be as you've always been

Its easier, in the long run, to just watch Cian with the rapt attention that they often inspire in him. The steady set of their shoulders, the curious gleam in their eyes, the caution with which they approach the house. He trails after them, draws his fingers along surfaces absentmindedly, collecting dust. There were maids once, who cleaned. An alien concept. Servants who came and went through living rooms and drawing rooms and libraries, dining rooms and kitchens. 

“Plenty of bedrooms, upstairs. For the people who want them.” He says, more explanations, talking just to fill the space. “I figured –– there are some people too scared for the real world, too uncomfortable in court.” A shrug of his shoulders, absentminded. 

The doors to the drawing room stand open still, calling Brin to the precipice of entry, eyes flicking around the room. Skirting over the portrait of the old man himself, unwilling to linger on it in the dim light. He lets himself float over to the old piano, carefully lifts the lid, absently strokes a key. 

“It won’t hurt anyone, anyway. To clear it out and have it ready.” He shoots Cian a smile, sure it looks as whole and complete as it ought to in the low light of the room. “Ailis will like it, I’m sure. Make it her little war kingdom.” 

A breath, necessary in the slow warm air, eyes focused on the things in the room that are vital and alive and so bright, all potential and adoration. “So –– be as indiscriminate as you like, I suppose. We can just…shove anything that looks like it might get in the way into storage somewhere.”

It has only been a few short months, but Cian has become well-studied in the art of reading Brín’s ever-changing moods, reading his actions and the elisions between them, knowing when there’s something he’s not saying and the difference between when it’s something he wants you to guess and something he desperately doesn’t. This is the latter, Cian knows, as Brín pointedly avoids looking at the portrait on the wall of this room, keeps his eyes cast towards anything else, fixes himself with his back to it at the piano and goes on smiling and pretending that everything’s alright.

It’s so, so clear that everything isn’t alright. That whatever this house is, wherever Brín got it, whatever memories live here for him, they hurt. 

They aren’t sure, still, if they should press on that bruise or not. If they should play along with the ruse. He won’t lie, if they ask; he can’t. But that doesn’t make Cian want to know any less. 

     ‘Okay,’ they reply, taking a look around the room. It’s decorated in the way that people who want to show off how much money they have decorate: not a lot of stuff, but every piece looks like it costs more than Cian’s entire grant. Not just the piano but a velvet fainting couch with ornate wooden carvings, a chest of drawers with dozens of drawers. They open a few of the drawers absently—a stack of what look like visiting cards takes up one of them, a half dozen candles fill another. One is full of graphite sketches on fine paper, various flowers on the top few. They take them out, to get a closer look—

And find Brín’s face staring back at them from one of the pages, rendered carefully in loving detail, smudged only slightly and unmistakably him. 

Her smile is coy and pleased, almost childishly wide as she rests her chin into the palm of her hand and settles herself in to listen. They must be a storyteller, in their own way, she considers as she watches them comb through their mind for the tales to tell her. Apparently there are many, enough that the moment drags with honey sweetness and lets the anticipation build. 

Lovely Fiash of the Hidden Fields, oh, she did like to be a benevolent god on occasion. An old memory stirs at the recollection, an unwell man so close to death, one of the many stray souls she had gathered over the years and offered kindness. She could always tell when they were good and pure of heart, could always feel the pull that inspired her toward such gentleness and affection. Lovely Fiadh in her hidden fields could offer kisses, sweet and slow as fresh honey, innocent and sweet. Yet she always sent the men who loved her home eventually, when she grew tired of their company and was certain they were well enough to make their way in the world once again. 

It’s the mention of the girl that makes her straighten once again, her smile fading in to something almost melancholic. That’s a memory that sits clearer in her mind, aching near the surface. Grainne had been such a sweet little thing. A child, once cherished, now gone. Fiadh was a mother mourning then, though her girl had lived a long and happy life in her care, though her girl had lived far longer than she might have in the mortal realm. She remembers how she’d found her, remembers her brute of a father, the fool of a man and all his folly. “He offered me an emerald set in a golden ring.” She says, voice dreamy with the memory of it. “It must have been a family heirloom.” Her smile, sadder now, is directed at Cian again. “It was lovely. Not as lovely as her.” 

She has to clear her throat, to try and brush away the longing for the girl. She wants to gather the cheerfulness back, though it’s softer than when this began. “Am I the villain in that tale?” Fiadh is curious to know, wonders if they think her a monster for stealing a child. “I hope you’ll understand that it was the kinder thing for me to do.” Voice low, a secret. “He was a brute, you know? He hurt her terribly, so I loved her instead.” 

The way her expression changes as they tell the stories erases any question that was in their mind beforehand. She is not only the Fiadh of those two stories: she is the Fiadh of all of them. The whole archetype, the whole chapter. Fiadh of the Hidden Valley, Fiadh the Mother of Many, and all the rest. Dozens of stories, forty or fifty of them in various lengths, one of the most recurrent names in all of the folklore... and she’s sitting, right here, next to them. Braiding a flower crown. She’d offered them stream water. She was asking them if they understood, why she had done what she had done.

They find themself frozen, for a moment, reeling from the realization of all of it. It was one thing, to study the fae all their life and one day realize all of it was real; it was one thing to feel out of place all their life and one day realize they were a part of it. It was another thing entirely to come face to face with the same one they had spent months of their degree dedicated to researching. It was another thing entirely for the stories to come to life in the figure of a woman before them.

     ‘I... yeah, I get that,’ they say, not as eloquent as they would have liked. But she’s right: she usually is the villain in that tale. Every fae who takes a child is, even when they don’t dangle the child like a prize in front of the parent who will never get them back. But... if it was better for the girl, to be with her than with her family, that changed things. Didn’t it? Did it make it kinder, that the girl was happy? Did it make it kinder, that the father deserved it? And had that been the case, every time? 

They’re quiet, for a moment, taking it all in, trying to understand the strange twisting in their chest at thinking of the story in a new light. 

     ‘Is that why you took them?’ they ask, after a moment. ‘The children you took? Because it was better for them, with you?’

Brín smiles at the joke, the mild jab at his own expense. It’s true enough, he hasn’t quite managed to make himself small and quiet and unassuming, hasn’t curbed the desperate need to swallow up every moment of their time. Sometimes, he thinks he would like to. To find a small place and tuck himself away there, be something small for Cian to keep. It’s a funny thought, and he knows he could probably never manage it. “Well, I do my best, petal.” 

It’s impossible not to watch with rapt attention as Cian dresses, the thoughtful little wrinkles on their face as they pull on their clothes. He wants to move, to close the distance between them and touch Cian in this bright morning light, press more kisses to the soft and slightly stubbled skin of their face. They’d be doomed, then, to spend the entire day in bed. He can’t allow himself to do it, but he entertains the thought none the less, lets himself get lost in it and lulled into some semblance of peace. Small indeed. Perhaps he might find happiness in a life where he wasn’t a Prince, a leader. Cian could keep him tucked away here and pull him out when they wanted, for whatever gentle purpose they concocted. 

Their voice pulls him out of the thoughts, and his eyes focus properly on them again. It takes a moment to fully comprehend what Cian is asking, and once he’s caught up he smiles. Caught off guard, it must brighten up his face more than anything else has managed today. “A party? Hoping to show me off, eh?” He teases, slow and quiet. Imagining it is a sweet thing. Cian in their element, surrounded by human friends at a human party. Drinks and things. He unfolds himself from where he’s been standing, clasps his hands together in light amusement as he ponders it. “I’ll go. ‘Tis only fair. They’ll all be astounded and delighted by me, as per usual, I’m sure.” 

Brín holds out a hand, unclasped, a gentle offering. This is a new phenomenon, but he rarely wants to go anywhere now without holding their hand. Awful and sentimental, like a lovestruck fool. “Come along, petal. The sooner we go the sooner you can come home again.”

There’s a heavy weight in the air after she utters her name. A spark of recognition that sets the world around them ablaze with some low level of curiosity and wonder. The look on their face is almost a whirlwind, a thoughtful little show of a thing. There are cogs within their mind, twirling round and round and round. 

The surprise in their voice has her tilting her head, slow and curious and a little wondering. She lets out a laugh, sweet and melodic and slow. “Stories?” She asks, in a gleeful and curious tone. 

It makes her wonder. All those men who crossed her paths. The ones she wounded and the ones she drowned. The ones to whom she offered shelter and food, singing them sweet songs and braiding flowers in their hair. So many of them had been guileless things, had given in so quickly to love in the face of her. She’d won them with brief kisses and allowed them to find rest with her, and in the morning sent them on their way again. Sometimes, when they sat beside her near her lake, the pulled out small instruments and wrote her songs. They promised her they would tell all that they met of her wonder, her magic and her beauty. 

She wonders what they told the world of her. What stories they shaped with their words. Was she a creature of glory, then? Was she a beauty and a terror all in one? “There have been many opportunities for those I knew to tell stories of me. Tell me, little one, what tales have you read of me? I’ll tell you if they’re true.” 

They aren’t expecting the request, though it feels silly now she’s said it, to not have expected it. The fae, they know, are all a little vain, in their own ways; they haven’t met one yet who hasn’t wanted stories to be told about them.

     ‘Well, er—rather a lot, really,’ they start. They wish they had their books with them, or their notes, wish they could recite the lyrical quality all of those tales seem to have, the sing-songy dreaminess of them. It feels well-suited to the evening, the quiet over here by this tree, the soft lilt of her voice. ‘But, ah...’

They pick one, at random, and clear their throat. They won’t be able to recite the exact language of it, but they know these stories like the back of their hand, especially the countless Fiadh-archetype stories they’ve used in their dissertation.

     ‘There’s Lovely Fiadh of the Hidden Fields, who finds an injured farmer just off the road and takes him back to, well, the hidden fields so she can nurse him back to health, and he falls madly in love with her, only to wake up one day back in his own bed on his own farm. Or the one where a father goes searching for his lost daughter and finds her dancing in the flowers with Fiadh, who tells him he must return in three weeks with a stone of equal value to his daughter if he wants her to come home—only, when he returns with the stone, she tells him that no stone could be worth the life of a young girl and refuses to let the girl go...’

There’s an inherent contradiction, to the stories, that has always given scholars pause: in some, Fiadh is so kind, benevolent; in others, she is cruel and tricky. Cian doesn’t think it’s a contradiction. They think it’s probably just the nature of a being so ancient, to sometimes seem fickle. 

Aoibheann lets her feet sink against the grass, feel the soil beneath, as the settle in. She watches Cian, too, making sure that they’re comfortable. This scene isn’t their favorite, after all. At their question, Aoibheann nods once. Right – sometimes it catches her by surprise, how long she’s been in this world. How long Cian hasn’t been. Years. She’s had years to find her niche, to pick and choose and decide on just who and what she would be. For Cian, it’s been…mere months. And they’ve never experienced Midsummer.

“You’ve seen most of it,” Aoibheann says, waving a hand to indicate the festivities before them. “The feast, the fires, dancing. Offerings are made, too. To the sun, to the fallen, but mostly to the Unseelie Queen and to the Prince.” Her eyes trail along the crowd but she can spot neither monarch. “Honestly, the most…remarkable thing about Midsummer, what I like most about it, is that everyone comes together. Seelie, Unseelie, fair folk and humans…” Aoibheann pulls her knees close and hugs them around her chest. Her smile is guarded, but genuine. “No one wants to make me choose, on Midsummer.”

A hint of dread settles on her shoulders as she watches two fae, Unseelie and Seelie, speaking in hushed tones across the way. “And, of course, this year, the coming together has an extra purpose. I’m sure there are talks happening. Plans being made, about the murders.”

No one makes me want to choose. 

There so much more they have in common than just a shared heritage, a shared circumstance. There is, in both of them, the tug of indecision, even if it’s different. It would be nice, they think, to be somewhere where no one was trying to make them choose. It would be nice to have a breath between. No wonder she likes it so much, this grand overdone outdoor party with all its elaborate wines and intricate traditions. Everyone, all together. A moment not to think about sides.

It isn’t the same, for them. By being asked to be here, they’ve been asked to choose, in some respect or another. Every time they step into a green space, or into Loophole, every time they do something Brín has asked, they are choosing, just a little bit more, even if they don’t want to admit it. 

Just talking to her is choosing, in a way, between the two different people Cian Callaghan could be. 

But their own existential crisis doesn’t mean they’re going to stop her from enjoying the day to its fullest. That wouldn’t be fair of them. 

     ‘Well,’ they say, raising their glass to touch hers. ‘Let’s not dwell on the negatives, right? Come on, let’s finish these drinks and, I don’t know, dance or something, if you don’t mind the fact that I can’t dance for shit.’

It’s a stupidly prominent ache, the lack fo their touch. Nothing to do but get up and move, start rummaging through their things for something they can wear to the party. A new anxiety is creeping in, something always at the edges of Bríns mind. The fear that he’s failing. The fear that he isn’t doing everything he should, too distracted, too scared, too sad. There are whispers of it, he knows. He can feel them on his skin, the doubts that seek to scratch and claw and take away all that he holds dear. 

Cian is a balm. Their touch, their eyes, their mundane life. He cares for them too deeply, is soothed too well by their very presence. He feels bad, asking them to come when he knows they’d rather stay away. But he might crumble if he can’t look across the crowd and find their eyes. He needs the certainty of that. 

“Okay.” He calls back, certain and sure. “Whenever you like, really.” His fingers stop on a shirt, one he knows Cian looks rather dashing in. He plucks it out of the pile, sets it on the bed with the rest of the things he’d gathered. Things that Cian finds comfortable, that they would pick out for themself, things he’s seen them wear to loophole. 

He moves then, to lean against the bathroom door and look at them. “I know how important your work is, really.” He offers them a smile, sweet and slow. “I’ll even watch you work on it for as many hours as you like, tomorrow. Be quiet as a mouse and all.” 

They laugh, at the last comment—Brín knows full well that if he’s around, Cian won’t work. He’s only one in a list of things that’s been distracting Cian from completing their dissertation the past few months, but he’s really a rather large one of those things, needy and lovely and restless in all the worst ways, all the best ways. He’ll say something like but petal, it’s so sunny outside, wouldn’t you rather be out there? Or, but petal, you look so tired, we should go get you a coffee and a little walk around the block, and next thing Cian knows, the day will be over and they’ll have gotten nothing done once again. He means well, he does, but they’re too far gone already.

     ‘You are, historically, very quiet,’ they joke as they emerge from the bathroom, grabbing the clothes he’s picked out and starting to tug them on. A soft v-neck, their favorite jeans. They’re going to have to do laundry, this week, they think distantly, to wear their summer-going-out-outfit again next weekend, but it already feels like such a faraway prospect, the mundanity of something like laundry, with Brín standing there. The kind of thought that worries them, when they have it, a reminder of how easy it would be to stop thinking at all and leave it all behind.

But there are things they don’t want to let go of. There are so many things they don’t want to lose.

     ‘Hey,’ they say, the thought occurring to them all at once. ‘Since I’m goin to your party, you should come with me. Afric and me, next weekend. Our mate Liam’s having a birthday party. Drinks and things.’ Silly human party, so different from the kinds of things Brín is used to. They don’t know what they expect him to say, in answer, once they’ve asked it, but they find themself holding their breath as they wait. 

She offers them a warm smile as they drink, hoping it helps to clear the mind. So many people walk around in a fog, so many people hardly know what’s going on. Fiadh suffers from it too, jumbled thoughts and things she can’t quite make sense of. She’d rather have a clear head, at any given moment. 

Her fingers wrap around the cup again, a small nod of thanks in their direction. They seem to be such a world-weary thing, already tired of it all. At war within themself, that’s what it is. Pulled in too many directions. Never where they think they’re supposed to be. She wonders why. She wonders what would help them, in the end. To settle their spirit would be a victory for the ages. 

“Maybe they’ll manage it someday.” She offers. “It’s wishful thinking –– but maybe.” A soft smile, half a condolence already. The cup finds its place on the ground again, and her fingers return to the delicate braiding of flowers. Absentminded work. “That’s why I usually live on my own. Too much noise. Too many people. All those strong opinions they have. It’s much nicer to take life one person at a time and –– oh, i’ve been terribly rude. You don’t even know my name.” She holds out a flower, a delicate wild thing, for them to take. “I’m Fiadh.” 

They take the flower, begin to reply with their own name, when the familiarity of her name hits them. Fiadh. A name they have typed a thousand times over, a name they have read a thousand more. A name that adorns the title of an entire chapter of their dissertation, back on their laptop at home. Fiadh of the hidden valley, Fiadh of the lake. Mother of many. There were a dozen or more stories, of a faerie woman with that name, dwelling on her own, far away from others. 

Surely, it’s a common enough name, though large parts of their chapter on the Fiadh ur-myth are about speculation as to whether all the stories are about the same Fiadh or if the name became a shorthand for any faerie woman living in solitude. There are similarities, among them, and differences. Some which mention drowning men, some which mention stealing children, some which mention neither thing at all. They had settled firmly on the literary archetype side of the debate, deciding in their own conclusion that there was no single Fiadh, that the name became applied to any story of a wild and solitary and beautiful woman whose actual name had been lost to time.

But... 

     ‘Fiadh,’ they repeat, their voice sounding surprised. And then, after a moment. ‘No, god, sorry, it’s just, I wonder if I’ve read stories about you.’

It’s an alien thing, to feel a little guilty about getting what he wants. Cian by his side, out there behind the veil. It’s been something Brín has wanted for weeks, since the first night he saw them. That spark, that curiosity, that connection. He didn’t know it would make him feel like this in the end, like someone had the power to unfold every layer and look into the soul of him. 

He pulls back at the sound of their voice, touches their precious cheeks and giving them the gentlest smile. “Yes. I can do that.” He agrees, and after a moment adds on to it. “Thank you.” He says it quietly, an honest and lovely thing. “I promise, it won’t be as bad as you think.” 

Brín leans forward, then, indulging in another moment of quiet peace. He kisses Cian again, lingering and sweet. Curls fingers into their hair and finds himself wanting. Wishing he could give in. Since when is Brín a person who would trade a party for a day held in someone else’s arms? Maybe he always has been. He’d done it before, after all, when the world needed him less. Wasted years and years being held by someone.

It’s terrifying to think he might be willing to do it again. Love on the horizon, building inside him like a parasite. He kisses them too gently, knows it must be telling. Someday, Cian Callaghan is going to see right through him and tear him apart. When he pulls away, it hardly counts as movement. Another little peck to the corner of their mouth, a kiss to their cheek. Tender and open.

“You can go whenever you want. Just tell me when you want to, okay?” He says it as he finally shifts backward, fingers grazing over their cheek again. 

He can’t lie. Neither of them can. But Cian still finds it hard to believe that he can actually promise that it won’t be as bad as they think. Not that Brín has broken a promise to them before, but the phrase seems like it should come with a hefty bit more weight coming from him that it might have coming from one of Cian’s past significant others promising them they wouldn’t be miserable at a party they didn’t want to go to.

They can feel it, as he kisses them, can feel that if they pushed a little harder he might give in. But they don’t have the heart to follow through—he’s right, he ought to be there. He’s kept his promises to Cian so far. The least they can do is not get in his way. 

     ‘Yeah, sure,’ they say, thought they don’t foresee a situation in which they decide they want to go and Brín tears himself from the lavish attention of his court just to tag along home with them. 

They pull away, finally, to get up, head into the adjoining bathroom to brush their teeth, try to make themself presentable. The state of the bathroom that meets them is dire, a stark reflection of what life has been for them the past few weeks, alternating periods of days where they can’t bring themself to get out of bed and days when all they want to do is desperately search out distractions, ending up and Loophole night after night and tugging Brín home along with them. The bathroom is a mess, but Cian’s sure the state of their degree is all the messier.

Aoibheann can’t help but smile a little at Cian’s hold-over annoyance. It seems an odd match at first, maybe, surface level, them and the Prince. But something in Aoibheann likes it, likes the way Cian likes it, if nothing else. She tucks her arm through theirs, physically offering her support. They might not be the most pleased to be present, but Aoibheann is. Of all the people she’s been hoping to see today, Cian was top of the list. 

There’s something different about Cian – or maybe there’s something different about her. About the way they hold themself among the fae. At a distance, so solid and firm. Aoibheann all but threw herself into the daydream that was the fae world at her first exposure. Yes, she’s pulled back since, but it seems an interesting thing, to exercise such restrain. Even when (especially when) considering their entanglement with the Prince.

“I’m sure some of it is less good than other,” Aoibheann reasons. Their backtrack makes her laugh a little, but she does cast her eyes around. They’re not wrong, is the thing, that seems like just the challenge a fae would delight in making. “Let’s not do that. My favorite is the lavender mead and the cherry wine.”

They admire Aoibheann’s comfort, here—she blends right in, among them, flower crown on her head, easy attitude. They watch, as she gets them both cups of mead, as the two of them find somewhere on the grass to settle down and sit while they drink it. It’s like looking through a portal into another lifetime, into another version of themself who could have come up against all of this and just been okay with it all. Like looking at a version of the person they ought to be. The person it would be easier if they were. 

It’s a miracle, that they haven’t run away from her, really. There are so many others they have, so many people like them who made them want to turn tail and flee, people who pushed and people who questioned and people who refused to understand that all they really wanted was to be left alone and not be expected to live this life without reservations, embrace it without so much as mourning the life they’d be leaving behind if they did. But Aiobheann had never done any of that. She had simply... let them be.

     ‘So,’ they say, once they’re both seated comfortably, mead in hand. ‘Midsummer, huh? Since Brín apparently isn’t planning on showing me around, help me out here, give me the highlights.’

The moment passes where Fiadh wonders if this stranger will turn tail and make their departure, brisk and wary. They come closer instead, a little part of her cheering with joy at it. She watches as they settle with an almost serene smile. Lets herself sink in to the instinct of calm and comfort and almost kindred spirits. 

“I don’t usually do all this.” She admits, a voice that says she agrees with everything they’re thinking. This was all what she had left behind, long ago. Courts full of people, parties from dawn until dusk. She’d carved out some peace and quiet for herself instead, far away, and filled it with only those she had chosen. It was a different kind of life, wilder and freer than those who lived in courts could even imagine. They didn’t know that they had almost become domesticated things, well kept and happy with each other as their masters. “Court. The celebrations with the turning of every season. They don’t know how to do anything quietly.” 

They look so young, sitting here beside her. Young and full of doubt. Wariness directed more at the world than at her, she realises. She sets her circlet of flowers down in her lap and reaches to her side, grasps a borrowed cup from the celebrations and holds it out to them. “Here. It’s water. There’s a steam, that way ––” she gestures with her eyes, a slight incline of her head. “I brought it for myself, but it looks like you might need it.” 

The old wariness comes back quickly—don’t take anything they offer you, don’t tell them your name, don’t eat anything or drink anything or say anything that might offend them—well-worn litanies and lessons that everything Cian has learned has taught, but there is something in him that still it all, stops it all: what is the point, of being one of them, if you still have to worry about all of that shite. It’s not something they let themself thing, often; it’s something they try their level best to ignore. But they aren’t an idiot. Denial doesn’t mean they don’t know. 

They take the water, from her, with a nod of gratitude. It is cool, and crystal clear, and it gives them a clarity they aren’t used to, when they drink it, the fog left by the little alcohol they’ve had today lifting. Clarity isn’t something they’ve sought out, lately, preferring distraction and pushing everything else to the side, but once they have it, it suddenly feels like maybe they shouldn’t have been avoiding it all this time.

     ‘No, they certainly don’t,’ they reply, handing the cup back to her. ‘I wish they did; I think it might make things a little bit easier.’

There’s a comfortable spot to sit, on the outskirts of the festivities, a tree which Fiadh puts her back against and works, braiding flowers together absentmindedly with deft fingers. The cool of the night is washing over her, a balm compared to the endless streaming of sunlight earlier in the day. She wonders if it lingered for as long in the mortal realm, wonders if it aches to set behind the horizon and leave them all, if even for a few scant hours. 

She notices the person approaching her long before they do. A sweet looking thing. She thinks perhaps that she saw them before, somewhere through the crowd. They’d looked so lost, for a brief moment, in a way that made her ache. Fiadh is a collector of lost things, she’d longed to sooth the wrinkles from their forehead and walk them toward some peace. She’d wanted to know their worries and their woes and iron them out until all seemed well again. 

“Hello.” She says, amused at their awkward greeting. Her eyes are welcoming, guileless, hoping against hope that their obvious longing to be alone won’t drive them away from her immediately. “I take it that you found the festivities as overwhelming as I did.” A truth for them, offered freely. The noise is alien and strange to her, and she grew tired of it long before she ventured off on her own. “Feel free to come and sit, if you like. It’s much quieter here.” 

She sounds so kind, when she speaks, gentle in a way so many others don’t these days, a little bit of peace lurking somewhere behind it. And where once they think they might have been afraid to approach a stranger, where once they would have cautioned themself with all the old tales and warnings about strangers in the woods, they find themself moving closer anyway. 

     ‘No, it’s not exactly my, uhh... my scene.’

They do sit, if only because she’s right—it is quieter, here, a peaceful little spot and as much as they would like to delude themself into believing that they’ll be heading home any minute now a part of them knows that’s not the case. There is a careful pull and push, these days, in the life of Cian Callaghan, indulging their instincts just enough that they won’t rupture and those instincts won’t take over in some way they can’t control. A quiet conversation, at the end of the party, before leaving—it’s a measured thing. One last moment before they return home to quell the spirits of the wild that call them. 

     ‘I guess we have that in common.’

It’s dark, already, somehow. It’s dark, and Brín is nowhere to be seen—which isn’t a surprise. But Cian had meant to leave earlier than this, had meant to make their excuses and get out around mid-afternoon, found some way to make it up to Brín later. 

But it’s dark, and growing darker, because even on the longest day of the year the sun still sets, and even when they mean well, Cian cannot seem to help but lose track of time when fae wine and fae revelry are involved. It’s dark, and growing darker, and they are so lost in their thoughts about how they meant to leave before now and how they ought to leave now, before the threat of unwanted unseelie attention grows any more that they hardly notice a woman staring at them from across the clearing, in the direction they were headed. 

     ‘Er,’ they say, and then raise a hand in greeting, hoping in the back of their mind that this isn’t the exact unwanted attention they were hoping to avoid. She doesn’t look threatening, though—which, of course, doesn’t mean anything. Doesn’t look Unseelie, either. Just looks curious, as she watches them. ‘Hi there.’

Brín can’t help but smile. He’s been doing it so often lately, a real smile. Disarmed and out of his own control, smiling because he feels something so achingly soft that he has to smile about it. It all feels too precious for this world, too good to last. Cian is going to think better of this soon and leave him. They’re such a smart little thing, so desperately clever. Brín should have higher self esteem than this, but Cian still might up and leave at the end of the day. 

He lets out a soft hum. “Solstice already. Snuck up on you, did it?” Voice too gentle, already petering off as Cian leans forward and Brín moves to meet them in the gentle, sleep sweet kiss. it’s hard not to melt into it, just a little bit, the kiss and the touch of their hands, things that Brín seems to be aching for at every moment of the day. 

He’s getting rather too attached, and he can’t bring himself to pull away from it. Brín moves closer instead, and when the kiss breaks settles his head down with an amused huff, pressing a messy kiss to Cian’s shoulder. 

“I’m already fashionably late, love. The sun rose hours ago.” It’s his prerogative as a Prince to arrive whenever he pleases, but it’s going to boarder on unspeakably rude at a certain point. Brín can sense the reluctance in them, and it catches in his throat. He moves a gentle hand through their hair, nuzzles closer for a moment. “It’s important that I go.” 

And then, with hesitation. “You don’t have to come with me, if you’d rather stay here.” He regrets it the moment he says it, afraid that Cian will actually agree. “But I’d like it rather a lot if you did.” 

They operate on different clocks, Brín and Cian, different scales of time entirely. Cian had never, before, been one to mark the passage of time by the solstice and equinox, too busy keeping track of when the next Saturday was to think on grander scales than that, and early didn’t mean sunrise, it meant the nine am alarm they had set for every morning to make sure they got out of bed and went to the library on campus to pretend to get some work done, or teach their class, or see their advisor, or whatever other little errands they had to take care of.

They know it’s important, for him. They know he has responsibilities of a kind far different to their own. Especially with everything that’s happening. Their chest aches, for a moment, with guilt, that they have been thinking of their own petty problems above his, but it doesn’t stop the want, or the fear, or the tightness in their throat to feel it. 

He wants them there, but what he doesn’t realize is that he’s the only one who has made them a promise: if they could stay at his side the whole time they wouldn’t have to worry about being pulled into everything like a drowning man pulled down by the current. But Brín will get distracted and flutter off to go be adored and there will be a whole host of eager fae there just waiting to see how thin Cian’s skin really is.

They give themself a moment, eyes closed, face pressed against the side of Brín’s head, a moment to indulge every selfish urge they’ve ever had and every anxious thought they’ve been trying to ignore. Just a moment.

     ‘Can you find some clothes while I brush my teeth?’ they mumble, against his skin, finally giving in.

It’s not hard to gauge that Cian would rather be anywhere else at the moment. They haven’t known each other long but already Aoibheann feels she has a sure-enough grasp on her friend, on their ways and mannerisms. Not that it takes a PhD in Cian to sense their discomfort. But still, they grant her a smile, however brief and dredged it may be. And that alone warms something in the hollows of her chest.

“No, but I would think you might have some idea of how to persuade him otherwise,” there’s a lilting tease of innuendo on Aoibheann’s words but she doesn’t carry it much further than that. After all, she’s looking to set her friend at ease. Her face shifts, just a bit, at the mention of a horror film. Because she doesn’t like to admit it and she tries to ignore it, but every event with fae has the potential to be a horror film, these days. Aoibheann would hope that with so many of them, all of them watching one another, there wouldn’t be the chance for it. It seems impossible, in the light of the longest day.

“Well,” she says, swallowing past the fear and concern as she so often does, “I don’t think we’re in for any jump-scares or ominous music.” But she can’t know, neither can Cian, none of them can. And isn’t that the very problem. “Um,” she trips, hoping to find some distraction, “have you had a chance to try to lavender mead yet? It’s so very good. You’d like it, I think.” Hand still in theirs, she trails toward the casks. They can focus on the drink and the food, the dance and festivities.

     ‘Believe me, I tried,’ they answer, half-exasperated, but it’s hard to stay annoyed with Aoibheann around—a little ball of energy, like some kind of electric will-o-wisp fluttering about their shoulders. She’s contagious, a little, especially as she starts dragging them over to where the alcohol is flowing plentiful. It feels like they’re finally starting to build up enough of a tolerance to the particular strength of fae alcohol, to the point where they can enjoy some without worrying that they’re going to lose track of the world completely as soon as they do.

It’s been a particular vice of theirs lately: dulling the stinging buzz of anxiety with a few fae drinks, at Loophole, in the evenings, quieting the thrum of worry threatening to beat down the walls in their head, the ever-summoning whisper come on give up give in get lost they hear every time they walk past a patch of green amidst the city, familiar from a long childhood spent near the woods, something they thought they’d quieted completely when they moved to the city at seventeen. An ancient summons, pulling at their chest, however desperately resisted, and harder to ignore by the day.

They could lose themself completely, here, if they tried. Or—no, if they stopped trying. 

      ‘Is any of it not good?’ they ask, looking out over the vast selection of drinks the Unseelie Court has provided. ‘Actually, don’t answer that, someone’s going to take that as an invitation to make me try all of it.’