#fenrowcan

With a grin at Rowan both of them palm pretty glinting blades and drive them straight into the whirlwind. They are met with goo and gut and a living being. He had begun to doubt they were fighting anything more than a determined wind. But no, around his obsidian blade he can feel contorting organs, blood sizzling on his hands. That’ll be a pain to clean up later. There is a moment of bated stillness and then the beast disintegrates before them. Lorcan’s tendrils of death suffocating the body through his blades. With a swipe of his hand, Rowan lets the wind— a cool and hurried breeze— disperse the dust around the world. It is no longer their problem.

In a flash of gold, Fenrys Moonbeam stands before them, hair matted to his forehead and a gleam in his pretty black eyes.

“It tasted disgusting.” He shudders, breaking their silence as they all stare at the charred spot of earth left behind.

“Really?” Rowan raises a brow, “I thought it’d taste delightful. Like a sorbet swirl.”

“Shut up—” Fenrys is retorting, already knocking against the white-haired male in retaliation.

Lorcan blurs them out of his focus as they trail along the worn path into the village. It had been a long and arduous week, filled with petty tasks such as getting rid of village monsters and razing small forgotten cities. He’d do almost anything to be home, in his own bed, his own space. One where he doesn’t have to keep his power throttled to his ribcage. One where he can watch his dark magic explore the room like curious snakes, knocking gently into everything as it finds out what this corner holds, where this crevice widens, why this box sits there. They are almost as animated as he used to be, back when he was young, fresh-faced, arrogant beyond reason.

“Oi Salvaterre,” He is yanked back into the world with a good shove on the back.

Glaring, he turns to Fenrys. “What?” Short, snappy and full of blunt-tired. Gods he really is a wreck today.

“You good to stay here?” Looking around he realises with mild surprise that they had made it to the outskirts of the village.

“Yea sure whatever,” He nods, giving the small two storey a quick once over. The roof looks like it keeps rain out and the windows close enough to keep wind seeking refuge elsewhere. There really isn’t much to complain about.

Rowan frowns at him but he just looks away, pretending to scope out the area. Might as well do some recon while their friend gets everything sorted with the rooms. Anything really, to distract himself from the forest gaze of his ex-boyfriend. No-one had ever been able to read him the way he does. A seconds look and the white-haired male can pinpoint every single thing wrong, right, and in between about him. When they were dating it used to be charming, and now it’s everything in Lorcan’s power to keep his face stoic, his movements precise. One blink too many and the worry from the hawk comes back in full force. What do you get when you never stop loving someone? Wounded.

“Okay,” Fenrys’ cheerful call comes from the door of the house. “We’re in. But there’s no food here so we’re gonna have to go into the village for that.”

Rowan is already walking towards the building muttering something about needing to shower first.

“Where’s my room keys?” Lorcan holds out a hand.

“Uh,” And the golden-haired man is looking at him in a way he knows all too well. Mischief and muddles painted brightly across his brown skin.

“What did you do?”

Rowan stops mid stair at the tone of his voice, and turns around slowly. Their eyes pierce into the wolf, waiting less than patiently.

“So, um,” Fenrys scratches the back of his neck.

“Spit it out.” He is preparing himself for the worst, body already thrumming into new symphonies.

“They sort of only had one room left and i had to book it because this is the only inn in the entire village and I didn't know what else to do but they reassured me we have the biggest room so we shouldn’t be completely smothering each other I'm sorry.”

For a breath they all stand very still, holding time in suspense as they process the situation they’ve been handed.

It would have felt less like a sabotage if it had been the beginning of this long journey, or if they had had more than four hours sleep in the last three days or if they had known beforehand that this would be the situation. But this is a jenga tower and someone has picked out the two blocks at the very base. Everything shakes, threatens to topple, with each round.

The white-haired male simply continues walking up the stairs. Lorcan blinks at Fenrys, cocks his head, blinks again. And walks up too.

There is no point in fighting. There is nothing any of them can do. There is nothing they want to do anyway.

***

Dinner is a warm affair. Shoved into a booth in the back of a small tavern. Warm bread, steaming soup, and a pitcher of ale laid out before them. He has never turned his nose down at a feast but hearth food, like this, designed to warm you from the inside and keep you comforted through the night is where his heart truly lies. Especially surrounded by people he loves. Thoughts he will keep to himself but he will think anyway.

The matter of the room is forgotten while they doll out cards and wager anything but money. Coins, as it turns out after centuries of living, are a dull and elementary means of compensation.

Instead Fenrys must secure a date with the man at the table over. Instead Lorcan must take his weapons off his person and if there’s more than five, he has to give one away. Instead Rowan must turn into a bird and hope not to get caught and cooked by the chef roaming the tables. Instead they must laugh. Instead them must sing. Instead they must dance, and if toes get stepped on well ‘why did you make me do this?’. Instead they must practice, like hand puppets with ghost hands, living and let live again. You go out to kill a monster, keep going, and at some stage you can't decipher if that means you. So you have to bring yourself back to the earth and the people and anything except the blood on your hands that never seems to be yours despite how much you have to give.

They settle their owings with little fanfare, and leave behind them friendly hollers and discarded weapons. The walk back is not far, and while they do it in little time it seems almost too long before they’re all crowded into their room staring at the bed before them.

Now that food sits warm in their bellies, and liquor warm in their veins it doesn’t seem so brutal. This sharing business. One bed. Three of them. They are the monkeys who won’t roll over. If they do, they'll be caught before they hit their heads. There’s always a corded arm, strong fingers there to catch them.

“I sleep on the end,” Rowan says, pointing to the side nearest the window. There isn’t a force in the world that could stop the smile tugging on Lorcan’s face. The whole world could rearrange itself and still fundamentals like Rowan needing the night air would not change.

“I sleep on the other end.” He raises a brow as he collapses on the side nearest the door.

“Wait wait wait,” Fenrys looks at them in alarm, beautiful glittering eyes blinking rapidly. “I love being the little spoon as much as the next person but I don't know if I want to be in between your broody ex-boyfriend asses.” His look of horror is enough to make Lorcan laugh, which sets off Rowan, as it’s always done, which makes Fenrys more horrified. They’re in a circle and it is becoming a sphere by the sheer force of joy bubbling between them.

“It’s worse when you laugh,” The golden-haired male is looking at them. “I would rather sleep on the roof.” He takes one step, two towards the window, before Rowan wraps a hand around his arm and pulls them both down to the bed. Laughter still courses through his throat, flipping against his tongue. He feels like the bread they’d eaten for dinner. Soft and fluffy and warm.

“You guys are plain evil.” Fenrys is grumbling.

“Sleep Fen,” He pokes at ribs, shoulders, legs. ‘We promise not to bite… unless you ask.”

“I’m not worried if you bite me!” Their friend is still full of comical horror, “I’m worried you’re gonna bite each other over me.”

“We would never be so rude.” He can hear Rowan’s grin in the dark. Voice like gravel instead of water.

“Shut up.” Is his finally mutter before they all settle into the surprisingly comfortable mattress and close their exhausted eyes.

***

Lorcan feels a hand on his thigh. It is warm, distinctly male. A thumb brushes against the fabric clad to him and he shudders softly. He knows this gesture. It’s one he’s felt a thousand times before. One he never thought he’d feel again. With struggle he opens his eyes, blinking in rapid succession to try adjust to the little light. The night is still fresh, ripe in the sky. The moon shows off her size and her glow, hanging in perfect balance against the inky blackness. It is her light he uses to make out the shapes and figures around him. He sits up a little, leaning on his elbow to try wake himself up. He had been in one of those deep sleeps, where nothing and no-one could have brought him to reality. Except this. Always this. He had often wondered if his body would forget the things that made it sing, with time, and distance. Well he has gotten his answer. Not even a century of years, and sprinkled decades of distance could make an amnesia out of him.

“You up?” A lighthouse in this sea of darkness. “I can’t believe that still wakes you.”

“Me neither.” He sighs, no strength to filter his thoughts, no strength to push the hand away. “Why did you wake me?”

“Look.’ He sees a silhouette nod towards the middle of their bed.

And gods what a sight it is. Gold hair fanning against stark white pillows. Brown skin shimmering in the pale moonlight. A face carved from the best artists in the universe. Perfection born, bred, laid here between them.

“Should he have been worried about us?” The hawk asks.

The question surprises Lorcan, enough that he looks up from the bed, searches for green eyes in this endless night. “I don’t know, maybe?”

It is quiet for a beat, two, three. “Does it matter?”

“Does what?” Because there are so many answers depending on the context. Did they matter? They were the only thing that ever did. Did their friend’s worry matter? Nothing would have happened without him knowing.

“You know everyone used to say ‘right person, wrong time’ when i told them about us.” Rowan’s voice is still soft, gentle in a way he reserves for the fire and the night.

“There is no such thing as a wrong time when we are immortal.” He replies, matching softness, but unable to match calmness. He is bitter to the core about the way the world weaved them. Unfinished tapestries left to rot under spider silk and dust. “When time doesn’t end, how do you tell what parts are right and what aren’t?”

Fenrys moves between them, curling into Lorcan’s back, grabbing ahold of Rowan’s shirt. His brow furrows briefly before smoothing out once more. It’s everything in Lorcan not to groan and bury his face in that supple neck.

“I guess you don’t.”

“We didn’t.”

“We couldn’t Lor.” Nickname that takes him a thousand years behind him, three seconds in front of him, chains him to this bed.

“We stopped trying.” He falls back onto the bed, arm giving out under him. Heart gave out moons ago. “That’s where we went wrong. We just stopped trying.”

Another bout of silence, suffocating only to his lungs. His body draws it in, lets it crash down his throat, sit against his stomach undigested.

“And now?” The question to end it all, the question that becomes the moment, and then the memory, and then the epitaph.

He looks to his side, sees Fenrys not even a nuzzle-distance away from him. Moves his gaze up to that ever-green tree. “Not without him. I can’t go back.”

“Who said it would be?”

Fenrys spreads his hand across Rowan’s chest in that moment and Rowan places his over it. “I would not be able to give him up.”

“Is he ours to give and take?”

“Well I am his,” Rowan brushes golden hair out of the wolf’s face, looks up at him. “And I am yours.”

“So we are each others?” The idea forms in his heart, changes the course of his veins, becomes a new and integral part of his organs.

“Yes.” The hawk looks at him, into him, with him.

“Yes we are.” A voice, embroidered with sleep adds to their discussion.

And the words that wrap around him start to feel like the first tendrils of a new galaxy. They are stars barrelling between every pocket of darkness. His power protecting the room almost shimmers with this new found knowledge.

“You are mine? Both of you?” He wants to hear these words in this air, in this room, in this lifetime.

“And we are yours,” Fenrys whispers gently.

Rowan takes his hand. “And we are each others.”

The village bell tower clangs as if to mark the moment out loud. With the reverberating sound they are surging towards each other. Lips on skin and hands on heart and heart laid bare and skin presented the same. Over and over, encased by sounds they will hear a thousand times more, by sights they will paint again on a thousand different canvases. Motions that resemble the sea, push and pull and give and take, and love and be loved.

Their final dance ends with a single note, symphony coming to its grand crescendo. In this room they accidentally shared on a mission they didn’t want to do in a time when restlessness thrummed amongst them as well as lightning does a storm.