her, the fuzzy blanket still wrapped around them as an excuse for them to be close to each other.
They'd spent another hour stargazing and talking about whatever was on their minds. It was after that when they'd decided to call it a night and drive back to the city. Oreo had woken up from his long nap the moment the pair had opened the doors to the truck, jumping into Nyx's lap once she'd buckled up.
The puppy snuggled closer to her stomach, wanting to be stroked gently like earlier, falling into yet another slumber.
That same night, while Azriel Logan and Nyx Hayden sat under the same sky, the raven monster couldn't help feeling that regardless of the ocean of infinite stars above them, he was holding a galaxy right there in his arms.
•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•