#YO guess who is a dirty liar this was done actually aside from a lil bit of final editing

[lvllns]

a loose follow up to this.

—

“I think,” Sparrow says as they sit next to him, “that I should show you a few things.”

Mason lifts a brow. “Fun things or…?”

They grin, a bit of fang peeking out from behind their upper lip. “Not really.” A finger plucks at the hem of their sweater before they sigh, dropping their head back against the sofa. “Before this,” they say with a wave of their hand, “I had, um, kind of started putting some shit together.”

He leans against the arm of the couch, head cocking to the side. Sparrow still looks a little too pale, whatever sun had kissed their skin before fading a little as they adjust to this new normal for them. It’s been a rough couple of months. The initial turning had gone about as smooth as they could have all wanted. Sparrow was down for two days, sleeping and only waking up to stare at the wall in a haze before slipping back under. Mason was sitting there, their hand in his, on the third day when they woke with a hiss, squinting, and immediately starting to complain about how hungry they were. The months after consisted of figuring out their strengths, understanding new weaknesses, and settling into a new normal.

Pressure on his hand and Mason blinks. Looks down and finds Sparrow’s fingers twined with his.

Their grip is stronger now.

“You good?” they ask, eyes brimming with concern.

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” he says with a shrug, squeezing their hand back. “Lost in thought.” Sparrow hums, searching his face, and he stills them when he cups their cheek. “Promise darling, nothing terrible, just thinking about, well.” Mason reaches up and pokes at their lip, right over where he knows their new fangs are hiding. “That.”

They bat at his hand, laughing brightly. “These?” A wide smile, lips peeling back just enough to reveal two long, pointed canines. They’re out more often than not these days as they learn how their emotions influence the appearance of their fangs. Sparrow drags their tongue along their teeth. “I’m fond of them.”

Mason thinks about last night, about the way it felt for them to sink into him in a new way, and absently rubs the inside of his thigh. “Me too.”

“That’s not what I want to talk about,” they say, scooting away from him with a shake of their head. “It’s all this.”

He watches as they lean around to the side, grabbing a box off the ground and plopping it down on the sofa cushion between them. Sparrow taps their fingers on the cardboard lid before yanking it off and tossing it to the floor.

“What…” Mason frowns as he looks into the box.

It’s stuffed with books. Well, some books, mostly what look like photo albums and a decent number of journals. There’s a well-worn copy of The Iliad in there, and he notices it immediately because he knows it’s their favorite copy. The one they’ve read a few dozen times, that’s so full of sticky notes and annotations you can hardly read the original text.

“Sparrow?” he asks, voice soft. “What is this?”

They take a deep breath, a habit they still haven’t dropped, and look at the wall behind him. “Before we talked about this, before I decided to turn, I knew I was going to die.” He opens his mouth, but they lift a hand. “Humans die, Mason.” They look at him now, eyes glinting in the soft light of their warehouse bedroom. “I wasn’t planning on dying for another few decades, but shit happens.” They frown. “I think…it was about a year after we met that I started…compiling things.”

The box is nudged in his direction, and he carefully removes the top photo album. He rests it on his lap, watching them and ignoring it, until they motion for him to flip it open. It isn’t until the cover cracks that they continue.

“Pictures, mostly. I’ve always loved photography, always loved looking back at pictures of my father. I figured, you know, when I was gone…” Sparrow clears their throat, their voice cracking as they speak. “I wanted you to have things to look back at,” they whisper. “I mean, you were taking your own pictures too, but…some of those were taken by Felix, Nat, Tina, among others.”

Mason pauses looking through the album, stopping on a picture of him with Sparrow in his arms. Their head is thrown back, eyes shut tight as they laugh, and his hands rest on their thighs.

He swallows. “Who took this one?”

They lean over to look before chuckling. “Ava, if you can believe it.” Sparrow taps the picture. “That was the Scotland trip.”

“It was,” he says quietly. “The day before we left, pretty sure I had just told a fucking terrible joke.”

“I still think it was hilarious.”

A soft laugh, and then he says, “You look so happy.”

Sparrow hums. “I always do when I’m with you, and I…I wanted to be able to leave you with that knowledge.” They scratch at their jaw before rubbing their forehead. “Your memories…I didn’t know what would happen when I…”

His jaw drops open. It’s not something he had thought about, willfully ignoring that critical piece of information. “You were worried your death…could have…” Mason’s voice cracks and he drops the photo album onto the sofa. Presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Fuck Sparrow.”

“I didn’t want you to forget,” they murmur, a hand reaching out to brush his hair behind his ear. “I didn’t know what would happen, I didn’t…I wanted you to have something to remember eventually, if it proved to be too much at the time.”

“Shit,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Do you want to stop?” Their hand runs through his hair, blunt nails scratching at his scalp. “We hardly need to talk about all of this right now after all.”

He shakes his head. “No, no, let’s just, fuck, if you don’t do this now, I’ll never let you talk about it again.” Mason looks up at them. Immediately, their thumbs sweep under his eyes, catching the tears and wiping them away.

“Okay,” they say. “The rest of these are journals.” Sparrow pulls a leather bound book out, relatively thick, and they set it on the coffee table. “Do not read them all at once,” they say with a soft smile. “It’s a lot.” They shift on the sofa. “I wrote a lot. Random things mostly. Quick notes about what we did, a shitty joke you told. Texts we sent back and forth, that kind of thing. There are a few, um, longer letters, I guess, in them.” Sparrow shakes their head. “A few I regret writing now because they’re such long goodbyes, but I think…you deserve to read them. They were for you, anyway.”

“If, Bird,” he says, not looking at them as he drags his fingers over a picture of them draped over Nat in the library, “if I want to…to burn the journals…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees them tilt their head. “They’re yours, beloved. I wrote them for you, to do whatever you need to do with.” A pale, freckled hand settles on his thigh, thumb rubbing the outside of his leg. “If you want to burn them, burn them. If you want to let them rot in a closet for thirty years before even touching them, do that.” Sparrow wiggles closer, sighing softly as they rest their head against his shoulder. “I did what I needed to at the time, now they’re yours to do what you need to with.”

Mason nods. Snaps the photo album shut and reaches around them to tuck it back in the box, trying not to jostle them too badly. He buries his face against the top of their head, eyes fluttering shut, and wraps his arms around them. Leaning down, he threads the fingers of his left hand with theirs. Not stopping until the rings on their fingers knock together with a soft click. Sparrow looks down, nose dragging along his throat, before they hum. Tuck themself back underneath his chin and throw a leg across his lap.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” he whispers into their hair. Speaking the words like a secret, planting sunflowers along their scalp. Mason rubs his thumb over their joined hands. “The letters…do you know where they are?”

Sparrow stiffens for a moment before nodding shallowly, not wanting to dislodge themself from where they sit under his jaw. “I do.”

“Can you take them?” Mason chews on his bottom lip for a second before, “Don’t destroy them but just…fuck, I don’t know. Hide them.”

“I can,” they say without a pause.

He exhales, body sagging, and kisses their temple. “Thank you.”

“I have you cariad,” they murmur, lips ghosting over his neck. “Always.”