my very late binge
Pink Lemonade Binge
with Caramel, Hot Fudge, and Gummies
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1280's
Word Count : 3724
Gummy Prompt : origfic_bingo August Card - nurse back to health
So this was my piece for Sara's binge challenge. I'd already used the flavor for Kairn/Lyssa so it took a bit of wracking my brain to come up with a second use for it and I only started writing this the day before it was due. I had fun twisting the prompts to fit Sethan and Kairn (and it's totally canon!) It's also my first binge that's a continuous story rather than a montage, and I'm rather proud of that.
slip into something more comfortable
“When was the last time you slept?” said Kairn, as Sethan settled stiffly into the bed.
“Two…three days?” Sethan grimaced and quickly sat up to adjust the pillows beneath him before sinking back down. There was a distant clap of thunder and the boat swayed on the waves that rolled into the port. Sethan glanced at the rain-streaked window. “Maybe more, I lose track sometimes.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
Sethan waved the back of a pale and trembling hand his way. “I’ve been using magic for energy.”
“Magic costs you energy in the long run.” The stern look he gave Sethan was answered with a glower. “I’m not an idiot; don’t give me excuses like I was one.”
“I am fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s nothing,” said Sethan, prodding the pillows again to raise himself up a bit.
“You need to sleep,” said Kairn, pushing them back down.
“She’s bad enough when I’m awake. When I dream…”
“I’ll stay with you.” He pulled the blankets up and tucked them around him. “While you fall asleep and after,” he added, in response to another scowl. “We’re docked, I’m not needed anywhere else. If I see the slightest twitch out of you I’ll send her away. I swear. Just… please, Sethan. You’re starting to scare me.”
“You’re scared?” Sethan cocked a brow. “You’re not the one she’s trying to throw over the rails.”
“I-I’m sorry.” He pulled a chair up alongside the bed and sank into it with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”
“Just keep talking to me? It’s easier to keep her out when I’ve got someone else to listen to.”
“Talk to you, huh? What about?” He scanned the room, unsure of what he was looking for and finding only his own bunk along the far wall. The cabinets that framed the door were shut and locked, the key tucked in Kairn’s pocket, every instrument that might fall into Sethan’s hands and the goddess’s designs and cause him harm tucked safely out of reach.
“Anything.” He had a hand to his temple, and Kairn wondered if he’d be called to chase her away sooner than he’d thought.
“We beat her once, you know. We’ll do it again.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Sethan or himself, and the trademark Sethan smirk he got in return said his friend knew he was bluffing.
“Always the optimistic one, aren’t you.”
“I try.” Kairn shook his head. When did it come to this? To Sethan needing him to reassure him, to tucking him into a bed like a child and promising to stay and keep the monsters away. He found himself laughing aloud at the thought and quickly halted it. He leaned an elbow on the bed. Cocooned in the pillows and blankets, Sethan was still shivering.
“It’s always been us, hasn’t it?” said Kairn. Uncertain what else to do with his hand, he found himself pinching and smoothing wrinkles in the blanket. “Us against everything: bullies, demons, prophecies… gods. Even when I thought it was you I was fighting, I was still just your pawn, and you had my back all along. Funny, the two of us, all these years.”
naughty but nice
“You know what my first real clear memory of us is?”
Sethan chuckled. “Oh, so we’re going to reminisce, are we?”
“Shut up, you’re the one that told me to talk.”
“So what is it?”
“The first time we went to see Mabel.”
Sethan laughed. The sound was weak and it looked as if it pained him, but it was the first real smile Kairn had seen on him in days and that at least was reassuring.
“Really,” said Kairn, laughing a bit himself. “I can still see it, the two of us sneaking up the back stairs, creeping around in the dark, looking behind us with every creak. And you, you thought you were something special, waving around Berwyk’s keys, daring me to go in the attic with you.”
“Since when was I ever not special?”
“I know, I know, but that day was different. It wasn’t just that you were better at forms or that you were Berwyk’s little pet, or even that you had her.” He tapped his head. “Not that I knew about her yet. It was like things just happen around you, like you weren’t scared of anything at all, and I don’t know, maybe if I stuck with you, maybe I could be a part of things too.”
Sethan shook his head. “The way I remember it, you about pissed yourself. Before we went in.”
“Hey, Berwyk was scary. For all I knew he was watching us. I still don’t care to think what he would have done to us if he’d caught us.
“It was worth it though, to see her. A human being, sustained over a hundred years on nothing but magic. The forms in that room-”
“The teeth, the claws, the rotting flesh…” Kairn sniffed. “I think when she showed up I did piss myself. You’re right, though. It was so worth it.”
fooling around
“I did that to you a lot, didn’t I?” The way he was grinning now, he was practically his old self again.
“What?” said Kairn. “Made me piss myself?”
“Scared you in general.”
Kairn shrugged. “Not like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into… most of the time, anyway.”
“Like the behemoth?”
“Oh, yeah, that one was brilliant. Here, Kairn, hold this sack and snatch the little harmless furry things when they come scurrying out of their holes. More like mind you don’t get your head bit off while I use you for bait.”
“You lived.”
“Don’t forget the grave robbing. You, me, and a shovel, and some poor soul who thought he was at peace.”
“As if anyone ever missed them.”
“You were a horrible influence is what you were.”
“And you liked it,” said Sethan. “Being in the middle of where things ‘happened.’”
“I still could have gone with a bit less pulling bodies out of the ground. Didn’t much care for being your personal lab rat either. It was much better when things got tested on Aldo and Kinu.”
taking it slow
“You know what I remember?” said Sethan.
“What?”
“You wracking your brains trying to make a basic water form.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Kairn, “no need to remind me.”
There was a long pause while Kairn picked at the blankets and tried not to think and Sethan pretended to be interested in the rainy grey haze that dominated the window. “You know,” Kairn said at last, still staring at the faded quilt as it bunched between his fingers. “For years I wondered why they even kept me. Do you… do you think maybe Roul knew? All the way back then, knew that it was me that would tear the thing down? Do you think he would say it was all just according to plan?”
“I’m sure if you asked him now, he’d say he did.”
“So…is this all his fault? You and me?”
“I said he’d say he knew. Don’t give him too much credit. Besides,” he said, and there was suddenly a most un-Sethan-like softness to his tone, “is it too much to think maybe they saw something in you? I mean, you may not be the most skilled, but you’re far from stupid. You’re determined, compassionate, loyal to a fault-”
“Is that what you saw in me? My undying loyalty?”
As quickly as he’d left, slick, condescending Sethan was back and patting him patronizingly on the hand. “Do you really need to ask, life-long accomplice of mine?”
notch on the bedpost
“And was that really me, or was that you?” said Kairn.
“Hmm?”
“There’s something about you that just… You can’t tell me you’ve never noticed the way everyone just throws themselves at your feet. Berwyk, Reida, Tristan, every girl that ever sets eyes on you.”
“You’re still jealous about that?”
“Shasa,” he added sourly. “She loved you, you know. More than anything.”
“I’ve said I was sorry, haven’t I?”
Kairn had a lot to say about what Sethan considered “apologies”, but he decided to let it pass. “It wasn’t you though,” he said instead. “It was… it was her. It was always her. She was the one things happened around. She was what everyone wanted a piece of.”
“Aw, and here I thought you liked me for me.”
“I did like you. Still do. What am I here for now if not you? And I think I’m going to get myself something to drink. You want anything?”
tangled up in you
Kairn came back with a pair of steaming mugs in hand and a folding table tucked under his arm. He stashed the drinks on the desk while he set up the table. “Now where were we?”
“Your propensity for undying loyalty, my irresistible charm,” said Sethan, with a smirk.
“Whatever,” said Kairn, porting over the mugs. Sethan made a grab for one. “Uh-uh.” He directed him to the other. “No sugar,” he quickly added, when Sethan quirked a brow, and wondered if being incapable of lying was something Sethan might have added to the list of his features.
Either Sethan didn’t notice or he didn’t care, because he picked up the cup Kairn indicated and took a sip.
Kairn settled into his seat with his own drink. “It’s just what I do,” he said, with a shake of his head. “It’s like there’s not really a me without you. You and your plots and your schemes and your adventures. I mean, what would I even do with myself if I wasn’t busy following you into your latest death trap just so you could see what’s on the other side?” He eyed Sethan sideways over his mug as he took a sip. “Remember the time you almost got me killed?”
Sethan chuckled. “Which one?”
“The one where you really almost got me killed,” said Kairn. “You know, the time a demon tried to rip half my guts out. Did a fair job of it too,” he added, with a peek down the front of his shirt at the ugly swath of scar tissue that spanned from chest to navel along the right.
“You mean the time I saved your life.”
“It doesn’t really count since it was your fault it needed saving in the first place.”
“You know,” said Sethan, and his mug hit the table with a heavy clink. “I’m pretty sure I’ve said I was sorry for that too.”
“Tristan said it was the first time he ever saw you scared.”
“You weren’t the only one that was hurt that day. Tristan’s memory was probably clouded by his own blood loss.”
“Right,” said Kairn, taking a sip of his tea. “Because you stabbed him. Because you wanted the temple. Because you were scared.”
Sethan lifted his mug as if to take another drink, but quickly wrinkled his nose at it and set it back down untouched. “I thought I might lose you.” It was barely above a whisper, and he glared at his drink rather than look at him as he said it, but he still said it.
double entandre
“You were good at that too, you know,” said Sethan, finally picking his drink back up.. “Giving me a scare.”
“That’s a load of shit if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Oh, please, I’ve been saving your hide from the start.” He took a gulp from his mug and quickly added, “Sometimes even from things that weren’t my doing.”
“Name one.”
“Try a few dozen, all in the form of you in a pink dress in a tree.” He grinned as Kairn glared at him. “Or a bed. On a fence. The roof of a barn…”
“We are not talking about pink dresses tonight.”
“I never knew where I was going to find you tied up next.”
There was no way in Kairn’s mind this was passing for something that had ever bothered Sethan. He was all but laughing now. “They made a downright damsel in distress out of you half our childhood.”
“That does it,” said Kairn, slamming his drink down on the table. “I am no one’s damsel, least of all yours,” though it was hard not to laugh now that he was saying it himself. “Besides, I chalk that whole mess up as being your fault anyway.”
“Of course you do.”
kiss & make up
“You’d think we’d learn by now,” said Kairn quietly retrieving his drink. “That I would anyway, before you do get me killed.”
Sethan swallowed hastily and set the mug back down. “I figured you had. When I showed up on Lyssa’s doorstep with a boat and asked you to just pack up and leave with me. After the way we parted, I never thought you’d say yes so easily.”
Kairn shrugged. “What did I have to leave?” he said. “Sham’s a grown man now, and Lyssa… This is where I belong.” He eyed Sethan over the top of his mug as they both took another sip. “You, uh, you don’t… regret it, do you? Settling for this?”
“Who’s settling? And you can stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re wondering if it’s going to work.”
Doing his best to look innocent, Kairn took another sip of tea. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not an idiot either.”
Kairn set his drink down, a blush creeping over his cheeks. “You’re still drinking it.”
Sethan shrugged and took another sip. “You’re right,” he said. “I need to sleep."
come a little bit closer
“You know what my other oldest memory of us is? Sitting on the shore, under the willow tree - the first willow tree - floating paper boats on the lake.”
Sethan chuckled. “I remember those too.” He put his empty mug aside and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a yawn.
“You’d spend an hour getting every crease right on something that was just going to sink before long anyway.”
“Mine always lasted longer than yours did.”
“And then there was the second lake and the second willow tree.”
“No more paper boats by then.” His eyelids were slowly drooping.
“No, but it was still our spot,” said Kairn. “I was never really sure if you actually got it, what that meant to me. And then you go bringing this old thing to my doorstep.”
Sethan perked up at that. “This old thing? You have a problem with the boat?”
“No!” Kairn said hastily. He frowned at his own empty mug and deposited it next to Sethan’s. “Actually, I love it. It has to be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Sethan was laughing as he settled back into the pillows. “You do realize that’s not saying much, don’t you?”
“With my choice of friends, I suppose it’s not.”
between the sheets
“And I thought the comment about the boat was insulting,” said Sethan, not that he looked like he was bothered in the least. With his eyes closed and the quilt up around his neck, it seemed likely he’d be snoring any moment.
“We were just talking a few minutes ago about your tendency to scare the piss out of me, you know, just for fun, weren’t we? About how you used my sister and just threw her away, not to mention the construct you built in her likeness.”
Under the covers, Sethan shrugged. “It was the one surefire way to keep you from taking an axe to it like you did Reida’s.”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors. Where was I? Oh, what about how you almost got me killed? Repeatedly. Don’t start thinking all my memories of you are fond ones now.
“And then there was Lyssa. Love of my life in love with another man, and probably more in love with the bottle than either of us.”
Sethan opened an eye. “If you’re looking for sympathy…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. And Reida. The rats, the bats, the scarves, the notes, having to check the rooftops, close the curtains, shake out the sheets… expecting to find something with pincers waiting for me every time I turned around.” He sighed. It seemed wrong to admit it, but he found himself tumbling on. “It’s funny. You know, sometimes I actually kind of miss her.”
“I’ll be happy never to see her again.”
“You never did tell me what happened between the two of you.”
“And I’m not about to right now either.” He cringed suddenly and let out a yelp. His knees jerked up against his chest, pulling him into a tense ball.
“Sethan?”
Sethan pulled a hand out from under the covers and clapped it to his neck. His fingers shook as he felt for the mark.
tender loving care
“She’s back, isn’t she?” Kairn was out of his seat and pulling the blankets back.
There was no response from Sethan. Kairn pried his fingers from his neck, pushed his hair aside and activated the seal. The moment the magic popped, Sethan went limp with a heavy sigh.
“I said I’d be here for you and I meant it,” said Kairn, as Sethan burrowed back into the bed, wide eyed and shaking. “You can relax.”
Clutching at the covers, Sethan nodded.
Kairn settled back into his chair. “Just like old times,” he said. “You remember how we used to do this? I’d find you hunched over a few dozen pages of death sigils, seals and drains, and body parts and try to force some food and rest into you.”
“Some things never change, do they?” Sethan said, weakly.
“What? Like me taking care of everyone? No, I suppose not.”
“It’s what you were always best at. It’s why I let you have the boy.”
on the cheek
“You let me have him?” said Kairn. “I don’t know what sort of messed up alternate history you’ve painted for yourself so you could be the hero, but I don’t recall any such thing.
“What I remember is hiding my terrified pregnant sister in closets until I could sneak her out of the manor, only to have to fight my way past the gate.”
Sethan sniffed. “I made a point of diverting everyone to the wrong end of the manor that night, just for you.”
“Everyone but Daliver.”
“He was warned.” Sethan yawned. “Several times, as I recall.”
“I barely touched him. Struck him across the face with Reida’s glove and that was that, he was dead. The look on Shasa’s face then… He was my friend and I killed him because of you. The first man I ever killed, and not the last by far. You can say you let me have Sham if you want, but then you sure let me do a lot of the rest of your dirty work too.”
“Was not,” Sethan said sleepily.
“Huh?”
“Daliver wasn’t the first man you killed. That was Ephram.”
“Ephram was more of a leech than a man and in any case he was already dead, so that hardly counts.”
hard to get
“You’d think you did all the work,” said Sethan. “The number of messes I ran around cleaning up behind you. It’s a wonder Kinu didn’t find you years sooner. You probably still don’t know what really happened in Nanton, do you?”
“What? When Guilford put a bounty on me and Lyssa came charging in, blowing up mages and bounty hunters and soldiers and anyone else that got in her way left and right?”
Sethan cracked an eye open to give him a sideways look. “I gather from your tone that maybe I don’t want to take credit for that?”
“But you will anyway.”
Sethan made rather a pathetic attempt to prop himself back up and stifled another yawn. “While I’m not about to try to talk you out of the opinion that your former girlfriend is a homicidal madwoman, the explosions in Nanton were my doing. Re- I had Kairn decoys packed with explosives scattered around town.”
“You weren’t camping out on rooftops, peeking in my windows all those years too, were you?”
“No,” said Sethan, a little too quickly for Kairn’s liking. “Just…a few times.”
in your arms
“I suppose I should probably thank you for it,” said Kairn.
“Hmm?”
“Letting me have him, as you put it. All we went through, all the running and the hiding, it didn’t matter, really. That boy was still the best thing that ever happened to me. And after Shasa… I think I needed him as much as he needed me.”
“You’re welcome,” Sethan said with a smirk.
“I don’t recall actually thanking you.” He rolled his eyes at the expectant look that followed. “Don’t hold your breath.”
At a loss for something to do with himself as Sethan started drifting off again, Kairn gathered the mugs into a stack. “The things you missed out on,” he said, more to himself than to Sethan, from whom he swore he heard a snore. “I still remember the first time I held him, this tiny pink thing with enormous blue eyes, his first wobbly steps, the first time he fell.” He sighed. “There were times he’d give me this look and I’d swear it was you I was dealing with all over again. You know, one of these days, when this is over, again, I’m going to get you to spend some time with him, meet the grandkids and all that. I swear the oldest looks just like the both of you.” Sethan shifted a bit and let out what was most definitely a snore. “I suppose for now I should just find something to keep me the rest of the night while you sleep.”
sleeping beside you
Kairn was just getting up to go in search of a book when Sethan mumbled, “Thank you.”
Startled, he turned back to find Sethan still comfortably curled beneath the covers with his eyes peacefully shut. There was a moment of silence while Kairn tried to convince himself he’d really heard what he had. “I thought we already covered that,” he said. “It’s just what I do.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” said Sethan, still not bothering to open his eyes. “I know I don’t say it often, but I do.”
Kairn had to swallow a laugh and the urge to as if by not often he meant never. He pulled the covers up over his shoulders, and as Sethan let out another soft snore, he settled back into his chair and simply said, “I know.”
with Caramel, Hot Fudge, and Gummies
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1280's
Word Count : 3724
Gummy Prompt : origfic_bingo August Card - nurse back to health
So this was my piece for Sara's binge challenge. I'd already used the flavor for Kairn/Lyssa so it took a bit of wracking my brain to come up with a second use for it and I only started writing this the day before it was due. I had fun twisting the prompts to fit Sethan and Kairn (and it's totally canon!) It's also my first binge that's a continuous story rather than a montage, and I'm rather proud of that.
slip into something more comfortable
“When was the last time you slept?” said Kairn, as Sethan settled stiffly into the bed.
“Two…three days?” Sethan grimaced and quickly sat up to adjust the pillows beneath him before sinking back down. There was a distant clap of thunder and the boat swayed on the waves that rolled into the port. Sethan glanced at the rain-streaked window. “Maybe more, I lose track sometimes.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
Sethan waved the back of a pale and trembling hand his way. “I’ve been using magic for energy.”
“Magic costs you energy in the long run.” The stern look he gave Sethan was answered with a glower. “I’m not an idiot; don’t give me excuses like I was one.”
“I am fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s nothing,” said Sethan, prodding the pillows again to raise himself up a bit.
“You need to sleep,” said Kairn, pushing them back down.
“She’s bad enough when I’m awake. When I dream…”
“I’ll stay with you.” He pulled the blankets up and tucked them around him. “While you fall asleep and after,” he added, in response to another scowl. “We’re docked, I’m not needed anywhere else. If I see the slightest twitch out of you I’ll send her away. I swear. Just… please, Sethan. You’re starting to scare me.”
“You’re scared?” Sethan cocked a brow. “You’re not the one she’s trying to throw over the rails.”
“I-I’m sorry.” He pulled a chair up alongside the bed and sank into it with a sigh. “What can I do for you?”
“Just keep talking to me? It’s easier to keep her out when I’ve got someone else to listen to.”
“Talk to you, huh? What about?” He scanned the room, unsure of what he was looking for and finding only his own bunk along the far wall. The cabinets that framed the door were shut and locked, the key tucked in Kairn’s pocket, every instrument that might fall into Sethan’s hands and the goddess’s designs and cause him harm tucked safely out of reach.
“Anything.” He had a hand to his temple, and Kairn wondered if he’d be called to chase her away sooner than he’d thought.
“We beat her once, you know. We’ll do it again.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Sethan or himself, and the trademark Sethan smirk he got in return said his friend knew he was bluffing.
“Always the optimistic one, aren’t you.”
“I try.” Kairn shook his head. When did it come to this? To Sethan needing him to reassure him, to tucking him into a bed like a child and promising to stay and keep the monsters away. He found himself laughing aloud at the thought and quickly halted it. He leaned an elbow on the bed. Cocooned in the pillows and blankets, Sethan was still shivering.
“It’s always been us, hasn’t it?” said Kairn. Uncertain what else to do with his hand, he found himself pinching and smoothing wrinkles in the blanket. “Us against everything: bullies, demons, prophecies… gods. Even when I thought it was you I was fighting, I was still just your pawn, and you had my back all along. Funny, the two of us, all these years.”
naughty but nice
“You know what my first real clear memory of us is?”
Sethan chuckled. “Oh, so we’re going to reminisce, are we?”
“Shut up, you’re the one that told me to talk.”
“So what is it?”
“The first time we went to see Mabel.”
Sethan laughed. The sound was weak and it looked as if it pained him, but it was the first real smile Kairn had seen on him in days and that at least was reassuring.
“Really,” said Kairn, laughing a bit himself. “I can still see it, the two of us sneaking up the back stairs, creeping around in the dark, looking behind us with every creak. And you, you thought you were something special, waving around Berwyk’s keys, daring me to go in the attic with you.”
“Since when was I ever not special?”
“I know, I know, but that day was different. It wasn’t just that you were better at forms or that you were Berwyk’s little pet, or even that you had her.” He tapped his head. “Not that I knew about her yet. It was like things just happen around you, like you weren’t scared of anything at all, and I don’t know, maybe if I stuck with you, maybe I could be a part of things too.”
Sethan shook his head. “The way I remember it, you about pissed yourself. Before we went in.”
“Hey, Berwyk was scary. For all I knew he was watching us. I still don’t care to think what he would have done to us if he’d caught us.
“It was worth it though, to see her. A human being, sustained over a hundred years on nothing but magic. The forms in that room-”
“The teeth, the claws, the rotting flesh…” Kairn sniffed. “I think when she showed up I did piss myself. You’re right, though. It was so worth it.”
fooling around
“I did that to you a lot, didn’t I?” The way he was grinning now, he was practically his old self again.
“What?” said Kairn. “Made me piss myself?”
“Scared you in general.”
Kairn shrugged. “Not like I didn’t know what I was getting myself into… most of the time, anyway.”
“Like the behemoth?”
“Oh, yeah, that one was brilliant. Here, Kairn, hold this sack and snatch the little harmless furry things when they come scurrying out of their holes. More like mind you don’t get your head bit off while I use you for bait.”
“You lived.”
“Don’t forget the grave robbing. You, me, and a shovel, and some poor soul who thought he was at peace.”
“As if anyone ever missed them.”
“You were a horrible influence is what you were.”
“And you liked it,” said Sethan. “Being in the middle of where things ‘happened.’”
“I still could have gone with a bit less pulling bodies out of the ground. Didn’t much care for being your personal lab rat either. It was much better when things got tested on Aldo and Kinu.”
taking it slow
“You know what I remember?” said Sethan.
“What?”
“You wracking your brains trying to make a basic water form.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Kairn, “no need to remind me.”
There was a long pause while Kairn picked at the blankets and tried not to think and Sethan pretended to be interested in the rainy grey haze that dominated the window. “You know,” Kairn said at last, still staring at the faded quilt as it bunched between his fingers. “For years I wondered why they even kept me. Do you… do you think maybe Roul knew? All the way back then, knew that it was me that would tear the thing down? Do you think he would say it was all just according to plan?”
“I’m sure if you asked him now, he’d say he did.”
“So…is this all his fault? You and me?”
“I said he’d say he knew. Don’t give him too much credit. Besides,” he said, and there was suddenly a most un-Sethan-like softness to his tone, “is it too much to think maybe they saw something in you? I mean, you may not be the most skilled, but you’re far from stupid. You’re determined, compassionate, loyal to a fault-”
“Is that what you saw in me? My undying loyalty?”
As quickly as he’d left, slick, condescending Sethan was back and patting him patronizingly on the hand. “Do you really need to ask, life-long accomplice of mine?”
notch on the bedpost
“And was that really me, or was that you?” said Kairn.
“Hmm?”
“There’s something about you that just… You can’t tell me you’ve never noticed the way everyone just throws themselves at your feet. Berwyk, Reida, Tristan, every girl that ever sets eyes on you.”
“You’re still jealous about that?”
“Shasa,” he added sourly. “She loved you, you know. More than anything.”
“I’ve said I was sorry, haven’t I?”
Kairn had a lot to say about what Sethan considered “apologies”, but he decided to let it pass. “It wasn’t you though,” he said instead. “It was… it was her. It was always her. She was the one things happened around. She was what everyone wanted a piece of.”
“Aw, and here I thought you liked me for me.”
“I did like you. Still do. What am I here for now if not you? And I think I’m going to get myself something to drink. You want anything?”
tangled up in you
Kairn came back with a pair of steaming mugs in hand and a folding table tucked under his arm. He stashed the drinks on the desk while he set up the table. “Now where were we?”
“Your propensity for undying loyalty, my irresistible charm,” said Sethan, with a smirk.
“Whatever,” said Kairn, porting over the mugs. Sethan made a grab for one. “Uh-uh.” He directed him to the other. “No sugar,” he quickly added, when Sethan quirked a brow, and wondered if being incapable of lying was something Sethan might have added to the list of his features.
Either Sethan didn’t notice or he didn’t care, because he picked up the cup Kairn indicated and took a sip.
Kairn settled into his seat with his own drink. “It’s just what I do,” he said, with a shake of his head. “It’s like there’s not really a me without you. You and your plots and your schemes and your adventures. I mean, what would I even do with myself if I wasn’t busy following you into your latest death trap just so you could see what’s on the other side?” He eyed Sethan sideways over his mug as he took a sip. “Remember the time you almost got me killed?”
Sethan chuckled. “Which one?”
“The one where you really almost got me killed,” said Kairn. “You know, the time a demon tried to rip half my guts out. Did a fair job of it too,” he added, with a peek down the front of his shirt at the ugly swath of scar tissue that spanned from chest to navel along the right.
“You mean the time I saved your life.”
“It doesn’t really count since it was your fault it needed saving in the first place.”
“You know,” said Sethan, and his mug hit the table with a heavy clink. “I’m pretty sure I’ve said I was sorry for that too.”
“Tristan said it was the first time he ever saw you scared.”
“You weren’t the only one that was hurt that day. Tristan’s memory was probably clouded by his own blood loss.”
“Right,” said Kairn, taking a sip of his tea. “Because you stabbed him. Because you wanted the temple. Because you were scared.”
Sethan lifted his mug as if to take another drink, but quickly wrinkled his nose at it and set it back down untouched. “I thought I might lose you.” It was barely above a whisper, and he glared at his drink rather than look at him as he said it, but he still said it.
double entandre
“You were good at that too, you know,” said Sethan, finally picking his drink back up.. “Giving me a scare.”
“That’s a load of shit if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Oh, please, I’ve been saving your hide from the start.” He took a gulp from his mug and quickly added, “Sometimes even from things that weren’t my doing.”
“Name one.”
“Try a few dozen, all in the form of you in a pink dress in a tree.” He grinned as Kairn glared at him. “Or a bed. On a fence. The roof of a barn…”
“We are not talking about pink dresses tonight.”
“I never knew where I was going to find you tied up next.”
There was no way in Kairn’s mind this was passing for something that had ever bothered Sethan. He was all but laughing now. “They made a downright damsel in distress out of you half our childhood.”
“That does it,” said Kairn, slamming his drink down on the table. “I am no one’s damsel, least of all yours,” though it was hard not to laugh now that he was saying it himself. “Besides, I chalk that whole mess up as being your fault anyway.”
“Of course you do.”
kiss & make up
“You’d think we’d learn by now,” said Kairn quietly retrieving his drink. “That I would anyway, before you do get me killed.”
Sethan swallowed hastily and set the mug back down. “I figured you had. When I showed up on Lyssa’s doorstep with a boat and asked you to just pack up and leave with me. After the way we parted, I never thought you’d say yes so easily.”
Kairn shrugged. “What did I have to leave?” he said. “Sham’s a grown man now, and Lyssa… This is where I belong.” He eyed Sethan over the top of his mug as they both took another sip. “You, uh, you don’t… regret it, do you? Settling for this?”
“Who’s settling? And you can stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re wondering if it’s going to work.”
Doing his best to look innocent, Kairn took another sip of tea. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not an idiot either.”
Kairn set his drink down, a blush creeping over his cheeks. “You’re still drinking it.”
Sethan shrugged and took another sip. “You’re right,” he said. “I need to sleep."
come a little bit closer
“You know what my other oldest memory of us is? Sitting on the shore, under the willow tree - the first willow tree - floating paper boats on the lake.”
Sethan chuckled. “I remember those too.” He put his empty mug aside and tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a yawn.
“You’d spend an hour getting every crease right on something that was just going to sink before long anyway.”
“Mine always lasted longer than yours did.”
“And then there was the second lake and the second willow tree.”
“No more paper boats by then.” His eyelids were slowly drooping.
“No, but it was still our spot,” said Kairn. “I was never really sure if you actually got it, what that meant to me. And then you go bringing this old thing to my doorstep.”
Sethan perked up at that. “This old thing? You have a problem with the boat?”
“No!” Kairn said hastily. He frowned at his own empty mug and deposited it next to Sethan’s. “Actually, I love it. It has to be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Sethan was laughing as he settled back into the pillows. “You do realize that’s not saying much, don’t you?”
“With my choice of friends, I suppose it’s not.”
between the sheets
“And I thought the comment about the boat was insulting,” said Sethan, not that he looked like he was bothered in the least. With his eyes closed and the quilt up around his neck, it seemed likely he’d be snoring any moment.
“We were just talking a few minutes ago about your tendency to scare the piss out of me, you know, just for fun, weren’t we? About how you used my sister and just threw her away, not to mention the construct you built in her likeness.”
Under the covers, Sethan shrugged. “It was the one surefire way to keep you from taking an axe to it like you did Reida’s.”
“You’re not doing yourself any favors. Where was I? Oh, what about how you almost got me killed? Repeatedly. Don’t start thinking all my memories of you are fond ones now.
“And then there was Lyssa. Love of my life in love with another man, and probably more in love with the bottle than either of us.”
Sethan opened an eye. “If you’re looking for sympathy…”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. And Reida. The rats, the bats, the scarves, the notes, having to check the rooftops, close the curtains, shake out the sheets… expecting to find something with pincers waiting for me every time I turned around.” He sighed. It seemed wrong to admit it, but he found himself tumbling on. “It’s funny. You know, sometimes I actually kind of miss her.”
“I’ll be happy never to see her again.”
“You never did tell me what happened between the two of you.”
“And I’m not about to right now either.” He cringed suddenly and let out a yelp. His knees jerked up against his chest, pulling him into a tense ball.
“Sethan?”
Sethan pulled a hand out from under the covers and clapped it to his neck. His fingers shook as he felt for the mark.
tender loving care
“She’s back, isn’t she?” Kairn was out of his seat and pulling the blankets back.
There was no response from Sethan. Kairn pried his fingers from his neck, pushed his hair aside and activated the seal. The moment the magic popped, Sethan went limp with a heavy sigh.
“I said I’d be here for you and I meant it,” said Kairn, as Sethan burrowed back into the bed, wide eyed and shaking. “You can relax.”
Clutching at the covers, Sethan nodded.
Kairn settled back into his chair. “Just like old times,” he said. “You remember how we used to do this? I’d find you hunched over a few dozen pages of death sigils, seals and drains, and body parts and try to force some food and rest into you.”
“Some things never change, do they?” Sethan said, weakly.
“What? Like me taking care of everyone? No, I suppose not.”
“It’s what you were always best at. It’s why I let you have the boy.”
on the cheek
“You let me have him?” said Kairn. “I don’t know what sort of messed up alternate history you’ve painted for yourself so you could be the hero, but I don’t recall any such thing.
“What I remember is hiding my terrified pregnant sister in closets until I could sneak her out of the manor, only to have to fight my way past the gate.”
Sethan sniffed. “I made a point of diverting everyone to the wrong end of the manor that night, just for you.”
“Everyone but Daliver.”
“He was warned.” Sethan yawned. “Several times, as I recall.”
“I barely touched him. Struck him across the face with Reida’s glove and that was that, he was dead. The look on Shasa’s face then… He was my friend and I killed him because of you. The first man I ever killed, and not the last by far. You can say you let me have Sham if you want, but then you sure let me do a lot of the rest of your dirty work too.”
“Was not,” Sethan said sleepily.
“Huh?”
“Daliver wasn’t the first man you killed. That was Ephram.”
“Ephram was more of a leech than a man and in any case he was already dead, so that hardly counts.”
hard to get
“You’d think you did all the work,” said Sethan. “The number of messes I ran around cleaning up behind you. It’s a wonder Kinu didn’t find you years sooner. You probably still don’t know what really happened in Nanton, do you?”
“What? When Guilford put a bounty on me and Lyssa came charging in, blowing up mages and bounty hunters and soldiers and anyone else that got in her way left and right?”
Sethan cracked an eye open to give him a sideways look. “I gather from your tone that maybe I don’t want to take credit for that?”
“But you will anyway.”
Sethan made rather a pathetic attempt to prop himself back up and stifled another yawn. “While I’m not about to try to talk you out of the opinion that your former girlfriend is a homicidal madwoman, the explosions in Nanton were my doing. Re- I had Kairn decoys packed with explosives scattered around town.”
“You weren’t camping out on rooftops, peeking in my windows all those years too, were you?”
“No,” said Sethan, a little too quickly for Kairn’s liking. “Just…a few times.”
in your arms
“I suppose I should probably thank you for it,” said Kairn.
“Hmm?”
“Letting me have him, as you put it. All we went through, all the running and the hiding, it didn’t matter, really. That boy was still the best thing that ever happened to me. And after Shasa… I think I needed him as much as he needed me.”
“You’re welcome,” Sethan said with a smirk.
“I don’t recall actually thanking you.” He rolled his eyes at the expectant look that followed. “Don’t hold your breath.”
At a loss for something to do with himself as Sethan started drifting off again, Kairn gathered the mugs into a stack. “The things you missed out on,” he said, more to himself than to Sethan, from whom he swore he heard a snore. “I still remember the first time I held him, this tiny pink thing with enormous blue eyes, his first wobbly steps, the first time he fell.” He sighed. “There were times he’d give me this look and I’d swear it was you I was dealing with all over again. You know, one of these days, when this is over, again, I’m going to get you to spend some time with him, meet the grandkids and all that. I swear the oldest looks just like the both of you.” Sethan shifted a bit and let out what was most definitely a snore. “I suppose for now I should just find something to keep me the rest of the night while you sleep.”
sleeping beside you
Kairn was just getting up to go in search of a book when Sethan mumbled, “Thank you.”
Startled, he turned back to find Sethan still comfortably curled beneath the covers with his eyes peacefully shut. There was a moment of silence while Kairn tried to convince himself he’d really heard what he had. “I thought we already covered that,” he said. “It’s just what I do.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” said Sethan, still not bothering to open his eyes. “I know I don’t say it often, but I do.”
Kairn had to swallow a laugh and the urge to as if by not often he meant never. He pulled the covers up over his shoulders, and as Sethan let out another soft snore, he settled back into his chair and simply said, “I know.”