Work Text:
If Laurent had been thinking clearly, he would never have tried to leave the house. His leg had healed sufficiently — and, perhaps more important, been splinted and wrapped by competent enough hands — that he could navigate his immediate surroundings on crutches, the friendly flat indoor surfaces, the vibrant and well-trodden garden. The steep, rocky downhill path to the beach was obviously quite a different prospect.
Laurent watched forlornly as his right crutch rolled that final stretch of distance which took it out of his sight. Without the distraction of laborious motion, his leg was making its soreness known. The pain was all the worse for being entirely his own fault. After weeks of roaming the house, he’d thought, if he could just get down to that beach — he’d thought, if he could just make his way to where the path started to slope downward in earnest, surely the rest of the way would be manageable. The gravity would assist him, he’d thought. How hard could it be? He wanted to go back to the beach. He wanted to get away from Damen’s sweet brown eyes and ridiculously muscled body and the careful way he treated Laurent. He wanted his skin, and the simplicity of the water, and the human world existing chiefly as a single day’s diversion, careful visits to the larger cities where nobody cared what anyone else was doing. He wanted his skin back. He didn’t even know if it was still where he’d left it.
Sitting here with the cool wind slicing through his thin human skin, staring down the great yawning length of hillside which lay between himself and the beach, he knew that it had been a ridiculous idea, a fantasy born of equal parts overconfidence and cabin fever. He might not be cooped up in the traditional sense — certainly he could step outside and see the wide horizon all around him — but it remained true that his movement was severely constrained.
Laurent sat back against the white rock and indulged in a long sigh. He’d gotten far enough from the house that the trip back would be highly inconvenient on a single crutch. His leg was very sore, throbbing almost. He felt stupid. And he was uncomfortably aware that the rock behind and below him was bleeding the warmth from his body.
And then, as though to make a bad situation into the worst it could possibly be — “Laurent!”
Damen’s voice was close by and concerned. Laurent sat up straight and had to scramble to avoid losing his other crutch to the implacable tide of gravity. He was still stinging with embarrassment when he said, “You said you’d be in the lighthouse all day,” and his voice came out prickly and hostile.
“It’s lunchtime,” said Damen. “I thought — Laurent.” In the tone of a man who has just remembered that he was not the one who was meant to be giving explanations. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Oh,” said Laurent, unable to soften his tone, “nothing at all —” but Damen knelt beside him and the words cut off.
“May I?” he asked. Laurent nodded mutely. Damen checked the bandaging on Laurent’s leg, and his hands were very wide, very capable. “Does it hurt?”
“Not —” Laurent cleared his throat. “Not sharply.”
Damen nodded, sat back on his heels. Laurent’s mouth said, without his consent,”I wanted to go down to the beach.”
Another nod. “It’s no wonder,” said Damen. “You’ve been cooped up.”
Somehow his simple understanding just made the prickliness and hostility within Laurent surge again. “Well, it was clearly a stupid idea,” he said.
“Next time maybe you could talk to me about it first,” Damen agreed easily. Laurent glared at him, at that wretchedly dimpled smile. Damen continued easily, “If you don’t mind being carried, we could go down now.”
Laurent stared. Damen began to look awkward. “I don’t see a way it could be done without carrying,” he said. “Even if we radioed for a chair —” Laurent had vetoed the wheelchair, and the explanations it would require to some faceless bureaucrat on the mainland, with extreme prejudice — “the path’s rough enough that I don’t know if it would work.”
“So your solution is to carry me down,” said Laurent, flatly.
“Yes?”
Laurent ignored the traitorous thumping of his heart. He thought, I am stuck on an island with a madman. Then he said, “Let’s go, then.”
He had to close his eyes to get away from that dimpled smile. With the utmost care, Damen leaned in, gathered him up, and then — stood, as though Laurent weighed nothing at all.
Laurent had made a mistake. He knew it instantly. From this position, every breath he took was saturated with Damen’s scent, deep and rich. Damen’s arms were warm. Far too warm — it couldn’t possibly be healthy. Laurent could feel the distinct line of them across his back and under his thighs, and every passing moment only made the sensation more pronounced, like he was being marked somehow, branded. Like his body wanted to absorb the memory of this touch and lock it permanently into his body.
“Are you cold?” asked Damen.
“No,” Laurent snapped. And then, “I thought you had work to do — I thought it was lunchtime.”
“The work can wait a bit,” said Damen. “And so can lunch. Unless you want me to turn around now.”
For reasons unknown to himself, Laurent snapped, “No,” again. He curled his toes, mortified, and felt the low ache which came with the tension of muscle around still-mending bone. Damen just kept walking.
It wasn’t as though Laurent would be able to grab his skin with Damen right there. He could never take such a risk. Even if he thought that Damen wouldn’t try to stop him — the fact of his broken leg made it too risky even to try. He was realising, stupidly, that he didn’t know to what extent the injury would shift form with him; he knew from experience that scratches did, but a broken leg — a still-healing leg — there wasn’t exactly an easy equivalence. He could have gotten all the way down to the beach and shifted form only to discover he couldn’t swim properly. He’d held so tightly to the dream of the ocean that he hadn’t considered its consequences, what would come after.
And still Damen was carrying him down to the beach. Laurent didn’t know what to make of it. He stayed very still in the cradle of Damen’s arms, feeling as though he was being boiled gently from the inside out. He was barely aware of reaching the beach, only blinking back to himself when he was set down on a sun-warmed rock where he could face the sea. It had been a long walk, but Damen wasn’t even breathing hard. He settled himself beside Laurent, not touching, but close enough that Laurent was warmed more by his body than by the sun.
He brought his good leg up and rested his chin on the knee. Behind him, not five steps away, was the rock-shelf where he had hidden his skin. It should have been unbearable, to be this close and unable to reach for it, unable to retrieve it. He should have been burning to get his hands on it. In front of him, the ocean was surging.
There was another force, he thought, more magnetic, more compelling. He slid his gaze sideways and found Damen watching him, eyes warm. Laurent’s cheeks flushed. He was aware of every inch of skin over his body. “It’s a nice day,” he said inanely.
Damen’s dimple appeared. “It’s a nice view,” he said.
Laurent stayed very still, breathing through the rush of his heart. Eventually, he returned his gaze to the sea.