Chapter Text
-....-
When the meeting ended, Anduin wasn’t crowded by the usual nobleman or spymaster at his end of the war table. No, it seemed this time most of the leaders and important parties included in the meeting had steered clear of the young king.
Wrathion couldn’t blame them, Anduin looked awful.
Anduin had bags under his eyes, and his stare was lifeless. His body language was not as perfectly formal as usual, in fact he leaned against the table the entire time, broadcasting just how absolutely exhausted he was. He made no move to leave immediately, instead resting his head on the table and sighing.
Genn Greymane, Magni, Velen, and Jaina Proudmoore all left passing words as they left the room, wishing Anduin better health, better sleep.
No one said anymore, in truth, because everyone in the room already knew why he seemed so weak and tired. The war with the Horde, the constant death, and now the invasion of an old god all but beat the king down into submission. With each new event, each genocide, each letter of remorse sent, Anduin seemed to lose his own life, wearing it away till it turned to dust in the wind.
Everyone else had convinced themselves that as soon as N’zoth was killed, as soon as this tragedy was over, that Anduin Wyrnn would bounce back. He’d regain everything that made him him. His life, his energy, his smile. For a while, Anduin had convinced himself that too.
Wrathion knew that this wasn’t so simple.
The room grew cold in the emptiness. With the door closing, the only souls left in the room were he and the king. Wrathion stood at his end of the table, watching the king roll his head around on the table, grumbling about nonsense, trying to keep himself awake and focused enough to stand.
Anduin lifted his head up, took a deep breath, and tried to sit back, tall against his chair. But, as soon as he made eye contact with the dragon, his figure slumped. He didn’t need to be formal anyway. Not in Wrathion’s presence.
“It’s almost like you could read my mind.” Anduin finally spoke, a weak smirk on his face.
“I wanted to ask you how you were feeling, my king.” Wrathion said, walking around the table to stand closer to Anduin. “I’m glad to see you welcome my company.”
“I think the answer is quite clear, don’t you think?” Anduin replied, his gaze following.
Wrathion only frowned, the worry he felt clear by this action. Anduin looked away, feeling almost ashamed that he even let himself walk out of his bedroom like this. Wrathion could see the king’s emotions cycle through his face, as the king began to think about the meeting, and how he shouldn’t have come.
“I brought you these.”
Anduin looked back to Wrathion to watch the dragon reach into his own coat and pull out three small potion bottles. Wrathion placed them down on the war table in front of Anduin. Anduin looked at them, a bright green color.
“W-what are they?” Anduin asked, clearly hesitant. They looked like blight. Blight only made him think of death.
“For your headaches.” Wrathion explained.
Anduin reached out for one, processing Wrathion’s words before uncorking the bottle and downing it. He placed the bottle back on the table, making a face at the taste of the potion.
After, Anduin gave Wrathion a curious glance. “How’d you know I had headaches?”
“You mentioned nightmares last time we talked. N’zoths whispers, his visions, usually come with horrific migraines.” Wrathion answered. “I figured he wouldn’t spare you from the torture either.”
Anduin nodded his head slowly, whispering a soft thank you. He then took a deep breath, pulling his legs up into the chair and to his chest, leaning his head on his knees.
The potion was fast acting, but It did nothing to slay his fears and depression. He looked nervous all of a sudden, and glanced at Wrathion before looking away, to the windows on the other side of the room.
“Wrathion, I have a question.”
Wrathion hummed, placing his hand gently on the king’s shoulder to let him know he was there.
“You made a potion that calms the whispers, right?” Anduin asked, his voice on edge. “For Ebonhorn?”
Wrathion nodded.
“He wasn’t used to being away from Highmountain, which protected him from the whispers.” Wrathion explained. “Why do you ask?”
Anduin played with his hands to try to stop himself from backing out of this conversation.
“I...I uh, heard about it, from the champion. And I, um,” He felt unsure of the request. “I was wondering if I could take it?”
Wrathion froze. “Take...it?”
Anduin gulped and nodded with a rush. “The potion you made to block the whispers.”
“You....” Wrathion shook his head, coming to his senses “You can’t take it, my love. It was made for a full grown dragon, even a drop of it could kill you.”
Anduin did not react well to that answer.
“But you can make a new one, right? For a human? Right?”
Wrathion felt something was terribly wrong, more so than just exhaustion and headaches.
“I...I would If I could, Anduin, but I need to focus on Nyo’lotha. It took me months to come up with one potion, I….I would need at least a month or two to rework the formula.” Wrathion moved his hand around, emphasizing his words, trying to come up with an answer they’d both be happy with. “I suppose I could, if I placed most of the work on the Blacktalon, then yes. I could get you something within a month.”
Anduin shook his head, almost a bit too violently, and as the king left the chair to stand, Wrathion realized just how much of a mess Anduin really was. He was violently shaking, and it was clear some form of panic attack was haunting the human.
“Anduin, you must sit-” Wrathion tried to stop him, but Anduin refused to.
“I can’t do a month, I need it now!” Anduin struggled between demanding as king and begging as a desperate friend. His words twisted and torn between the two tones. “Wrathion, please!”
Anduin’s arms clutched Wrathion’s shoulders, his nails digging into the shoulder pads. His reddened blue eyes stared into his and Wrathion shuttered.
“Anduin If I told you I could I would be lying to you.” Wrathion gently tried to push Anduin back, this time Anduin stepping back slightly. In doing so, he let go of Wrathion’s shoulders, but now held Wrathion’s hands, grasping them tightly, afraid he’d let go.
The king hesitated, but then succumbed to whatever peril he fought in his mind.
“Charm me.”
Wrathion’s eyes widened.
“W-what?!” Wrathion growled, causing Anduin to flinch, letting go of Wrathion’s hands and retreating a few steps back to his chair.
“Charm me!” Anduin replied, rocking in his chair, keeping his eyes on the dragon. “Manipulate me like Onyxia did to my father!”
Wrathion could hardly believe the request. The man had lost it completely. What had N’zoth done to him? Shown him? Told him??
“No!” Wrathion wouldn’t entertain the ridiculous idea. “What in Azeroth’s name has gotten into you?!”
“I can’t do this anymore!” Anduin broke, tears falling down his red eyes, his hands gripping his own hair and pulling. “Every single day, every single night, N’zoth torments me! I spend all my consciousness and unconsciousness in fear and self hatred!”
“Anduin Llane Wrynn-”
“I’ve done nothing but fantasize about doing things that I wouldn’t be around to regret!” Anduin pleaded again, and each new thing he confessed to pulled dangerously at Wrathion’s heart.
Anduin pointed to the large windows across the room.
“I’ve spent this entire meeting wanting to jump out of those. Wanting to end it.” Anduin, even now, looking outside, heard the voices egging him on. He wanted so desperately to go over now and just….step through...and-
“Anduin!” Wrathion grabbed Anduin’s shoulders and forced the king to look at him, away from the windows. “I could never do this to you! Not after all that has happened between our families. What would your people think? Your allies? I would be crucified!”
Anduin looked at him with both terror and betrayal.
“You’d rather I just kill myself!?” He shouted, Wrathion watching the tears blur his vision. His words turned into a loud cry, and he sobbed, pushing Wrathion away to muffle his cries in his own arms.
“I can find something else to help you, Anduin.” Wrathion reached out his hand to touch him again, but didn’t. “Please, just give me time.”
Wrathion stood there awkwardly, listening to the human’s crying. After a few minutes, the human quieted down, his eyes glaring back at the dragon.
His words were softer, but still broken.
“I think back to my father a lot. My mother’s death destroyed him, sent him into a depression that lasted years...and I sometimes wonder if Onyxia’s charm helped him continue to function, despite the manipulations.”
He sighed.
“I’m losing this battle, Wrath.” He said, his eyes releasing their anger. “I can’t do this anymore. If you can’t help me...I…”
Anduin paused, and Wrathion waited for him to continue.
“...He’s awakened every fear i’ve ever had, and he...I...I don’t know why I deserve to live anymore. I don’t know what is true anymore. I...I can’t trust anyone.”
Anduin closed his eyes.
“All I see is the thousands of ways in which everyone can and will betray me. Use me.” He said. “I look at you and all I think about is how you’ll leave me again. How you’ll betray me again.”
“Anduin, I-”
“You wouldn’t, I know. Or, I think I know. I don’t know.” Anduin looked back up at him. “I’m terrified of you. I’m afraid to be alone with you. My nightmares...they….you...I.”
“If you’re so afraid of me, then why-”
“I’m asking you with my last inch of sanity, Wrath.” Anduin pleaded again, his voice raising slightly, his panic returning. “He’s trying to tell me that you’d be worse than him, and If I let him continue to torment me another day i know I’ll give in.”
Wrathion was his last ditch effort.
If Wrathion refused, Anduin would perish.
“I’d rather you betray me again then to fall to N’zoth’s will.”
Betray. Again.
Wrathion knew how much betraying him in Pandaria hurt Anduin, and he’d hoped to patch up their relationship. It seemed, at least for a while, to be working, and it went under his radar just how badly Anduin was still hurting.
N’zoth tore open the wounds he’d worked on closing with Anduin, and made Anduin terrified of the idea that Wrathion was only here to betray him again.
To use him and leave him again.
N’zoth wanted Anduin to believe that N’zoth’s will was more forgiving and trusting than that of Wrathion’s.
And the worst part, Wrathion thought, was that it was working. Anduin was believing N’zoth.
Anduin was truly scared of him.
And yet he still was asking to be charmed.
“Fine.” Wrathion spoke, reaching for Anduin’s hands and holding them gently. “I will do this. For you, and only you.”
Anduin brought Wrathion’s hands to his face, placing them on his cheeks, feeling their warmth and inviting the powers from within.
“Thank you, Wrath.” Anduin breathed, looking up at the black dragon standing before him.
It felt wrong to have the high king like this, begging for a black dragon to invade his thoughts, to charm him. But as much as Wrathion didn't want to do this, he didn’t want to risk Anduin. Didn’t want to lose.
It was either he or N’zoth, and he wasn’t going to let Anduin fall into N’zoth’s shadows.
“Deep breaths.” Wrathion told him, sweetly, rubbing Anduin’s cheek with his thumb, careful not to let his talons scratch his skin.
Anduin did as told, his breathing slowing, his panic backing down.
Wrathion wanted to say something, ask him something, but he knew that the more he pushed the act off, the worse. So he did it.
His eyes glowed brighter, and he caught Anduin’s stare, holding it, hypnotizing him. Anduin’s eyes glowed red, like his, as the dragon let himself into the human’s mind.
He could feel the fear inside him and it even made Wrathion afraid. But he wouldn’t let N’zoth swat him away.
When Wrathion had finished, protections placed within the human’s mind, he’d pull back his magics, Anduin’s eyes returning to normal.
“Anduin.” Wrathion instantly felt the human’s weight on him increase, his body leaning over in exhaustion. “How do you feel?”
Anduin began to say something, but yawned and then rested his head against Wrathion’s chest. Wrathion placed his arms around the human, gently giving him a hug, awaiting the man’s response.
When none came, Wrath asked again.
“Anduin?”
But to his surprise, the king had fallen asleep.
As sweet as Anduin looked, finally with some sort of peace in his head, Wrathion couldn’t help but think about how he would need to get him to bed now, so that no one would ever suspect something odd happened here.
He gently leaned Anduin back into the chair he had, then turned to quickly seek out a guard to help in moving their rather exhausted king.
-...-
When Anduin found consciousness again, he felt confused.
It was quiet, though sunlight poured into the room around him as though it were afternoon. He could hear his breathing, and the movement of sheets on the bed when he shifted around to kick the rather heated blankets off.
He could also hear the sound of a page turn, and the clearing of one’s throat.
Anduin’s brain only picked up on that someone else was in the room, and being trained to respond to threats when alone, he was quick to call to the light and face the direction the sounds came from.
He had not expected Wrathion, just sitting in one of the chairs beside one of his many book cases, reading away.
Wrathion placed the book aside, without even saving his place, and smiled to Anduin.
“You look much better.” He said.
Anduin looked startled, the light he called to defend himself fading away as he deemed the dragon safe. When the surprise went away, it was clearly replaced with embarrassment. He wrapped himself in the blankets, still very unsure about anyone seeing him in his own bed, clothed or not.
“What are you doing here?” Anduin asked, glaring at Wrath.
“Do you remember anything?” Wrathion asked.
Anduin’s brows pushed together, confused, trying to think back on what got him here. What had he done the last time he was awake? His worry increased as he found his memory harder to reach into, as if mists covered it.
Wrathion also seemed concerned, worried, by the king’s reaction.
But then Anduin cleared away the grogginess of his first well nap since, well, perhaps months, and remembered the war room, and the meeting, and the request he’d had for his dragon friend.
“Oh,” Anduin gulped, realizing the request worked. “You did it.”
The look on Wrathion’s face dropped with a huge sigh of relief. How would he explain to Anduin what Anduin had asked of him if he couldn’t remember? How absolutely suspicious would that have sounded? And what if Anduin didn’t believe him? The mess that could have caused! He felt he needed to pray to the light for this one.
“As I said, you look much better.” Wrathion spoke again.
Anduin smiled, leaving the blankets to sit on the edge of his bed.
“I feel...better.” Anduin said, assessing his own condition. “Much better.”
“Do you feel anything off? Hear anything?” Wrathion continued to question. He had to know it worked for sure.
Anduin shook his head.
“I’m actually kind of surprised.” He said.
“You didn’t think it would work?” Wrathion asked, concerned. He knew Anduin was afraid of betrayal, and he worried that Anduin still feared him.
What if that fear wasn’t something caused by N’zoth? What if it really was a wound reopened by themselves?
Anduin smiled, shaking his head. “No, that I would remember asking.”
Another feeling of relief.
“I would hope you’d remember.” Wrathion said. “I wasn’t asked to tamper with your memories.”
Anduin hesitated, as if remembering something.
“I just...thought that part of being..charmed, or whatever you’d call it, would come with side effects. That I wouldn’t remember.” Anduin said. “I think I thought about this too heavily in relation to Onyxia’s charms.”
Wrathion stood from his chair, resting the book off his lap and onto where he sat, to turn back to Anduin.
“Oh, Anduin.” Wrathion said. “I do not blame you. But Onyxia played with your father’s memory to keep him from remembering. Had he any suspicion that this happened to him, Onyxia would not have lasted long.”
He walked up to Anduin, placing his hands on the king’s arms.
“I do not want to charm you. I do not want to cloud your memory, nor change who you are.” Wrathion continued. “I answer your call to see you happy once again.”
Anduin felt warm inside by Wrathion’s words, leaning against his touch, though unsatisfied. He instead took Wrathion’s hand, bringing it up to feel his touch on his cheek.
“My powers linger in your head, and I can call them back as soon as you wish.” Wrathion continued, rubbing his thumb gently into Anduin’s skin, watching the king close his eyes to focus on the movement. “But they are not without weaknesses. If you feel the shadows return, hear N’zoth’s whispers again, you must return to me, so that I can re-empower your protections.”
Anduin hummed, slightly nodding into Wrath’s hand.
“Onyxia stayed by your father’s side so that she could hold onto control, but Lo’gosh felt his mind overcome these charms due to distance.”
Anduin opened his eyes, looking up to Wrath. “But my...the noble half of my father, he began to remember things as well, to see through the barrier.”
Wrathion brought his other hand to Anduin’s other cheek, and gently brought the king’s face towards his.
“Sometimes there are personal powers that overcome outside tampering.” Wrathion smiled, “I suppose his love for you empowered him.”
Anduin smiled, ignoring the heat in his face, unsure if it was from himself or the hands of a dragon on him. The fabric on Wrath’s hands was soft and warm.
“I will keep you updated.” Anduin finally said after silence, taking Wrathion’s hands and holding them with his own. “I’m sure I should let the others know I haven't fallen asleep on the job. Maybe I can address N’zoth’s efforts much more confidently now.”
“There is no need for that now, love.” Wrathion said, placing slight pressure on Anduin’s hands.
“Hm?” Anduin asked, confused. “I can’t simply ignore a war effort, and arn’t you supposed to be leading it?”
“All of your duties are covered for today.” Wrathion said. “I spoke to Greymane when he carried you to bed, dear. Unless there is something you need to know, you must rest your wounded head.”
Anduin froze slightly to the thought of Greymane carrying him to bed, and how embarrassing that was, but he supposed the wolf felt something as a grandfather to him now, so he could forget it.
“But what about you?” Anduin asked Wrath. “Don’t you need to be at the Chamber of Heart?”
Wrathion rolled his eyes. “All the champions are doing now are sharpening their swords and I know Magni and Mother can handle them for a day or two.”
“You are really this confident in them to leave the war effort for so long?” Anduin seemed unsure by Wrathion’s decisions.
“Tell me, Anduin.” Wrathion smirked. “Is making sure that the leader of one of Azeroth’s biggest militaries is safe from N’zoth’s grasp NOT at all important to the war effort?”
Anduin shrugged. “I suppose you have a point. What do you plan to do as my therapist, then?”
Wrathion hummed, playing it off as if he were deep in thought, as if he hadn’t already a plan.
“I could set you down on a chair and question you on your thought process for hours on end-”
“Ah, like those many years ago at Tong’s tavern?” Anduin smirked.
“I do not remember that in the same light, my dear!” Wrathion frowned.
Anduin laughed. “I wouldn’t mind that, as long as you pretend it’s a friendly conversation over a game of Jihui too.”
“I am insulted you seem so keen to remember it this way!”
Anduin stood from the bed, patting Wrathion on the shoulder-
“Let’s jog my memory then, huh?”
-then turned to search in his closet for the game set.
-...-