Work Text:
Deimos looked to Kassandra, just a vague shadow across the way with her wolf a bigger shadow at her feet and Ikaros a tiny one at her head. Looked to Brasidas, who was awake but just barely, rubbing his beard and smiling fuzzily - so soft that something kicked his heart, made him lean down and press a kiss to his mouth, his cheek.
“Still up, Deimos?” Asked Brasidas, stretching his legs out a little; teasing, but Deimos knew him well enough to know that it was only teasing. His words were not barbed arrowheads thudding into his back, knives making neat, white lines all down his arms. He was not the Cult, using him for themselves and beating him raw when he didn’t, when he was young and small and weak, too weak to do what they asked of him.
He looked back at Kassandra, watched her shift and mumble in her sleep, and in his head thanked her again for saving him, giving him chance after chance when he suspected he didn’t really deserve it. She gave him life, and freedom; took him out hunting when the press of the ship was too loud, too close, too much; gave him space when he needed it, silence when he didn’t want to talk and silence when there were words he had to say, about Chrysis and her teachings and the pains of old wounds that had never healed right, broken bones set wrong same as all his feelings broken and set wrong. She gave him Brasidas.
There wasn’t thanks enough.
Brasidas frowned, gentle concern in the wrinkle between his brows, the thin press of his lips behind his beard, so Deimos leaned down and kissed it away. He didn’t like it when Brasidas looked at him like that, liked a lot more Brasidas’ strong hand curling against his jaw, rubbing the stubble. Liked the little smile Brasidas couldn’t quite help giving him, even through the concern still there on his face. “Deimos,” Brasidas said fondly, rubbing behind his ear like he was Kassandra’s wolf but nice because Brasidas didn’t mean it like that, a nastiness to it like showing his target his blade half-drawn from its sheath. “We talked about this - what worries you, my dear?”
Deimos shrugged. It was a silly thing, lodged uncomfortably in his chest. Not a painful thing, or a difficult thing, just a thing; always there like the pain in the bones of his wrists, but easily ignored until it flared up a little. It would go away soon enough, or maybe the sea-fight in a few days would chase it away.
It didn’t matter. It was a small thing, there but not important, not like the tension between them all had been important, building and building like the power in his blood built and built, but not let loose so it burned his arms from the inside; breaking, finally, between Kassandra and Myrrine, shouting that things were healing wrong like Deimos’ bones, his feelings, were healed wrong. Not like the stop at Attika where Myrrine was sent home to Sparta, snapping the family ties between she and them because she was the bone that was healing wrong and it needed to be broken so it could set right, was important.
But it wasn’t her that was lodged in his chest, a thing that was there but wasn’t quite so important as the cultist they were speeding across the sea to find. It was Nikolaos who had stood beside Kassandra and agreed, said that things weren’t good and needed to change, that it was okay to let things change. It was Nikolaos coming to him after the argument, asking if Deimos was alright, he’d noticed that Deimos hadn’t liked the shouting, before he’d gone to talk to Kassandra. Nikolaos always there with sad, dark eyes when dreams kept Deimos awake, talking about his own just so Deimos didn't feel bad about them.
Deimos touched Brasidas’ chest, where his kopis had cleaved out a wide scar. “I need to speak to Kassandra,” Deimos said, because Kassandra always told him that no matter how small he thought it was he should go to her, and that maybe she wouldn’t be able to help him but she could at least be someone to listen to, and sometimes that was more important. She made it a point to say that it didn’t matter if she was asleep or not, though she reserved the right to be grouchy - another tease without barbs; affection.
Brasidas looked over at her, a brow raised, but he patted Demios’ knee and tucked himself up in bed more comfortably, pulling their blankets up around his shoulders. “Speak with her then,” He said, no hurt in his voice but Deimos scowled at him anyway, because what if there was? and he wasn’t used to there being the worry tight beneath his heart that he’d hurt people with his words same as he’d always been hurt by their words. “Would you like me to stay awake for you?”
He thought about it. “No,” He said, and got up to sit next to Kassandra, shaking her awake.
She batted him away, first, with a loud groan, but when he called to her - quietly, he didn’t want to wake anyone nearby and have them listen in, his words were not meant for them - she looked at him, surprised. “Deimos,” She said and sat up, careful not to jostle her wolf or her bird. “Is anything wrong?”
“You said I could talk to you.”
Kassandra watched him steadily for a few moments, but seemed to make a decision easy enough; sat up properly with crossed legs, mirroring him, and spread the blanket across her knees. “I did,” She said, nodding, and Deimos thought it was mostly to herself. “What do you need to talk about? Is Brasidas giving you trouble?” She scowled at Brasidas. “I will stab him if he is.”
“Nikolaos,” Deimos told her, because Brasidas was wonderful - more wonderful than Deimos deserved after hurting him so badly, nearly killing him in that last fight. He took the corner of Kassandra’s blanket and picked at it, pulling at the threads and the fuzz and the tiny tears Ikaros’ talons had made in it. “I don’t understand. He let me be thrown from Mount Taygetos but… We care for each other. He loves me. He’s Pater. But you don’t see him like that.”
Kassandra took a breath deep into her lungs, let it out slowly as she turned to pet her wolf, scratching the thick fur on his shoulders, his back. She didn’t say anything right away, which meant she was thinking of things to say, lots of words in her head already put in orders but she wasn’t sure which one to choose, which one was the right shape to match the shape of her feelings, her ideas. Rubbed the side of her face with a sigh, and taking his hands because she was like that, reaching out when she knew he wouldn’t turn her away, when he was in the mood to enjoy her close.
She didn’t have hands like Chrysis', wrinkled and old; soft even when it was stinging across his cheek. Kassandra had big, strong hands like his, calluses on her palm, and between thumb and forefinger, where the hilt of a weapon would rest. Skin as tough as her wolf’s paw pad, fingers thick and strong and not curling all the way, not entirely. A fighter’s hands, not a Chrysis’ hands. Like Nikolaos’ hands when they dropped to his shoulder, pride bright in his voice and his small smile; sure around the haft of a spear or a sword’s handle when they sparred in the mornings.
They were like each other. It made it easy to let her think in silence, careful as she picked her words not because she was working out how to make them hurt but because she didn't want to make them hurt, wanted to say it in a way that helped him.
“It’s different for me than for you,” Kassandra finally murmured, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. “I remember that night, you don’t - you were too young to know what was happening - and remembering it is different, I think, than learning about it. I remember watching you fall, and I remember Nikolaos’ face when he dropped me. You just know it because of what people have told you.” She swallowed, a dry click against the back of her throat. Shook her head and rubbed her temple with the heel of her hand. “I can’t let Nikolaos be my Pater after that, and I do care for him but… I have Barnabas and Herodotus. I don’t need much more than that just yet.”
Deimos copied her, dragging his thumb across her knuckles and giving a gentle squeeze, got a tiny smile for it. “Should I care for him? After all he’s done?”
“That’s up to you - it’s not something I can tell you, Deimos.” Kassandra’s mouth twisted; she sighed, her face gentle when she caught his eye. “If this is what you want, then I will tell you now to continue it. If Nikolaos as your father makes you happy, then be his son; just because I won’t let him be my family doesn’t mean I’ll stop him being yours. And if you find that you can’t look past what he did-” Kassandra shrugged, “-Turn from him. There is no shame in admitting you cannot make it work.”
He nodded at her, because he did understand - turn from him as Kassandra had turned from Myrrine, snarling from all the old hurts they shared because Myrrine wasn't willing to see it, wasn't willing to look to the broken bones and fix them because it mending them was more difficult than ignoring the ache in the early morning chills - it was just… he didn’t like not knowing what to do. With the Cult it was easy to know, easy to follow the path. Not knowing grated on him like the walls of the stone cells had grated on him, harsh against his shoulders when he beat himself bloody on them but the pain was better than not knowing when he would be let back out. Broken bones had been easier to bear when he knew that they'd heal soon.
Deimos let Kassandra send him back to bed, curled up with Brasidas pressed warm along his back. Took Brasidas’ hand, fingers locked together, and tried to decide if Nikolaos was someone he wanted to keep around; their sparring in the mornings, his kindnesses and distance and willing ear, a splint to heal the break between them.