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Kieran hated messes. He hated dirt. And yes, saying it out loud made him sound exactly like the kind of person who cleaned a table five times a day and suffered a spiritual breakdown if he found a breadcrumb somewhere... but no. Kieran wasn’t like that. He wasn’t one of those lunatics from television shows who stared at a stain on the floor like they’d just witnessed a murder. He could tolerate a little dust fluff, could ignore a forgotten cup for a couple of hours, and there was even an old stain behind a painting in the bedroom he shared with his partner that he had never cleaned purely out of laziness. He knew it perfectly well. Sometimes he even looked at it whenever he moved the painting aside and thought: “someday.”
That day never came.
He simply liked things to be where they belonged.
If something could be put away, it was put away. If something could be cleaned, it was cleaned. Except for the stain behind the painting.
It was a silent rule embedded in his bones since childhood.
His mother had raised him that way. She used to say that organized things were easier to find, that a clean room let the mind rest, that neatly stretched sheets brought peace. And although Kieran had tried rebelling against all of it during his teenage years, because honestly, what respectable teenager doesn’t try to go against the world?, the result had been ridiculously miserable.
He remembered it clearly.
One time he left his sneakers out of place before going to bed. Just that, it wasn’t even a mess.
But lying there in bed, staring at the ceiling, he felt that tiny mental thorn. That horrible sensation that something was wrong. Something out of place. As if the entire universe had tilted slightly only because those damned sneakers weren’t where they were supposed to be.
It lasted fifteen minutes.
Fifteen long and miserable minutes before he got up, dragged himself to the door, put the shoes back where they belonged... and returned to bed to sleep deeply like a freshly fed baby.
Pathetic.
Truly pathetic.
But that was just how his mind worked.
Habits eventually turned into reflexes. Automatism. Things the body did before the brain even thought about them. Wiping down the counter after cooking. Folding clothes the moment they finished drying. Dusting the couch even when it already looked clean. Nothing extreme, nothing unhealthy... just little things that brought him peace.
And then Mason existed in his life like a natural disaster: huge, inevitable, and with a smile far too stupid for someone who constantly came to ruin his peace.
Because truthfully, marriage had never been part of Kieran’s plans. Living with someone neither. Sharing space, routine, or silence... even less. Kieran had been perfectly comfortable with himself and with the idea of never owing explanations to anyone. But Mason entered his life without ever accepting “no” as an answer and, as if fate had a terrible sense of humor, the vampire ended up signing marriage papers half asleep, in pajamas, with messy hair and barely open eyes while the werewolf rambled far too quickly about “important things.”
Kieran still insisted he had technically been tricked. Because a sleepy person could not legally give proper consent. That had to be illegal somewhere.
And yet, here he was now. Sharing a house. Sharing space.
He should’ve suspected it from the beginning. That living under the same roof as the werewolf would be a hurricane.
He should’ve understood it the first time he walked into Mason’s room at the Kane house, back when they were barely dating and still carried the naive illusion that love compensated for certain human defects.
That was not a bedroom. It was a warning. A visual threat. A crime against organization itself.
Clean clothes were mixed with dirty clothes as if both sides were participating in a civil war. A pair of pants hung from the lamp for reasons the vampire never managed to understand. There were books lying open face down, empty glasses beneath the bed, and for some completely incomprehensible reason, a single shoe rested on the nightstand as if it were decoration.
One shoe.
Not even the full pair.
Kieran remembered standing silently in the middle of the room, staring around while Mason casually talked about something irrelevant as though living inside that chaos was completely reasonable.
The red flag had been there. Huge. Waving violently right in front of his face.
And still he fell in love, never stepped back.
Love really did make people stupid.
Now the vampire didn’t just clean his own things. He cleaned the wolf’s too. Picked up abandoned clothes all over the house. Sorted clean clothes from questionable ones. Folded shirts Mason apparently wrinkled as a competitive sport. Sometimes Kieran was convinced the werewolf possessed a supernatural talent for destroying any attempt at organization simply by existing near it.
And don’t even get him started on the kitchen.
Mason didn’t cook. The werewolf survived culinary accidents.
Every single time he said, “I’m gonna make something,” the vampire felt an ancestral chill crawl down his spine. Because cooking with Mason always involved smoke, chaos, some mysteriously broken utensil, and an extremely high chance the smoke detector would start screaming like a damned soul.
And yet what did Kieran do?
He cleaned, picked things up, folded clothes. Muttered complaints under his breath while organizing giant t-shirts into drawers.
He complained, yes, but never too loudly. Never with real annoyance. Because the idiot Mason had that scolded puppy expression capable of destroying any serious attempt at anger. He’d make a miserable face and follow Kieran around the house while rambling about his day, some absurd nonsense, or completely unnecessary theories about whether ghosts could get bored.
And Kieran pretended disinterest. Answered with sarcasm, rolled his eyes.
But secretly he was holding back a smile while separating laundry for the washing machine. Because that was just how they worked.
Everything was ridiculous. Ridiculously domestic, ridiculously intimate. And maybe that was the dangerous part.
Because somewhere between washing someone else’s clothes, arguing about who left hair in the bathroom, and listening to Mason talk nonstop for twenty minutes straight, the vampire had started building something dangerously close to a peaceful life. A routine. A home.
Something he had never believed he wanted.
With Mason, things never stayed in one tone. Everything could shift from romantic to absurd within seconds, or from absurd to concerning with terrifying ease. They lived inside an endless drama where the protagonists took a hundred and fifty episodes to hold hands but could uncover traumatic secrets every other chapter.
And precisely because of that, the real problem wasn’t the mess.
Not the clothes on the floor, not the forgotten dishes, not even the minor kitchen fires.
The real problem was the old phone Kieran had found almost by accident.
Because honestly... who keeps an ancient cellphone with a working battery? That alone was disturbing.
Kieran had picked it up merely out of curiosity while organizing a drawer filled with absolutely nothing useful. He had expected old messages, horrible memes, maybe blurry pictures of food. Something normal. Something very Mason.
Instead, he found an entire folder full of photographs of himself.
And not normal photographs. Not selfies together, not cute couple pictures.
Photos taken from afar. From corners. From half open doors. Hidden angles. Images where the vampire clearly had no idea he was being watched.
Kieran reading by a window.
Kieran asleep at a desk.
Kieran walking across campus.
Kieran holding a thermos with a tired expression at three in the morning.
There was even one where he looked away while the sunrise light hit directly across his face. Too far away to have been accidental, too quiet, too... intimate.
And there sat Kieran, in the middle of the perfectly organized room he had just cleaned, holding that phone like criminal evidence while seriously wondering whether he should feel flattered, in love... or call the police.
Because honestly, judging by some of those photos, Mason looked dangerously close to a professional stalker.
And the worst part.
The truly worst part.
Was that some of them were incredibly well taken.
It happened on a cloudy day. One of those silent days where the forest seemed to hold its breath. It wasn’t raining, but the gray sky crushed the sunlight until it became dim and cold. The cabin remained quiet among the trees, wrapped in that clean scent of detergent, old wood, and forgotten coffee that soaked into walls after years of being lived in.
Kieran appreciated those days more than he would ever admit out loud.
The calm.
The order.
The glorious absence of exploding kitchen sounds thanks to the fact Mason was at work.
Their schedules were different. Sometimes they barely saw each other for a few hours a day, though their days off managed to align occasionally like a tiny mercy from the universe. But not today. Today he was alone. And honestly, there was something pleasant about that.
The vampire looked around with silent satisfaction while adjusting one of the bed pillows simply because he could. The cabin was spotless. Floors clean. Surfaces organized. Windows open just enough to let fresh air inside without making the cold unbearable.
Perfect.
Truly perfect.
Kieran was beginning to suspect age was slowly turning him into one of those unbearable people who treated domestic cleanliness like a military achievement. He even sent Marcella pictures of ridiculous things now: “Look how nice the kitchen turned out.” “Look at this organized drawer.” “Look how perfectly I folded the towels.”
Cella, of course, never responded seriously. Usually she sent mocking emojis or horrible stickers before retaliating with a picture of Blake washing dishes with the miserable expression of a man paying for sins committed in previous lives.
The vampire still remembered one where Blake held a sponge while staring into the void like a traumatized war veteran.
He had saved it.
Because it was art.
The only remaining task for the day was folding Mason’s clean laundry. And honestly, that already counted as high risk labor. Because Mason did not know how to fold clothes. That wasn’t exaggeration. It wasn’t cruel criticism. The werewolf genuinely possessed a supernatural ability to make any piece of clothing worse the moment he touched it.
Kieran once watched him try folding a hoodie. It ended up looking like roadkill somehow. But he managed it.
So, for the safety of fabrics and probably humanity itself, the vampire decided to handle it personally.
He opened the closet calmly, organizing a few oversized shirts that still carried the fresh scent of fabric softener. Mason smelled too much like forest even after washing. It was strange. Like wet soil, pine, and that warm scent impossible to fully describe. The smell of someone alive. Too alive.
As he moved a few clothes around, he heard a dull thud. Something falling.
Kieran didn’t even flinch.
—Chocolate...—
He muttered automatically.
Because yes, Mason hid giant chocolate bars in ridiculous places around the house as though he were protecting national treasures. Inside drawers. Behind books. Under pillows. One time Kieran found a family sized chocolate bar inside the turned off oven and decided not to ask questions.
Some things were simply better left unexplained.
Besides, it wasn’t like the vampire could eat them anyway. He was a vampire. He literally survived on blood. Chocolate had no real purpose for him beyond staring at the wrapper and thinking what a waste of healthy teeth.
Still, Mason kept hiding them.
And honestly... it was beginning to feel like a domestic tradition. Besides, finding them was kind of fun.
With amused resignation, Kieran reached between the clothes searching for the fallen chocolate bar to return it to its absurd hiding place. His fingers touched something solid, rectangular, cold. He frowned before finally pulling it out.
It wasn’t chocolate.
It was a cellphone.
Old. Very old.
Kieran held it for a few seconds while recognition slowly surfaced in his mind. Worn blue casing. Cracked corner screen. Scratched back cover. Even the camera looked damaged. It was one of those teenage phones that looked capable of surviving nuclear wars before actually dying.
He remembered it.
Not perfectly, but enough.
He had seen that phone years ago, back when Mason was trapped in that teenage phase where he said stupid things with absolute confidence and Kieran himself barely possessed functional brain cells.
—Why would you even keep this...?—
He asked the empty room. Kieran turned the device over in his hands suspiciously. Didn’t those things explode after enough years? Wasn’t the battery supposed to swell into some dangerous pillow shape?
Curiosity won.
Obviously.
He pressed the power button and, against all logic, the phone vibrated weakly before lighting up. The logo appeared slowly as the device seemed to actively suffer while returning from the dead.
The vampire widened his eyes slightly.
—You’ve got to be kidding me...—
It took forever to boot up. Literally forever. Kieran was fairly certain he could’ve cleaned another entire room during the wait. But eventually the screen displayed a horrible old meme wallpaper and a battery percentage reading fifty percent.
Fifty.
After years.
That phone had a stronger will to live than most people.
Kieran let out a small nasal laugh before trying to unlock the screen. Password. Of course. He stared at the device for a few moments while his mind dug through old memories.
Mason had never been good at hiding patterns.
The vampire remembered too many useless details about him. What songs he replayed when nervous. The way he wrinkled his nose at smells he disliked. What numbers he always used. What expression he made right before getting into trouble.
He focused and slowly typed.
The phone unlocked.
A small smile appeared on his face.
—Sometimes your memory is terrifying.—
He completely abandoned the laundry and sat on the bed with the phone in his hands. Folding clothes could wait five minutes. Or ten. Or twenty.
He started browsing old applications that barely functioned anymore. Some didn’t even open. Others crashed instantly. The phone froze every few seconds as though actively dying. The screen flickered black before reviving again moments later.
It was infuriating.
And strangely nostalgic.
Like staring into a time capsule full of teenage stupidity.
Kieran found horrible memes. Ridiculous videos. Old conversations. Team pictures. Blurry photos where everyone looked happy and ridiculously young. There were training pictures, parties, idiotic pranks. Blake making stupid faces. Marcella flipping off the camera. Ryan with a bucket stuck on his head for completely unknown reasons.
Kieran genuinely laughed at that one. Loudly, even.
—What the hell was wrong with you people...?—
The answer was simple: adolescence.
That’s what had been wrong with them.
He kept scrolling through albums labeled with ridiculous emojis and embarrassing names. Every image carried nostalgia. Bitter and warm at the same time. Because even though all of them had been emotional disasters back then, there had still been a kind of lightness impossible to fully recover once you grew older.
He expected to find pictures of Marcella too. Of her and Mason together. They had dated, after all. That would’ve made sense.
But there were barely any.
Which started feeling strange. Too strange. Then he reached the final album.
No emojis, no title. Just an exclamation mark.
One single exclamation mark.
Kieran opened it without thinking much about it.
The phone took forever to load. As though it were trying to decide whether revealing its contents was actually a good idea. The vampire even assumed it probably contained Kane family photos. Mason adored his family. It would’ve made sense to keep something important there.
But when the pictures finally appeared... the air in the room changed.
First came confusion, then discomfort. Then a slow chill crawled down his spine.
They were photographs of him.
Not selfies, not pictures together. Photos of him taken from far away.
From bushes, from trees, from half open windows, from hidden corners where no one should’ve been watching.
Kieran reading alone beneath a tree. Drawing absentmindedly. Sitting quietly during lunch. Looking at the sky from the bleachers. Barely smiling while talking to Cella, a tiny smile almost nobody ever got to see because it usually disappeared too quickly.
Every single one was of him. And every single one carried something even worse.
They had been taken while he and Mason hated each other.
Or at least, that’s what he thought.
The dates were there. Dates of arguments, insults, rivalry.
Times when Mason dated Marcella and Kieran could barely tolerate breathing the same air as him.
And yet...
There they were.
Those photographs.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
Some so distant the quality looked terrible. Others incredibly sharp. Some seemed innocent. Others... not so much. There were images far too intimate for someone who was supposedly nothing more than an enemy. Silent captures of private moments the vampire had never believed anyone was watching.
A chill ran through him. Because that didn’t feel like a recent obsession.
It felt older. Deeper. Something that had silently grown for years.
Kieran shut the phone off abruptly.
Not because he wanted to stop looking.
Worse.
Because he wanted to keep looking. And that was infinitely more concerning.
He remained seated in silence for several seconds, staring at the dark screen in his hands. He didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to feel. Mason and he had never been particularly normal people. Both of them had something broken. Something questionable. Something dangerous.
But even then...
That was too much.
Wasn’t it?
Or maybe not?
The question itself was horrible precisely because it didn’t have a clear answer.
Eventually he placed the phone back on the bed and returned silently to the closet. He picked up a clean hoodie and started folding it mechanically.
After all, clothes didn’t organize themselves.
And honestly, in that moment, pretending everything was still normal felt far easier than asking himself exactly since when Mason Kane had looked at him as though he already belonged to him long before falling in love.
Well, that last thought had sounded extremely dramatic.
When Mason got home, the first thing he noticed was the smell. That warm, clean scent that always hit him the moment he crossed the cabin door. Damp wood. Detergent. Something baked. The faint aroma of the plants Kieran insisted on keeping alive near the windows even though technically the entire forest was already enough natural decoration.
Home.
He hated admitting how much he had gotten used to that.
Because before Kieran, “home” had been a strange concept. Something loud, full of people, friendly arguments, doors slamming, and voices overlapping one another inside the Kane house. Never silent. Never peaceful.
But here it was. Here silence wasn’t uncomfortable.
It was peace.
Mason closed the door behind him while loosening his tie, mentally preparing himself to hear Kieran complain about something small and domestic. Maybe the shoes he had left crooked two days ago. Or the plate he forgot drying beside the sink. Or perhaps the vampire would simply ignore him until the werewolf hugged him enough to melt his bad mood away.
Everything sounded normal, everything felt normal.
Until he looked up.
And saw the phone. His phone.
That damned old cellphone rested in Kieran’s hands while the vampire sat on the couch with a calmness far too dangerous.
Mason froze.
Literally. His heart slammed hard against his chest.
Because he knew that device perfectly well. He knew exactly what was inside it. Knew which folders were still untouched. Knew which things he had never deleted even when he absolutely should have.
And the worst part of all...
Kieran must have remembered the password. Of course he remembered it, because the vampire remembered everything.
Mason felt a chill crawl up his spine while instinctively trying to analyze the atmosphere through scent alone. Pure instinct. A desperate need for survival.
But Kieran didn’t smell angry. Nor afraid. Nor disgusted.
He smelled... like someone processing information far too large. Like he was slowly putting pieces together inside his head and still didn’t know what final image he was building.
That worried Mason infinitely more.
The silence became unbearable. And Mason spoke before thinking.
—I’m sorry!...—
The apology came out quick, clumsy, almost desperate. Kieran barely lifted his gaze toward him. He didn’t look furious, didn’t look horrified. Honestly, that was worse for Mason’s nerves.
Because if Kieran yelled, if he got angry, if he threw something at him... Mason would know what to do.
But that calmness... God, he hated that calmness.
The vampire watched him for a few seconds before finally speaking.
—So that explains why you came out of bushes twice like some cheap slasher movie killer...—
Mason opened his mouth. Closed it again.
The vampire continued as though remembering something embarrassing.
—I thought you did it to make Cella laugh or to scare me. Or I don’t know... simply because you’re weird.—
There was a brief silence after that. Then Kieran let out a small laugh. Soft, quiet. Almost disbelieving.
—I was really stupid for not realizing it sooner.—
The werewolf suddenly wanted to die.
Because hearing Kieran say that so casually made everything sound infinitely worse. At this point, how many times had he already used the word worse?
Mason started nervously playing with his own fingers. His briefcase still sat abandoned near the entrance. He hadn’t even moved to put it away. He remained standing there like a criminal awaiting sentencing.
And honestly... that wasn’t far from the truth.
—You’re not going to say anything else?—
He finally asked. His voice came out strangely small.
Kieran lowered his eyes toward the phone again. Even from there, Mason could recognize the scratch on the corner of the screen. He remembered exactly when it happened. Blake had tripped on top of him during training and the phone went flying straight into a rock.
The vampire slowly stood from the couch.
And walked toward the trash can.
Mason reacted on pure instinct.
His body tensed immediately. He even took a step forward and slightly raised a hand as though he were going to stop him. As though he could somehow save the phone before it disappeared beneath leftovers and empty packaging.
But he stopped himself. The cellphone dropped into the trash with a dull thud. Mason felt something strange twist inside his chest.
Ridiculous. Because it was just an old phone. Just garbage. Just a collection of unhealthy photographs that should’ve disappeared years ago.
So why did it hurt?
The answer was obvious: to the werewolf, they had never been just photographs.
Kieran turned back toward him.
—I don’t know, Mason... just tell me one thing.—
The werewolf swallowed hard.
—Do you still do it?—
There it was. The question. Simple, direct, terrible.
Mason held Kieran’s gaze for barely a second before answering far too quickly.
—No.—
Lie. Because Mason had never really learned how to stop looking at Kieran.
He no longer hid in bushes like some psychotic teenager incapable of understanding his own feelings. He no longer took stolen pictures from afar or saved blurry images like treasures.
Now he stayed close, but he still watched him too much.
He still looked at Kieran when he fell asleep on the couch with a book resting on his chest. Sometimes he watched him from the kitchen while the vampire folded laundry or organized things, and Mason felt that absurd need to freeze the moment forever just so he could keep it.
He had simply learned to do it in ways that were less disturbing.
—I honestly don’t know why I did it... or why I kept the phone.—
He added afterward.
Another lie. That was the worst part. He did know why.
Because even when he hated him, even when they argued and could barely tolerate each other, Mason already orbited around Kieran like something doomed.
Back then he didn’t understand what he felt. He only knew he wanted to look. Wanted to find him, wanted proof that he existed even when they weren’t speaking.
It was unhealthy.
It probably still was.
Kieran slowly stepped closer until he stood right in front of him. The vampire lifted a hand and absentmindedly brushed a strand of Mason’s hair back.
That gesture almost hurt more than any argument could have.
—It’s okay...—
He finally said.
—At least you’re not a stalker anymore.—
Mason immediately grimaced.
—I wasn’t a stalker.—
—Mason, you had pictures of me taken from bushes.—
—That sounds worse when you say it like that.—
—Because it’s horrible.—
—I was a teenager.—
—That doesn’t improve anything.—
Kieran smiled faintly.
The tension slowly melted away like ice dissolving between hands. Because that was simply how they were. Two people far too tired to turn every wound into a war. Two monsters accustomed to surviving things far worse than uncomfortable secrets.
The vampire stepped back once more.
—I made lasagna. You must be hungry.—
And it was absurd how quickly Mason lit up. Literally.
His eyes brightened as though someone had just promised him eternal happiness. Every trace of emotional tragedy vanished instantly, replaced with genuine excitement.
—Lasagna?—
Kieran rolled his eyes.
—Yes, traumatized dog, lasagna.—
Mason immediately smiled as he followed him toward the kitchen, too close as always. Barely brushing his shoulder against the vampire’s.
And Kieran let him.
Because in the end, even though that discovery had been strange, unsettling, and probably worthy of psychological concern... it was also just Mason.
Only Mason. His weird husband, his domestic disaster, his ridiculously lovestruck werewolf.
And while the smell of lasagna filled the kitchen and Mason began rambling about some stupid thing that happened at work, Kieran decided to let the subject rest.
The past was strange.
They were strange.
And honestly, after everything they had survived, a few disturbing photographs seemed like a surprisingly small problem. Though deep down, very deep down, Mason still kept thinking about the phone inside the trash can.
The forest pines swayed slowly beneath the night wind, producing that long, soft sound that almost seemed to breathe between the trees. Outside, it was cold. A damp, quiet cold that clung to the cabin wood and lightly fogged the windows. The moon shone faintly behind the clouds, appearing and disappearing as though it too were tired. Between the murmurs of the forest came distant owl calls and the occasional creak of branches shifting in the darkness.
Inside the cabin, everything remained calm. Dark, quiet.
After what happened with the phone, after the photographs, after the uncomfortable conversation that somehow transformed into a lasagna dinner and sarcastic remarks... neither of them truly brought up the subject again.
And maybe that was for the best.
Was it worth discussing?
Maybe yes.
Maybe not.
They had never exactly been normal people capable of measuring their problems by the same standards as the rest of the world. Between monsters, secrets, and relationships built out of threats, sarcasm, and unbearable romantic tension, a few disturbing photographs seemed to lose their gravity much faster than they probably should have.
Or maybe they were simply experts at avoiding emotionally dangerous conversations.
Probably that.
The bedroom was barely illuminated by thin beams of moonlight slipping through poorly closed curtains. Mason slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to the darkness while silence wrapped around him once again.
He slightly turned his head.
And there was Kieran.
Asleep on the other side of the bed, peaceful for once. The vampire shifted slightly in his sleep, adjusting himself beneath the blankets while faintly frowning. Even asleep he looked mildly irritated with existence itself. Mason was convinced Kieran had been born with that expression.
Though sleeping softened him. A lot.
The constant irritation faded just a little. The tense lines of his face relaxed. His breathing remained calm, quiet, barely noticeable. Moonlight touched small parts of his face, illuminating his dark hair and the bridge of his nose.
Mason stared at him for too long.
As always, his hands itched. Literally.
There was an irritating restlessness beneath his skin, an absurd urge to get up, walk into the kitchen, and rescue the old phone from the trash can. The photographs were still there. Entire years still existed there. Memories. Frozen moments. Whole fragments of a teenage obsession that had never fully rotted away.
They had history. That was the excuse his mind kept repeating.
They have history.
Even though deep down he knew the real reason perfectly well. He didn’t want to lose them.
Because Mason had never known how to let go of things he loved. He kept them until he broke them. People, objects, feelings... it didn’t matter.
His gaze drifted back toward Kieran. And the question surfaced once more.
When exactly had all of this started?
Because honestly, it still surprised him. Even though he knew the answer in perfect detail, even if he kept denying it.
Kieran had treated him badly from the very first day. Badly in that cruel, unbearable way the vampire had whenever he disliked someone. Mason remembered his first impression perfectly: a pretty boy who looked like he wanted to murder anyone breathing too loudly near him.
And still...
Still, he had photographs of him from that very first day.
Mason briefly closed his eyes at the memory because every moment remained carved inside his head. Even the first photograph.
In the memory, the hallways were almost empty because everyone had already gone to class. Outside, sunlight struck harshly against the school windows and the heat made the air feel heavy.
Mason was late again. Nothing new there.
And then he saw him.
Marcella sat near Kieran, talking to him from her desk. The vampire wore that small, calm smile he almost never showed around other people. It wasn’t a big smile, only the faintest curve of his lips while listening to Cella talk.
But he looked... soft. Human. Beautiful.
Sunlight filtered through the windows, partially illuminating their faces. Kieran’s dark hair glimmered faintly beneath the golden light. Mason remembered perfectly how he had stopped in the classroom doorway just to stare at him.
Nobody noticed him yet.
His fingers moved on their own toward his phone.
Roger always said beautiful things deserved to be photographed. Plants, family, a strange sky, a happy moment. Mason had grown up watching his father preserve memories through pictures as though he feared forgetting them someday.
So he convinced himself of something simple. He was going to take a picture of Marcella. Because Marcella was pretty.
Right.
Completely normal. Entirely logical.
But when the camera captured the image... Cella came out blurry. Unfocused. The photograph caught only Kieran.
The werewolf remembered staring at that image for hours. Much longer than necessary. Zooming in. Studying stupid details. The way the light fell across his face. His relaxed expression, that tiny smile.
And then came another photograph.
And another.
And another.
At first there were little excuses. He was simply there. The lighting looked nice. It happened without thinking. Comfortable lies. Because Mason did think. He thought far too much.
He remembered every stolen photograph like complete scenes engraved into his memory. Kieran reading alone beneath a tree. Kieran absentmindedly drawing during class. Kieran barely smiling whenever Marcella said something stupid. Kieran taking care of tiny wildflowers near the school entrance as though they were delicate creatures.
That last memory had been ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
Mason still remembered the absurd anger he felt watching the vampire gently touch flower petals while only giving him insults and murderous glares.
The vampire treated a bush better than he treated him.
And yes, now as an adult he could admit the reaction he had afterward was childish. Terribly childish.
But at the time it felt justified.
So he stepped on the flowers. Shamelessly, guiltlessly. Just because he wanted to ruin something Kieran had touched carefully.
And the horrible satisfaction he felt seeing the vampire’s irritated expression hours later still embarrassed him a little.
Only a little.
Though honestly... to this day he still felt jealous of the garden that, ironically, the werewolf himself had built outside the cabin: small, crooked, and slightly miserable.
Kieran could spend forty minutes talking to plants while completely ignoring Mason every time he wanted attention.
It was offensive. Personal, even.
But that was another story.
The real issue was something else entirely: habits were difficult to kill.
And Mason had spent so many years watching Kieran that it stopped feeling strange a very long time ago. It became automatic. A silent necessity. Something woven into his routine just like breathing or checking whether the doors were locked before sleeping.
That was why he lied that afternoon. Because stopping didn’t even seem possible anymore.
He opened his eyes and carefully extended a hand toward the nightstand to grab his phone. The charger disconnected with a barely audible sound. His movements were quick, natural... too practiced.
Like someone who did this constantly.
Because he did.
He unlocked the phone almost without looking. Opened the camera. Slightly shifted his body to look once more at Kieran sleeping beneath the bluish moonlight. He looked beautiful.
And Mason hated that word.
Beautiful sounded too delicate for someone like Kieran, someone capable of punching you hard enough to send you crashing into a tree. But Mason couldn’t find another way to describe him. There was something comforting about watching him sleep like this, relaxed, far away from irritated grimaces and venomous comments.
Mason slightly adjusted the phone. Took the picture. Quick, silent.
Then immediately checked it. The dim glow over the vampire’s face. Dark hair falling messily against the pillow. The peaceful expression.
Perfect.
His fingers moved automatically, saving it inside a specific album. A hidden one, filled with similar photographs. Some recent. Others from months ago. Others even older.
This wasn’t going to stop.
Mason knew that perfectly well. He simply needed to become more careful about hiding things.
Because yes. It was wrong. Most likely.
But guilt never weighed heavily enough when it came to Kieran.
He plugged the phone back into the charger and slowly laid down again, moving closer to the vampire until he wrapped an arm around him. Kieran let out an annoyed sleepy sound and uselessly tried to push him away.
The werewolf smiled faintly against his hair.
Even after all those years, even after fights, secrets, disastrous adolescence, and badly managed obsessions... in the end he had achieved exactly what he always wanted.
Kieran.
Completely.
Even if the vampire never fully realized Mason had been looking at him like something that already belonged to him long before he even understood what loving someone meant.