Fandom Trash

Holy fuck, was she beautiful. 

Cassian allowed himself one quick assessing glance. The woman had long golden brown hair that fell in thick waves down her back and creamy skin that seemed to glow in the bright lights of the Villa. She was slightly above average height, with long elegant limbs and a posture that bordered ever so slightly on uptight. She was dressed in a long black dress with a slit up the right all the way up her leg, and a top that wrapped around her neck with a V down to her stomach. He blushed slightly as turned away, embarrassed that one second was enough for him to determine that this woman had the most perfect breasts in existence. He became too aware that he shouldn’t be looking. But he couldn’t stop himself, so he turned back to continue taking her in. Her face was as flawless as the rest of her. Sharp angles of her cheekbones and jaw that were almost cruelly beautiful, framing full perfect, slightly downturned lips painted red and a pert little nose that had a haughty air. And above that, the most mesmerizing eyes that existed, the first thing he had noticed about her. What had arrested him. Wide and almond shaped, in a smoldering light grey-blue. A winter sea. She was something wicked, something dangerous. The last siren, calling to Cassian to throw himself on the rocks at her feet without even saying a word. 

She didn’t smile. She didn’t demure. She stared down the men as if challenging them to approach her. And damn if it didn’t make Cassian want her more. Bron rose to escort her to the couch until the glower Cassian tossed him had him thinking better of it. After taking a beat to try and get his heartrate back down to a normal level, Cassian rose himself. 

Then he looked up from beneath his eyelashes, offering her a slashing, slanted grin as he tied his final knot.

“Anyone would think you were the one going into battle, love.”

“It doesn’t concern you?” Nesta asked, swallowing as she watched him lift the mail shirt over his head, the clink of metal doing little to soothe her. So heavy— and yet still so many places the tip of a blade could breach. The space at his neck - so horribly exposed - made her feel nauseous.

“Of course it does,” he said softly, coming to take her hands in his. His thumb brushed a soothing path across the backs of her knuckles, and as she looked at the scars already decorating those hands, she wanted nothing more than to bar the door and never let him leave again.

But there was nothing more she could do— his hair had already been pulled back tightly from his face, braided and woven without a single strand left loose. The silver earrings in his ears had been exchanged for simple silver bars, and the kohl beneath his eyes had been darkened and smudged, to make him look all the more fearsome in his helmet, he’d explained when she had looked curiously as he’d rubbed his thumb back and forth across his face. Still, those eyes were bright and focused, like a hawk that had just spotted its prey.

“I haven’t yet faced a battle I haven’t walked away from,” he reminded her with a blithe shrug and another swipe of his thumb across her knuckles. “And I trust that my brothers in arms will protect me as I will protect them.”

It should have comforted her.

Didn’t.

The sun had only barely risen, and the sky beyond the single window of his bedchamber was stained pink— like it had already tasted blood. From beyond that window drifted the smell of smoke; the fires of the army about to embark mingling with the plumes from blacksmith’s forge, still working to repair and produce weapons that would soon taste Saxon blood and end Saxon lives.

Nesta felt herself unspool like a drop-spindle, unravelling like a length of fine thread. She turned her face away, unable to bear it - bear any of it - as she rested a hand on her lover’s chest and felt the cold, solid weight of that mail shirt as it bit into the centre of her palm.

“We have the advantage, love,” Cassian said smoothly, dipping his head to look her firmly in the eye. His gaze was so certain, so unwaveringly resolute that Nesta swallowed. “Alfred’s army will be tired from marching north. We know this terrain; they do not. For weeks we have been scouting for advantageous ground. We do not go into battle unprepared.”

“I don’t like it,” she said, scowling.

Cassian only laughed, pressing a kiss to her brow, right where it furrowed. Against her will, it smoothed beneath his lips.

“Nor I,” he said simply. “Anything that takes me from your bed irks me.”

“Your bed,” Nesta corrected.

He only shrugged. “Mine. Yours. The end result is the same, no? You’re in it, either way.”

Nesta rolled her eyes - grasping at familiar straws, letting him quip - as he pulled away to tie a leather belt around the chainmail, a golden buckle gleaming at his waist as he pulled it taut. Such finery— even in battle, in the bloody and brutal game of war, there was finery. The buckle glinted in the light, countless cut and polished garnets winking from within a frame of thick yellow gold, so precious it seemed that it ought to be holding up the cloak of a king, not the sword belt of a soldier.

And yet--

This was no ordinary soldier.

Even amongst the Danes, he had a reputation. Nesta saw the way they looked at him, like he was one of their gods walking amongst them in a mortal shell. Like he was… Tyr, she thought, as the name rose to the forefront of her mind. The god of war.

And yet.

Tyr had lost a hand to a wolf, Nesta recalled. Cassian had told her the tale by the fireside, when the flames had gilded his face and ale had made his voice as smooth as honey. What would Cassian lose, as a man facing down death? A hand, too? Or something far more vital?

Her stomach churned again, the blood draining from her face.

“Pass me my sword,” Cassian said gently. Too gently. Like he knew she needed some kind of distraction to keep herself from spiralling over the life of a bloody Dane— one she was never supposed to care for, anyway.

It took considerable effort to steady her hands as Nesta reached for the wooden sheath that had been placed by his bed, resting against the frame, containing a sword with a golden pommel worked into the shape of wings. Bat wings, she realised, as she lifted it up into the weak light to admire yet more of the finery designed for battle and bloodshed. A ruby gleamed at the hilt, casting a glow across her fingers as her trembling hands closed around its hilt, balancing her grip as, for a long moment, she looked at the blade that had taken oh, so many lives and would yet take oh, so many more.

Once, it would have horrified her.

Yet now she looked at that well-honed weapon and didn’t care how many lives it had ended, only how many times it had saved the man who had wielded it. She didn’t care that it would be used, now, against people she had lived amongst her entire life. Instead she lifted the blade to her lips and pressed a kiss to the ruby in the pommel, pleading with whatever god was listening that the blade in her hands would protect the man standing in half his armour before her.

His face softened, so at odds with the weapons and the armour and the sounds of an army preparing for battle outside the window.

With gentle hands he took the sword from her, sliding the sheath through a loop in the belt at his waist. His hands rose to cup her face, his calloused palms fitting so easily against her chin, his fingers curling around her ear. His nose pressed against hers, and when he kissed her, it was a soft, aching meeting, where his lips moved slowly against her own, like he was taking the time to savour the shape and feel of her against his mouth. Nesta was nothing more than candle wax in his hands, melting all the more with every passing second he had his hands on her, engulfing her in his warmth.

When he pulled back at last, he held her face, his thumb resting beneath her chin.

“Wait for me, my love,” he whispered. “I’ll be back before you even know I am gone.”

Nesta shut her eyes, refusing to let the fear - the sheer terror at what he was about to face - consume her. “Impossible. Every minute you’re away from me will feel like a full turn of the sun. Every night will be the coldest.”

Her warrior swallowed at that, his eyes boring into hers as he brushed that thumb along her jaw, skirting the edge of her lips. He kissed her again, sweet and bitter, made painful by his departure.

“Swear to me,” Nesta said when they parted. “Swear that you will come back to me.”

Cassian only smiled, placing a hand over his heart. “With Odin as my witness,” - his eyes flicked skyward for a heartbeat - “and with Thor at my back, I swear to you.” He cupped his face between her palms, dropping another kiss to the tip of her nose, swift and light. “I will return to you.”

He pulled the pedant he always wore out from beneath his layers of shirts and mail, and let it hang over the armour covering his chest. The small silver hammer gleamed - Thor’s hammer - and Nesta found herself forsaking all else and placing her trust in that foreign god, that he might keep the warrior before her from Valhalla’s hall.

And Nesta was about to kiss him again - to demand that he stay, just a little bit longer - when a knock sounded at the door, loud and blunt enough to suggest that it wasn’t a knuckle rapping against the wooden panels, but the hilt of a weapon of some kind.

“We’re ready to leave, Cass,” Azriel’s voice called through the door.

A moment later, heavy footsteps sounded— retreating, giving the warrior one last moment to say goodbye.

Nesta did not know Rhysand’s master spy all that well, but in that moment…

She had never been more grateful.

Swiftly, she took Cassian’s jaw in hand and hauled him down to her, pressing every inch of her body against his He groaned against her, his hands bracketing her waist as her nails scraped along the chainmail. This time, the kiss was harried. Frantic. A desperate meeting of lips and teeth and tongue, feral and unleashed. Nesta poured herself into that kiss— her very essence, cracking open her chest and handing him her heart on a silver platter. His fingers dug into her waist hard enough to bruise, and when she pulled back, his teeth nipped at her lip, like he wasn’t prepared to turn his back without some leaving some reminder behind.

And when Nesta looked into his eyes, she could have sworn there was an ocean of desire there— of devotion, too.

“Cassian, I…” She trailed off, wanting to say the words that she had been holding back for a while, now.

Immediately he understood.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not now— not yet.”

Nesta frowned, but he only grinned in response.

“Tell me when I return. When this is all over.”

And with that, in a rush of heavy metal and blades, he turned and left, leaving Nesta standing in his chamber, watching the sky outside lighten at the edges, wondering how long it would be before she could tell the man that she loved him.

***

“So,” Azriel said dryly, tucking his helmet into the crook of his arm as he removed it from where it had covered his face, “we didn’t need to lure the Saxon king north after all.”

He wiped his brow, surveying the landscape splayed out before them like a bolt of smooth, even fabric. In the distance, over the trees, smoke from King Alfred’s campfires drifted up into the sky.

“It is less than ideal,” Cassian said with a slow incline of his head. After all, their plan had been to back Alfred into a corner. To make him face them, with peace negotiations or with open warfare. To give him no choice but to meet them in the field, one way or another. But Alfred had marched north before they could even send a messenger. “But we still have the better location. Still have the advantage.”

That precious advantage— so loath had Cassian been to give it up, he’d insisted they march as fast as they could to reach this hill, where the ground sloped gently away from the rise, leading to a flat valley below. They stood at the summit of it now, a day and a half after leaving Jorvik, with a line of trees at their back providing valuable cover. More trees stretched in the distance, but the plain before them was level and wide, the ground dry after days without rain.

A good omen.

Cassian shuddered as he thought of all the times he’d fought knee-deep in mud and freezing hail, and though it had never once made him pause, he couldn’t deny that it was far more comfortable fighting when the ground was dry.

Arms folded across his armoured chest, he tapped his fingers idly across the mail coating his forearms.

“Tomorrow,” he said, looking at those fires on the horizon; each one of them, he knew, set before a huddle of tents housing Alfred’s soldiers. “They will advance tomorrow.”

A small distance away, fingers curled around his sword, Rhys huffed.

“They will not get far,” he said darkly, turning to survey their own camp spreading behind them— their own canvas tents and small fires. “Give the order to rest and be ready by dawn.”

Cassian nodded. “Shield wall on this ridge. Let them exhaust themselves getting up the hill before we engage.”

Azriel hummed his assent; Rhys, too busy scanning the land before them, merely dipped his chin in the barest attempt at a nod. Satisfied, Cassian turned and glanced at one of the other commanders standing a handful of feet away and, with little more than a flick of his fingers and a single look, he knew the order would be relayed as the warrior departed.

Somebody had taken the time to set up a small wooden table laden with dried meat in a small wooden bowl and watered down ale in a simple metal carafe, and Cassian was grateful for it as he poured three cups— plain and unadorned.

Only half a cup each, mind.

He’d need his mind sharp tomorrow; sharper than his blades.

Azriel rubbed a hand along his jaw as he watched Cassian pour, canting his head to the side.

“They’re fighting for more than just land, if his men believe the story Alfred tells them about Mandray’s wi—“ He hesitated, a momentary stumble as he took the cup Cassian offered and beheld the cool, dark glare on Cassian’s face “—about Nesta being mistreated at Jorvik. It will give them purpose. We shouldn’t underestimate that idly.”

Cassian still had Nesta’s wedding ring tucked into his pocket; was planning on sending it to Alfred after dipping it in whatever blood the butcher had readily available. To make them rush, to make them pin this battle on a single misplaced narrative. A king rushing north to save a Saxon, Christian woman from the hands of the ruthless, brutal Danes.

He fought a smirk.

An entertaining story.

But not one that would win the king his battle.

“Whatever they’re fighting for, it doesn’t matter so long as we do not surrender our position.”

It was strong enough to weather an army three times the size of Alfred’s, Cassian suspected. The slope of the hill put them farther out of the reach of Alfred’s archers, whilst giving their own perfect visibility. Their position was so easily defended, it was as though Odin himself had hand-picked the location for this battle, and though the trees were quiet and empty now - like all the wildlife had already fled in anticipation - they were the perfect place to hide away extra forces and allow them to circumvent Alfred’s— manoeuvring around the Saxons until they had them surrounded on all sides.

Rhys drained his ale, looking at the thin plumes of smoke still drifting into the sky from Alfred’s camp.

How many, Cassian wondered? How many men had the Saxon king brought north to die?

“We don’t surrender anything,” Rhys said simply, as though he were commenting on the colour of the sky.

Cassian only grinned. “Never.”

“Never,” Azriel echoed.

***

The dawn was a red smear, the horizon the colour of freshly spilled blood.

Dew still lingered on the grass beneath his boots, and behind him came the steady beat of hammering shields; a heartbeat, pulsing through the lines as the soldiers in their ranks hammered fists and blades and sword-hilts against the round wooden planks that formed their shields.

Smoothly Cassian slid his sword from the sheath at his hip, his fingers curling naturally around the handle and settling into the grooves worn into the leather-wrapped hilt. The ghost of his own grip; valleys made and set the hundred times he’d wielded that blade into battle. An extension of his arm, a part of his own lifeblood.

And—

Hers, too.

He looked at the ruby in the pommel, convinced he might feel her, somehow, if he looked hard enough at the stone her lips had kissed.

As the hammering intensified, grew louder and more determined, Cassian tucked away the thought of her - the thought of all he was fighting for and would be returning to - and settled himself beside Azriel, covering his brother’s shield with half of his own. On his other side, Rhys sank into a crouch beside him, the lord’s shield lifted up and above Cassian’s own.

Everywhere was the press of human, mortal bodies.

Shoulder to shoulder, cheek to cheek.

Cassian’s arm did not tremble from holding up his shield— hadn’t, for almost twenty years now. Had been ingrained into him from the moment he first picked up a weapon and stepped into a training yard. To drop the shield was to die, to allow weakness into the ranks. To let the shield wall be breached.

A northman did not easily drop his shield.

So Cassian inhaled deeply through his nose and breathed out through his mouth, tightening his grip on the leather strap that ran along the back of his shield. The hammering grew faster, in time with his racing heart, and as he opened his mouth, the breath he let out morphed into a rumble in his throat, a roar that started small before it ended in a battle cry, echoed by each and every one of them holding that shield wall.

Through the small gaps in the shields, Cassian could see the Saxon army waiting down the hill, ready to advance.

He thumped his sword against the back of his shield, the pommel that Nesta had so briefly kissed striking the wood with enough force to rattle his bones.

It shook— and the entire world seemed to hold its breath, like Loki was rattling the surface of the earth and waiting for the drums to sound, for the carnage to begin.

And as the first of the Saxons drew back his bow, ready to loose the first arrow, Cassian turned to his brothers and grinned as the madness, the frenzy, the chaos of battle entered his veins.

It had stormed the night Cassian was born, he’d been told.

Stormed so badly it had seemed like the sky was coming down, and it had always been an omen, a sign, that the babe birthed in the dark amidst the thunder and the lightning and the driving rain…

Was meant for something greater.

Meant for this.

As though Tyr, not Loki, had shook the world when Cassian took his first breaths. As though the god of war had marked him out somehow.

Chosen him.

So Cassian felt the calm wash over him as his battle cry echoed, knowing, without doubt that—

“Valhalla will not welcome us today.”

Azriel’s eyes darted sidewards. “Not today,” he echoed, those eyes dark as his mouth set into a thin, determined line.

Rhys looked straight ahead at the Saxon army advancing now, picking their way slowly across the plain. At length, he turned his eyes on each of his brothers as he, too, said,

“Not today.”

The stench of shit hits her nose before her eyes can even open.

Then bedlam in the kitchen, cabinets banging.

Not again.

Portia is used to flying out of bed by now—snapping from deep sleep to battle-ready in a moment—ever since her son learned to walk. Rhysand is a precocious boy, always sticking his nose in things. Getting the middle of fights above his weight.

He has his father's confidence. Not his self-preservation, yet, unfortunately.

So it's but a few seconds later that Portia drags on a dressing gown and rounds the corner to the kitchen of their modest cottage, expecting to find an eight year old boy.

"If you've gotten yourself thrown in the dung heap again, Rhysand, I'll—"

Only she doesn't find one boy.

She finds two.

There's her son, whipping around in horror at the sound of her voice. And the other… well, she thinks it's a boy.

His clothing is the same brown of his skin. A mass of wild black hair hangs to his shoulders—one with bad eyesight could mistake him for a juvenile boar. Especially as he is now, crouched before the larder, devouring a fist-sized lump of butter.

Bread and cheese and jars of preserves surround him on the floor, and he doesn't turn when she comes in, doesn't even look up. Only stuffs another bite of dirt-streaked butter past cracked lips.

Portia isn't sure what to think.

Rhysand slides into her path before she can take another step, hands tucked demurely behind his back.

"Mother, good morning! I'm glad you're awake. May I prepare your tea for you?"

His voice is mollifying as he glances nervously between her and the creature. Like she's the beast to be tamed and not the half-feral child in the corner.

Flattening her expression, Portia plants her hands on her hips, determined to find out why.

"Rhysand, why is there a strange boy in my kitchen?"

Rhysand shrinks back—her face must be more murderous than intended.

"I had hoped to speak privately, but... well. the stars don't wait for the wishing."

The idiom immediately conjures the face of Balaerian, one of Calysar's toadier advisors.

"Your father took you to another council meeting, didn't he?" Portia asks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

She means it as a grievance but Rhysand only stands straighter. He looks far too much like his father sometimes. He's not even wearing his wings right now.

"That's of no concern regarding this matter," he assures her, patting her forearm like a male centuries older. "This matter, which is that I would like to make a request. Which is to say: that I have a proposal."

"A proposal?"

The other boy's wings are huge. He looks older than her son, thirteen, perhaps fourteen, with the appetite of an ice mammoth. Already he's moved on to the leftover bread from yesterday, tearing off huge chunks with yellowed teeth.

Portia's stomach flips over when she realizes the front two are missing. When she spies the buds of adult teeth coming in, jagged and pearly.

So he can't be older than ten.

"Yes Mother, a proposal," her son goes on crisply. "My proposal for something I'd like to propose, which is chief-ily that—"

"Rhysand, who is this boy about to rob my entire sodding pantry?!" she demands, jabbing a finger toward where most of her cheese has just disappeared. Rhysand shuts his mouth tight.

The boy freezes, and looks up at last.

"Not robbing," he says. His voice sounds dusty, like it only knows shouting or silence. "He says I could come in. 'Have anything you want', he says."

Rhysand nods with vigor when the boy gestures toward him.

"I've worked it all out," her son explains. "You feed him, clothe him, house him. And he does my chores! He's already agreed."

With a grunt, the big boy turns back to his feast, so he doesn't see Portia fix Rhysand with the same stare that makes the High Lord of Spring wither.

"And what will you be doing, then?"

Her son jerks his head back, affronted. "Devoting the extra time to my studies, of course."

Portia can't help her scoff. "When hedgepigs fly. What are you really after?"

Rhysand chews at his lip, nervous, and there's an odd current on the wind. Portia can't quite tell what direction it's coming from, but she knows where it's going when her son leans closer, whispering urgently.

"He doesn't have a mama or a papa. Or a house." Pleading violet eyes stare up at her, the same she saw the first day she set him in the ring and turned her back. "His bed is the ground. Not even a fire. A warrior doesn't let his comrade go without when he has plenty."

"Did your father say that?" she snaps reflexively.

"No, Master Devlon did."

A lesson especially for him, she guesses. Portia knows her son's station makes him a target, but she also knows how Rhysand yearns for a friend.

Her sweet son. How the world waits to break him.

But not if she can help it.

Because more than a friend, he needs protection. And this dirty boy now rummaging through her cache of dried game is definitely big. And willing, apparantly.

"Please, Mama?" Rhysand pleads again.

Mother above.

The boy scuttles away when she finally enters the kitchen properly, half a mangled blood sausage dropping on the way. His shirt is covered in butter and Portia wishes he had at least cleaned his hands first for all the mud that must be in his mouth now.

"My son says no one looks after you," she says simply. The boy wipes a crusty sleeve across his chin.

"Don't need no one."

She sees how he wants to believe the lie, little fists clenching. How he's trying to look tough while shit-scared, hazel eyes always keeping both her and the back door in view.

Portia sighs.

"How old are you?"

He shrugs.

"When is your name day?"

"No name day when you don't have no name."

She sucks in a breath through her teeth, frustrated, but his gaze never wavers. Like one beast sizing up another. But he's not running, not even when she kneels to be eye-level, the smell of neglect even harsher up close.

His eyes look sweeter, too, and it's a miracle that thr world hasn't broken him yet. That he was willing to take her son's bargain, still willing to believe things can be alright.

"Then today is your name day. The Mother's blessings upon you," Portia says at last, forming the sign of the open hand. "And that name is..?"

"Cassian."

He lisps a little when he says it. Portia's heart twists painfully. A guilt she can't name rises in her like a strong wind, and she braces against it because this is necessary. She must care for this boy, that's clear. The trap is when she starts to care too much.

But it's no use. She already does.

"You go to the stream and get a bucket of water to clean this up," she tells Cassian sternly. "And when you get back, we'll find you some clothes. And see to that hair. And yes, you can have more to eat," she adds when he rises to his toes.

After a moment's hesitation, Cassian breaks into a gappy smile and runs full-tilt toward the back door.

"He can still do some of my chores though, right?" Rhysand asks, struggling to stuff skinny ankles in his boots so he can follow. "So I can read more of Telethien's treatises?"

"No. And two buckets for you. One for this performance, and one for not wearing your wings. And Rhysie—make sure he washes. After you collect the water."

Rhysand tosses his head back dramatically but obeys, stomping toward the door as wings sprout from his shoulder blades. Her own shoulders settle with a strange tragedy watching him go. He'll never be younger than he is today.

Just as she's put the kettle on, Portia hears a fracas in the yard—the boys squabbling over who gets the bucket with the better handle. There's clattering and an affronted hey! before they appear around the side of the house and head for the forest.

The inferior bucket swings from her son's hand. Cassian removes a sweet roll from his pocket. Holds it high out of reach when Rhysand makes a move to steal it. They both try to trip each other up, laughing, until they tumble out of sight, on that winding path through the land of boyhood.

Portia's throat closes up. All she hasn't allowed herself to feel fights to rise.

But it's too hot to cry. And in the winter, it'll be too cold.

So she picks up the broom and begins to sweep away the breadcrumbs before Cassian can run back in to suck them off the floor.

When they emerge from the forest, damp and panting, Portia realizes they've switched buckets.

Tag list: @wolfnesta @clarranam @jsmelodies @misstyfikacja @scarlettrose80 @silly-little-lizard @acourtofladydeath @freyjascatchariot @spilledcoffeechronicles @chelseamorninggirl @norabraveseeker @mydnights @irithiadourden @ericacharles514 @ladyefoxy @something-xoxo @smol-grandpa @humansaredumb @pham-tastical

Cassian rolled his freshly-taped shoulder, sitting on the bench with one boot tied and the other abandoned next to his foot, pretending to check the weather forecast but instead checking for any new messages, against his better judgement. His eyes roamed over his last exchange with Nesta, lingering on the unanswered question about who would win in a fight, a vampire or a zombie. He’d taken it too far, perhaps. Probably. He was almost completely convinced he ruined it for good, that she’d never talk to him again. Perhaps Azriel had been right, and this had been a stupid idea.

He’d really tried to stay calm and act normal about the fact that she hadn’t answered. He’d gone about his days. He’d done his usual pre-training ritual. He’d been perfectly normal, if he ignored the fact that he’d poured boiling water into a cup that morning and stared at it for almost five minutes, before remembering to put in the actual tea. He was also ignoring the fact that he’d listened to her voice note more times than he should admit, falling asleep to the sound of her voice ranting about Arthurian legends the night before. Cassian knew he wasn’t acting normal, lying on his back in bed with his phone on his chest and Nesta Archeron’s voice cutting through the dark, furious and precise and devastatingly posh, but he couldn’t help it.

He just couldn’t stop listening, and he couldn’t prevent the way she had him under her spell. He had thought, the first time he listened to it, that no woman had ever sounded more enraged about medieval pseudo-history while simultaneously sounding devastatingly concerned about his welfare. By the time he fell asleep, her voice had gone softer in his ear, not because she had softened—God forbid—but because sleep had sanded down the sharp edges. By the end, he’d listened to the rhythm of her voice more than the words. The clipped irritation, and the breath she took halfway through, as if she had realised how long she had been talking and considered stopping, only to continue because the point was apparently too important to abandon. The little, sharp emphases she put on certain words had made him grin into his pillow like an idiot. Around midnight, Cassian was pretty sure he’d probably listen to her tell him off about fraudulent relics, plague transmission, or the ridiculousness of fantastic creatures until the end of his natural life.

—————

Light leaks in through the blinds. It’s pale and washed out, the kind of winter light that makes everything look flat. The apartment smells like old coffee and paper.

Cassian is awake. He’s not sure he ever fell asleep. He’s lying on Nesta’s narrow mattress with his hands folded on his chest, vaguely aware that he hasn’t blinked in a while. He’s been staring at the cracks in the ceiling, his vision blurring. Nesta is curled against his side, still in yesterday’s clothes, her braid undone and her face puffy from crying. Her hand is splayed on his stomach, moving her thumb absently back and forth over the fabric of his shirt.

Out in the living room, Azriel is already at the table with a mug of tea. His hair’s a mess and there are dark circles below his eyes. He’s been writing lists since before dawn; of names and phone numbers of people who might be able to help, of routes and safe house locations. Gwyn sits across from him with a sheaf of envelopes, her own mug gone cold. She keeps rubbing her thumb over the edge of a stack of paper, making it curl up.

When Nesta finally sits up, she doesn’t look at him. She slides off the mattress and disappears into the bathroom. When she returns, she heads straight for the kitchen without speaking.

“They’ll mail his induction notice within a matter of weeks,” Cassian hears Azriel say. “We have to have everything ready before.”

Gwyn’s voice is gentler. “The appointment with Martinez is at ten. We’ll get the statement typed up. We can get letters from the pastor, the people at the community center and several neighbors.”

Nesta stands in the kitchen doorway, fist on the frame. “It’s not a guarantee,” she says flatly.

“No,” Azriel agrees. “It’s not.”

Her eyes flick to Cassian on the bed, and he feels it like a brand. “Do you think he’s up for it? He hasn’t moved.”

“Let him have a minute,” Gwyn says softly.

Nesta shakes her head. “We don’t have a minute, Gwyn.”

Cassian hears her cross the room, and feels her warmth when she kneels by the bed, taking his hand. “Cass,” she says quietly. “We have to go soon.”

He doesn’t respond. He keeps staring at the ceiling instead.

“Cassian, can you please look at me?”

Finally he turns his head toward her. He feels disconnected. Hollow. “What’s the point?”

“What do you mean?” His heart aches at her quiet, careful tone.

“What’s the point, Nes? They’ll never listen to a simple farm boy like me.”

She flinches like he hit her. “The point is you not dying in a jungle for someone else’s war.”

“It’s already decided,” he says, and he feels it in his bones. There’s nothing left to do. “Number seventeen. That’s it. That’s me.”

“No,” Nesta says, fierce. “That’s just a number on a slip of paper. That’s not you.”

He doesn’t answer.

She squeezes his hand so hard her knuckles go white. “You promised me last night.”

He swallows. “I know.”

“Promise me again.”

“I won’t go,” he whispers, not looking at her. He feels like an asshole for lying to her. Because he is. It’s all a lie.

“Say you’ll fight this with me.”

He closes his eyes. For a long second he considers slipping back into that numb place. Eventually, he nods, barely.

—————

Nesta spotted the smirk before Emerie hid it away. “So judgmental, Nesta. I’ll have you know everyone in my office watches it.”

“Mine too,” piped in Gwyn. “Everyone at the Schwarzman. Well, not Otto. Or Merrill. But they’re both over seventy and proud of the fact that they don’t own a television. I think Otto probably thinks we’re all still watching ‘Cheers’. And of course I don’t– ” 

“See?” Emerie cut Gwyn off from her tangent with a wave of pasta-laden fork. “Everybody watches it. People go on for this exact reason - a social media boost. Publicity. And when they find out that the gorgeous brunette with the killer rack writes romance novels? And she’s looking for love? Fucking catnip. We’ll have the country pouring over all those furtive glances and googling what an abigail is.” 

Nesta snorted. “They’ll all be disappointed.” She paused, letting Emerie’s words sink in more than she intended. Perhaps it’d be useful. Watching people use love as a goal. An objective with a cash prize at the end. Talking themselves into feelings because they’re both attractive and both love grilled cheese sandwiches. For the tiniest second, Nesta considered it, but wisdom prevailed. She shook the notion back out of her head. “I - all romance writers really - we have enough trouble being taken seriously as it is. I don’t see how making an ass of myself doing Nickelodeon challenges in a bikini is going to help.” 

Em shrugged. “It won’t, probably. But it will make you money. Enough money to buy yourself the right not to give a shit about being taken seriously.” 

“I don’t want people buying my books because I’m a novelty and they like my tits.” 

All the women were gorgeous - all the women were THE most gorgeous women Cassian had ever seen. Viv was from Philadelphia, and from the way Kal was hanging on her every word, clearly his type. Two East Coast WASPs finding each other on a reality dating show in Fiji - was this really what (supposedly) millions of people tuned in for? Surely they could have met back home at a polo match, or a Debutante Ball, or the country club. Some bullshit Cassian had no patience for. They looked sweet together, but was it all going to be this obvious? That for all the show’s proclamations about “exploring”, the producers had already designed it? Predestined. It irked Cassian a little, being someone else’s puppet, but he could play along for a while. Besides, if Ari was meant for him, that was fine. Good, even. Fitting. Ari was also from Chicago, and all it took was a heated discussion about where to get the best beef for Cassian to determine he liked her. She was fun, she was beautiful – tall and athletic with thick curly hair and warm dark eyes. She was the kind of girl he’d always envisioned he’d meet and marry when the time was right. Save up money to buy a place in Edgewater, have a kid. It was a nice little picture.