Experiment

eleven

The smell of bacon and eggs fills my nose as Azriel walks downstairs only to sit on a stool at the bar of the main room. "Hey you, get down here and eat." His deep voice fills the room as he speaks, a yawn leaving him as I pull my arm away from the wall to set the paintbrush into the bucket before I start climbing down the ladder. As soon as my feet are able to touch the floor the smell of rain on an ocean breeze fills my nose but I ignore it as I set the painting supplies on the floor beside the ladder only to walk across the room to the bar where Azriel sits. "It looks nice." My eyes move to him as I sit in the stool next to him and lift a piece of bacon to my lips.

"You have a very odd infatuation with the color brown." He chuckles at my words and I watch him as he lifts a hand to scratch at his head with a smile on his face. "You do know I can see it, the pain that you hide? It is easier to see when one is smiling. My teacher does it too, he smiles to hide the pain that rests within him." I stop chewing on the bacon to look at him with my head tilted to the side. "It is what I would do when I was a child, I used to think it was easier to smile through the pain instead of screaming about it." I rip a piece of the omelette away from the rest to stick into my mouth and Azriel watches me as if pained by my words.

"Why did you stop?" I pause in the middle of chewing my food to think over his words only to shrug.

"I had gone cold and all of the pain I felt became numb. I forgot what it had truly meant when a person would smile, but I knew that it was not what I was doing. I was alive but I was not living, and only those that are living should smile." He watches me as I rip another part of the eggs away to stuff into my mouth and he slowly lifts his hand as if to lay it on top of my own only to stop and let it fall back to his lap.

"Whenever you're ready, you can smile all you wish." I remain silent as I chew on my food and he looks away to look at the newspaper before him. "I was thinking that while you and those boys work on the club the rest of us could go on a weekend long hunt." I feel his eyes on me as he speaks and I nod.

"Of course. If you need me just call." His deep gray eyes look back to the paper in front of him as he nods.

"Also, Sarah found me this morning and gave me these. She said that she knows you don't like to take any sort of medicines because of all that had happened to you back then, she also knows that you despise sleeping, so she thought it over and thinks she found something that may help you." I shake my head as soon as the words leave him and he sighs as he puts the yellow bottle of pills back into his pocket.

"No."

"Even if it could help you stay awake for a longer period of time?" I scoff at his words and nod.

"I would rather suffer through the worst memory I hold watching it over and over again than take medicines that are said to help me." My voice is nearly a growl as I speak and he nods with another soft sigh.

"Alright, I will tell her." He nods as he looks back to the papers in front of him and I lift another piece of bacon to my lips. "Before I go, what is it about that roommate of yours that makes you feel so comfortable around him?" His eyes move to me and I look up at him through my lashes as I nibble on one of the bacon strips.

"He is not like other men." He frowns at me and shakes his head while waving his hand in the air in an odd way.

"How?" I pause as I chew on my bacon and shrug.

"Last night when I was dancing on him, he tried to stop me. I could feel his lust, I could smell his need as it had rushed through him yet he told me that he needed me to stop before I took it to far. He said that he did not wish to take me to my room and do things that I am not yet ready for. Other men would have done it no questions asked, no hesitations, but he had forced himself to hold back and he had even warned me." He lifts a brow at my words and I shrug. "Besides, I feel an odd attraction towards him. I know when he is near more clearly than when it is someone else, his scent is addicting to me it has something within me begging for it at all times, and that same something screams for his touch." His eyes widen as he listens to me and I turn away as I lift the last strip of bacon from the plate before me.