Chapter Text
The first thing he notices as he regains consciousness is that everything hurts.
His lungs burn as he gasps for air, his lips feel dry and cracked, his skin blistered and burned. His whole body aches, proving to him that he is still stubbornly, wretchedly alive.
The second thing he notices is a voice.
He can’t make out what it’s saying. First, because he cannot focus, and then he realizes… it is in a language he has never heard. The voice sounds sweet but panicked and he struggles to open his eyes and see it’s owner.
“Can you hear me? Please, hold on. Help is coming!”
His eyes crack open. The figure is blurry and darkened against the sun glaring behind him, like a halo. But he can just make out the face of a young man.
“Stay awake, please don’t die. Look at me.”
His vision darkens and he can feel himself going under again. His eyes flutter closed and he drifts off to the sound of that sweet, lilting voice speaking in a foreign tongue.
—
When he wakes again, he is no longer laying on a sandy beach. Instead, he is in a room, on a bed, with a strange man sitting beside him. One look at him and he can tell that he is a monk. He must be at a monastery. He almost laughs. Of course he casts himself out to sea to escape the Crusades and the wrath of God only to end up in a place dedicated to worshipping Him.
“You are awake. I’m glad to see you looking well,” the man speaks in the same foreign tongue as the boy on the beach.
He stares at the man evenly and doesn’t respond.
“Do you understand me?” the man asks. “Do you speak Irish?”
He continues staring.
The man scratches his beard. “What about Latin? Hmmm… French?”
His eyes light up when he hears his native tongue.
“Ah, French it is,” the man smiles. “My name is Ciarán, I am a monk at this monastery. I do not know where you are from, you seem to have been spit out of the sea itself. Our novice found you on the beach, half-dead in a broken currach. But you are in Ireland now.”
His eyes widen. He’s never been to Ireland before, and he didn’t realize he had traveled such a distance. The days all blurred together on that boat out at sea, starving and dehydrated and begging for death, but he could not bring himself to slip out of the boat and drown.
“What is your name, brother?” Ciarán asks kindly.
He hesitates. Perhaps he didn’t die on that boat, but he may as well have. He does not wish to be who he was before. He shakes his head.
“No?” Ciarán asks. “Can you speak?”
He can, but now that he’s asked he realizes he doesn’t want to. He’s said many a foolish thing in his life and his mouth has caused nothing but trouble. Better to not say anything at all. He shakes his head again.
“I see,” Ciarán leans back. “Just as well, I am the only monk here that has traveled enough to know French. I was on the Crusades, once. A long time ago now.”
He tries to keep his face blank at the mention of the Crusades but his mouth twitches, just a little, and Ciarán’s eyes narrow slightly, seeming to pick up on it.
“We can house you here until you are well enough to travel. And then, we can provide you with some meager food for your journey should you choose to travel east through these lands and return to where you came from.”
Ciarán leans over to pour a cup of water from a jug. He hands it over for him to drink and then he continues.
“Or, if you would like, you may stay here as a laybrother. We are but a small monastery but there is plenty to do and we could always use the extra hands. Especially from someone as strapping as yourself. You look like you are used to hard labor.”
He tilts his head. A laybrother. In his previous life, he never would have deigned to take on such a lowly position. He was meant for greatness, to fight in God’s holy war, to achieve glory.
Now he is not so foolish to think he is above anything. He has seen what hubris has given him. Perhaps the life of a lowly laybrother is exactly what he needs for penance. Though he knows the sins he has committed can never truly be absolved.
“You may think it over as you heal,” Ciarán concludes, but he has already made up his mind. He will stay here and help the monks in any way he can.
—
It is about a week more until he is finally well enough to leave the room. Ciarán helps him stand and his steps are wobbly at first, but he quickly regains his ability to walk on his own. Stepping outside and into the sun—he almost feels unworthy of it. He didn’t expect to ever feel it again, and it's almost blasphemous that he is able to enjoy it’s warm rays when he knows so many who no longer can.
He gets his first real look at the monastery he’s staying in. It’s smaller than he thought. Nothing like the grand monasteries he’s seen, with hundreds of monks in large, intricate buildings lovingly crafted with devotion to God. It seems as if there are only a dozen or so monks in ramshackle huts, tending to their meager livestock and simple gardens.
They’re all about their tasks but they stand and watch him curiously as he steps out. No doubt, they hardly ever get visitors. Ireland is a ways away from the Holy Land and from what he’s heard, still very much pagan territory. A small monastery on its coast that seems almost forgotten surely doesn’t see many outsiders. And with his unorthodox arrival, he must be a spectacle.
“He’s awake!” he hears a familiar shout, and his head whips around to see a young man—younger than all the others by at least a decade—running towards him. “It is so good to see you well, my friend. You frightened me.”
He beams up at him, happiness clear in his features. Why anyone would be happy to see him, he doesn’t know, but especially not a monk. Or—not quite a monk, he notes his lack of tonsure.
“Diarmuid, do not overwhelm him,” Ciarán seems to chide the boy. “He is still recovering. And he does not understand Irish.”
Diarmuid’s smile drops and he looks at Ciarán. “He does not speak Irish? What does he speak? Where is he from?”
“He does not speak anything,” Ciarán replies. “He is mute.”
Then he turns back to him, speaking French again. “Forgive us. This is Diarmuid, our Novice. He has been with us since he was a child, left at the entrance of the church overnight. He has never been outside the monastery, and is naturally very curious because of it.”
“What are you saying about me?” Diarmuid pouts.
Ciarán ignores him and continues. “I am the only one here who speaks French. So I will be assigning you all your tasks, should you choose to stay here.”
He nods in understanding. He looks back to the small monk who is still staring at him like he’s a curiosity. A boy raised in a monastery. He must know a very simple, ascetic life, free of the knowledge of the horrors of the world. He is almost jealous of his innocence.
“Come now, Diarmuid,” Ciarán makes a shoo-ing motion towards the Novice. “Leave the man alone, do not bother him.”
Diarmuid looks forlorn but backs away slowly, taking one last look at him before turning away and resuming his chores.
“He has not stopped asking for you since he found you on the beach,” Ciarán explains. “We have not had such excitement at our monastery in all my time here. I will try to refrain him from bothering you too much, he has never met someone from outside of our region before.”
He looks to Ciarán and shakes his head. It is not a bother at all. He turns back to watch Diarmuid tending the garden. All the young men he’s ever known have been boisterous, loud, and eager for war—including himself. Always ready to start a fight, to prove himself. A life raised in contemplation and devotion to the Lord… Diarmuid is everything he was not. It compels him.
—
Diarmuid is indeed unlike anyone he has ever met. Once he’s well enough, and has made it clear he intends to stay, Ciarán sets up tasks for him. Mucking the modest stables, fixing the thatching on the roofs, cutting wood—grunt work. He’s happy to do it, to keep his muscles burning and mind occupied. He sets up home in a dilapidated but fixable clochan (as he’s learned they’re called) a ways away from the rest of huts grouped together in the center of the monastery. He intends to keep to himself, the mute laybrother— The Mute , as they’ve taken to calling him—silent and solitary.
But Diarmuid has other plans.
He has many tasks that involve accompanying their youngest monk on his journeys into the forest to collect herbs and firewood, or the beach to collect seaweed and razor clams. He’s unsure what his presence adds except an ear for Diarmuid to chatter to.
And boy, does he love to talk.
He would almost think that Diarmuid had no idea that he doesn’t speak Irish, they way he rattles on, if it wasn’t for the fact that every once in a while he would point at everything they walked past and translate it for him.
He’s not sure how much of it he’s supposed to retain, but he silently listens as the boy prattles on.
Diarmuid points to a bird fluttering by. “Bird,” he says, and then looks at him intently like he wants to make sure he’s absorbing this information.
He points to a tree. “Tree.”
He points to the sky. “Sky.”
Then he points to the Mute. “Mo chara,” he says with certainty.
He’s not really sure what mo chara is supposed to mean, but it’s different from what the rest of the monks call him and it makes him feel warm every time he says it.
—
Diarmuid is soft and sweet and thoughtful. It doesn’t take understanding his language to know that. He talks to him even though he has nothing to say, even though he can’t understand. He doesn’t seem to mind the silence, he just wants to be his friend.
They sit together on the beach, taking a break. Diarmuid looks out at the sea, pondering. He does that a lot. He seems very introspective.
“I think about where you come from sometimes,” Diarmuid says, and though he does not understand him, he looks at him intently to let him know he’s paying attention. “I have so many questions I’d like to ask you, but I know you cannot answer.”
He turns to look at him and smiles. It’s bright and beaming and genuine, and it knocks the breath out of his lungs.
“You must think me silly for talking on and on when you cannot understand,” Diarmuid laughs. “But I always feel like you are listening anyway. You are a good companion.”
He stares back at Diarmuid and says nothing at all. Diarmuid never seems to need a response. He sighs contentedly and looks back out towards the ocean.
“Ocean,” he says finally, pointing to the vast expanse of water. “Sand,” he points to the sand beneath them. He picks up a tiny shell. “Shell.”
He looks toward him expectantly, seeing if he understands. He nods and Diarmuid smiles. He wonders what the word beautiful is in Irish.
“Mo chara,” Diarmuid says finally, pointing at him.
That he understands now.
My friend.
—
He cannot believe it, but Diarmuid’s teaching methods are working. He’s slowly beginning to understand the language of this land.
He still cannot understand Diarmuid’s long, rambling conversations, but Diarmuid can now say a word and he can point to the thing. The way Diarmuid claps in delight when he gets a word right is good incentive.
“Sheep,” Diarmuid says. He points to the sheep in their pen. “Horse,” he points to the monastery’s lone horse, nibbling on hay in her stable. “Grass,” he points below his feet at the grass beneath his boots.
And when they finish a successful “lesson,” Diarmuid celebrates with a hug. He’s so quick to physical touch in a way the Mute never learned. It always makes him tense initially, but then he hesitantly hugs him back.
“You are learning quickly,” Diarmuid whispers against his hair. “I am so proud of you.”
He doesn’t know what he says, but it feels like praise, and it makes his cheeks burn.
—
There is not much time to idle in the life of a monk, but the Mute thinks that the other monks go easy on Diarmuid because he is the youngest. They sit side by side against a fence as the Mute rests from completing a laborious job.
“Would you like some water?” Diarmuid asks, handing him a skein of water. “You work so hard, and you never complain. Not that you could, because you do not speak. But you never refuse a task and you never act upset. I hope we are not pushing you too hard. You would refuse, right? If we asked too much of you?”
As always when Diarmuid speaks, he listens but he does not comprehend. But Diarmuid’s lilting voice is so lovely to listen to regardless. He could listen to Diarmuid talk all day.
“It’s hard to tell what you’re thinking when you do not talk, but somehow I always understand how you are feeling. I wonder, are you able to understand me too? Even if you do not know what I am saying?”
He turns to look at Diarmuid and smiles slightly, to let him know he is listening. He always wants Diarmuid to know he’s listening.
“I hope you know how much I care for you, even without words.”
Diarmuid cautiously places his hand on top of his. His hand is so soft and delicate over the Mute’s rough, calloused one. Diarmuid’s hands have seen hard work, but they are still somehow so soft. The Mute looks down at where they are connected. Even though they’ve touched before, this feels more intimate somehow. More meaningful. It sends a fire through his soul.
Slowly, he turns his hand around so that their palms are facing. Then they twist their hands together until they are clasped tightly. He looks back up at Diarmuid, who is still focused on their hands. There is a faint blush on his cheeks that looks rather lovely on him. Finally, he looks up and meets the Mute’s eyes.
“I’ve wondered what this would feel like for a while,” he whispers, like a confession.
He doesn’t know what he says, but he agrees anyway.
—
It seems almost inevitable that he would fall in love with Diarmuid. It’s a feeling he didn’t think he’d ever have again, but it’s somehow not surprising at all to realize it's how he feels. Who could not fall in love with Diarmuid? Even despite the language barrier, sincerity and kindness seep out of his every action. He doesn’t need to understand Irish to know that Diarmuid is the most amazing person he’s ever met.
Of course, by falling in love with a novitiate monk, he knows he will never be loved in return. At least, not in the way he aches to be loved. But Diarmuid loves him as a friend, as part of his family at the monastery, and that will always be enough. It has to be enough.
It doesn’t stop the longing stares when Diarmuid is not watching, or the dreams, or the way his hands twitch to reach out and touch his face, run through his hair… but it’s enough to keep himself in check. He would never impose on Diarmuid, never make him feel uncomfortable.
He only wants him to be happy.
So he ignores the pang in his chest when Diarmuid talks to him. He can still only understand a word or two per sentence, but Diarmuid always makes sure he gets the gist. He’s so unlike the other monks, most who seem to believe him to be a halfwit, talking loudly and in exaggerated pronunciation. But Diarmuid just speaks naturally to him, and teaches him words when he can, and he is undoubtedly the sole reason he can understand any Irish at all.
At first he thought it to be a waste of time on Diarmuid’s part to try to teach him. He took all his orders from Ciarán, and the rest of the monks needn’t speak to him, except in basic gestures. What did it matter if he could understand what the rest of them said? He was simply there to work, to be in the background, forgotten, while they went about their daily prayers.
But he understands now what he didn’t before—that Diarmuid doesn’t see him as just a laybrother, a servant. He sees him as a friend. A companion. Someone he wants to spend time with and talk to.
Mo chara.
It brings tears to his eyes, humiliating if anyone were to happen upon him in this moment of weakness. Diarmuid sees him as a person, someone who’s company he enjoys. He has no idea why, he’s got nothing to offer to him except an ear that can only decipher half of what he says. But he wants him regardless.
And he wants Diarmuid more than he’ll ever know.
—
It is enough to simply be with Diarmuid, to listen to him talk even if he can only make out fractions of sentences. Every moment spent with him in this peaceful monastery on the coast of Ireland is a gift—a luxury he felt he was no longer worthy of. But somehow, casting himself out to sea has led him right to the gates of Heaven.
But perhaps it is his own personal Hell… to see and not be able to touch, or to see how Diarmuid looks at him sometimes and wonder if he feels the same.
The wondering is the worst. The hoping—when he catches Diarmuid looking at him and turns to face him, only for the boy to sharply turn away. Or when their hands brush while they work side by side, and he swears he can see a blush decorate his pale cheeks.
But surely it is just wishful thinking, for Diarmuid could never feel the same way. Even if he did not dedicate his life to God, the Mute is simply too damaged, too scarred, to ever be appealing to a man such as himself. In the secular world, Diarmuid would attract every available suitor. He could take his pick, and the Mute is not foolish enough to think he would make anyone’s list.
But still, he clings to every scrap of evidence like a starving dog.
On one such occasion, Diarmuid and the Mute find themselves on the beach, as they often do, and it’s a particularly nice day. It’s not often that they experience days as sunny and warm as this, and Diarmuid intends to take full advantage of it.
He drops his bucket full of seaweed and runs, laughing, into the water. He hikes up his robes and the Mute gets a tantalizing view of his bare legs before he’s splashing around in the water.
“Join me, my friend!” he calls to him. “The water is nice!”
The Mute smiles, shucking off his boots and rolling up his pants and—without thinking about it—throwing his shirt off into the sand to join Diarmuid in the water.
Once he wades in next to him, the water only up to their knees, he realizes Diarmuid has gone uncharacteristically quiet, his smile gone, and he’s staring straight at his chest.
He realizes that in all the time they’ve known each other, he can’t recall a single time where he’s taken his shirt off in front of the young man.
Diarmuid’s eyes flit up to meet his and he realizes he’s been staring. “Oh! I’m terribly sorry. I just… I didn’t realize…”
His hand hovers over a particularly nasty scar on his chest. It’s twisted and gnarled and raised from the skin. An ugly sight for sure, but Diarmuid doesn’t look disgusted.
“Did it hurt badly?”
He understands enough to know that Diarmuid is asking him if it hurt. The fact that Diarmuid cares about pain the Mute felt before he knew him fills him with an indescribable fondness. It’s just like Diarmuid to worry over something that happened to him in the past. In truth, the healing hurt worse than getting the injury itself. When lost in the bloodlust and adrenaline of battle, he hardly felt anything at all. But the ache of healing in the post-battle, the pull of skin stitching itself back together, the reminder of where it came from—that always hurt worse.
He shrugs noncommittally. It might have, long ago, but now his skin buzzes with the close proximity of Diarmuid’s hovering hand.
“I’m sorry,” Diarmuid says. “It’s strange… I really don’t know much about you at all.”
He lowers his hand, and the Mute’s skin aches with what was almost contact.
“But it doesn’t matter what happened in your past,” Diarmuid continues. “I know who you are now, and you’re my friend.”
The Mute smiles, recognizing some of the words. Diarmuid smiles back, and he thinks he can see a hint of a blush on his face once again. But it must just be the sun turning his cheeks rosy.
Diarmuid goes back to wading in the water, but he keeps surreptitiously glancing up at the Mute’s bare skin.
He doesn’t say very much after that.
—
Months go by and his Irish flourishes under Diarmuid’s keen teaching skills. He never would have imagined learning a new language so quickly, and credits it all to Diarmuid’s gentle care and prodding. He doesn’t remember the transition, it feels like it creeped up on him slowly until he suddenly realized he was not only listening but understanding.
Listening to Diarmuid chatter in his native tongue was endearing enough when he could not understand him, but it’s so much sweeter to be able to listen with a knowing ear. He is such a curious soul. He questions everything, asks about his surroundings, even though he knows the Mute won’t answer. He could be a philosopher, he muses, with how much he questions the way of things.
“I’ve always wondered why God didn’t like Cain’s offering of the fruits and vegetables he tilled from his own soil, and why he favored his brother’s offering of the firstborn lambs from his flock,” Diarmuid muses. “It seems to me that they both offered him what they had, shouldn’t he have shown favor to both of them? Doesn’t the Lord himself say to give what you have? It seems unfair to look upon one offering more favorably than the other, when they were both giving the rewards of their labor.”
He picks fennel as he chatters on, almost like he isn’t aware he’s thinking out loud. It’s one of the things the Mute admires about him… that he is so candid, so free to offer his thoughts. He could listen to Diarmuid talk all day—about anything at all, or nothing. Just to hear his voice.
Diarmuid looks up at him. “Am I out of turn to wonder about such things? Brother Rua says I need to ask fewer questions, especially pertaining to the words of God.”
The Mute vehemently shakes his head. Diarmuid could never say anything wrong, he is sure of it. What he says is always wonderful and clever.
Diarmuid smiles. “Somehow, your opinion means more to me than Brother Rua’s. If you think it’s okay… I feel better about it.”
He feels his cheeks heat up. Diarmuid cares what he thinks? He never dared to consider he meant so much to him.
“In fact… your opinion is worth more to me than most everyone’s. Except maybe Brother Ciarán’s… but you and him are tied.”
The Mute looks down at his basket full of fennel. His eyes are too full of emotion and he is too embarrassed for Diarmuid to see.
“Does… does my opinion matter to you?”
The Mute’s head jerks back up. Diarmuid sounds so vulnerable… like he thinks his answer could possibly be no. He nods vehemently this time, eager to make his point clear.
Diarmuid looks relieved. “I hope you are not just placating me,” he says with a wry smile. “But thank you. I sometimes think about when you came to us—almost a year ago now—and how far you’ve progressed. Look how well you understand me now! But I feel so blessed by how much you’ve changed our lives… my life, since you’ve arrived.”
He looks bashful now, pickling idly at plants. “You’ve made our lives easier with your assistance, but it’s more than that. I’ve always been happy, but being with you makes me… happier. Do you understand me?”
The Mute swallows and nods slowly, eyes transfixed on Diarmuid. It seems like he’s working up the nerve to say something, and he doesn’t dare even breathe in anticipation.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m not a very good monk,” Diarmuid admits. Always questioning things, always distracted… and lately even my feelings have been unbecoming of a monk.”
He meets the Mute’s eyes.
“How you think of me matters more than anything… so before I say more… do you feel the same?”
It feels like his heart might beat out of his chest. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever think Diarmuid would reciprocate his feelings. He almost thinks he’s imagining things. All he can do is nod, mouth agape.
Diarmuid smiles, a hopeful thing. His eyes crinkle and he huffs out a laugh. He abandons his basket and the Mute puts his own down before Diarmuid barrels into his chest, hugging him tightly.
They’ve hugged before, but this one feels different. It’s full of promise.
Diarmuid pulls back to smile up at him and whisper, “I love you.”
The Mute has never heard those words before, but he thinks he can guess what they mean.