#forestsatnight

Something’s bothering Aaron.  Ciar can see it, plain as day.  There’s some...leftover worry that it’s about the talk they had earlier.  Maybe Aaron’s finally gotten around to mulling over the idea that his significant other isn’t totally a boy, and maybe it’s finally bothering him now.  Still, Aaron doesn’t mince words or pull verbal punches.  So Ciar trusts that when he knows what he wants to say, he’ll say it.

It makes the moment, lazily sprawled in bed together, Ciar’s head under Aaron’s chin, a little tenser.  Anticipation mars the gentle brush of fingers through Ciaran’s hair, but only just.

Aaron’s thoughts, however, are miles away from however the hell Ciaran wants to identify.  The only way something like that is important to Aaron is insofar as it’s important to Ciaran.  It doesn’t have an actual effect on him.  Ciar is Ciar, and Aaron loves him.  And it’s not just the teenage hormones that make him sure he always will.  For some reason or another, Aaron can’t stop thinking about Ciar playing with those rabbits.  It nags at him relentlessly.  He hadn’t said the terrible things just to be a dick, either.  He was (and still) genuinely confused as to why Ciar bothers so much with the animals knowing full well that Aaron is going to slit their throats when they reach the right age.

Aaron is brought back to himself for a moment when Ciar shifts against him, pulls the blanket up over them.  Aaron watches while the muted light of the bedside lamp casts long shadows over Ciar, sighing heavily as he finally finds the question he wants to ask.  Well, not the question.  But a question, at least.

“Does it bother you that I’m going to kill those rabbits?”

It’s clearly not the question Ciar is preparing for, and Aaron thinks he might see Ciar actually relax a little more.  A careful glance is thrown at Aaron.

“It would bother me if I thought you liked doing it.”

Fair.

“I would tell you if I had a problem with it,” Ciar continues, stretching lazily.  

Aaron knows he would, and the witch feels more uncomfortable now as he gets just a little closer to what’s bothering him.  

“Why --- play with them?  Love them?”  He doesn’t know if Ciar loves them, but he gets the impression that Ciar loves life in general.  Aaron respects it, but Ciar seems to love it.  “You know they’re going to die.”

“Isn’t that all the more reason to love them?” Ciaran asks.  And that’s when Aaron’s pretty sure that Ciar is onto him.  Whenever Ciar starts answering questions with questions, Aaron knows he’s being too transparent.  But whatever.  He might know what’s happening, but sometimes the leading questions help.  It doesn’t hurt to let Ciar lead him there.

“I don’t know.  It’ll hurt you when they die, won’t it?”  Aaron doesn’t want to hurt Ciar.

Too smart for Aaron, Ciar stays quiet and presses a kiss to Aaron’s palm.  They both know, now, where the conversation’s going.  Part of Aaron wants to let that be enough; he doesn’t want to have to say it.  That makes it too real.  

A kiss on a beach, new and shaky.  Ciar in his lap, knowing they’ve reached the end of the road.  Once, when they didn’t have time for even that.  

“I’m going to die.”  And is loving him worth it knowing that?  Aaron closes his eyes for a second, surprised at the sudden stinging.  He shouldn’t have said it.  “I just…”

“Mo shíorghrá,” Ciaran hushes, quiet but firm.  

But it’s a second too late to stop the question.  Can you lead a horse away from water?

“Why?  If you know I’m going to die, why stay?”

There’s no good, easy answer to that question.  It’s too late, and they’re too young.  

an overdue, long ass drabble.  intimate coven moments, an embarrassing petname, and quite a bit of blood.

What a mournful creature this is.  Alaric lets the pitiful fox bury its face against his neck while it makes gut-wrenching sounds.  This is not the same creature that has spent years weaving between Alaric’s ankles when it was least convenient.  This is not the same creature, sometimes human, who preened while Eden plaited his long, tawny hair.

Alaric must smell close enough to her to be some sort of comfort, because Ephram has never let another witch even lay a hand on him with any kind of grace.  But now he won’t get off of Alaric, won’t let him leave the room without making pathetic noises that even he can’t ignore.  

He whispers the soothing words, French for some reason, that he’s heard her say a thousand times, but there’s a selfish part of him that wants to mourn alone.  Ephram has lost his witch, and Alaric has lost his sister for the third time.  Surely it cannot be Alaric’s duty to comfort him, but the duty has fallen to him regardless.  About half an hour ago, Alaric had coaxed him into human form for enough minutes to drink a tea that should put him to sleep for a few hours of blissful nothing.  

But the force of his grief is making it a longer process than normal.  Eventually, though, he crawls into Alaric’s lap and whimpers there for another five or ten minutes before it turns into a quiet sort of sniffling that means he’s asleep.  Alaric rests a tired hand on the nape of its neck, closing his eyes and feeling the full weight of his own grief threatening to settle on his shoulders.

No.  There’s not time for that right now; there probably won’t be time for that.  He stands now, cradles the animal in his arms and goes through the too empty house to look for Ciaran.  The halls are usually bustling, filled with renegades and fugitives, bastards and orphans.  But things have gotten increasingly quieter.  Slowly, silently, Alaric lets him into the room where Rose’s child sleeps.  Predictably, Ciaran is keeping watchful vigil over the sleeping infant.  

He puts Ephram into the bed next to the child, watches wordlessly as these two tragic beings cling a little closer.  Trusting the potion to keep the fox asleep and knowing the child sleeps like the dead (its late mother, though, can attest that the dead don’t sleep), he doesn’t bother to lead Ciaran out of the room so they can speak freely.

Alaric kneels in front of the chair where his love sits, accepts the warm hand on the back of his neck gratefully.  He allows himself one soundless sob, just a spasm of his chest.  He moves Ciaran’s hand wordlessly, holds it so he can press an intimate kiss to the thin skin of his wrist.  

“They took her body.”  He can only assume this is retribution for the wolf that died screaming as the blood boiled in his veins and pushed out through his pores.  They must know that to take Eden is an act lacking any honor, and that it’s something that Alaric can’t allow.  It’s nothing less than suicide, nearly as sure as the necromancers, to go attempt to find what remains of her, but…

“You’re leaving.”  Alaric can’t tell if Ciaran sounds angry or resigned.  

“You know I have to.”  He is already working the beginnings of a spell before he leaves, one that will allow him to send Eden’s corpse away, and one that will leave his own body a posthumous maker of nightmares.  They will have to return him, or they will have to burn him themselves.  Alaric’s soul is already invariably bound to the earth, but he will not have it be bound here in a tormented kind of limbo too.  Won’t allow that for Eden.

He’s too lost in his own thoughts to even register when Ciaran leans forward in his seat, but the kiss to the corner of his mouth feels like a benediction.  There’s another spasm of his chest, and he nearly chokes.  He mindlessly rests his hands on Ciaran’s face now, pulls desperately until his familiar sits in his lap on the ground.  His thumb brushes the sharp line of a cheekbone as Alaric looks his fill a final time.  

It should be impossible, but Alaric thinks he must love Ciaran more this time than in his other lives.  His fingers pass through Ciaran’s dark hair gently, and then he presses a kiss to the freckle that’s been on the line of his jaw as long as Alaric can remember.  

When he feels the press of Ciaran’s lips against his own finally, it’s almost surreal.  All of these years, and it is still unbelievable that this beautiful, noble, caring creature would give him this.  Alaric did not say that enough, did he?  Next time, he promises himself.  Next time he will tell Ciaran all of this endlessly.  

Alaric searches for words uselessly.  “I love you,” he offers, a poor attempt.  

The sentiment is given back to him in another kiss with whispered words in Ciaran’s native tongue.  Alaric is going to miss him.  While his soul resists rest, he is going to ache to be here, to lay next to Ciaran in their bed and feel that warmth.  

Next time, next time, next time.  There will be more next time.

“Be safe, Ciaran.  I could never want a life without you.”  That’s a little better.

Aaron is well aware that Ciaran is still being icy with him.  It’s very hard to misread how he’s very deliberately sleeping in ‘his’ room.  A room that he’s used maybe a dozen times total.  Usually Aaron even enjoys their little post-fight game.  It’s fun, and he might just indulge a little more later, but they also have more important things to talk about.

The bruise on his jaw is starting to yellow around the edges, and Aaron presses his fingers to it lightly.  Fuck Jace and his incredibly sharp elbows.  And his righteous fury or whatever.  And that goddamn bite on his forearm.  Seriously, who the hell bites during a fight?

   “So.  We all know I’m useless in a real confrontation,” Aaron starts, leaning against the kitchen counter while Ciaran goes through the fridge.  “But it’s not like this is something I should sit out.  This is a big deal.  So I want you to help me figure out how to...funnel energy into other people.”  Which sounds sort of nice, but it’s his pride more than anything.  Aaron refuses to be so useless in this matter that people comment on it.

Aaron is like...negative ten thousand good at saying nice stuff or taking one for the team.  But he’s going to try and do both here a little.  It’s physically painful already.  Ugh.

“So.  I wanted to say thanks for letting me crash here the last couple of nights.”  Okay, going strong so far.  That’s not so bad.  “And sorry too.  It’s definitely my fault that you’re in this kind of hot water.”  Because literally everyone knows he’s been seeing a lot of Ciaran, and it’s easy to construe that into...something else.  

“But I’m gonna head back to the Institute.  If I stay away any longer, they’re gonna find some way to insist that I had something to do with the dead shadowhunters.  And I think I can convince them to drop the investigation on you.”  Which might be naive and overly optimistic.  Aaron gets frustrated with his kind, but he does believe that they’re mostly reasonable still. 

Eiríkr sits across from Ciaran on the wood floor, close enough that their knees occasionally brush when he shifts.  In about twelve minutes the moon will be in the right position for them to work this spell together.  Which is a...strange concept for Eiríkr still.  It’s not that he hasn’t worked with others before, but there’s just a strange --- disparity between their magics.  That and there’s really no true equivalent to what Ciaran is where he comes from.  There are familiar spirits, some more powerful than others, but they have been watered down for countless centuries.  Only once has he met a familiar of even remotely similar lineage.  

There’s...a lot about it that Eiríkr doesn’t understand, truthfully. 

Eleven minutes.

Ciaran’s hand is warm between his own.  Ciaran is not his familiar, not yet.  But they are trying together now.  And it has not escaped Eiríkr’s notice that Ciaran has not tried with any of the other witches.  Others can raise the dead, can touch souls like they’re skins.  One is like him but born to a greater legacy.  But none of them sit across from Ciaran.

Ten minutes.

He leans forward just a little to catch Ciaran’s attention again.  Reasonably speaking, they should both be preparing, but...

“Why?” he asks suddenly.  He’s been here enough months to have most of the language down, and Ciaran is good at discerning the meaning from context anyway.  “Why would you want to be a...familiar?”  That’s something he should understand, right?  If he’s going to be a good witch to one, that is.  And he’s determined that he will be.  

( meme | accepting. )

aaron wants to; he really does.  ciaran’s voice is strong and there and desperate, and aaron really, really wants to stay awake.  he doesn’t remember everything, but he knows that he hates leaving.  he isn’t ready to leave yet.  but not even ciaran can fix this one; werewolves are vicious and thorough.  and, for all of his words and aspirations, aaron is flesh and blood.  so many of the others are gone, too.  most  of his will has gone with them.

and unless ciaran can put outsides back in, then staying awake isn’treally going to happen this time.  he grips ciaran’s forearm so hard his nails break skin.  he wants to apologize, but he can’t find the words.  ciaran knows everything aaron could say, doesn’t he?    

“ you know i can’t, elskan. ”  speaking lost its dignity about the same time he started coughing blood everywhere, so he doesn’t try any more.