Aelius was thoroughly exhausted by the time he finally left the guild that evening. The conversation with Macao had been simple enough, at least on the surface. He'd handed over access to his account, transferred enough jewels to keep the guild comfortably afloat for months, possibly longer if Macao didn't let Wakaba anywhere near the ledger, and outlined which jobs to prioritize once Laxus and Vanessa started bringing in income of their own. Simple and practical. The kind of conversation that should have taken ten minutes and instead took the better part of an hour, mostly because Macao kept stopping to ask if he was certain, as though Aelius might suddenly change his mind about funding the guild he'd just spent twenty minutes lecturing about staying afloat.
As he descended the stairs from what was now, officially, Macao's office, Aelius caught sight of Jet again. The man was still seated near the same table, a fresh drink in front of him that he wasn't touching, dried blood crusted at the corner of his mouth where he'd bitten through his tongue. He wasn't shouting this time. He didn't need to be. The glare alone carried enough weight, dark eyes tracking Aelius across the hall with the kind of focus usually reserved for something dangerous.
Aelius held his gaze for a moment, then looked away first.
Macao caught up to him near the guild doors, falling into step beside him with the slightly awkward gait of a man still adjusting to the idea that people might watch how he carried himself now. "Hey," he said, low enough that it wouldn't carry back into the hall. "Thanks. For not... I don't know. Smacking him into next week back there."
Aelius laughed. It wasn't a particularly kind sound, more exhausted than amused, but genuine all the same. "You're thanking me for being civil."
"I mean, yeah?" Macao rubbed the back of his neck, looking faintly embarrassed now that it had been said out loud. "Guy basically called you worse than Laxus to your face in front of half the guild. You aren't exactly known for restraint.
"I wasn't being civil, Macao." Aelius's voice had gone quieter, the kind that made people lean in despite themselves. "Vanessa was protecting him."
Macao blinked. "From you?"
"From himself." Aelius glanced back toward the hall, though the doors had already swung shut behind them, hiding Jet from view. "Vanessa didn't grab him out of anger. Or rather, she did, but that wasn't the only reason." He exhaled slowly, watching his breath fog faintly in the evening air, though the night wasn't nearly cold enough to justify it. A habit left over from somewhere he didn't like to think about. "She knew exactly what would happen if he finished that sentence. If he said the name."
"And that would've been bad?"
"That would have been Jet, on the floor, missing considerably more flesh." Aelius said it the way most people commented on the weather. "Possibly worse. I don't entirely know what happens when that part of me reacts without warning, because I've spent considerable effort making sure it never has to."
Macao's steps slowed. "You're serious."
"I am occasionally capable of humor, Macao. This isn't one of those times." Aelius kept walking, forcing the other man to either match his pace or fall behind. After a beat, footsteps resumed beside him, quicker now. "There's a difference between being insulted and having something touch a nerve that isn't entirely mine to control. Jet did the former for most of that conversation. He very nearly did the latter."
"So when Vanessa shut him up..."
"She wasn't punishing him for being angry," Aelius said. "She was making sure he didn't find out what happens when I am." The silence that followed lasted almost a full block. Magnolia's streets were quiet this time of evening, lanterns flickering to life one by one along the canal as the sun finished sinking behind the rooftops. Somewhere distant, a dog barked twice and fell silent.
"Is that something I should be worried about?" Macao finally asked. "As Guild Master, I mean. If something like that happens again, if someone else says the wrong thing..."
"It won't happen again," Aelius said. "Because I intend to make sure no one else has the opportunity to say it." He paused at the edge of the bridge leading out toward the residential district, finally turning to face Macao properly. The exhaustion was more visible up close, faint shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there when he'd first walked into the guild that afternoon. "But to answer the actual question. No. Not from me. I have considerably more control over myself than that implies."
"And if it's not you who loses control?"
Aelius's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes did, something old and tired that had nothing to do with the hour. "Then I would suggest standing very far away and hoping I get there in time."
Macao didn't ask anything further after that. He simply nodded once, the kind of nod that meant he understood he'd been given as much of an answer as he was likely to get, and that pushing further wouldn't change that.
"Go home, Macao," Aelius said, already turning to leave. "Sleep. Tomorrow you get to discover exactly how much paperwork Makarov managed to hide from everyone for the last several decades."
"Wonderful," Macao muttered, already looking like he regretted every choice that had led him to this particular evening. But there was a faint, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he said it, and he lifted a hand in something like a wave before turning back toward the guild.
Aelius watched him go for a moment before continuing on alone, the weight of the day finally settling fully across his shoulders now that there was no one left to perform composure for. Vanessa would be waiting at the house. He hoped, vaguely, that she'd at least made tea before deciding to interrogate him properly about what, exactly, he'd meant by 'I'm still me,' And knowing her, she probably hadn't bothered with the tea.
The walk home was peaceful enough, more stares, more whispers, but nothing that truly bothered him, same as it always was these days. Magnolia had grown used to watching him pass, the way a town grows used to watching weather roll through.
He left the cobblestones and lantern light behind once the residential district thinned out, the path beneath his boots shifting first to packed dirt, then to the softer give of forest floor as the trees closed in around him. By the time the house came into view, his irritation had mostly settled into plain exhaustion. He could see a single light glowing faintly through one of the windows.
He sighed and walked up to the porch, the top step creaking beneath him. Something he could never quite explain, since it had always done that, even after he repaired it. The creak didn't just annoy him, though. He found it oddly comforting in its own way, a small, familiar sound that meant he was home. It had alerted Vanessa, though she almost certainly already knew he was coming. She could probably taste him from half a mile out by now.
His door burst open before he'd even reached for the handle, and Vanessa slammed into him again, the same way she had at the guild that morning, except there was nothing playful in it this time.
"Please don't leave." Her voice came muffled against his chest, words pressed directly into the fabric of his shirt. "Please don't leave." Her arms wrapped tight around his middle, fingers curling into the back of his shirt like she meant to anchor herself there. Tears followed quickly after, soaking through the fabric in a way he was fairly certain meant she'd been crying before he ever arrived, not just now. It was a far cry from the woman who'd made Jet rethink every life decision that led him to open his mouth that afternoon.
Aelius stood there for a long moment, arms still at his sides, caught somewhere between exhaustion and something softer he didn't have a convenient word for. Then, slowly, he lifted one hand and rested it against the back of her head, fingers threading lightly through silver hair.
She truly thought he was going to leave again. He sighed, his fingers tightening slightly in her hair. He wanted to be annoyed at the assumption, but he couldn't quite manage it, not when she was right to think it. He had already considered leaving, more than once today, even if he'd ultimately decided against it. It wasn't as though he hadn't left her before. telling himself it was necessary, and each time watching it cost her something she never let him see until much later.
"Neshi." He said it softly, tilting her chin up with two fingers until her violet eyes met his. Her face was still wet, lashes clumped together, and something in his chest twisted at the sight of it. "I'm not leaving you again. Not like after Alaric. Not like the Labyrinth."
"Then let me come with you." Her voice cracked on the words, both hands fisting tighter into the front of his shirt as though he might vanish the moment she let go. "Wherever you're going. I don't care where it is." She pulled back just enough to look at him properly, eyes red-rimmed and fierce despite the tears still clinging to her lashes. "You're my big brother, right? You're supposed to protect me. Not run off and do something stupid and dangerous without me."
Aelius almost flinched at that. Not because it was unfair, but because it wasn't. He'd called her his little sister before, and there had been a time, before everything went wrong, when he and Alaric used to joke about being brothers separated at birth by some cosmic clerical error. Before the Labyrinth had taken him apart and put him back together as someone colder. Someone who flinched away from people who called him family and meant it.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his expression to soften even though everything in him wanted to retreat behind the mask he no longer needed to wear in front of her. "Because what I'm about to do would hurt you more than leaving you here ever could." He kept his voice gentle, though the words themselves felt like dragging glass across his own throat. "What I'm planning isn't something that helps both of us. It only helps me, Vanessa. And if you came with me, you wouldn't grow stronger. You'd grow weaker, watching me do what needs to be done, unable to stop it, unable to even understand it." His thumb brushed lightly against her cheek, wiping away a tear that had nearly reached her jaw. "And I won't let that happen to you. I can't."
"Why not?" The question came out smaller than she probably intended, more child than warrior in that moment, despite the violence she'd shown Jet only hours earlier. "Why does it always have to be you carrying things alone? Why can't I help carry them too?"
"Because some weights aren't meant to be shared." Aelius's voice had gone quiet, the kind of quiet that came from somewhere old and tired, somewhere that predated even her. "Because the last time I let someone close enough to help carry mine, it killed him, and I am not making that mistake with you. I can't….I can't lose anyone else."
Her grip on his shirt loosened slightly, though she didn't let go entirely. "That's not fair. You don't get to decide that for me."
"No," he agreed, surprising her. "I don't. But I'm deciding it anyway, because I'd rather be the villain in your eyes for protecting you than watch you become collateral damage in something I started." He tilted his head down, resting his forehead lightly against hers, an old, familiar gesture from years before that he rarely allowed himself anymore. "You are allowed to hate me for this. You're allowed to be furious. But you are not coming with me, Neshi. Not this time."
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The forest around them had gone fully dark now, the last traces of violet swallowed by night, leaving only the faint glow of the single lit window behind them to mark the edges of the porch.
"I hate that you make sense sometimes," Vanessa finally muttered, voice thick, pressing her face back into his chest instead of looking at him. "I hate it so much."
"I know." Aelius let his hand settle back against her hair, fingers moving slowly, almost absently, the way he might soothe a frightened animal rather than a grown woman more than capable of breaking bones with her bare hands. "For what it's worth, I'd rather you hate me for this than forgive me for something worse."
"That's a terrible thing to say to someone."
"I'm aware." A faint, exhausted smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, invisible to her with her face still buried against him. "I never claimed to be good at this part."
Vanessa let out something between a laugh and a sob, muffled into his shirt, and for a while longer, neither of them moved. The porch step creaked faintly beneath his shifting weight, the same familiar sound it always made, and somewhere in the trees an owl called once before falling silent again.
"Come on," Aelius said, pulling back just enough to nudge her gently toward the door. "You can sleep here tonight, alright? I'll still be in town for a few more days before I head out to find Laxus. We've got time before any of that starts."
Vanessa wiped at her face with the back of her sleeve, sniffling once before nodding. She didn't argue, which told him more about how exhausted she truly was than anything she could have said aloud. He led her inside, the door creaking shut behind them, sealing out the cool night air and the quiet hum of the forest.
The guest room sat just off the small hallway, simple and sparse, a bed, a dresser, a window that looked out over the dark treeline. Vanessa had stayed there enough times over the years that she didn't need directions anymore. She paused at the doorway, looking back at him for a moment like she wanted to say something else, some final argument she hadn't used yet. Then she seemed to think better of it.
"Goodnight, Aelius," she said instead, quieter than her usual tone.
"Goodnight, Neshi." He watched until she'd disappeared inside and the door clicked softly shut behind her before he finally allowed his shoulders to drop, the careful composure he'd held together for her sake slipping away now that there was no one left to perform it for.
He made his way to the bathroom at the end of the hall, peeling off his shirt as he went, the fabric still faintly damp from where her tears had soaked through earlier. He tossed it aside and turned the shower on, letting the water run hot enough to fog the small room before he stepped beneath it.
The water did little to ease the tension still coiled through his shoulders, though he stood there longer than necessary anyway, head bowed, letting it beat against the back of his neck. Eventually, he shut it off, grabbed the towel hanging from its hook, and wiped uselessly at the condensation building across the mirror.
The glass cleared in patches, just enough to show him fragments of his own reflection before he'd finished. He paused there, towel still in hand, and made himself look.
It wasn't a face he recognized easily anymore, not as the man he'd been before Tenrou. His eyes held a faint glow now, the same sickly green he'd grown almost used to seeing in low light, but never quite used to seeing reflected back at him like this, unguarded, with no mask between them. Behind him, his wings shifted faintly where they remained unfurled, the membrane along the edges thin and uneven, sloughing away in small patches only to knit themselves back together within moments. A constant cycle. Rot and regrowth. Decay chasing its own tail in an endless loop, he had never asked for and couldn't stop.
He stared at it for a long while; the eyes, the wings, the massive scar he had gotten when he was bisected. This was what waited beneath the shirt, beneath the mask, beneath every careful word he'd given Vanessa tonight.
"I'm still me," he whispered. He'd told her that this morning, in the guild hall, in front of everyone. He'd told her something close to it again tonight, murmured against her hair while she cried into his chest, begging him not to leave. And looking at himself now, he wasn't certain it had been entirely true either time.
He hated that. He hated the lie more than he hated the reflection staring back at him, more than he hated the wings or the glow or the rot that never fully left him alone, no matter how many times his body fought to put itself back together. Vanessa deserved better than careful half-truths dressed up as comfort. She deserved an actual answer, not the practiced reassurance he gave her, because the real one would only frighten her further.
But some truths, he'd learned, were heavier to give than to carry alone. He set the towel down slowly, fingers curling against the edge of the sink as he held his own gaze in the mirror a moment longer. The wings settled at last, folding tightly against his back in that same unnatural way they always did, hiding the worst of it from sight even though it changed nothing about what lay beneath.
"Still me," he murmured under his breath, testing the words again, quieter this time, like saying them softly enough might make them truer than they'd felt all day. He blinked, and the reflection in the mirror blinked with him. Was he still himself? Or was the better question, did he even know himself anymore?
It wasn't a question he asked lightly. He'd spent years avoiding it, burying it beneath missions and training and the steady accumulation of power that came from never quite stopping to look too closely at what all that power had cost him. But standing here now, damp-haired and bare-chested in front of a mirror that refused to lie the way he did to everyone else, the question refused to be buried any longer.
He lifted a hand, slow and deliberate, watching the way the faint green glow in his eyes tracked the movement in the glass. There was something almost clinical in the way he studied himself now, the same detachment he might use cataloguing an enemy's weaknesses before a fight. Skin too pale, veins faintly visible beneath the surface, threading dark beneath his collarbone like something had taken root there and never quite let go. His wings, still settling behind him, the membrane catching the bathroom light in uneven patches where decay chased regrowth in that same endless, exhausting cycle. None of it looked like him. And yet none of it looked like anything else, either. It was simply what he'd become, slowly enough that he'd never noticed the precise moment the boy from Fairy Tail had finished disappearing.
He thought of Vanessa down the hall, curled up in the guest bed by now, probably still fighting sleep, still turning his promise over in her mind the way she always did when she didn't quite believe something but wanted to. He thought of the easy way she called him her big brother, like the title still fit him the same way it had years ago, like nothing about him had shifted enough to make the word feel like borrowed clothing. She still saw him as Aelius. Not this. Not the thing reflected in the glass with its faint glow and its wings that refused to stay whole.
Maybe that was the cruelest part of it all. Not the rot, not the wings, not even the gradual hollowing out of whatever softness he'd once carried. The cruelest part was that the people who loved him still saw someone who no longer fully existed, and he kept letting them, because the alternative meant admitting just how much of himself he'd already lost without ever marking the funeral.
He exhaled slowly, fogging a small patch of the mirror in front of his mouth, watching it shrink and vanish all over again. Even his own breath seemed determined to remind him that everything about him was temporary, transitional, caught permanently between what he used to be and whatever he was still becoming.
Was he lying when he told Vanessa he was still himself? He turned the question over again, more carefully this time, less like an accusation and more like an actual attempt at honesty, if only to himself, if only for a moment, since there was no one left awake to perform composure for. He didn't think it was a lie, not entirely. There were pieces of the old Aelius still buried somewhere beneath all of this, fragments that surfaced when Vanessa teased him, when Macao made some exhausted joke at his expense, when he caught himself almost smiling at something stupid one of the guild's idiots had done. Those pieces were real. They hadn't been erased, not completely.
But they weren't the whole truth either. Not anymore. The version of him that existed now was something stitched together from both, the boy who'd once wandered wide-eyed into a guild hall and the thing currently staring back at him with glowing eyes and wings that wouldn't stop rotting and regrowing in an endless, mocking cycle. He was both. He was neither. He existed somewhere in the space between, refusing to fully commit to either version because doing so felt like a kind of death he wasn't ready to name.
He studied his own face a moment longer, searching for some kind of answer in the lines of it, in the tired set of his mouth, in the faint shadows beneath eyes that glowed faintly even now in the dim light. He didn't find one. Maybe there wasn't one to find. Maybe the question itself was the wrong kind of question entirely, asking for a single, clean truth from something that had never been simple to begin with.
"Still me," he said again, one final time, and this time he didn't bother pretending the words felt any truer than before.
He reached out and wiped the rest of the condensation away with his palm, smearing his reflection into something blurred and indistinct, easier to look at than the version of himself the glass had been so determined to show him. Then he turned away, flicked off the light, and let the darkness of the hallway swallow the question whole, at least for tonight.
Tomorrow, he suspected, it would simply wait for him to look again.