Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You wake one morning to find that winter has slammed into Eridia with all the grace of a raging bull. 

Winter in Eridia would be so beautiful - frost painting in delicate swirls and whorls all about windows and up the sides of buildings; icicles hanging from eaves and overhangs and awnings like lovely, sparkling sculptures; snow drifting lazily through the air in an elegant dance…

So, so beautiful, if not for the fact that you are woefully unprepared for the cold.

Your hometown never got nearly as cold as Eridia does; you were more than able to bear the wintertime with a warm scarf and a sturdy pair of boots as the only additions to your wardrobe. It was the pleasant kind of cold that barely touched the land with frost in the wee hours before sunrise. You’d loved that cold.

This cold, on the other hand…

The fire in the fireplace had died during the night, and your only protection from the frigid air of your room is the sheets and blankets of your bed. From the way you wake curled as tightly as you can and with your jaw sore from clenching your teeth, you can’t say the blankets are performing their function very well.

Gods above and fires below, your room is freezing.

You curl up even tighter - perhaps if you lay still a while longer, the sun will warm your room enough that it will be bearable…?

But you promised Kuras last week that you would meet at his clinic today. If you fail to show up, well…

You’re not sure exactly what will happen, but you know that you’ll be incredibly upset with yourself for failing to keep your word. 

Getting out of bed is a fight. You only win that fight because you’re able to convince yourself that putting on real clothes will make you warmer than your pajamas. Still, leaving the cocoon of blankets behind feels sacrificial. 

The laces of your boots nearly slip through your shaking fingers, but you manage to get them tied after a struggle. You have thick socks and good boots, your trousers and your shirt, and of course the well-made cloak Kuras gave you months ago. It’ll be fine, surely. 

All that’s left for you to do is to collect your bandages and gloves from where you’d left them to dry…in front of the fire.

The fire that is no longer lit, and hasn’t been for most of the night. And while you’re terribly confused about that fact (there hasn’t been any problem with the fire, before, and Leander was fairly adamant about the fact that leaving it burning at night was perfectly fine) the result is the same:

Your bandages are still wet, and the gloves you’ve worn since the weather’s first downturn in autumn are still wet, too.

There’s no way you can go out without your bandages - you can’t risk people seeing your hands. You can’t risk touching anyone, either. 

Relighting the fire is an option, but it’ll take time to relight and more time to dry the bandages and gloves. Asking Leander to lend you a pair of gloves is an option, but there’s no guarantee he’s even in the building with how busy he’s been lately. You could always go out with the wet bandages on, anyway, and just hurry quickly to Kuras’s clinic…

Your bandages and gloves are limp and damp. It’s a pathetic sight.

You decide to…

…relight the fire.

…stay in the Wet Wick and try to find Leander.

…go outside with your bandages and gloves still wet. 

Chapter Text

You decide to stay in the Wet Wick to try to find Leander. He’ll surely have a pair of gloves or possibly even a spare roll of bandages that you can use for the time being, won’t he?

You wind the wet bandages around your hands to hide them from view, but you hope you’ll be able to discard them soon.

The Wick is crowded with patrons and Bloodhounds alike when you descend the stairs. It makes sense - the citizens seem to be escaping the foul weather and it must be hard to go anywhere in the veritable snowstorm outside. 

At least it’s warm on the bottom floor with so many other people around.

Leander stands behind the bar and green cloaks crowd all around him like flies about carrion. He spots you as soon as your foot leaves the last stair, and his eyes light up with his grin as he loudly calls your name.

“Good morning!” Leander cries from behind the bar. He dips his head at you and his gold earring flashes brightly. “A bit chilly today, right?”

“More than a bit,” you reply ruefully, but you can feel your mood lift as you draw nearer to the bubble of activity at the bar. “The fire in my room must’ve gone out in the night.”

“Oh no!” Leander says sympathetically. “Your room must’ve been freezing!”

“An understatement.”

“Your fire’s not supposed to go out,” Leander shoves his hair away from his face and frowns. “I’ll drop in and make sure there’s nothing wrong with the fireplace today, okay?”

“That’d be great!” You hope how grateful you are comes through in your tone. You also hope that tonight’s sleep won’t be quite so frigid. “But, uh, before that - got a pair of gloves I could borrow?”

“Of course!” Leander leans toward you and rummages around in one of his coat pockets for a moment. He produces a pair of gloves almost identical to his own and tosses them onto the bar counter. “Any reason in particular, or were you just looking to make a change?”

He eyes your bandages meaningfully.

The cotton is still damp, and you’re still self-conscious about them on the whole, so you take up the spare gloves and drag them onto your hands quickly.

“Wasn’t looking to make a change. I’ve got a meeting with Kuras to get to, and my gloves and bandages didn’t dry last night because of the fire.” 

It’s minute, and it’s possible that you didn’t actually see it at all, but you think you spy the corners of Leander’s eyes tightening slightly. It definitely could’ve been just a trick of the light, though.

“A meeting, huh? I remember you saying something about that,” Leander nods slowly. He purses his lips and gestures to the windows of the Wick. “You sure you want to go out in that, though? Might be better to wait for the storm to subside - you’ll freeze out there.”

You cast your eyes over to the windows. 

Leander’s right - the snow looks unmanageable from where you’re standing. Outside is a squall, plain and simple. Even in gloves, do you really think you can stand going out there and making the walk over to the clinic? Really?

But you’d promised Kuras that you’d meet him today, and soon; can you really skip out on him like that?

“I don’t know…” you hesitate. The wind looks so intense and it’s snowing so hard you can’t really see the end of the street. 

Leander waves his hand around like he’s trying to waft your concern away, “Don’t worry about it! Why not hang out here for a bit, have some breakfast? I’m sure there’ll be a break in the weather soon and you can be on your way.”

The mage claps his hands together once and a steaming bowl appears on the counter almost too quickly for you to catch the whoosh of green fabric that accompanies it.

You look from the inviting bowl to Leander’s expectant face. 

“C’mon! It’ll warm you up the rest of the way, and then we can look at the weather again and you’ll be on your way to your meeting in no time at all,” Leander entreats.

You are still a little cold from waking up in your room earlier, and the porridge does look hot and tasty….

Well, it couldn’t hurt to have some food and wait to see if the wind dies down, right? And Leander is pretty confident that the storm won’t last forever…You’d hate to make him worry about you by going out in it right now.

His gloved hand lands on your shoulder and you startle. When did he get to be right beside you?

Leander’s brows are pulled together and a tiny frown paints his lips. “Please?” He asks.

“Yeah, alright,” you relent instantly. You don’t mean to say that, but that’s what you say. And it sounds and feels correct, so you let it stand. “Breakfast would be great, thanks.”

Leander’s answering grin is wide and welcoming. “Excellent!”

The hand on your shoulder urges you down onto a barstool in front of the porridge, and Leander claims the spot next to yours so he can continue to chatter at you rapid-fire about the storm, the goings-on of the bar and the Bloodhounds, and a few of the more rowdy citizens who’d come inside to take shelter from the weather.

Every once in a while, he gets too enthusiastic and grips your gloved hand with his own.

It’s distracting. 

It’s very, very distracting. 

It’s so distracting that you don’t look over to the windows to check whether the storm has eased even an hour later - not even two hours later, when the wind has died down and the snowfall has all but stopped. Not even four hours later, when the sun starts to filter dull gold through the air as it starts to set.

You do have the strangest feeling that you’re forgetting something, though.

You eat breakfast and then afternoon tea and then dinner at the Wet Wick’s bar counter, and when the sun is down completely, Leander reminds you about the fire in your room that he still needs to look at. 

“Right!” You exclaim in relief, because that must be what you were forgetting about the entire time. “The fire! I completely forgot.”

Leander chuckles at you good-naturedly and lets you lead him up the stairs to your room.

The place is in the same state you left it - your blankets and sheets are tangled into a cozy mass on your bed, and the fireplace is dark and cold. The room is almost as frigid as it was this morning.

“Huh,” he ponders when he stares at the logs. “Doesn’t look like anything’s wrong…strange…”

The logs catch with a wave of his hand and firelight crackles merrily and loudly in the space, throwing dancing shadows and casting a warm glow all along the walls. Instantly, your room is flooded with the comforting heat of the fire. 

“Oh, thank you,” you sigh. You’re already anticipating a better night’s sleep and a much more pleasant morning tomorrow.

Your hands start to get a little too warm, so you move to strip off your borrowed gloves.

“Still so fascinating,” Leander mutters, and he stares intently at your hands while you remove the gloves.

Your gold scars peek through your bandages - you’d never gotten around to removing them, but being under the gloves had given the fabric the opportunity to shift around a little. The bandages themselves are a little dirty and still look kind of sad from their ordeal. They aren’t wet anymore - it’s been hours - but you still want to take them off, right?

Right.

So you unwind them, and you take them off.

Leander clears his throat at you, and you look up to see him tugging his own glove off and offering his bare palm in your direction.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He asks. 

Hasn’t it?

It has. You’re drawn forward like the tide by the moon.

It never seems to get any easier. You reach out your hand and it shakes, and the rest of you shakes a little, too. It’s the anticipation or the nervousness or…well, you’re not entirely sure. Can someone hold hands incorrectly? You wager you’d be the first to manage it.

Leander’s hand is warm and smooth, as always, and you can feel his pulse thudding beneath your fingertips. His fingers wrap around your wrist and his thumb strokes in tiny circles against your radius. You take a couple of steps towards him to adopt a more comfortable stance.

“Not sure what caused the fire to go out,” Leander explains softly. He tilts your hand this way and that, watching how the light plays on your cursed skin. “But as always, interesting mysteries abound…”

He studies the scars and mottled skin for several moments so intensely that you almost wonder whether his eyes could pierce right through your flesh. You wonder if this is how it feels to be an insect under a microscope.

You shift your weight from foot to foot. You fidget a little.

The promised “hand-holding on demand” doesn’t feel nearly as nice as it has in the past, somehow, but you don’t want to hurt Leander’s feelings by pulling your arm away.

“Figure anything out about it, yet?” You ask to try and distract yourself.

It's been a few months since you've set yourself (and Leander) to the task of finding a cure for your curse. You definitely haven't found anything, but a man with the sort of resources and nose for information that Leander has...

“Hmm? Oh. No, not yet,” Leander replies absently and flips your hand over to stare with great focus at your palm. 

He drags the pad of his index finger across your life line. A chill races from your palm up your arm and skitters up your spine. You rip your hand away from his grip on reflex. 

You stumble a step back from Leander without thinking about it at all; your hand still tingles as you clutch it against your chest.

At least he doesn’t seem upset about it?

Leander raises his hands in surrender and his eyes crinkle at the corners with his grin.

“Too much, huh?” Leander asks mildly. “That's okay - we’ll work up to it!”

The shadows from the fire make strange shapes across his face. You hate to admit it, but it's a little...unsettling.

You blink a few times. Work up to it? Work up to what?

Your mouth parts on a question-

"Ah, you must be tired!" Leander says before you can ask.

And you are tired. A wave of fatigue crashes down on your head, and it's so intense you sway on your feet.

"Whoa!" Leander reaches out and grabs your shoulder to steady you. "Let's get you to bed, huh?"

Gods, you can't even speak; even your tongue is heavy in your mouth. You manage a half-hearted groan as Leander maneuvers you over to your bed.

Through your fast-fading consciousness you see Leander draping a blanket over you, still smiling gently.

The last thing you feel is the soft weight of your bedsheets, the comforting warmth of the fire crackling across the room, and warm lips pressing gently against the palm of your bare hand.

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ENDING 2

TRY AGAIN?

YES

NO

Chapter Text

You decide to go outside with your bandages and gloves still wet.

A sigh escapes you. It’s not a terrible walk to Kuras’s clinic, and he’ll have fresh bandages you can use to replace yours, there. Surely you can endure until you get there.

Surely.

-

The first few steps outside of the Wick are fine, really - you gawk at the ice that’s crept over all of the exposed surfaces on the street, because it really is very beautiful. Then, of course, your boot slips a little on a patch of ice. Every muscle in your body is suddenly dedicated to the tension of remaining upright, and you’re flooded with the fear of falling and hurting yourself.

An unholy combination of high winds, dense cloud cover, damp air, and freezing temperatures has chilled you so deeply you worry you’ll never feel warm again. Biting wind whips at your eyes until they smart and sting - tears fall and make your face even colder.

You’ve never been chilled to your bones, before. Even as you’d laid bleeding out and dying in the marshes outside of Eridia, you hadn’t been chilled to your bones.

The experience is certainly a unique one.

Your cloak does almost nothing to block the wind or shield against the cold. The air cuts straight through the fabric of your outerwear. But at least your shirt and trousers are dry —your bandages and gloves, conversely…

Hurrying to Kuras’s clinic is the plan, but you definitely didn’t expect it to be this… awful.

The walk is grueling in a way it’s never been before; you pick your way as cautiously as possible across the icy cobblestone street, and it’s difficult and frustrating to be spending so much time in the winter air. You don’t want to fall. You also don’t want to be outside much longer.

You realize that the gloves are doing next to nothing to keep the cold air from your hands, so you peel them off and stuff them in the pockets of your cloak. The mistake of wearing the still-wet bandages is apparent immediately. 

“Shit,” you hiss, because while your bandages aren’t icing over or anything, the cold is enough to feel like needles against your skin. Trying to warm them up with your breath both works and doesn’t - it helps momentarily as you force warmer air through the cloth bandages, but the effect doesn’t last.

Just keep going. From where you are, it’s a straight shot to the end of this street, then the next right, and then you’ll pass the good noodle restaurant on your left and turn left two streets later, just after the apothecary. You’ve walked this route tens of times, by now, and you know it fairly well.

The snow and ice piled up around the mouth of the next street is a little too impassible for you to risk, so you make a different turn than usual - another pub you’ve never been to before - and tiptoe carefully across the slippery street to correct your course.

You’re confident - you’ll be to the clinic in no time, even with your slowed pace from minding the ice. No time at all.

Half an hour and five course-corrections later, you fuzzily realize that you’ve gotten terribly turned around.

You’re dizzy and tired, you can’t feel your fingers, and all of the buildings look the same. You’ve passed the good noodle place on the corner five or six times, by now, right? Or was that the apothecary? You don’t remember that pub having black spots all over it.

It’s snowing quite heavily, you think. You’ve never seen so much snow all at once.

Everything is just a little bleary around the edges, and your knuckles, elbows, knees - all your joints, really - ache something fierce. 

You stumble, stagger, slip - you’re not entirely sure, but the result is that you wind up mostly on the ground with your arm out to steady yourself against the exterior of a building. 

There’s a moment before the black consumes your vision that you swear you hear a fragment of your name—

-

“Lie still.”

You feel the voice rumble against your right cheek and ear, which are—warm.

Warm?

Your head feels so heavy, but you try to lift it—

“Lie still and remain calm,” the voice rumbles again, and a warm hand presses against your head to prevent you from sitting up. “You must refrain from moving while your core temperature returns to normal.”

And really, far be it from you to give up being finally somewhat warm. You’re still a little too cool for your liking, but you feel slightly warmer each moment; it’s like you’re watching the mercury rise in a thermometer.

You’re encased in warmth, really–-heavy, soft blankets are wound around you. 

“What—” you mumble out, but it’s a struggle.

“I discovered you near the clinic. Your body temperature had dropped dangerously low, and your extremities were frostbitten. You were delirious, as well.”

You don’t recall too much, but you specifically remember the pins-and-needles tingling in your hands blooming into agony and then fading to nothing. A bolt of fear pierces straight through you - your hands, are they—?

“Peace,” Kuras demands softly. “You will suffer no permanent damage from the cold.”

You experimentally wiggle your fingers and toes where they’re all surrounded by plush blankets. There’s no numbness in them, now, and there’s not even any residual pain.

The hand rests on your head again, and you relax. 

“While your core temperature is returning to normal, you must avoid straining your heart.”

Right - relax. Just relax and stay calm. 

You can do that; relaxing is child’s play. You can easily deal with the fact that your cheek and ear are so warm and Kuras’s voice is so close because you’re laying half on top of him with your head on his chest.

You can just ignore his heartbeat under your ear and that he’s traded his usual doctor’s ensemble for a soft white sweater.

Just ignore the almost inaudible sound of Kuras leafing through a book with one hand and the feeling of him occasionally carding through your hair with the other. You’re not sure if he’s stroking your hair on purpose or if it’s more of an absentminded thing.

All of these things are easy to ignore, and it is simple for you to relax. Yep.

Simple.

“Thank you,” you say quietly to distract yourself and you cringe at how hoarse you sound, “for saving me, again. We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

You aren’t sure whether your joke lands or not, because you can’t see whether Kuras is smiling his little amused smile from your position. He turns a few more pages in his book before he decides to respond to you.

“...your hypothermia was quite severe,” he replies eventually, “as well as your frostbite. It was…disconcerting to see you in such a state.” And his voice hasn’t changed in any way you can tell, but he pauses like he’s searching for the right words. 

He’s definitely not amused. Is he…worried? Is Kuras worried about you?

“Sorry.”

“Instead of an apology, I ask you simply to exercise more caution in the future. While I do enjoy seeing you, I would prefer you to be in full control of all of your faculties,” Kuras declares resolutely.

“I’ll be more careful,” you say and it isn’t even a lie. 

“That is all I ask,” Kuras replies.

Gods, you’re exhausted. But you’re finally warm and Kuras is warm, and you’re rather—

You yawn, and you immediately feel embarrassment cresting in your chest. He saved you, and you’re just going to fall asleep on the man? Have some shame.

“Sorry,” you say again and feel the flush creeping over your face.

“Rest,” Kuras insists. The pads of his fingers brush against your left temple. “You must be tired after your ordeal. I will watch over you.”

And under normal circumstances you would refuse outright, really you would. But Kuras sounds so sincere and you’re so comfortable and you’re growing sleepier by the moment.

“...if you’re sure…?” You ask quietly. 

“I would not offer If I did not intend to help,” Kuras replies equally as softly. “Sleep and recover. We shall discuss your affliction at a later date.”

Right, your curse—you had been going to meet with Kuras regarding your curse…

Your eyes slip closed. 

You sleep, wrapped soundly in soft blankets while Kuras leafs through the pages of an old tome.

-

“Weather magic is difficult and time-consuming,” Kuras mentions aloud and absently adjusts a strand of your hair. You shift in your sleep and burrow slightly deeper against his collarbone. “While difficult, though, it is hardly out of the realm of possibility for the average mage.”

“Accusing me of engineering the storm?” Leander leans against the doorway with his arms crossed - an intruder in the clinic at so late an hour. “A little rude, no?”

“Of course not,” Kuras closes his eyes. “Though I must say, such feats of magic are so difficult that they make spells to suppress fire and addle the mind look like the idle play of children.”

“Oh, are they?”

Kuras’s eyes flash open and fix on Leander. The affable mage maintains his easy posture and loose stance, as though he were not standing in Kuras’s clinic—as though he were not standing dangerously close to one who once made the heavens quake.

“That was an accusation,” Kuras informs darkly, “and though it is as yet unfounded, I wonder about the lengths to which you would go. Frostbite and hypothermia are rather extreme consequences of your mischief.”

Leander makes a contemplative noise, but says nothing else in response.

“There will not be a repeat of this incident,” Kuras says. His tone is equal threat and guarantee. 

“Bold words from the one who set us all on this path,” Leander points out.

Kuras settles a hand protectively over the back of your head.

“There will not be a repeat of this incident,” Kuras says again. 

“We’ll see,” Leander replies, and he disappears through the doorway before Kuras can reduce him to ash.

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ENDING 3

TRY AGAIN?

YES

NO

Chapter Text

You decide to relight the fire. It’s going to take a while to do that and get the bandages and gloves dry, but it beats going out with wet fabric on your hands when it’s so cold. Who knows - you might catch your death out in that sort of cold.

And, your room feels like it’s only gotten colder while you’ve been deliberating, so reigniting the fire will bring the fringe benefit of warming yourself up, too. 

You take up the matchbox and try your hand at lighting the fire.

-

You try and try and try to light the fire, but every time you get the tinder smoldering, the logs simply will not catch. 

A thorough investigation of the fireplace has you scratching your head in confusion. The logs don’t feel damp to the touch at all, and there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with them. Even after stripping some of the bark off and successfully lighting that, the logs themselves will not sustain a flame.

It’s like an enchantment has been cast on the fireplace to keep the logs from catching. You’re not sure who would’ve done something like that. Or why. Or when they would’ve even done it in the first place.

But the fact is, your room is freezing and you’re freezing, too. You’ve run out of matches in the matchbox, and there’s apparently nothing left in the fireplace that will burn. The logs sit in a small heap, cold and impotent.

There’s no use continuing to fight against what’s obviously some kind of weird spell - you let the matchbox fall from your trembling hands and you stagger your way back to bed. You’re going to warm yourself back up as much as you can under your covers, and you’ll decide what to do when your teeth aren’t chattering anymore.

You do glare balefully at the fireplace from under your blankets for a time - it deserves that much, at least. Slowly but surely, you find yourself growing warmer and your shivering stops.

Unfortunately, you also find yourself growing increasingly tired. You can just rest your eyes for a moment, can’t you…?

You fall asleep.

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ENDING 1

TRY AGAIN?

YES

NO