Work Text:
Callum still dreams about it.
It’s been months. Ez and the others went home weeks ago. He’d stayed because he’d insisted. This alliance between the human kingdoms and Xadia - this peace - is fragile, and he’s needed here, on the Xadian side of the border, to better liaise between Ez and Queen Zubeia. Ibis is happy for him to stay and study anyway, and even more than that, Rayla is here .
He can’t leave.
He doesn’t want to.
And as much as he misses his brother; as much as he misses the castle and all its comforts, his home is here now. With her. Wherever she is.
He stays in her quarters, usually. He thinks it was her parents’, once upon a time. It’s nothing extravagant - just a little cave in the side of the mountain with a bed in one chamber and washtub in the other, lit by the faint blue glow of Luminivies in the evening. Ibis had made comments about it being inappropriate, but Callum thinks that’s more to do with the fact that he’s not Dragon Guard than anything else. Otherwise, it’s not that weird. It’s a little more intimate, sure, but he and Rayla have slept in closer quarters than this.
She’s on the night shift tonight. Part of it is because Zym actually listens to her and will happily sleep in her lap when even Queen Zubeia can’t get him to settle. It’s sweet that she’s Zym’s favourite Dragon Guard, even now that they’ve established seven other guards, but it does make the evenings feel rather lonely.
Callum doesn’t mind so much usually, but it’s been different of late. The bed feels bigger without her. The night feels colder than it is.
And when he sleeps, he dreams about the fall.
x
The memory’s still clear as day to him. Sometimes, he accidentally pictures it when he’s awake, and it takes him far longer than he wants to admit to shake it off and get on with his day. Rayla lets him borrow her warrior’s paint now, so the wing runes on his arms are there and bright - a reminder that he really can fly, and he really did catch her when she jumped all those weeks ago, but even they don’t help sometimes.
Sometimes, they make it worse.
He’d scrubbed his arms raw one time, like washing the markings away might wash the memory away too - like seeing the clean skin of his arms might help remember how to breathe .
Ibis had found him then. Pulled him back from tub before he could do any real damage to his arms.
“Is… everything all right?” he’d asked.
“Fine,” Callum had lied, trying not to wince. “It’s - uh - the paint made me itchy. I - I needed it off.”
Ibis had studied him. The frown in the lines of his face had made Callum wonder if he believed him at all, but he’d said nothing, in the end. “There’s salve in my quarters,” he’d said. “Come and get some next time instead of ruining your arms.”
“Thanks,” Callum had murmured - and he’d meant it. But salve won’t soothe the tightness in his chest and clear the memory from his mind.
There’s nothing that can do that.
x
Rayla has her own nightmares.
He wakes sometimes because she’s whimpering in her sleep. She’ll curl away from him on those nights. She’ll shiver and cry and huddle into a ball beneath the blankets, perhaps out of some unforgotten instinct to keep her fears to herself.
Some nights, she wakes, gasping for breath, her heart beating so loudly in her chest that he’ll feel it against his own when he holds her close to calm her down. As close as they are - as much as she trusts him - she just doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it on most nights, so he tries not to ask. Instead, he presses kisses to her hair and whispers words of comfort against her ears; lets her cry and sob and shudder into his shoulder until her heart slows; until her breath evens; until she feels safe enough again to go back to sleep.
She tries to apologise for it, every time.
“There’s nothing to apologise for,” he promises, tucking the silver of her hair behind the points of her ears. “It’s okay. It’s always okay. I’m here.”
“I shouldn’t have woken you,” she murmurs. “I should’ve - I could’ve dealt with it on my own.”
“You don’t have to, that’s the point .” He smiles at her. Even at her most vulnerable, she tries so hard to be strong, and he both admires her for it and is exasperated by it. “You could deal with anything on your own, if you really wanted to, but you don’t have to.”
“I should have with this.” Rayla sniffles against him. Her tears leave damp patches in his shirt, but when she pulls away, her cheeks are dry. “Nightmares are - they’re stupid. Childish. I shouldn’t have woken you.”
Callum rolls his eyes at her. “Shut up,” he whispers. “I’m here. I always will be. Let me make you feel better just this once, okay?”
She lets out a strangled little giggle, but she doesn’t shudder anymore when she breathes out. “I love you,” she mutters.
“I know,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I love you. Go back to sleep. I’ll look after you.”
In her state - frazzled nerves and tired mind - she doesn’t argue. She only kisses him back, tucks her face into the crook of his neck, and closes her eyes, lulled back to sleep by the sound of his heart against her ear.
x
“You look tired,” she says one morning.
She’s just finished her shift. There are bags under her eyes, and she’s pale with exhaustion, but it’s him she worries about when she climbs into bed.
Callum’s lips twitch. He’d hoped the mirror in the washroom had been lying about the shadows under his eyes, but he knows how he looks, and Rayla pointing it out to him only makes him feel more self-conscious about it. He has a lesson with Ibis this morning though, and, tired as he is, he’s not about to miss it. The new runes might even take his mind off -
He stops. The image flashes in his mind again, and Callum shuts his eyes tight and wills it away with a shake of his head.
“Hey.” Rayla frowns at him and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he lies, hoping the strain in his smile doesn’t give him away. “I’m fine. You look pretty tired yourself. How was your shift?”
She shrugs. “Same as always,” she says. “Zym’s getting too big to be this much of a handful. Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong?”
“I - nothing!” He forces a chuckle. Seats himself on the edge of the bed and tries to push her back into it for some much needed sleep. “I’m okay,” he says. “I promise.”
“ Callum .”
“ Rayla .” He steals a kiss from her lips and tucks her into the bed before she can argue. “I just… haven’t been sleeping right, I guess. It’s not the same when you’re not in bed with me.”
That makes her snort. “What, do you miss me or something?”
“Always.” He sighs dramatically. “Every moment we’re apart is agony.”
She makes a face at him. It’s a little amused, a little exasperated, a little torn between continuing the joke and pressing the issue. “I’m sure, sappy prince,” she teases, shoving his shoulder a little. “Don’t think you’ve won this. I’m off for a couple of days now, so if you’re still not sleeping right tonight, we’re talking about this in the morning.”
“You got it, sleepy princess.”
“I’m not a princess.”
“You’re my princess.” Callum hides a grin in a kiss. “And who knows? Maybe one day, you’ll be one for real.”
She blushes at that. He likes it when he makes her blush. Her little pout and the red in her cheeks is cute, and just the sight of it makes him feel better.
“Just go,” she grumbles, turning away from him in bed. “See you tonight.”
Callum chuckles. “See you tonight.”
x
If Ibis notices, he doesn’t say anything. They’re covering some of the more complex lightning spells this morning. It’s not so hard usually - Callum has an artist’s memory; one good for watching, and learning, and repeating, particularly for things like rune symbols - but it’s hard to concentrate today. His sketchbook-turned-workbook is blank, even after an hour-long lecture of the properties of lightning and patterns in lightning runes, and what Ibis does comment on is not the mess of his hair, or the tired lines on his face, but his lack of attention for something he’d normally find pretty riveting.
“Am I boring you?”
Callum blinks. His elbow slides off the makeshift desk. His charcoal tumbles out of his fingers. He scrambles for it, but time slows, and for a moment, he sees something else.
Rayla.
Falling through an orange sky.
Too far for him to reach.
Too late for him to catch.
“Callum?”
The memory fades. When Callum blinks again, he’s staring at his charcoal, snapped at the point, unmoving on the stones. His breath shakes on the exhale. “I-” He swallows. “I - uh - I’m not - I’m not feeling too well.”
“So it would seem,” says Ibis, frowning at him, brow scrunched over his eyes. “Do you need the day off?”
“I -” Callum stares at his hands. At his sketchbook. At the charcoal on the floor. “I think so.”
“Hm.” Ibis is still frowning at him, his concern obvious. “Go on,” he says. “Get some rest. Take all the time you need.”
x
Rayla’s still asleep when he gets back. She’s curled on her side and tucked in to her chin, just the way he left her, her hair splayed across her pillow and shining like silver in the morning sun. Her breathing is quiet, but it’s slow, and it’s steady, and Callum reminds himself as he shucks off his sketchbook and climbs into bed that she’s there, and she’s fine, and she’s safe.
He did catch her.
She’s okay.
But still, he wraps her up in his arms, the way he had done with his wings the moment they’d landed that day, relishing her warmth and the way she stirs in his arms.
“You’re back early,” she mumbles.
“Ibis let me have the day off,” he murmurs. “Sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep.”
She snorts tiredly and presses her face into his chest. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”
x
He sees it happen again.
One of Rayla’s blades plunges into the ground in front of him, and when he looks up, she’s knocked down on the Pinnacle. The rush of dark magic rings in his ears as loudly as the blood pounding through them; as prominent as the dread welling in his chest.
He races up the steps.
Sees the look on Rayla’s face as Viren pulls the life from Zym.
Watches the way she glances at the edge of the Pinnacle before she does the one thing - the only thing she can do -
She sprints. She lunges. She and Viren disappear over the edge.
“No, no, no, Rayla!”
It’s too late. When Callum reaches the top, she’s gone, and when he looks over the edge of the Pinnacle, all he sees is the swirl of clouds and the orange of the setting sun. His heart thumps in his chest, erratic, terrified, broken - but he thinks of the runes on his arms he’d drawn just that morning; knows that if he does this there’s a solid chance they might not work to begin with - that they might both die anyway -
It doesn’t matter. He tosses his sketchbook aside and leaps -
The wind is deafening. The acceleration makes his stomach lurch. The cold stings his face. And there, too far from his reach, is Rayla, tumbling through the clouds and falling further and further away.
“ Manus, pluma, volantis!”
Nothing happens. Callum stares at his hands, his heart lodged in his throat. “Please work,” he whispers. Begs. “ Please work. Manus, pluma, volantis! ”
Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing .
Gods, he’s desperate. He reaches for her, hands outstretched like maybe he’ll catch her in time if he hopes for it hard enough, and in the split second before panic overcomes him, Rayla turns in mid air. She catches his eye. Holds a hand out towards him, and even from here, he can see the regret, the sadness, the love on her face.
“Rayla,” he murmurs. “I love you. Manus, pluma, volantis!”
His arms don’t change.
The ground comes into view.
“ Rayla !”
x
“Callum! Callum, I’m here! Wake up!”
Callum’s eyes snap open. His breathing is shallow and uneven. The back of his shirt is soaked in his sweat. But Rayla - Rayla’s here - she’s here in front of him, hands on his face, forehead against his own.
Her fingers shake, and there’s something like fear in her eyes, but gods, she’s here, she’s okay -
And Callum sobs and tugs her into him until her body is flush against his.
“Hey,” she mumbles. She holds him back, and oh, how he loves her. Her warmth, and her courage, and her refusal to back down. She’s so much stronger than him, in every way, and even though it was she he couldn’t save in his nightmares, he’s never felt safer than in he does in her arms.
“Hey,” she whispers again. “Callum. I’m okay. You caught me. I’m okay.”
His breath hitches. How much had he said in his sleep? How much does she know?
They must spend too much time together or something, because she pulls back after moment to leave a kiss against his temple with the sad, knowing little smile on her lips. She doesn’t berate him. Doesn’t ask him to talk about it, so he doesn’t have to relive it once more. Doesn’t offer anything less than her understanding and support.
“I dream about you,” she admits quietly. “That day you did dark magic, I mean. You did it to protect me, and to help save that dragon, but even then, I was so angry -” She draws a breath. “When you collapsed, I thought you deserved it. And - and then you got sick, and you had a fever, and then you couldn’t breathe - I was so scared , Callum - I thought - I thought you weren’t going to make it and - in the dreams… you don’t.”
Rayla lets out a breath. It’s like a confession. An admission of weakness. A flaw in her otherwise fearless facade.
“It’s like that, isn’t it?”
Callum swallows. His throat is still dry, and his breath shudders as he breathes out, but he nods against her shoulder anyway. “I’m sorry,” he rasps. “I - I tried - I’m - I’m not - I wish I were stronger than this, but -”
“Callum.” She kisses him again. Longer this time, and on his lips. “You don’t have to be. I’m here. I’m always going to be here. And - I dunno - maybe, one day, you’ll find that strength you don’t think you have and you’ll be able to deal with it on your own the way you think you should, but the point is… you don’t have to.”
The words are familiar to him, and too late, Callum realizes, their his own. They’re what he tells her on the nights she jolts awake from her own nightmares. In spite of himself, he lets out a snort. “Wise words.”
“A clever mage gave them to me,” chuckles Rayla. She shifts a little. Lays his head against her breast and hugs him tighter still, like somehow she knows the solidness of her frame against his is what he needs to reassure him that she is well and truly there.
Then again, he realizes, it’s probably the same for her.
“I love you,” he mumbles.
“I know,” says Rayla. “And I love you. Go back to sleep. I’ll look after you.”
He sighs against her, savouring the way her voice hums in her chest and the way her heart beats unceasing against his cheek. He falls asleep to the sound, and it’s the most restful he’s had in weeks.
x
But we took the step, and we took the leap
And we'll take what comes, take what comes
Walking the wire, Imagine Dragons
x