-“And then I stumbled out of the bush, butt naked except for some underwear that I’d magicked on into someone who was kind enough to offer me his jacket so I had something to cover myself with,” Ari said with a laugh, flush on his cheeks as he recounted his run in with the werewolves along the trails earlier on in the month.

He hadn’t told Rowan what he had shifted into, just that he’d had to shift in order to escape and get away, but honestly, he was comfortable with the other supernatural. He got good vibes from him. Not that his vibes were massively reliable: he’d had good vibes about the therapist, too.

“I still have it,” he added, adding some sugar to his hot chocolate and stirring it. “The jacket. I keep meaning to text him and give it back but then it’s warm and I kinda don’t want to.”

When Rowan had agreed to meet up with Ari he hadn’t expected it to be the Frankie show because literally every other word out of the other man’s mouth had been Frankie this or Frankie that and for whatever reason it was… annoying. Irritating, even.

It wasn’t the first time the dragon had felt out of sorts when a friend of his, somebody that he considered to be his went and found somebody shinier. It was a pretty consistent thing in his life, but he’d never put much thought into it, and had done his best to temper the irrational urge he had to act like a brat whenever it happened.

Instead he just nodded, made interested sounds, and sucked on the inside of his cheek as he listened. “That the only reason you don’t want to give the jacket back?” He asked, idly turning the straw in his milkshake around in lazy circles.

Ari might not have been an empath (like Frankie) but he could feel the distaste rolling off Rowan in waves. He’d only meant to share a funny story (funny now, anyway, it hadn’t been funny at the time) and now there was something simmering under the surface of Rowen’s placid and eerily calm, slightly disinterested demeanour.

The dragon had tried not to be obvious about what he was feeling, but had clearly failed given that Ari seemed to have picked up on the fact that there was something off, something not quite wrong.

“I—yeah? Why else would I want to keep it?”

“I don’t know,” Rowan remarked with a lift of his shoulders. “Maybe you want to keep it because of the guy it belongs to. Was he cute?” He hated how he sounded, how irrational this all was, and how despite his best efforts he couldn’t keep his sour tongue in his mouth where it belonged.

He lifted his straw to his mouth and took a few long swallows until he’d drained the glass, turning his head to ask for another.

Ari frowned. “What’s—Rowan, man, are you alright?” He ignored the question, focusing instead on the slightly acerbic notes of his questioning. So what if Frankie was attractive? (He was).

No answer was an answer, something Rowan noted and filed away.

“Pretty sure being attractive is a prerequisite for living in this town,” he added, also asking for another shake when the waitress came past. “But no. I do keep meaning to give it back. I will, one day.”

If being attractive was a prerequisite for living in Mercy Cove then as far as Rowan was concerned he was definitely fucked and not in the fun way either.

“Fine,” he said. Ordinarily Rowan was chatty with a case of verbal diarrhoea at times, but today he was all clipped tones and to the point and he hadn’t smiled once since Ari started fangirling over Frankie. Ugh, what was so special about this Frankie anyways? Big deal he was in the right place at the right time. Whoopie, good for him.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Surprised he hasn’t asked for it back. Leather isn’t cheap.”

“He’s probably forgotten, honestly, it was a weird night. I wasn’t the only one to run into wolves on the trails, though. It's been happening a bunch. Some kind of territory thing? I don’t know—I was told that it wasn’t the pack here though.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Wish I’d known that before I bought them an apology meat hamper.”

Rowan hummed a response, hand slipping across the table to idly pick at and rotate the salt shaker. “Better safe than sorry, right?” Whilst uncalled for he couldn’t imagine a pack of werewolves turning their noses up at an apology meat hamper, he certainly wouldn’t.

Ari’s brows furrowed again. “What’s going on, Rowan? Seriously. You can’t tell me ‘nothing’. I can fe—tell. There’s something and you were fine when we walked in.”

The dragon’s teeth clicked together as his jaw pressed into a tight line that did nothing but accentuate the sharp edge of his jaw itself. “Just didn’t realise that when I agreed to meet up to catch up that it would be the Frankie show.”

Ugh, fuck, why was he acting like this? Ari could be friends with whomever he wanted and think people were cute, what was his problem?

Ari’s eyebrows lifted, mouth parting to immediately refute Rowan’s bitter comment when the other continued talking and his mouth clicked closed, eyes wide and worried and hurt.

“You know what,” Rowan said with a shake of his head. “I’m clearly tired and I should have just stayed in bed this morning so…” He dug into his wallet, tossed out notes to cover his side of food and then got to his feet. “I’ll call you when I’m not so…. Oscar the Grouch.”

A jolt of panic ran through Ari, then, and his hand shot out to grab Rowan’s wrist. “No—don’t—don’t leave. It’s—I’m sorry, okay? I just wanted to share what happened with you. And I haven’t really spoken to him since. He only gave me his number for emergencies. Stay? Please? I can help?”

An immediate jolt of guilt went through Rowan when Ari panicked, evidently so, and started apologising. Jesus fucking Christ, was he or was he not the biggest douchebag this side of Mercy Cove. Not a question, definitely a statement.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as he reluctantly sat back down. “Clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“It happens,” Ari said with a warm smile. “Let’s finish up here and we can go somewhere else to talk?”

Rowan let out a huff of breath and nodded his head. “Yeah. sure.”

Ari tilted his head. “Do you want to leave? Really? I’d—if you do I won’t make you stay.”

Did he want to leave? Not really. Should he leave? Probably. “I’m good,” he assured the other. “Just moody, apparently.”

Ari smiled, the desperate grip on Rowan’s wrist dropping instead to his fingers, squeezing gently. “I can deal with moody,” he teased, “so c’mon. Finish up, then I’m gonna wheedle you.”

Rowan briefly squeezed Ari’s fingers back and rounded back on his side of the booth, slipping back into his previously abandoned seat. Just in time too as their replenished milkshakes were brought over.

It didn’t take long until both of them were finished up and heading out to some place else, to talk.

They ended up walking back to Ari’s place, Summer letting out the loudest, most delighted bark on record. She wagged her tail so hard that her whole behind was wiggling, the sound of her tail thumping rhythmically against her sides.

Again, Rowan was weirdly quiet, which was totally unusual and not at all like him.

She bounced up to Ari and licked his face, then sitting on her haunches but practically vibrating as she waited for attention from Rowan, huge brown eyes pleading at Rowan for pets, tongue lolling out.

It wasn’t until they got to Ari’s place and Summer came bounding over that Rowan returned to something approaching normal as that seemed enough to draw Rowan out of whatever funk he was in, brightening at her approach, happily and readily giving her all the attention she wanted.

“I told you that you’d pass her vibe check,” Ari said brightly, hand resting on Rowan’s shoulder. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the hook, clicking his tongue for Summer’s attention.

She ignored him.

Rowan was definitely relieved that he’d passed Summer’s vibe check especially as he’d been completely out of sorts since Ari had launched into his tale of escaping wolves and his would be knight in shining armour Frankie.

“You’re not listening, are you, girl?”

Summer huffed and chuffed, trying to lick Rowan’s face, her tail thumping frantically.

“That would be a no,” Ari said with a sigh. “I swear, she meets someone new and I become…invisible.”

A warm laugh escaped Rowan as Summer tried to lick his face and whilst he didn’t let her lick his face he did let Summer get away with licking his neck. “How long before she comes back to you though?”

“Depends on how much she loves the new person,” Ari answered, watching his dog bury her face in Rowan’s throat to lick and snuffle.

Weirdly that sounded a lot like the genuine fear and concern that Rowan had about the people in his life and also why he’d got so touchy about Frankie.

Ari walked through to the kitchen, looking over his shoulder. “You want a drink?”

“Yeah, please. Soda or water will be fine.”

Ari hummed and grabbed them both a soda before he stood, hip resting against the counter so Rowan would have to join him to get the drink.

“So do you wanna tell me what’s going on now or wait the like, some arbitrary period first?”

Ugh, Rowan had hoped that Ari might have forgotten on their walk over here, but apparently not. “It’s… complicated,” he admitted as he rose to his feet, wandering over to help himself to his drink. “I don’t even really know what that was, but… I dunno, I got like irrationally jealous and totally paranoid that because you were talking about Frankie a lot that somehow you’d-”

He let out a disgruntled huff of breath and turned away.

Ari’s brows creased and he took a breath, stepping forward and reaching out as he curled his fingers around Rowan’s wrist. He focused on that odd sense of inner calm he was always able to summon for others. He squeezed gently, feeling a pulse go through him, his palm warming where they touched.

Rowan didn’t know what happened, but one minute he’d felt worked, agitated, and then the next he was  calmer. The only difference was that Ari was touching him. Wait, had he done that?

“That I’d what? Forget about the first person who made me feel at home here?”

“Maybe?” Rowan said quietly.

“I don’t think that’s a stupid worry,” Ari soothed, thumb rubbing the edge of Rowan’s wrist softly. “But I won’t, if that makes you feel any better? Like…I don’t plan on it?”

His smile was warm when he said, “you’re stuck with me.”

What people planned and what happened were two very different things. “I’m sorry for acting so crazy. I just- I dunno, sounds like an excuse to blame my nature, but honestly that is kind of what it feels like.”

He turned his hand slightly and squeezed Ari’s fingers.

“Your nature?” Ari asked, eyebrow lifting in curiosity. He knew, of course, that Rowan wasn’t human. He’d been able to tell that immediately. “The only people I know with that kinda…feeling in their nature are something you’re definitely not.”

“Werewolves, right?” Rowan surmised before he reached up to rub the back of his neck, nervous and more than a little apprehensive about revealing his true nature especially as Ari hadn’t even told him what he’d shifted into to outrun the wolves. “But, uh, what I am has a thing for… I dunno how to explain it and I mean it probably isn’t even that because most of the time it’s about gold or jewels and maybe sometimes buttons.” Like his weird uncle.

Ari’s eyes positively lit up as Rowan spoke and he nodded, “oh my god,” he blurted, “I—I had no idea—I thought all you—I thought you were a myth. I had no idea you were—well I suppose I should have guessed but still.”

Well, that was easier than expected. Rowan was weirdly relieved that he didn’t actually have to say it. “Surprise?”

Ari beamed. “That’s so cool, Rowan,” he enthused. It echoed through where their hands were still touching, the sincerity of his reaction like a ripple through the contact. “So are you actually my age or are you a bit older? Immortality, am I right?”

Rowan felt that, he really did, and that definitely made him curious about Ari. He smelt Fae but then not… it was confusing. “I’m like seventy five last time I counted? And yeah, immortality for the win.”

“Do you really just lose track under a hundred?” Ari couldn’t quite imagine losing track until he was at least a couple hundred years old. His lips quirked up as he added, “You’re looking good for it.”

“I have other things to worry about,” Rowan countered, tongue poking out and everything. He scoffed gently and rubbed at the back of his neck. “It’s the draconic genes.”

The fae’s eyes lit up again at the confirmation. “That’s so amazing. Is it—rude to ask— never mind it probably is. Your secret is safe with me, I promise.”

“Rude to ask what?” Rowan asked.

He tipped his head, tracing how Rowan’s shirt clung to his arm, showing off the definition. “Also I was paying you a flirty compliment, don’t genetics at me.”

Rowan’s eyebrows lifted seemingly taken aback by the fact that Ari had been flirting with him. Him? Really? Instead, he chuckled, flushed, and rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Ari’s ears wet pink and he ducked his head. He hadn’t said a compliment to get one back. “Stop,” he rumbled, embarrassed, “anyway we were talking about you. Was that the whole…reason behind your unhappiness earlier?”

Rowan blew out a breath and rocked on his heels. “Uh, yeah. I felt all weirdly territorial and possessive so maybe you should get out while you still can.” He gave a lopsided but sheepish smile.

Ari looked at Rowan for a moment before he stepped in closer, so their toes were touching. His head tilted up at Rowan and he smiled. “What if I don’t want to get out?”

Rowan blinked as suddenly Ari was very close and he felt himself swallow because Ari was honestly breathtaking but up close? Striking. “Uh,” he fumbled before clearing his throat. “Guess you’re stuck with me then.”

Ari’s glamour dropped briefly as he grinned, unaware of Rowan’s thoughts. His eyes went cerulean and just for a moment he seemed to glow before sheepishly catching himself.

“Shit, sorry. I–uh. Fae. That happens sometimes.”

“What? Rowan asked, even more taken aback by Ari. “Don’t apologise. It’s uh, incredible.” He scratched the edge of his thumb across his eyebrow and rocked on his heels again. “You’re already inhumanely good-looking so as cool as that is I think it’s super unfair that it just makes you look even better.”

Rowan was cute. Hot. and here he was flustered in Ari’s kitchen. “You might not say that if you saw all of me.” Then, as he caught onto what he said, he stammered, “I–no–it–I didn’t mean it like that.”

Rowan let out a warm hearty laugh and then bit his lower lip as he tipped his head while running his eyes over Ari’s form from the point where their toes touched before finally coming back to rest on his face. “I dunno about that.”

It was Ari’s turn to be completely flustered now and he looked down at is feet with an awkward laugh.

“I dunno, my fae— it—it looks weird. My shifted form is cool though.”

“What is your shifted form?” Ari had never said and Rowan figured he’d ask because if you didn’t ask you’d never know anything.

Ari pressed his lips together, biting his lower lip and looked at Rowan. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?” He squinted, “Or try to sell me for parts?”

Wha? Rowan’s dumbfounded expression was everything, it really was. Why would he sell Ari for parts? He blinked and tried to remember how to word. “What? No, of course I wouldn’t.”

Wait, wait, wait.

“Somebody tried to sell you for parts!?”

Ari’s shoulder lifted in a shrug that would have looked nonchalant on anyone else but his eyes were sad. “Once, yeah. I got kidnapped?”

Rowan blinked and blinked again before his brow knitted together impressively. “What the fuck, Ari? That’s insane. I mean, obviously you got away and you’re okay, but what the fuck.”

That settled it then, Rowan was going to keep a very close eye on Ari and make sure nobody could kidnap him again.

“I mean, as long as I’m around? That’s never going to happen again.” And even if it did he’d hunt them down and probably eat them, honestly.

Ari reached up to brush his fingers over Rowan’s knitted brow. “I shouldn’t have trusted them, but I—I didn’t know any better, you know? I knew nothing about the world and they—well. It happened.”

“Assholes,” Rowan grumbled.

Ari bit his lower lip, “I’m meant to be careful who I tell but you—you trusted me and I guess you’re not exactly common either. So. I—both of my birth parents are fae, and I can—I mean my—You’re a dragon, right? I’m a unicorn.”

Rowan’s expression cleared of its frown and his eyebrows lifted in wonder instead. “Huh, that makes a lot of sense.” He hitched his shoulders. “I mean, you’re pretty… unearthly so unicorn seems pretty apt.”

Ari snorted. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment,” he said, leaning forward until his forehead rested against Rowan’s clavicle. “Pretty sure I can trust you, considering you just promised to protect me.”

Rowan inhaled slow as Ari leaned in and he was immediately met with the scents of forest, honeysuckle and wild jasmine, and something that smelt like fresh rainfall. It was definitely intoxicating.

“I did do that, didn’t I?” He replied as he wrapped his arm around Ari.

“You did.” Ari tucked himself against Rowan and curled into him, finding that he fitted perfectly underneath Rowan’s arm, against him like a puzzle piece. “No take backs.”

Rowan let out a breath he had not been aware of holding ever since Ari had started talking about Frankie, tightening his arms around Ari as he fit against him perfectly. “No take backs,” he echoed as he dropped a kiss on Ari’s hair.