Silence.
Owl made a face, crossing his arms. “You’ve been spitting me out pretty fast. I’m not that tired, yet. Maybe I could hang around, fix up a few more-”
A gust of wind billowed through the hall. Owl jumped. The room behind him went dark—and he didn’t have to turn to know that the candles would all be cold and smoking.
Message received.
“Okay,” he said instead, lifting his arms into a shrug. “It’s up to you. Thanks, Alex.” He reached out, rapping his knuckles against the stone-lined walls.
His feet knew the way, no matter how deep into Alexandria he’d wandered. He let them steer, operating on automatic as his thoughts churned. He...couldn’t quite deny the emotion that had ignited in his gut at the sight of the mostly-out lights. Disappointment. You have no reason to be disappointed, his internal thoughts hissed. You get to go outside. If Alex is going to let you leave early, take it and run with it.
Fair enough. He’d certainly enjoy being out in the sunlight again, especially with summer starting to wind toward fall. Soon enough, going outside would be...unpleasant. He should enjoy it while he could.
But he hadn’t seen Leon this trip.
His lips pressed together, tightening into a thin line that matched the furrows in his brow. It wasn’t just this trip, either. Leon’s visits had been conspicuously absent for visit after visit, straight back to when he’d allowed Alexandria to be damaged so grievously.
“It’s just the repairs,” he whispered, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The Library is closed. It’s not letting anyone in, Leon or not. That’s all.”
Only, the Library had been closed before when Leon arrived. Alexandria hadn’t seemed to care. So…
Owl made an irritated noise, hurrying through the final doors into the sitting room and reaching for the latch to his quarters. It was just a temporary thing. That was all. Before long, everything would be back to normal, and everyone would come back.
They would.
A sigh slipped between his lips, though, as he kicked the door shut and started to unbutton his jacket.
* * * * *
“You okay, there?”
Daniel flinched, jolting back to awareness. “U-Uh.”
Lucas leered back at him, just a few seats away at the bar. “You falling asleep, man?”
When he started laughing, bringing their other friends in on it, Daniel chuckled along with them. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Just- Tired. I’m just tired.”
“I guess,” Nate drawled, from Lucas’s far side. “Didn’t figure you’d be the one to miss all the action, though. Gotta step your game up.”
Again, Daniel laughed with them—but quieter, now. Across the bar, he watched as his friends turned back to each other, satisfied in their efforts to pull him out of his shell. And, they weren’t wrong. On any of the other nights they’d been out, he’d have been the one trying to bring women back to their table, or sidling over to join a man at the counter.
Tonight, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. Daniel shook his head again, drumming his heels against the ground and trying to force himself back awake. Plastering a smile onto his face, he leaned in, rejoining the conversation.
That worked. For a while. He was able to slip by without drawing even more notice to himself, filling the role of nodding, smiling friend at the edge of the group.
The longer he went, though, the more it itched at him. They’d been his friends for...well, for a long time. A good, happy couple of years, at this stage. But something in him had changed over the last few months, like a switch had been flipped. He was here, but mostly because they’d blown up his phone pestering him. It’d been easier to go along with them than explain why he wasn’t interested.
So here he was. He laughed, and nodded, and offered polite responses if anyone directed a question his way. But it wasn’t real. It was a pleasant mask he wore while he wheedled a bit of amusement out of them.
It really wasn’t any different from how the guild had treated him. He wasn’t that different.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, it drove home, slicing through the thin veneer of his good mood like a knife. It wasn’t true, he told himself. He was here for fun. For them. He didn’t have ulterior motives.
But he did, didn’t he?
“Dan?”
Daniel blinked. He was on his feet, he realized, one hand clutching the edge of the bar. Nate and Lucas were both looking up at him, confusion plain on their faces. Lucas leaned a little closer, his lips pursed. “You good? Something wrong?”
“No,” Daniel said, drawing in a deep breath. “No, no. Sorry. I just...I haven’t been sleeping great.” He fixed a sheepish smile on his face. “Had some late nights for, um. Work.”
“Man, whoever’s footing the bill this time has you running yourself ragged,” Nate said, dropping his elbows to the bar. “Hopefully you’re at least making bank?”
“Y-Yeah,” Daniel said. “Definitely.” He was making bank. He was making very, very good money from the investments he’d squirreled away, in fact. Not that either of them needed those details. “But...sorry. I think I gotta bail.”
“What?” Lucas said. “But, we drove. Are you-”
“I’ll walk back,” Daniels said, waving one hand at them furiously while using the other to mask a pointed yawn. “I’m...I’m good. Just tired. It’s not that far.”
“It’s going to be like an hour long walk,” Nate said, his eyes narrowing further.
“I’ll call an Uber if I get tired,” Daniel said. He glanced toward the bartender, but she was completely occupied with another customer. “Uh...tell her to put it on my-”
“We’ll handle it,” Lucas said. “Don’t get run over, okay?”
“Won’t,” Daniel said. He was stumbling backwards by then, letting his hand fall into a tiny wave. “Later, guys. Maybe- Maybe tomorrow?”
His friends nodded, calling their reassurances,
