Chapter Text
The night before the move, Liam’s apartment smelled like cheap whiskey and excitement. Bodhi was pacing the small living room, still talking a mile a minute about how Basgiath was going to be the fucking breakthrough they’d been waiting for. Liam, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare couch, grinned like the whole thing was some big joke only they got.
Xaden watched them both, lips pressed tight, trying to shove down the knot of dread twisting in his stomach. Liam’s easy charm, the way Bodhi laughed with that reckless loudness, they were his only constants, more family than blood had ever been. And yet, he could barely force a smile.
“Come on, Xaden. One drink. Just one,” Bodhi nudged him, his voice easy but insistent. “You can’t face Basgiath sober.”
Liam lifted his glass, eyes sparkling with anticipation. “To new starts. To freedom from DC’s bullshit.”
Xaden raised his glass, barely. His voice didn’t even bother trying to sound convincing when he muttered, “To whatever the fuck this is.”
They clinked, and Bodhi cracked a joke about the city being a cesspit full of gossiping vultures. Liam made a face like he’d just swallowed something sour and said, “You’re going to fucking love it there. Way better than this place that chews you up and spits you out.”
Xaden nodded, swallowing the bitter lump in his throat. All he could think about was how far away he wanted to be from everything in DC, especially the fucking mess Cat had left behind.
Later that night, alone in his apartment, the city lights blurred beyond the window, cold and indifferent. Sgael curled up beside him, tail flicking lazily over the worn couch cushion. He remembered the first time he found her, stuck in a tree, claws digging into bark, eyes flashing with the kind of arrogant calm only cats had mastered. He’d climbed up to help her, and she’d rewarded him with a scratch right through his eyebrow before jumping down on her own. She’d followed him home afterwards. Since then, she’d acted like the fucking queen of the place. His little dragon.
His fingers absently stroked her sleek silver-blue fur and she blinked lazily, unimpressed but tolerant of the affection. Catriona had never liked Sgael. She’d fucking hated how much he preferred the company of a sharp-clawed, arrogant creature over hers. Maybe that was why it was so easy for her to take everything else. She stole his research, twisted the breakup into a performance of victimhood, and spread whispers that he’d slept with a student. Lies that clung like scars.
He didn’t belong in DC anymore. Not with the ghosts she’d left behind. He swallowed the bitterness.
When Liam’s residency offer from Basgiath Children’s Hospital landed in his inbox, it felt like a miracle. Liam hadn’t even accepted before asking them to move with him. Bodhi said he would go too, and Xaden applied to Basgiath University that same night. He needed the fresh start, but more than that, he needed them. Ivy League offers followed when word got out, but he declined every single one. He didn’t fucking want prestige. He wanted his family.
Sgael blinked at him, calm and unimpressed. He decided to go to sleep, lying down on the couch, already dreading the chaos of the next day when they would leave DC behind and start their new life.
Xaden’s car had been packed for over a week. A rolled-up mattress, his documents, laptop, hygiene essentials, black clothes folded with precision, and a stack of his favorite books. Most of the things he took were for Sgael. Her fluffy bed, a ridiculous amount of toys she barely played with, the towering oak-and-sisal cat tree he’d built himself, and enough raw meat and supplements to feed a fucking zoo. There wasn’t anything else he wanted from his apartment in DC and he’d just buy whatever he needed once he needed it.
Bodhi and Liam’s car was a disaster zone. At seven in the fucking morning on moving day, they were still scrambling. Once their car was so full that Liam would have to sit with his head ducked beneath a snowboard and a terrarium in his lap, they tried to cram every stupid thing they could into Xaden’s car.
“What if we need a disco ball?” Bodhi joked, balancing a glittering orb on his head like it was vital survival gear. Liam was dragging out a skeleton from med school. “Emergency dance partner,” he called it, slinging it in with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
When the last ridiculous item, a questionable lava lamp, was wedged in with an obnoxious clang, Xaden sighed and slid into the driver’s seat. Sgael settled into the passenger seat like the fucking empress she was. No music. No chatter. Just the road and the endless swirl of his thoughts. Probably a terrible idea, but silence was all he could manage.
The apartment in Basgiath was almost too peaceful. Three rooms stretched out under dark wood floors, the kitchen gleaming new in the open living space. Huge windows framed a view of green trees and the river winding quietly beyond. Not that he necessarily needed to watch his money, but he had decided on a certain amount of rent when he first got the job as a professor and had only raised it according to inflation since. The apartment he had gotten in Basgiath with that same budget was so much fucking better than what he’d had in DC. The best part was how fucking close it was, just a few blocks from Liam and Bodhi’s place and under ten minutes from campus.
Sgael did a slow circuit like she owned every inch, nosing the corners, then curling up on the windowsill to stare at the river, imperious and calm. Xaden unpacked the last of his black clothes, folding them with the same sharp care he’d given everything. Books stacked neatly. Sgael’s bed placed just so. He flipped through the faculty packet. The syllabus was a fucking joke, soaked in violence and colonizer bullshit. He pulled up his laptop and typed an email demanding a full revision. The first draft was carefully polite but soulless. He added a line that burned with everything he felt: “The department might consider adding more than one woman or person of color who doesn’t believe oppression is a necessary evil. Just a fucking thought.” He rewrote it, dialing back the edge because he didn’t want the university to regret hiring him before he even stood in front of a classroom.
The mattress he’d brought from DC was thin and cold, but he dropped onto it anyway, staring at the blank ceiling. Sgael stretched across his feet, tail twitching.
“Maybe this time I won’t fuck it up,” he told her in the silence of the room.
Bare walls. Empty floors. No art. No mirrors.
Freedom.
He didn’t know if it was terrifying or hopeful.