TDIR: Comes The Sun Again
Fandom: The Dark is Rising
Main characters: Will, Bran
Referenced characters: N/a
Pairings: Will/Bran
Contains: Angst, sap
Rating: G
Summary: There's so much snow, it reminds Will of something, something he somehow can't touch.
Notes: The title comes from Thea Gilmore's Sol Invictus (Spotify link). For darthanne, for Christmas. Thank you for being interested in my TDIR fics, and commenting so faithfully, and being here despite my focus on other fandoms. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate.
The snow is falling outside, tries to whirl in after him as Will steps through the door. He shuts it quickly, feels better straight away -- he can't remember why, but somehow snow unsettles him, stirs something best left silent. He remembers the enchantment of snow, the way it held him when he was a child, the way he longed for it, and he doesn't know why that changed. Growing up, maybe, he thinks. The bookshop is warm, too warm, the snow in his hair and on his face already melting. He wipes his face on his sleeve quickly, pushes his hair back from his face again.
He comes here all the time. Enchantment hasn't left this place -- if anything, it's become more of a haven. He gets a feeling here, a sense of potential, a reaching...
They have a good stock of books, they have deep squashy chairs, they even have a fireplace. It's an old fashioned little place, smelling of leather and books and burning wood, lit by candles. They know him, he's here all the time, it's a haven. They don't bother him, though. He likes that. It's nearly Christmas so of course everyone is rushing everywhere, there are horrific queues and an overdose of tacky decorations. This place remains untouched, immune to crowds, immune to haste. It's like they don't know that they're supposed to be selling books.
They serve drinks, too, especially in this season. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, even mulled wine and mulled apple juice. Will orders the mulled apple juice, tries not to catch the eyes of the girl who works here, the girl who sometimes smiles at him a bit more warmly than he likes. It reminds him of someone from long ago, from when he was a child -- Meggy? Maggie? -- but he doesn't remember why that should fill him with unease.
His favourite chair is the one by the fire. It's always perhaps a little too warm there, the leather of the chair over-warmed, the heat wrapping round him closely, but in weather like this, that's pleasant. He's settled there with his mulled apple juice and a book, by the time he comes in.
He's been in a couple of times now, Will knows. He doesn't remember even all the regulars, and this one's newer than most, he's only been coming to the shop for a few weeks. He's distinctive, though -- Will would know him anywhere, having seen him once. He's an albino, so white of skin and hair that it's a sort of slap in the face every time you look at him. Will almost expects fragility every time he looks at him, at that almost-translucence, but he's strongly built -- not so very tall, but solid, not willowy at all. He's all in black clothes, too, like he's doing it on purpose, emphasising the stark difference. He's wearing dark glasses even in this dreary weather, but Will thinks that might be because he has weak eyes -- albinos do, don't they?
Something about him triggers a little echo in Will -- some kind of recognition, and a more physical reaction, something clenching tight inside him. He's careful not to meet the strange man's eyes. He's afraid of what will happen if it does, like some kind of dam is going to break, or like this man could look inside him and see something he's not meant to, something that nobody is meant to.
Part of him wants to do it, a reckless and wild part, but Will has never been reckless and wild. He lets his hair fall across his face, looks down at the book, and tries to ignore his awareness of the man.
He hears him, crossing the room, pausing when he nears the fire. Will imagines that the man is looking at him, but he refuses to look up. He stares fiercely at the page, not taking in a single word, and a moment later the man walks past him, draws out a chair somewhere out of his field of vision.
Will's not sure if the cramping in his stomach is relief or disappointment.
---
When he comes in from the cold the next Wednesday, his favourite chair by the fire is empty. The one beside it, however, is not, and before he can tug his gaze away, the strange man looks up at him. He's not wearing his dark glasses now, and his eyes are as much of a shock as the rest of him, tawny-yellow, like no eyes Will knows -- although the sight is another of those strange, tugging echoes.
"I know you normally sit alone," the man says, as if there's no one else in the shop at all, as if it's just the two of them. His accent is lilting, strange. Will can't place it at first, then remembers his aunt Jen's voice, sing-song, Welsh now, gone native. Welsh. "Thought you wouldn't mind some company, like."
"I come here to read," Will says, stiffly. He sounds rude, even to himself.
"I'll be quiet." The man holds up his own book, in proof. "I wanted to sit by the fire."
"Well -- can't stop you, I suppose." The words hang in the air and Will huffs. "I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to sound... Let's start again. Hi, what's your name?"
The man looks amused, though only one corner of his mouth lifts into a smile. He gets up, offering his hand to shake. "Bran Davies. I see you here a lot."
"Bran Davies," Will says, tasting it, the way it sits on his tongue and fills up his mouth. Long 'a', in Bran. Like in barn, or farm. He doesn't know how he knows that. "I'm Will. Stanton. I've... noticed you."
"I'm a little bit distinctive. Hard to miss, you might say."
"Well -- yes."
"I get it all the time. It's worse when you live in a tiny Welsh village that's stuck back a hundred years or so. They thought I was one of the fairy folk, growing up." Bran smiles, a flash of teeth now, his tawny eyes bright. "People mostly don't know how to deal with me."
"I can see why," Will says. He's careful not to meet those strange eyes for too long, feeling oddly as if Bran really could cast some kind of spell on him, or... something, something like that. It's absurd, but Will's instincts are usually pretty good at steering him clear of things he doesn't want to get into.
The trouble is, they're not being precisely clear on this one. There's a churning in Will's stomach that's kind of like the feeling you get just before you find out if you passed or failed an exam, an anxious, uncomfortable weight to his stomach. But there's a flutter, too, like butterflies, like being on top of the world, like knowing this is going to be amazing.
"Are you sure you're not one of the fairy folk?" he asks, stupidly. Bran just laughs -- a flash of teeth again, and those eyes...
"I am not. I am not, on the other hand, entirely normal, either." There was something final about the way he said that, dismissing it. "Are you going to sit? I was thinking about ordering a drink."
"The mulled apple juice is good," Will says, and finds himself smiling despite that heavy sinking feeling.
---
"You make me feel... weird," Will says. He feels stupid as soon as he says it, but Bran looks at him over the top of his dark glasses and nods, his eyes serious, and there's no bright flash of a smile now. Bran's face is a sad one, Will realises now -- not sad in itself, perhaps, but there's a remoteness about it, an otherworldliness, that Will can't imagine clings to a person who smiles and laughs a lot, who has a lot to smile and laugh about. There's loneliness there.
"I'm not surprised," Bran says, simply. He's doing up his coat and after a moment his eyes drop again, to his hands, to the buttons. "I'm sorry if you found it... an intrusion, when I joined you."
"No," Will says, even though that's kind of a lie because he did, at first. "It was... nice, to have company."
"Ah," Bran says, unreadable for a moment, and then he quirks the tiniest part of a smile. "Nice, is it? Nobody ever teach you how boring that word is?"
"I don't know how else to describe it."
He'd felt that mixture of elation and discomfort the whole time. There was a strange ease between them, in the silence: there was nothing awkward about sitting there and reading, nothing awkward at all. Will had brought Bran his first mulled apple juice, and Bran had bought hot chocolate for them both. Reciprocation, easy and simple, natural as anything. When they had talked, Bran hadn't expected much from him -- a few words, and then he'd let him sink back down into reading his book.
Once, when Will had taken his drink from Bran, their fingers had brushed. Will felt it all through his body, a buzz of contact, like a circuit -- briefly -- being connected, completed.
Part of him had wanted to run away.
"Ah," Bran says, again. "Want to do again?"
"Yes," Will says, right away, immediate and firm, and then wonders what the heck he thinks he's doing.
"Alright. I'll see you... tomorrow?"
"The day after."
"The day after," Bran says, nods. "Okay. Around the same time." There's an awkward moment of silence, and then Bran pulls his gloves on, pulls his scarf more firmly around his neck, and flashes a last smile at Will that he can't help returning. "I'll be off now. Too cold out here to stand around talking. Or not talking."
"See you on Thursday," Will says, caught by the look in his eyes and then forcing himself to look away, to watch the snow -- to watch the way the wind whips it up and whirls it about. He imagines the snowflakes must feel something like him right now, tugged and turned about, confused, dizzy.
"Hwyl am rwan," Bran says, in what must be Welsh, and then he's gone. Will watches after him for a moment and then forces his eyes away again, turns into the wind with his eyes watering to make his way home.
---
The snow has been piling up, all through the week. Sometimes, looking at it, Will feels a little twinge of worry -- a worry that isn't twinned with delight, like it is with Bran, just plain worry. He feels as if the snow is starting to press in on them, hold them in, hold them all and never let them go. He's filled with restlessness, sure he should somehow be doing something -- but how he could do anything about it, and what he could do, he doesn't even know.
"I just can't stay still," Will says, half to Bran, mostly just to himself. His mouth is dry from the cold air, his breath shows like smoke against it. He wraps his scarf around the lower half of his face, tugs his hat down a little. Bran stands silent beside him, and then stretches a little.
"Better to walk than to sit inside, like," he says, and he leads the way. He has a strong stride, and Will imagines him covering the distance across Welsh hillsides just as easily. "I'm getting restless too. What do they call it? Cabin fever."
"It's more than that," Will says, with certainty he can't explain. Bran looks at him for a moment, face all shadowed, and then nods.
"You'd know better than me."
"What do you mean?"
Bran shakes his head and just keeps walking. The snow is lazier now than it was earlier, but still falling, dusting their clothes with fat flakes. Will quickens his stride to keep up, almost wanting to catch Bran by the sleeve, tug him round to face him, shake him.
"I don't understand," he says, even though he's not sure what, in all, there is that he's supposed to be understanding.
"You'll get there."
"Bran," Will says, and does catch his arm now. Bran turns a bit and looks into his face -- they're almost the same height, for all that Will always thinks of him as more. It's that electricity again, humming through Will, as if he's almost there, all the potential gathering and gathering, waiting for -- what? For the switch, whatever the switch is, for something to push the button and finally let it go, let it do whatever it's meant to do. "I don't understand," Will says, again, trying to capture that feeling and pin it down. Somewhere he thinks he can hear music, bell-like, full of joy and sadness and everything, all at once, the most perfect music there could ever be.
"Will," Bran says, just that -- barely more than a whisper and it somehow contains a world of meaning, of things Will can't quite touch and decipher, not yet, not now, not anymore.
Not anymore?
Will breaks away from him abruptly. "I think I should go home."
"Will -- "
"I think seeing you was a mistake."
Bran face stills again, goes colder, more remote than ever. His scarf has slipped away, come unravelled, and the soft curve of his throat is exposed, pale and delicate, yet hard, too, all of him suddenly sharpened, like he's made from stone. "Alright," he says, chill now, dismissive.
"I don't -- I don't know -- I can't -- " Will says, stumbling, half about to reach out again, because something in him can't bear the way Bran has withdrawn.
"Go home, Will Stanton."
"I -- bye, then," he says, and turns quickly, runs back through the snow, because he just doesn't know, doesn't understand, and he can't do this, he can't.
---
Instincts. Will knows he can rely on his, knows somehow that they're better than any other guide. He knows it's not the same for most other people -- flickers of intuition, sure, but not this swift sure guide. He doesn't always trust them, but he knows he has to now. He feels like his entire being has become a compass, pointing the way to only one thing, and he doesn't understand but his instincts are right, they've got to be, they always are.
The warning is still there, cramping up in his stomach. It almost faded when he ran away from Bran, but now it's back, something he has to struggle against -- it's physical now, not just a vague discomfort but a real pain, something that holds him back. Somehow that makes him more determined than ever, because it's not natural, it's not the kind of warning he thinks his instincts would really give. The compass point is more sure, not a crude compulsion but simply a knowing, bone-deep.
"I have no idea what I'm doing," Will says, to nobody -- he'd kind of like to say it to Bran, but first he has to find Bran.
The train station. It's like he can see it already, knows where he'll find Bran, all black and white in a world of colours, the one island of calm in all the rush, as if people know he's not to be touched. He follows that instinct, hoping it's real, hoping, hoping, because he needs to see Bran -- he was stupid to run away --
"Will," Bran says, suddenly, and he's there -- just where Will expected he would be, standing under the clock. He frowns and then he's putting out his hands, steadying Will, gripping his shoulders. "What is it?"
"I still don't understand," Will says, desperately, and the ache in his stomach is spreading now. A part of him thinks wildly, stupidly, appendicitis? -- and the rest of him knows it's nothing natural, nothing a doctor could diagnose. Bran's fingers are cool on his cheek, on his forehead, and he is that calm in the rush -- something to hold to in the storm -- and Will thinks, he thinks he knows what to do.
Bran's lips are cool, dry, but when they part in surprise his mouth is warm, and his hair is soft under Will's fingers when his cap falls off, and Will can twine his fingers in it, hold Bran there, pull him closer. That power and potentiality growing, and growing, and then he feels the moment it really connects, the moment everything flows again, the circuit connected, whole, completed, and he shakes with it.
"Will? Will!" -- a whisper, urgent though, Bran holding him tightly and looking into his face, desperate incomprehension --
"I'm alright, I'm alright, Bran, I'm alright," Will says, kisses him again, exhilarated now, wild, knowing, understanding, and there's no pain now and there's a new warmth, like the snow can't touch them now, can't take a hold. The Dark can't rise -- the Dark can never rise again -- they have no right, and now they have no power, no hold over him ever again.
"Iesu mawr," Bran says, fervent, so very Welsh. "Duw, Will, you've had me worried -- Sleeping Beauty, is it? True love's kiss," and he really makes no sense, but he's holding Will tightly and everything's right again, and he whispers, "Croeso nôl, Sais-bach," and Will knows what it means.
"Glad to be back," he whispers back. There are questions, like how and why, and there are people moving around them, probably people staring, but just now, just for now, it doesn't matter.
Main characters: Will, Bran
Referenced characters: N/a
Pairings: Will/Bran
Contains: Angst, sap
Rating: G
Summary: There's so much snow, it reminds Will of something, something he somehow can't touch.
Notes: The title comes from Thea Gilmore's Sol Invictus (Spotify link). For darthanne, for Christmas. Thank you for being interested in my TDIR fics, and commenting so faithfully, and being here despite my focus on other fandoms. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate.
The snow is falling outside, tries to whirl in after him as Will steps through the door. He shuts it quickly, feels better straight away -- he can't remember why, but somehow snow unsettles him, stirs something best left silent. He remembers the enchantment of snow, the way it held him when he was a child, the way he longed for it, and he doesn't know why that changed. Growing up, maybe, he thinks. The bookshop is warm, too warm, the snow in his hair and on his face already melting. He wipes his face on his sleeve quickly, pushes his hair back from his face again.
He comes here all the time. Enchantment hasn't left this place -- if anything, it's become more of a haven. He gets a feeling here, a sense of potential, a reaching...
They have a good stock of books, they have deep squashy chairs, they even have a fireplace. It's an old fashioned little place, smelling of leather and books and burning wood, lit by candles. They know him, he's here all the time, it's a haven. They don't bother him, though. He likes that. It's nearly Christmas so of course everyone is rushing everywhere, there are horrific queues and an overdose of tacky decorations. This place remains untouched, immune to crowds, immune to haste. It's like they don't know that they're supposed to be selling books.
They serve drinks, too, especially in this season. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, even mulled wine and mulled apple juice. Will orders the mulled apple juice, tries not to catch the eyes of the girl who works here, the girl who sometimes smiles at him a bit more warmly than he likes. It reminds him of someone from long ago, from when he was a child -- Meggy? Maggie? -- but he doesn't remember why that should fill him with unease.
His favourite chair is the one by the fire. It's always perhaps a little too warm there, the leather of the chair over-warmed, the heat wrapping round him closely, but in weather like this, that's pleasant. He's settled there with his mulled apple juice and a book, by the time he comes in.
He's been in a couple of times now, Will knows. He doesn't remember even all the regulars, and this one's newer than most, he's only been coming to the shop for a few weeks. He's distinctive, though -- Will would know him anywhere, having seen him once. He's an albino, so white of skin and hair that it's a sort of slap in the face every time you look at him. Will almost expects fragility every time he looks at him, at that almost-translucence, but he's strongly built -- not so very tall, but solid, not willowy at all. He's all in black clothes, too, like he's doing it on purpose, emphasising the stark difference. He's wearing dark glasses even in this dreary weather, but Will thinks that might be because he has weak eyes -- albinos do, don't they?
Something about him triggers a little echo in Will -- some kind of recognition, and a more physical reaction, something clenching tight inside him. He's careful not to meet the strange man's eyes. He's afraid of what will happen if it does, like some kind of dam is going to break, or like this man could look inside him and see something he's not meant to, something that nobody is meant to.
Part of him wants to do it, a reckless and wild part, but Will has never been reckless and wild. He lets his hair fall across his face, looks down at the book, and tries to ignore his awareness of the man.
He hears him, crossing the room, pausing when he nears the fire. Will imagines that the man is looking at him, but he refuses to look up. He stares fiercely at the page, not taking in a single word, and a moment later the man walks past him, draws out a chair somewhere out of his field of vision.
Will's not sure if the cramping in his stomach is relief or disappointment.
---
When he comes in from the cold the next Wednesday, his favourite chair by the fire is empty. The one beside it, however, is not, and before he can tug his gaze away, the strange man looks up at him. He's not wearing his dark glasses now, and his eyes are as much of a shock as the rest of him, tawny-yellow, like no eyes Will knows -- although the sight is another of those strange, tugging echoes.
"I know you normally sit alone," the man says, as if there's no one else in the shop at all, as if it's just the two of them. His accent is lilting, strange. Will can't place it at first, then remembers his aunt Jen's voice, sing-song, Welsh now, gone native. Welsh. "Thought you wouldn't mind some company, like."
"I come here to read," Will says, stiffly. He sounds rude, even to himself.
"I'll be quiet." The man holds up his own book, in proof. "I wanted to sit by the fire."
"Well -- can't stop you, I suppose." The words hang in the air and Will huffs. "I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to sound... Let's start again. Hi, what's your name?"
The man looks amused, though only one corner of his mouth lifts into a smile. He gets up, offering his hand to shake. "Bran Davies. I see you here a lot."
"Bran Davies," Will says, tasting it, the way it sits on his tongue and fills up his mouth. Long 'a', in Bran. Like in barn, or farm. He doesn't know how he knows that. "I'm Will. Stanton. I've... noticed you."
"I'm a little bit distinctive. Hard to miss, you might say."
"Well -- yes."
"I get it all the time. It's worse when you live in a tiny Welsh village that's stuck back a hundred years or so. They thought I was one of the fairy folk, growing up." Bran smiles, a flash of teeth now, his tawny eyes bright. "People mostly don't know how to deal with me."
"I can see why," Will says. He's careful not to meet those strange eyes for too long, feeling oddly as if Bran really could cast some kind of spell on him, or... something, something like that. It's absurd, but Will's instincts are usually pretty good at steering him clear of things he doesn't want to get into.
The trouble is, they're not being precisely clear on this one. There's a churning in Will's stomach that's kind of like the feeling you get just before you find out if you passed or failed an exam, an anxious, uncomfortable weight to his stomach. But there's a flutter, too, like butterflies, like being on top of the world, like knowing this is going to be amazing.
"Are you sure you're not one of the fairy folk?" he asks, stupidly. Bran just laughs -- a flash of teeth again, and those eyes...
"I am not. I am not, on the other hand, entirely normal, either." There was something final about the way he said that, dismissing it. "Are you going to sit? I was thinking about ordering a drink."
"The mulled apple juice is good," Will says, and finds himself smiling despite that heavy sinking feeling.
---
"You make me feel... weird," Will says. He feels stupid as soon as he says it, but Bran looks at him over the top of his dark glasses and nods, his eyes serious, and there's no bright flash of a smile now. Bran's face is a sad one, Will realises now -- not sad in itself, perhaps, but there's a remoteness about it, an otherworldliness, that Will can't imagine clings to a person who smiles and laughs a lot, who has a lot to smile and laugh about. There's loneliness there.
"I'm not surprised," Bran says, simply. He's doing up his coat and after a moment his eyes drop again, to his hands, to the buttons. "I'm sorry if you found it... an intrusion, when I joined you."
"No," Will says, even though that's kind of a lie because he did, at first. "It was... nice, to have company."
"Ah," Bran says, unreadable for a moment, and then he quirks the tiniest part of a smile. "Nice, is it? Nobody ever teach you how boring that word is?"
"I don't know how else to describe it."
He'd felt that mixture of elation and discomfort the whole time. There was a strange ease between them, in the silence: there was nothing awkward about sitting there and reading, nothing awkward at all. Will had brought Bran his first mulled apple juice, and Bran had bought hot chocolate for them both. Reciprocation, easy and simple, natural as anything. When they had talked, Bran hadn't expected much from him -- a few words, and then he'd let him sink back down into reading his book.
Once, when Will had taken his drink from Bran, their fingers had brushed. Will felt it all through his body, a buzz of contact, like a circuit -- briefly -- being connected, completed.
Part of him had wanted to run away.
"Ah," Bran says, again. "Want to do again?"
"Yes," Will says, right away, immediate and firm, and then wonders what the heck he thinks he's doing.
"Alright. I'll see you... tomorrow?"
"The day after."
"The day after," Bran says, nods. "Okay. Around the same time." There's an awkward moment of silence, and then Bran pulls his gloves on, pulls his scarf more firmly around his neck, and flashes a last smile at Will that he can't help returning. "I'll be off now. Too cold out here to stand around talking. Or not talking."
"See you on Thursday," Will says, caught by the look in his eyes and then forcing himself to look away, to watch the snow -- to watch the way the wind whips it up and whirls it about. He imagines the snowflakes must feel something like him right now, tugged and turned about, confused, dizzy.
"Hwyl am rwan," Bran says, in what must be Welsh, and then he's gone. Will watches after him for a moment and then forces his eyes away again, turns into the wind with his eyes watering to make his way home.
---
The snow has been piling up, all through the week. Sometimes, looking at it, Will feels a little twinge of worry -- a worry that isn't twinned with delight, like it is with Bran, just plain worry. He feels as if the snow is starting to press in on them, hold them in, hold them all and never let them go. He's filled with restlessness, sure he should somehow be doing something -- but how he could do anything about it, and what he could do, he doesn't even know.
"I just can't stay still," Will says, half to Bran, mostly just to himself. His mouth is dry from the cold air, his breath shows like smoke against it. He wraps his scarf around the lower half of his face, tugs his hat down a little. Bran stands silent beside him, and then stretches a little.
"Better to walk than to sit inside, like," he says, and he leads the way. He has a strong stride, and Will imagines him covering the distance across Welsh hillsides just as easily. "I'm getting restless too. What do they call it? Cabin fever."
"It's more than that," Will says, with certainty he can't explain. Bran looks at him for a moment, face all shadowed, and then nods.
"You'd know better than me."
"What do you mean?"
Bran shakes his head and just keeps walking. The snow is lazier now than it was earlier, but still falling, dusting their clothes with fat flakes. Will quickens his stride to keep up, almost wanting to catch Bran by the sleeve, tug him round to face him, shake him.
"I don't understand," he says, even though he's not sure what, in all, there is that he's supposed to be understanding.
"You'll get there."
"Bran," Will says, and does catch his arm now. Bran turns a bit and looks into his face -- they're almost the same height, for all that Will always thinks of him as more. It's that electricity again, humming through Will, as if he's almost there, all the potential gathering and gathering, waiting for -- what? For the switch, whatever the switch is, for something to push the button and finally let it go, let it do whatever it's meant to do. "I don't understand," Will says, again, trying to capture that feeling and pin it down. Somewhere he thinks he can hear music, bell-like, full of joy and sadness and everything, all at once, the most perfect music there could ever be.
"Will," Bran says, just that -- barely more than a whisper and it somehow contains a world of meaning, of things Will can't quite touch and decipher, not yet, not now, not anymore.
Not anymore?
Will breaks away from him abruptly. "I think I should go home."
"Will -- "
"I think seeing you was a mistake."
Bran face stills again, goes colder, more remote than ever. His scarf has slipped away, come unravelled, and the soft curve of his throat is exposed, pale and delicate, yet hard, too, all of him suddenly sharpened, like he's made from stone. "Alright," he says, chill now, dismissive.
"I don't -- I don't know -- I can't -- " Will says, stumbling, half about to reach out again, because something in him can't bear the way Bran has withdrawn.
"Go home, Will Stanton."
"I -- bye, then," he says, and turns quickly, runs back through the snow, because he just doesn't know, doesn't understand, and he can't do this, he can't.
---
Instincts. Will knows he can rely on his, knows somehow that they're better than any other guide. He knows it's not the same for most other people -- flickers of intuition, sure, but not this swift sure guide. He doesn't always trust them, but he knows he has to now. He feels like his entire being has become a compass, pointing the way to only one thing, and he doesn't understand but his instincts are right, they've got to be, they always are.
The warning is still there, cramping up in his stomach. It almost faded when he ran away from Bran, but now it's back, something he has to struggle against -- it's physical now, not just a vague discomfort but a real pain, something that holds him back. Somehow that makes him more determined than ever, because it's not natural, it's not the kind of warning he thinks his instincts would really give. The compass point is more sure, not a crude compulsion but simply a knowing, bone-deep.
"I have no idea what I'm doing," Will says, to nobody -- he'd kind of like to say it to Bran, but first he has to find Bran.
The train station. It's like he can see it already, knows where he'll find Bran, all black and white in a world of colours, the one island of calm in all the rush, as if people know he's not to be touched. He follows that instinct, hoping it's real, hoping, hoping, because he needs to see Bran -- he was stupid to run away --
"Will," Bran says, suddenly, and he's there -- just where Will expected he would be, standing under the clock. He frowns and then he's putting out his hands, steadying Will, gripping his shoulders. "What is it?"
"I still don't understand," Will says, desperately, and the ache in his stomach is spreading now. A part of him thinks wildly, stupidly, appendicitis? -- and the rest of him knows it's nothing natural, nothing a doctor could diagnose. Bran's fingers are cool on his cheek, on his forehead, and he is that calm in the rush -- something to hold to in the storm -- and Will thinks, he thinks he knows what to do.
Bran's lips are cool, dry, but when they part in surprise his mouth is warm, and his hair is soft under Will's fingers when his cap falls off, and Will can twine his fingers in it, hold Bran there, pull him closer. That power and potentiality growing, and growing, and then he feels the moment it really connects, the moment everything flows again, the circuit connected, whole, completed, and he shakes with it.
"Will? Will!" -- a whisper, urgent though, Bran holding him tightly and looking into his face, desperate incomprehension --
"I'm alright, I'm alright, Bran, I'm alright," Will says, kisses him again, exhilarated now, wild, knowing, understanding, and there's no pain now and there's a new warmth, like the snow can't touch them now, can't take a hold. The Dark can't rise -- the Dark can never rise again -- they have no right, and now they have no power, no hold over him ever again.
"Iesu mawr," Bran says, fervent, so very Welsh. "Duw, Will, you've had me worried -- Sleeping Beauty, is it? True love's kiss," and he really makes no sense, but he's holding Will tightly and everything's right again, and he whispers, "Croeso nôl, Sais-bach," and Will knows what it means.
"Glad to be back," he whispers back. There are questions, like how and why, and there are people moving around them, probably people staring, but just now, just for now, it doesn't matter.