The cake was delicious. Handcrafted by Lily's mother, Marshal was getting diabetes just by looking at it, and while Alaric didn't often partake in mortal food; as it was his birthday: he decided to make an exception. Like he did every year.

It was a twilit evening, one spent in good spirits as the group laughed and joked from within the den. Sharing stories, and whatever gifts they could cobble together for the Birthday celebration. For one, shining moment: Things were just as they had always been, and all the events of the passed month or two were forgotten in place of happy habits.

"Thank you, I love it." Alaric said enthusiastically as he unfurled the large piece of paper and stood so that he may better gauge its contents. It was a gift from Marshal, and on it was a masterpiece of all them, Yasmine included, painted in breathtaking detail and colour.

"Really? I'm not too good with paints." Marshal questioned in disbelief, only to scowl moments later as Lily pinched the meat of his thighs.

"Just take the compliment, you dolt" she remarked, giggling when Marshal stuck his tongue out in her direction as a response.

"Honestly, Marshal, it's fantastic. You're amazing, and could make a living off of this stuff if you wanted to." Alaric said, ignoring the questioning silence as he aimed the paper at different sections of the Den wall, pivoting on the spot and closing one eye as if that made a difference. "What about here? I'll have it framed and I can put it up here." He questioned, striding from the nest of his friends to the eastern wall and holding the paper against the craggy stone, while smiling expectantly at the rest of them as he awaited their answer.

What he got, for a moment, was a shared look of complete and utter questioning.

"What? Do you think it better to be placed over there instead? I just thought that if I'm having it framed: the light won't hit it so harshly if I put it here." He said rolling the paper up again, and pretending to be completely oblivious as to why his friends were staring at him. Although his shoulders spoke of the expectant questions. Slumping lower slightly before he pulled them back up into their broadness, and ready to carry whatever weight was passed on to him.

"What is with you at the moment?" Alice questioned, lowering her plated slice of cake to her lap, and breaking the uneasy silence that had smothered the previously jovial atmosphere. The question had long been on the tip of Alice's tongue, and she had grown quite tired of her theories going unanswered.

"What do you mean?" Alaric replied innocently, and yet refused to meet a single one of their eyes. Choosing to look anywhere else in fact.

"Wow, even I caught that one, Alaric. Ow- hey!" Marshal snorted in response as Lily tugged at his hair and procuring a small black feather from the pale blonde strands, before tossing it casually to the side.

"Quit being a baby, you just had something in your hair. Anyway, I'm with She-Wolf, big cheese. You've been acting weird for what; three weeks, now? I think it's about time you spill the beans. All of them. I don't want to see a single bean left in the can, because you've spilled them all." Lily responded as the rest of them, except for Rhys, nodded in agreement.

"I don't know what-"

"Beans!" She interrupted Alaric with a commanding point of her finger. All that was missing from the surprisingly intimidating gesture; was the accompanying crack of thunder in the distance.

Rhys relaxed his hands. Which had been balled into fists throughout the entirety of the conversation. With an exasperated sigh he stood from the floor and began to leave.

"I'm just going for air." He said non-committally, and began to walk while doing his best to ignore the gaze that Alaric bore into his back from behind. Silent was the 'don't you dare leave me in this', but Rhys was already at the mouth of the Den and had turned the corner, away from view. Although he managed to catch Lily's exclamation:

"Well that wasn't completely obvious. Why the hell does Rhys know what's going on, but we don't?"

Good. He thought. Only feeling slightly guilty at leaving Alaric to the confrontations of his peers. But Rhys was glad that at least there was a chance that he wouldn't be the only one to know the reason behind Alaric's sudden change in behaviour. Or at least, he hoped he wouldn't be.

It was some hours before Alaric went in search of Rhys. He'd narrowly managed to convince the rest of his friends that the sole reason for his "weirdness" is because of the constant threat of murder looming over them, and that he was afraid to lose them like Yasmine. It wasn't a lie, although Alice was undoubtedly true in suspecting it wasn't the entire reason behind his behaviour. He's not quite sure what he would do if another of his friends was taken from him: Alaric only knew that his reaction would not be good.

Alaric found Rhys up an embankment a good distance from the quarry. He sat with his arms crossed around his knees, and staring out into the darkness of the night. Alaric couldn't help but notice as the shin-high grass seemed to part as he stepped forward. Which was a curious note, as Rhys had never exercised his influence over plant life from this distance before, and Alaric was still a good fifteen feet from him.

"Rhys?" Alaric called to him as he closed the small gap to stand beside the sitting man, who carried a frown on his face as he stared with concentration into the midnight distance.

"Did you tell them?" He asked. His voice low, and quiet, as if the gentle breeze that pushed through the swaying grass carried it more than the strength of his breath.

"Not really, no."

"Of course you didn't" Rhys snorted distastefully, as he leaned back using his hands to prop himself up.

There was a few minutes of unknowable silence before Alaric took a seat beside Rhys, and followed his eyeline which still refused to look in his direction no matter how much Alaric willed it so. But the dark was empty, and if Rhys could see something that he could not: Alaric had no way of knowing.

"You were impressive the other day. Against the hunter" Alaric mentioned, causing Rhys to lean forward once more and hook his arms around his knees, as if guarding himself from the pervading thoughts.

"I've never done that before... Never used it like that." He sounded unsure, like he was uncertain what it means that he was capable of being as aggressive as he had been.

"How did it feel?"

Alaric thought his question would go unanswered with the amount of time Rhys seemed to spend thinking on it. He could see all the lines of thought going throughout his expression that looked like it struggled coming to any form of decision.

Then he looked at Alaric. Baring a look with such a certainty, that for a singular moment: Alaric felt unnerved.

"Good." Rhys answered, holding the look for a few seconds longer before returning to face forward.

The uneasy silence returned as Alaric did his best to dissect the layers behind Rhys' response. The air was charged with an unstable electricity. Like it was brimming to capacity with words unsaid, and just as Alaric thought those words would fade into nothing: Rhys let out an exasperated sigh.

"Just let me help, Alaric."

"Rhys, we've been over this." Alaric responded with his usual, veiled-neutral, tone while scrubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"This is fucking stupid. You're so stupid, and stubborn. There is literally no reasonable reason for me to not help. In fact, me not helping, is just helping you die. I mean, what kinda fucked up mentality is that?" Rhys sounded angry, but most of all he sounded tired. Like he was done. Like all he had done was think about this, and where it had churned in his mind, it had turned to a poison that had finally wore him down to the bone.

Alaric found the slightest niggle of guilt begin to eat away at him at the realisation of what his confession had done to his friend. At the time, he had only been thinking about relieving his own burden, his own stress. He hadn't considered the weight of such a thing and how it would affect his friend.

"I'm sorry." Alaric said, gaining Rhys to at least look up from holding his head within his hands, and to look at him.

"What was that?" Rhys questioned, his face still had the tightness of a readily fading anger, but a smirk lay quivering beneath a rapidly decaying facade.

"Don't push it." Alaric warned with his own smirk, and the arching of one eyebrow.

"You're so stupid." Rhys rolled his eyes with a much more relaxed smile. This was the Rhys Alaric knew. Happy and chilled. Reliable.

"Why do you keep calling me tha--" Alaric's question was promptly cut short by the sudden press of Rhys' lips against his own. And it was everything.

"So fucking stupid." Rhys breathed, without heat, before silencing any further questions with a much deeper kiss.

If Alaric had a need for breath, this would steal it. If Alaric had body heat, this would set it into an inferno. And if Alaric had dreams, this would consume them.

It was everything and more, and he cursed himself for how full he felt by the simplest of contact from this man who had always been within arms reach. A warmth curled it's way within his chest as Rhys kissed him harder, cupping the sides of his jaw with his hands, and pulling him closer, like letting go was an impossibility.

For what felt like centuries, Alaric was lost. Shocked into merely reacting. But as Rhys deliciously sucked at his bottom lip: his inaction was tossed aside and he found himself balling his fists into Rhys shirt at the chest.

Rhys pushed Alaric onto his back against the slight prickle of grass, the moon haloed behind his head as he paused only for a moment to give a questioning look to Alaric, who was uncharacteristically beaming a smile in his direction.

"What?" He asked, slightly offended at the sudden pause and how cold this distance was.

"Why're you smiling like that?" Rhys questioned with a raise of his eyebrow.

"I have my reasons."

"Shut up" Rhys bawked with his own smile, before diving straight for Alaric's neck and sucking at the smooth skin there in such a manner that it caused Alaric's hips to involuntarily buck upwards.

Was this what it was to do it with feeling? To make it personal? A tightness in his chest and the realisation of what he had missing warred with his own desires. The overflowing sense of lust beckoning the grinding of his hips against Rhys, fought against the insurmountable swell of being complete that billowed within. This was it. This was where he was meant to be.

His own hands drifted to Rhys' waist, his fingers pushing tightly against the fabric of his jeans and what little skin that was revealed in the gap between them and his shirt.

Rhys' touch seemed to leave trails of fire wherever it left as he briefly ventured a palm to slide across Alaric's torso. His fingers dancing over every stretch of skin and allowing his imagination to run wild at the thought of if it was his tongue instead.

Rhys' slid his hands up Alaric's arms all the way until they were stretched above his head, pressing his hands against the ground with the intertwining of his fingers.

The delectable, writhing, contact at the man who had settled between his legs was almost torture for Alaric who's clothes felt far too binding and uncomfortable against his skin. But he did nothing to protest lest he bring a close to the way this man was kissing him. Devouring him with each motion of his lips.

He didn't notice the grass curling around his wrists until they had already pulled taught against the skin, and it was when Rhys stopped kissing him that something began to feel wrong. Rhys paused a moment to nuzzle briefly at his neck, as if he was taking the time to draw strength, and Alaric was secretly shocked as he found that even with his Vampiric strength: his arms wouldn't come free.

"I'm sorry." Rhys whimpered. His voice quivering to a whisper as he pushed himself up from where he had been.

"Rhys? What are you doing?" Alaric questioned, although he already knew. It was a wilful ignorance that bade him to ask the question. A shining sliver of hope that he might be wrong.

Rhys wiped at the singular tear that slipped down his right cheek, the action causing Alaric's heart to haemorrhage, before he bolstered himself with a bracing breath.

"I can't let you go to your death, Alaric. I won't."

"Rhys—"

"And if you won't compromise and let me help, then I will take the option from you." He tensed his hands into fists, causing the foliage to tighten briefly around Alaric's wrists and ankles, holding him securely in place. "I'm sorry." He whispered once again, before turning on his heels and walking away.

"Rhys!" Alaric called as he strained and struggled against the bindings. "Rhys don't do this!"

With the receding of Rhys' footsteps into the dark, each one was a crack against Alaric's heart. With the silence proving to be the hammer that shattered it completely.

A/N: Finally another update. Sorry it's taken me so long. But life ya know? Anyways, what did you think of the ending? Not quite the happy birthday I'm sure some were expecting.

Anyways I hope you enjoyed and as always:
Thanks for reading!