The Anchor's Chain, chap 8
Not Quite
Series: The Anchor's Chain
Summary: Keep reading. More tomorrow.
Warnings: Grab something that will help soothe a throat from a shout of outrage.
--
Cold air over his skin contrasted with the rising warmth in his body, tightening from his chest to his belly. Nicholas struggle to breathe, very conscious of the loud thumping of his heart in his throat.
He didn’t know when he’d lifted a hand but he loved getting to know the softness of Stephen’s hair between his fingers. His head, resting on the bench-top, had no room to move or adjust but he’d never need to what with the way Stephen slanted and pressed closer, pulling back every few passes to lift just away enough to draw breath. He stole breaths then too, both of them softly moaning it out when the pleasure peaked every few seconds, or a tongue stroked in a particularly pleasant way…
Almost too good to be true, he thought, lifting up a bit to catch at the tail end of the latest kiss, give a gentle nip to Stephen’s lower lip and lick to soothe the little bite. Stephen laughed breathlessly, puffs of his exhale blowing gently over Nicholas’ neck.
He let Stephen lift away but teased, “That did feel good.”
“Good,” Stephen grinned, eyes shining, “Kind of the point.”
“More please?” Nicholas inched up, hand in Stephen’s hair gently pulling them together again, his eyes already zeroing in on his target, pinned in aim. He sat up and over, leaning over to where Stephen had crouched to bend to him, pulling Stephen closer and unbalancing the guy onto his knees -right between Nicholas’ knees, in fact. They’d last longer this way and it did bring them closer, he thought, shifting forward and closing in, pressing his chest right up against Stephen and slipping his tongue along the seam of Stephen’s lips.
A long minute later, when they parted to pant, “Nicholas,” Stephen breathed hoarsely, eyes closed.
But Nicholas closed the space again, angling his head, kissing deeper, licking into Stephen’s mouth and tangling his tongue with its new mate. “Yesss,” he hissed, and did it again.
“Nicholas,” Stephen gasped, carefully lifting away, “Wait…”
“Huh?” he dumbly commented, still dazed and pleasure-filled. There should be more kissing and less talking. The rest of his life should be spent kissing, forget those Visions-“What? Wait, why?”
“Uhh…” Stephen looked uneasy. “I… ah… have to tell you something.”
This did not look good, Nicholas decided, and hopefully asked, “Do you absolutely have to?”
Stephen looked stunned a moment then choked out, “So you don’t hate me later, yes.”
He sighed and sat up, giving Stephen’s hair one last stroke then leaning back into the bench backrest while Stephen stood up and took a seat beside him. Stephen fiddled restlessly with his hands and Nicholas decided unhappily this was definitely too good to be true. “Okay, out with it.”
Stephen hesitated then seemed to get over it and said, “You met my Aunt Sarah over the weekend.”
“Huh?” Nicholas drew a blank.
“Aunt Sarah?” Stephen shifted nervously, “The one I mentioned who talks about Fate?”
“Sarah…?” Then it hit, “Sarah! As in Sarah Stamford?”
“Um. Yes.” An expression of dread flitted over his face and Stephen closed his eyes a moment.
Nicholas wanted the conversation to be over already. He unsteadily asked, “You’re related to the Stamfords?”
“My mother,” came the quiet admission.
No words came to mind. Nicholas sat in silence.
“Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,” Stephen breathed.
“That’s means you’ve…?” Been lying to me? Confusion washed over him.
“I can do some small parlour tricks if I really try,” Stephen slowly admitted, “But half the time things don’t work all the way even if I’m concentrating so I don’t really bother with it. My mom’s pretty gifted but she doesn’t really practice much anymore. My parents are happy just to be married and living their lives. We have a more normal family life.”
Nicholas paused. “You… But…” Honestly, he couldn’t really think beyond, “You knew about me!”
Stephen closed his eyes a moment again, an expression flitting over his face of dread, determination and fright. “Um. Yeah.”
“What the hell?” Nicholas choked out when it was supposed to be a scream. Then he thought: their relationship; take pity on the poor Seer who-“You were leading me along? What is this,” he leapt to his feet, “Your idea to cheer up the poor walking dead kid doomed to be donated to the Collective?”
“Fuck that!” Stephen snapped, jumping up as well, “I tried to stay away from you!” He pushed a frustrated hand through his hair, “Look, I just needed to tell you that I… that I’m a bit like you.” Gesturing vaguely, “From the same… world. Sort of.”
Nicholas sighed, wanting to leave it there. There was something here now he knew neither of them would like, and there were questions he knew he should ask --because if there was one rule any person knew when your life had a time-limit, it was to make decisions decisively and stick with it because you had less time than most for thinking up What Ifs.
…but then Stephen had always been an exception to that rule. The one single exception that looked to have just come back to bite him in the ass.
Resigned, cold and hollow, Nicholas didn’t know what to say. “Why are you doing this? Why tell me at all?”
Stephen’s expression cracked. He looked miserable when he said, “I really like you. I wanted to ask you out or flirt back or… Nick, my mom’s got some serious juice. But she pretty much left that world when she married my dad and none of her skills showed up in me.”
Nicholas nodded, weary and tired, rubbing his face as he sat back down. “So what’s that got to do with anything?”
Stephen, hands clenched, moving hesitantly, sat down beside him. When he spoke again, his voice was slow and quiet, “She told me she turned away from magic for a lot of reasons but the biggest one was because of the Council. She hates them. I mean, rants and raves hates them.”
Nicholas shrugged.
After a pause, Stephen continued, “A few years ago she outright told me she thinks they’re self-serving, selfish bastards.” Giving a sigh, “And she told me a few reasons why, one of them being the Seers.” He looked over at Nicky, “She mentioned a new Seer. One from the old clans, a young boy who’d just turned sixteen. She wouldn’t speak his name but she said… she called him Doomed. She said even the Hidden World’s most ancient texts calls Seers that. It’s what this boy…”
Nicholas stared, eyes burning. That was him. “They call all Seers doomed,” he said hollowly, “And everyone waits, bated breath, fluttering uselessly over me, wondering every year if it’s this year I’m just going to succumb to all the strain.” His tone turned sour, “I mean, I’m never going to the Collective. Fuck that. So, pretty much, we’re all just waiting for me to die.”
Stephen looked sick. He swallowed and continued, “She said… this new Seer… he’s the most powerful the Council has seen in years.” He paused for a long moment, but a touch of pride coloured his tone just faintly as he said, “She said that he saw his visions so clearly that the Council wanted him for the Collective more than any other they’d ever had.” He paused, voice going quieter, “And one day I was half-asleep when she came into my room. My dad was with her. She said some things, they both did. But I sort of remember her saying she was thankful I didn’t show any potential; didn’t want to have to worry over me like those parents would over their ‘Starburn boy’ and I swear I thought I was dreaming but I remembered the name.”
Nicholas tensed, unhappy, feeling conflicted and exposed.
“Two years later you transferred in. Eighteen years old.” Stephen rubbed his forehead. “But you’re …geez, you’re normal. Nice.” He sighed again, “Funny, smart, skilled, interesting, and damn good looking.” He paused, a small smile surfacing, “I knew I should stay away but… fuck, Nicholas, I really… really like you. Been liking you and noticing you and damn it, you have no idea how hard it’s been to stay away with you looking at me the way you do, like you’re asking for me with your eyes.”
On a choked laugh, Nicholas half-jokingly demanded, “Then why’d you stay away? Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because I told my mother about meeting you when you tried out for the team,” Stephen said, looking sorry. “She told me Seers are supposed to be matched to Anchors. Told me the whole story-”
“Did she tell you the chances of that happening?” Nicholas’ throat was about to close up, he could barely breathe.
“Yeah,” Stephen said on a soft breath, the word barely audible. “I just… I thought you should be with your Anchor,” Stephen murmured dejectedly. “I thought you shouldn’t be tied up to me. I don’t have any ability at all. I can’t help you.”
“You’re a selfish martyr,” Nicholas hissed suddenly, angry, frustrated, feeling betrayed. “Fuck if that makes sense but you… you can’t decide these things for me!” He reached up and thumped a fist on Stephen’s chest. “That’s what everyone does for me, tells me what to do, how to live my life!” He snarled, “I’m never joining the Collective. Never.” He scowled, voice rising, “I want to die being me, even if it has to be by lethal injection because I don’t come out of that last Vision!”
Stephen grimaced and shuddered, distaste and fear overwhelming his expression.
The sight of that dragged the fight right out of Nicholas and he sighed, slumping. A long pause later, he managed to force out from a thick throat, “I want the person I… the person I ... love… to be the one holding my hand when I go.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Stephen said softly, looking stricken and shocked. “I couldn’t… not even now while all I know is that I like you.” He shook his head, wide-eyed with the simple horror of the scenario. “I couldn’t stand by and watch them kill you.” He made a face, “You’re my friend. You’re a great team mate, I like you, and I couldn’t… Nicholas, I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that you can accept that.” An odd look crossed his face, quickly followed by shame. But he bravely clenched his teeth when he quietly admitted, “I don’t even think I could- I don’t know if I can stay with you knowing-” He shook his head, pale and mortified, “That’s not the ending I want.”
“Then don’t say you stayed away because you think I should be with my Anchor,” Nicholas said stonily, angry and so very tired, “That’s just denial of the fear.”
“No,” Stephen protested, “I think you don’t have to have that ending either! Nicholas, I think you-”
“Need an Anchor,” Nicholas finished, sick of the entire conversation, “A mythological He who holds fast to keep the Doomed one safe from all the tempests of the vision-storms, that one? Who never fucking showed up.” He scoffed, “Yeah right.” Patience at an end, he pulled and turned away, “Fuck this shit.” When Stephen opened his mouth, looking distraught and desperate, Nicholas snapped, “Shut up. And stay the fuck away from me.”
Never mind he was the one walking away; his heart didn’t know the difference. It still broke apart and trailed pieces behind him with each step.
--
A headache thumped unpleasantly behind his eyes once he got off campus.
He should have been expecting something along those lines when, in the past, he always got those odd whispers after simply hanging around Stephen. It would make sense that now they’d touched and kissed, the reactions would build up to a level more powerful than they had in the past.
This one was going to be such a skull-cracker, too, Nicholas thought morosely. Not even worth the pleasure it had cost him, to end in such a disaster.
Asshole.
Let it go, he told himself furiously, disappointment settling coldly in his stomach. Knowing it would happen, he pulled out his phone, just as he glanced at the screen, “Nix” flashed up on it.
“Hey.”
“What happened?” she demanded. “What’s happening to you?”
“Turns out someone on my team is a non-prac mage’s son.” He gave a quick summary of Stephen’s connections to their world, a simple sum and without mention of what had just happened between them.
“This the guy you said keeps giving you headaches?” Nix asked suddenly.
Nicholas paused, “Yeah, so?”
“Email me a copy of what your schedule for the week looks like,” she instructed, completely ignoring the question, “And note in which days you see this guy, and which days you start to feel that headache building.”
“Nix…” But he didn’t have it in him to argue; he sighed, “Fine.”
Two hours of walking later and some quick emailing to his sister via his phone, he returned to his dorm building. He made for Elliot’s room, letting himself in when he found the door unlocked, and flopped on the bed. Elliott turned away from his laptop, winked and said,
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Nicholas breathed, closing his eyes.
“Went to shit?”
“Went to shit.” With another sigh, “He’s a Stamford on his mother’s side.” He gave Elliot a meaningful look.
One of Elliott’s brows went up, “As in Sarah Stamford?”
“Yep.”
“Huh,” Elliot’s expression went odd for a moment before he asked, “Hey, you got another headache?”
“Pounding.” Nicholas tilted his head back up and closed his eyes again.
“Nick,” Elliott asked slowly, a strange timbre in his tone, “When you get your headaches because of Stephen, how do they compare to the ones you used to get? Like, how much do they hurt, how clear are they, and do you get them at regular intervals?”
Nicholas paused, looked over then asked, “Why are you asking that now?” He huffed, “Even Nix is strangely obsessed with them all of a sudden.” He handed over his phone, selecting the email he’d just fired off to his sister.
“Hm,” Elliott hummed, reading quickly. His eyes were sharp when he looked back up, “Well?”
“They’re clearer, you know that,” Nicholas turned over onto his side, “Always get that kind of noisy interference after being near him. Weird reaction, huh?”
“Not really,” Elliott murmured, brows furrowing in that seldom-serious way of his that Nicholas found a bit disconcerting.
“Hey, Eli, what the heck?” Nicholas prodded.
Elliott frowned and said, “I think Nix and I are on the same page on this one.” He gestured to the phone and said, “If Stephen is descended of magic and the noise in your head is the ‘rising crescendo’ then… well, what if Stephen is ‘the orchestrator of the rising crescendo preceding a distant cacophony?’”
Nicholas slowly sat up and gave his friend a long, bated-breath stare. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
( next)