Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2021-10-25
Completed:
2021-10-27
Words:
2,245
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
31
Kudos:
446
Bookmarks:
42
Hits:
3,257

I Woke Up And My Head Was Aching

Summary:

Two people experiencing headaches for two entirely different reasons.

Notes:

This started as solely an Imogen/Laudna fic, until @acepalindrome on Tumblr wrote a post wondering if Ashton was suffering any long term effects from, you know, whatever caused him to be missing part of his skull and all. So of course I had to write about it.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Ashton

Chapter Text

Ashton can’t believe his luck.

“You’re letting me win!” Ashton accuses Imogen with a smile as she folds her current hand of cards. “I thought you said you were a great card player!”

“I usually am!” Imogen protests, drawing another hand. “I just can’t concentrate for some reason!”

Ashton.

“Maybe she’s distracted by your sparkling magnificence,” Dorian says from beside her, stroking the strings of his lyre, producing a melody that resonates off of certain parts of Ashton’s more crystalline anatomy in very interesting ways. “I know I am.”

Ashton.

“Maybe we should play something else,” Ashton suggests, leaning back in his chair. “I know a rather exciting three way variation on boulder parchment shears—“

Something pokes Ashton in the side, dissolving the dream in an instant. Without looking, Ashton lashes out, feeling something wooden snap under his hand.

“Oh and I just made that attachment. Well, made is a very strong word, it was just a piece of that enchanted broom I picked up yesterday, but I thought it had potential. I even came up with a name for it! The AWS, or Ashton Waking Stick.”

“Fuck off,” Ashton mutters into his pillow.

“Fuck off to you too!” Fresh Cut Grass says entirely too cheerfully for whatever hour of the morning it must be. “Is there any way I can facilitate your waking up process?”

Facilitate. Ashton is pretty sure that’s one of Fresh Cut Grass’s fancy words for helping, He turns his head, cracking open one eye, squinting at the automaton through the cloudy, milky white striations. 

“I could bring you some water,” Fresh Cut Grass suggests. “Or tea? Perhaps some coffee? Whatever you would like.”

What Ashton would like is several more hours of sleep, preferably including a continuation of the dream he had been having. That, however, is not in the cards. “All of that plus a beer would be great,” Ashton says, closing his eye again. Maybe he can catch just a few more minutes—

“Well, I was only built with two hands, so that will take several trips, but if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes!” Fresh Cut Grass says brightly. “It’ll be good practice of my stair navigating capabilities!” 

Ashton groans, thinking about the sound of Fresh Cut Grass’s wheel bumping up and down the stairs over the course of multiple trips. That’ll have half the inn awake by the end of it he’s sure. That and, well, Fresh Cut Grass shouldn’t have to go through that much work just because Ashton can’t drag his ass out of bed in less than ten minutes on a good day. “I know a way you can do it all in one trip,” Ashton says. “Take the tea, pour the tea into the coffee, then pour that into the beer.”

“I’d say that sounds terrible, but since I can’t taste, I literally have no frame of reference!” Fresh Cut Grass proclaims. “And that would leave one hand free to hold the water! Thank you, Ashton!”

“No problem, Letters,” Ashton mumbles into his pillow. As he hears the door close behind Fresh Cut Grass he once again thinks about just going back to sleep, if only for as long as it takes for the automaton to run their errand but— no. He should at least make a start on getting dressed. There’s breakfast to think about, and Ashton is never one to miss breakfast (even if sometimes it’s late enough to be called lunch or dinner instead,) and he’s certainly not going to miss out on a meal that someone else is paying for.

It’s far too early for things like coordination. At least, that’s what Ashton tells himself after the second time he misses the left leg of his pants and almost topples to the floor. Never mind that his coordination is always a bit shit for the first half hour he’s awake, whether he’s slept four hours or fourteen. He sits on the bed with only the mildest of frustrated huffs, getting his leg where it needs to go on the third try and grinning at the accomplishment. Sometimes it takes him longer, and on more than one occasion, Ashton has wondered if maybe a skirt would be easier to get into, something in a nice red heavy leather to match his jacket. Do they make leather skirts? Maybe he should ask Laudna, she looks like the type who would know. Or he could ask Dorian, see if he can find out what color the bard blushes, blue or purple or—

The sudden bright hot zap of pain that lances though Ashton’s skull and sets his nerves aflame is unexpected but not unfamiliar. It’s that familiarity that keeps him from screaming even as he grits his teeth so hard he swears they’ll crack, even as he claps his hands to his head as if he could squeeze the pain out that way. Behind his closed eyes, opal sparks flash as if his brain itself is on fire. He curls in on himself, cursing through his gritted teeth, an avalanche of profanity to bury the pain.

“Ashton? Ashton!” A hand on his arm, metallic and cool, the beginning of a prayer in a language that Ashton can’t understand. Ashton twists away, the contact lost.

“Save it!” Ashton’s voice is sand borne wind scouring a canyon as he yells at Fresh Cut Grass. “It doesn’t work! You know it doesn’t work!” All he can do is ride out the pain, the echo of fire force heat light crumbling broken dust lost that hadn’t killed him, just like this won’t kill him, he just has to wait for the pain to ebb, for the fire to die, for the dust to settle—

When Ashton finally opens his eyes, there’s a strange metal— something— in front of him, something that, when Ashton squints past the opal sparks and his clouded vision looks like a person, or at least has eyes and a mouth and hands like a person. They have a wheel instead of legs, which Ashton thinks is a lot of trouble just to not have to put on pants in the morning.

“That was a bad one,” the metal person says. They sound worried, like they care, like they know who Ashton is, but Ashton doesn’t remember—

No. He does. Fresh Cut Grass, the automaton ( a word he hadn’t known before they met) that Ashton had found by the mines, wandering alone, the rest of their group dead. Ashton sometimes calls them Letters. Ashton remembers. He does. 

But he hadn’t a moment ago.

“I’ve had worse,” Ashton says, reaching for one of the tankards on the bedside table. It’s not a lie. The pain had used to last for days, though that was rare now, as were the times when agony robbed him of sight and sense. This had only been a few minutes long. It was practically nothing. And the forgetting— 

Forget the forgetting, Ashton thinks as he takes a large gulp of the tankard’s contents.

It turns out forgetting something you want to forget is infinitely easier when you have something else to focus on, like a mixture of coffee and tea and beer, a bitter and yeasty combination that Ashton just barely manages not to spit across the room. 

“Oh this is terrible,” Ashton says with a smile after he swallows. “Truly awful! I’m definitely awake now!”

“I’m glad I could help,” Fresh Cut Grass says, but there’s none of the cheerfulness from earlier. For all that Fresh Cut Grass only has one facial expression, he somehow manages to look sad.

“Hey,” Ashton says, getting down on one knee to look Fresh Cut Grass in the eye. “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

“I just wish— I could help more.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ashton says, patting Fresh Cut Grass on the shoulder while reaching for the tankard again and taking another swig. The second mouthful goes down easier. “You know how the saying goes. What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.”

Fresh Cut Grass tilts their head. “I thought it was, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Ashton takes another swig from the tankard. Fuck, he’s beginning to like this stuff. “Nope, it’s stranger,” Ashton says confidently as he blinks away the last of the opal spots still swirling in his vision. “Definitely stranger.”

Chapter 2: Imogen

Summary:

Imogen wakes with the sun as usual, as has been her routine as long as she can remember, always in a rush to get chores out of the way so that she could spend time reading whatever new book she had acquired from the latest peddler to come through town. It’s been years since she’s been home, but the habit hasn’t left her.

The fact that she wakes with a headache is also, unfortunately, routine.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Imogen wakes with the sun as usual, as has been her routine as long as she can remember, always in a rush to get chores out of the way so that she could spend time reading whatever new book she had acquired from the latest peddler to come through town. It’s been years since she’s been home, but the habit hasn’t left her.

The fact that she wakes with a headache is also, unfortunately, routine, has been routine since she turned thirteen and started hearing other people’s thoughts, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose.

I don’t have time for this today, Imogen thinks at her aching head, for all the good it will do her. She had felt fine last night as she had crawled into the room’s single bed next to Laudna. Better than fine, actually. She had gone to sleep easily despite her nervous excitement about the events of the day, about the strange new people she had met, and about who she’d be meeting in the morning. Lord Esh— Esh— something.

Imogen huffs in frustration and throws an arm across her eyes to block the sunlight against her closed eyelids. Laudna will remember. Laudna won’t sigh and roll her eyes like some people do when Imogen asks for people to repeat themselves. Laudna understands that there are times when all Imogen can focus on are the thoughts and feelings of people around her, the pressure of their whispered thoughts rising up and drowning out actual spoken words.  Laudna will cheerfully tell Imogen the name of the lord in question, and they’ll go to meet him and hopefully (hopefully hopefully please) that means she’ll be a step closer to getting answers—

Next to her, Laudna stops breathing. Imogen counts the seconds between the absence of breath and Laudna’s next soft inhale, like counting between a lightning strike and a clap of thunder. Ten seconds was the usual length of time. The longest had been a full minute before Imogen had panicked and woken Laudna up. Laudna had just chuckled, her eyes shining brightly in the dark.

“I told you not to worry,” Laudna had whispered, her syllables laced with a smile. “It’s just how I am.”

Twenty seconds later there is a quiet intake of breath, followed closely by Imogen’s relieved sigh. Laudna will be waking up soon. Imogen can feel the presence of her mind on the edge of her awareness, cool and white and curved, like a stone or a skull.

Perceiving the shape of a person’s mind isn’t something Imogen sets out to do, it’s more just a thing that happens with certain folk, the why of it a mystery to her, as is nearly everything concerning her strange abilities. Last night, though she hadn’t been able to pick up the thoughts of any of the new people they had just met, the nature of their minds had come to her quite clearly. Sir Bertrand had been a bell in need of polish, though still capable of producing grand tones. Ashton’s mind had felt chaotic, bright and flowing, molten fire shot through with opal and obsidian. Fresh Cut Grass, on the other hand, had a mind that was orderly, all lists and boxes. And while Orym’s mind felt like a young forest, green and strong, Fearne had felt like an forest that was much older, full of shadows one could get lost in, shadows that could hide friends from danger, but also conceal foes. Dorian had been a melody on the wind, but there had been something discordant in his song. Strange folk one and all, but then, she’s not one to talk.

There’s a shifting of the mattress as Laudna stirs. “Imogen?” she says softly. “Another headache?”

“Yeah.” Imogen replies, putting her thoughts aside as she uncovers her eyes and rolls over to look at Laudna. Other people regularly shrank away from Laudna, only seeing her death white skin, her too long fingers, her nearly pitch black eyes. Imogen sees all that and more, sees how her eyes are filled with concern and kindness and how her hair has gotten all tangled in her sleep. Imogen reaches out to gently untangle some of the strands. “Not one of the really bad ones though.”

Some of the worry goes out of Laudna’s expression. “That’s good,” she says. “It’s been what, two whole weeks since the last one?”

“I think so?” The really bad headaches leave Imogen in bed sick for a day or more, unable to tolerate bright light or keep down anything that isn’t tea and toast. Two weeks— that’s a record. Maybe she’s starting to finally, finally get a handle on this. The thought brings a tentative smile to her face, one that Laudna returns with even more force, her mouth stretching wide in a way that Imogen has heard other people think of as ghoulish and which only makes Imogen’s smile all the brighter.

“Today feels like it’s going to be a good day,” Laudna says, reaching out and running a hand through Imogen’s hair.

Imogen, despite her aching head, cannot help but agree.

Notes:

I love Imogen and Laudna to bits, if you couldn't tell.

Notes:

I’m angel-ascending over on Tumblr and angel_in_ink over on Twitter if y’all want to stop by and say hi!