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Chapter Text

She was about to kill him. She had always wanted to. Always. Ever since he had waited behind her in the line for the Parapet and had made a step back to let her ascend the stairs more comfortably – after staring at her rebellion relic for way too long. So he didn’t mind murdering her but he minded causing her discomfort, eh?

Aetos was way too addled in the head to survive in this quadrant.

Really, he had only survived this far because he had had the good luck of being placed in Imogen’s squad and she valued her own life way too much to forfeit it by killing a classmate.

Fortunately, leadership had no squads, so – no squadmates.

Dain Aetos was a dead man.

She was so taken by her anger that she didn’t hear the man entering her room. When she did, she whirled back, blade in hand, but Garrick moved spectacularly fast for someone his size. Her knife went mere centimeters past from his face but it went past. Garrick caught his cheek and stared at her with eyes so wounded that one could say she had actually gone and bled him. Imogen rolled her eyes. “What? I didn’t take you. Must you be so dramatic?”

He kept staring at her and for a moment, Imogen had the horrible feeling that he was about to cry. “Imogen,” he finally said. “If you wanted to get rid of me, there were other ways to do it. You didn’t need to stab me, you know. If you regret what happened last night…”

“And last morning,” Imogen said. “And between my classes. Why on earth would you think I regret it?”

He started breathing more easily and even raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know,” he said sarcastically. “Perhaps because you were about to take my eye?”

Imogen blinked, looked at her blade and shook her head. “Ah, this,” she said dismissively. “It wasn’t for you.”

Garrick huffed, reassured. Who had managed to piss her off this much in class? He knew it wasn’t between classes because he had been there to claim her time. “So, who’s the poor bastard who gets stabbed?” he asked curiously.

“Aetos,” Imogen snapped. “No one has seen him ever since Cath got… distracted. No way he could withstand, with what Glane told me was happening there. All the churam in the world isn’t going to work”

Garrick blinked again, all traces of relief dying a lonesome death. He had, he had known he should have just killed the bastard himself right when he had dared suggest that he could fill Imogen’s dragon-lust-inspired needs. Yesterday, he had thought Aetos was just running his mouth off but Imogen’s words could not be misinterpreted. She was angry that Aetos had found someone to take care of his own dragon-lust-inspired needs. So angry that she wanted to cut Aetos. And last night, he had thought…

Imogen started laughing and tugged him close. “As much as I find it fair and square to watch you seethe in jealousy, Tavis, you’ve got no reason to. I don’t care about Aetos this way. At all,” she added and Garrick’s intention to ask about the exact way she cared about Aetos went out the window when she kissed him and her freshly dyed hair tickled his chin.

Later, they went to dinner holding hands and fuck everyone who thought it inappropriate. No one in their right mind would ever be concerned about him having power over Imogen anyway. But he hated that he still had a quick look around for fucking Aetos and then at Imogen to check for her reaction when he didn’t see him anywhere.

Her reaction was… not promising. She looked livid. Again. And he felt heartbroken. Again.

“This fucker!” Imogen said under her breath, staring straight at something, and when Garrick saw what it was, he felt twice the fool – first, for ever having thought Imogen could like Aetos and second, for not having realized that his jokes about Sloane killing Aetos out of jealousy would land straight in the mark. He had thought he was mocking Aetos but Sloane was here. She looked a right mess, her nose red, her hair even more messy than usual, her lips trembling. She had been crying,

“Sloane and Aetos?” he finally managed, although Imogen only understood the garbled sound out of his mouth because her mind was running in the same direction.

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

“Know what?” Garrick was pretty sure he didn’t and he didn’t want to. “I knew Aetos liked Sloane but please don’t tell me that she likes him.”

“Why not? He’s good-looking, he’s loyal to those he cares about, he tries to be fair to people…”

Garrick couldn’t believe his ears. “We’re talking about Aetos. Aetos, Imogen! Remember him? The man who managed to piss you off before he even spoke a word to you because he was this insufferable? Sure, he might be not as bad as his dad but he’s reaching way above his league. Again. Surely Sloane can’t fall for this?”

“You’re talking as nastily as Xaden,” Imogen said, cutting him off. “Each of you wants a piece of Aetos. Okay, go find him, divide him between yourselves, cut him in pieces, stab him, kill him. What do I care? He’s only the man Sloane likes, only the man who saved me during RSC. Nothing to see here!”

“You never said a good word about Aetos before!”

“I didn’t say a bad word either as you would have known if you had ever bothered to listen in the first place.”

Garrick swallowed because she was right. Kind of. He had been so hung up on everything she said that he had failed to notice what she left out. “So, Aetos and Sloane?” he asked a bit plaintively. “She wants him as well? It isn’t just on his side?”

“And I thought myself an excellent explainer. Would you grasp it better if I draw you a picture?”

“There’s no need!” Garrick replied in haste because he feared what she would put in this picture. He’d never be able to unsee a love-fool Sloane afterwards and it was actually worse than the other thing she could put in there. Unfortunately, Imogen was an excellent artist as well… ‘So she likes him and he’s taken a whore to his room, even if it’s in dragon-inspired-lust?” he inquired, wondering how sharp she had gotten that knife. He could put it to some excellent use. Sloane was stubborn, mule-headed and had taken all the unpleasantness of character meant for her and Liam both but she was – Sloane. She was theirs. Especially when she was no longer Liam’s, not really.

Dain Aetos was about to get the beating of his life once he set a foot out of his fucking room.

Chapter Text

“I thought he was different.”

Only when she saw the sympathy – the pity – on Imogen’s face did Sloane realize that she had said it out loud. Imogen opened her mouth.

“Don’t!” Sloane warned with viciousness that even she recognized she should have reserved for someone else but well, this someone was who knew where doing she could too easily imagine what – and Imogen was about to defend him?

Imogen didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t. “Sloane, I don’t think you realize how powerful this can be…”

“I said stop!” Sloane said it very softly because if she gave up even a bit of her control over her voice, she’d start screaming or worse, crying – again.

“Sloane…”

“Imogen, she clearly doesn’t want to talk about it…” Garrick said and then ouched because Imogen stepped on his foot, very deliberately and not even a bit discreetly.

“I know you’ve always liked him but this isn’t the moment,” Sloane said and stalked away. Not running. But feeling like a fool.

She had thought he was different. Even after she came to know about Liam. Oh, she snarked and snapped all she liked, she blamed him loudly to everyone who would listen and to many of those who’d rather not but the truth was, every time she heard Sorrengail say something disparaging about him, she saw red.

The truth was, she had come to rely on his steady presence and the way he never made his regret more meaningful than her grief. It felt reassuring to be able to channel her rage into sparring with the best and knowing that he might be holding back but he’d never let her win just because. That each improvement was real. It had been nice to have someone always there to do something for her and accompany her so she could have a walk out of Riorson House safely because no one with a rare signet was safe on their own now. Especially not first years. It had been both humbling and thrilling to watch him doing things for people, even those who disdained and shunned him, only going to him when they needed something. And it had been warming to catch him looking at her when he thought she wasn’t watching.

All this in the past.

She had almost forgiven him – almost accepted there was never anything to forgive. Good thing that it had only been almost.

He wasn’t different. Sorrengail had been right all along.

He had fucking led her on. When all was said and done, he wasn’t as attracted to her as she had thought he was. Sure, she understood dragon influence and uncontrolled urges – but he had clearly been controlling them enough to fucking do something about it! Just not with her.

He was this cowardly.

He had thrown everything she had thought they had started to acknowledge little by little by not having the courage to not bring someone else into the equation.

Coward.

The fresh night air cleared her head a bit but that didn’t bring any relief. Just anger at herself for being this stupid. This time, it wasn’t a childish belief that they were going to win this rebellion, that her parents would make it, that no one would die. But it was a childish belief anyway. This time, she had dared hope she could have a future and even a potential life with someone who wasn’t what they said he was.

“You don’t know what he is.”

The voice was in her head and Sloane tried to wave it away with her hand – which only made Thoirt laugh. “It’s cute that you think you can silence me physically. You have finished your growth and anyway, your kind doesn’t get this big.”

“I know! I know how inferior we are. Are we really going to talk about this?”

Thoirt pretended to consider. “I don’t know. I’m more willing to talk about the wingleader and see what you’re going to do about this.”

Sloane laughed bitterly. “What this? There is no this! More than likely, he’s with someone else right now.”

“What if he isn’t?” Thoirt asked. “He sure looked much into you. Surely you saw it?”

She had, that was the problem! She slammed her shields down and for the first time was able to keep Thoirt away.

Aetos would grin smugly and say, “See? I knew you could do it.”

Correction. She was no longer talking to Aetos. Never again. She swore she’d never set a foot through his door again.

So, in the lovely night, with the mountain stars shining close enough to touch and everyone she had now in the hall behind her, eating and laughing as if the horror wasn’t happening, as if they believed they still had a chance, she stayed leaning against the wall, moody and miserable, cast in the darkness of her own lost hopes.

Thoirt woke her up at midnight. That was what the marked candle in her room showed. Midnight. She tried to rub the sleep from her eyes because as jokey and unpredictable her dragon was, she had never done this. She always maintained that Sloane should rest more, instead of trying to take the world on a run.

“The Wingleader is in trouble,” she said and before she could elaborate, Sloane was throwing her clothes on.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her heart in her throat.

“Cath called us,” Thoirt said and that was all she said.

As Sloane raced down the hall, a few doors opened. Cath had indeed called more than a few dragons, she realized and her fear grew. She didn’t even feel any lingering resentment when she saw Violet in front of Dain’s room, trying to break through his wards. Open up, Sloane thought, forgetting all about her vow and that door.

But it didn’t.

“Dain!” Sorrengail screamed, pounding on the door.

No sound.

“What the hell?” Imogen wondered. “He can’t be this good with his wards. I should be able to at least feel something.”

Hurry up, Thoirt said and a thunder shook the hall. No, not a thunder. A roar. “Before he gives me a headache,” she added, in a valiant attempt to bring some levity to the situation.

Can we please deal with your headache later?

Now, Bodhi had joined the rest of them, staring at the door with a frown on his face. “Are you sure there are wards?” he asked. “Because to me, it feels like… nothing.”

Violet visibly swallowed. Sloane felt like a fool. Bodhi reached a hand to the door and sure enough, nothing happened. Nothing repelled him. He wasn’t blown into the wall behind his back.

But the door didn’t open either. “It’s locked from the inside,” he said. “Are we sure he’s indeed there?”

BOOM! Part of the wall at the far end of the hall broke out and through the new hole, as big as a door, they saw the tip of a wing, black in the moonlight.

“Break the bloody door!” Imogen ordered and glared at Garrick. “What the hell are you doing here at all if not moving?”

“Everyone step aside!”

Garrick made a few steps back before running straight into the door… which was meant to withstand normal human strength.

Whoever had made it had not taken Garrick into consideration.

The wave of putrid smell coming from the inside was so strong that it did send him reeling back. Sickeningly sweet, cloying… but it didn’t have the component Sloane feared most.

It bore the waft of overindulgence on something dangerous… but no undercurrent of sex. In. Any. Form.

Someone lit magelights, bright to madness and offensively green – green? They cut into Sloane’s eyeballs but it only took her a minute to adjust, then inhaling deeply and entering the room. At the same time, Bodhi opened the window wide so they wouldn’t suffocate on what had affected – killed? – Dain.

He was sprawled next to his bed. Under his head, there was a pool of blood, a streak congealing on his forehead and cheekbone. His eyes were closed. With her heart in her throat, Sloane put a hand to his mouth but someone pushed her away. Brennan. As his hands moved and he was so close to her that she could feel Marbh’s power pulsing into him, Sloane realized what the smell was. Churam.

“When the hell did he get addicted?” Brennan snapped as the wound on Dain’s head started closing. “Why didn’t anyone notice?”

“He isn’t addicted,” Garrick said. “He isn’t going to die, is he, Sorrengail?”

“Not from the wound, not. But a dose this high… it’s doing things to his body that I don’t know if he can withstand – if anyone can. Why a dose this high? We should have noticed…”

“There was never anything to notice,” Imogen snapped which was good because Sloane had been about to do the same, strangely offended on Dain’s behalf despite the undeniable fact that he was currently fighting the potential effects of a huge overdose. “Cath has been… busy. Churam does help us battle the urge.”

Brennan looked up, his eyes softer now. “Ah, I see. Why, I’d think it would have been easier for him to seek human… help for this.” He shook his head. “Such a weird boy he’s become. When he decides something, he’d chase it to the end of the world. His world, to be precise.” But his hands kept moving.

Garrick laughed without much merriment. “It’s strange that you’re saying this.”

“Why?”

“He did say that churam might finish him. And he said something like this before, once. I was poking fun at him for not noticing those two girls almost throwing themselves at him at the same time.”

Sloane’s hands clenched into fists against her will.

“And he told me that it didn’t matter. He told me that he only wanted Sloane here, even if the world ended.”

“See?” Thoirt’s voice was smug. “What did I say? He may still die because he only wants you. Isn’t this wonderful?”

Cath roared again and a magelight winked out.

Yeah, with a sinking heart Sloane realized that she disagreed as well.

Chapter Text

Everything hurt.

He had never seen this room but it didn’t bother him. In the beginning, it was always the same with all the temporary homes they had dwelled in. A new room, new size of windows, let alone the new sight behind them. A new pattern of creaking floor. It took some time to get used to the novelty. Usually, his dad was stationed elsewhere pretty soon after this.  So, another room that was and wasn’t his own didn’t bother him at all. It only did when the blades of sharp consciousness reminded him that he was no longer a child, that he was in a place where he was hated by most, tolerated by some at best – and that this room wasn’t even his little escape from this reality.

But the noise of the water rushing through his head dulled those blades pretty fast.

Everything hurt.

“Where am I? What happened?” he asked from time to time when he realized that something very out of order, even by his measures, had taken place.

“You’re in my room,” someone answered. “You did something very stupid but you’ll be fine. You’re safe now.”

Always the same voice, always the same words. A glass of water to his lips. Something small to nibble at in his brief spells of awareness. Only now did he realize how hungry he was – and promptly forgot.

Everything hurt.

She didn’t know she hurt most. Hurt him most. Because she wasn’t real. She was a project of his deeply hidden wishes, his most cherished fantasies, she was the poison of what was lost before it was even seen, what was missed on before it could even appear, what could never be.

His fault, indeed.

And Cath’s. For what was happening now.

“Is this you?” he asked suspiciously. “Are you the one feeding me this, the way you transferred your…”

“Don’t finish this line,” Cath replied. “Or rather, wake up and then you can finish this line.”

Cool hands on his temples. Soft fingers trailing down his neck, in the wake of the wet cloth. Slight scratching of nails – nails? How could she have nails long enough to scratch so pleasantly? She was a dragon rider. “You aren’t real,” he managed to say aloud. “But you are a good fantasy. Don’t stop.”

After all, only a fantasy would know the spots of him where a touch, a caress would enter his half-conscience to bring relief.

For a while, it didn’t hurt so much.

“Where am I? What happened?”

He asked the question staring at the wall. Then, he turned to his side slowly and painfully – his limbs had grown fifty pounds heavier each – and blinked. “What on earth…”

Blue eyes like the heart of a lake met his own. A faint smile tugged at her lips as she said, “You’re in my room. You’re safe now.”

He frowned. There was something missing in her words and he said so.

“You did something very stupid but you’ll be fine. You’re safe now. Is this better?”

That was more like it. “How many times did I ask this?”

“I stopped counting after the twelfth time.” She reached at the bedside and took a wet piece of cloth. “Are you going to do this, or shall I?”

He frowned, reached for the cloth and she allowed him this little bit of independence. But it exhausted him so much that she didn’t bother asking before bringing the glass of blissfully cold water to his lips. He reached out.

“Don’t bother,” Cath said lazily, his relief palpable. “She’s seen much worse. She isn’t going to be repulsed by the fact that you can’t hold the glass.”

“What?” Dain stifled his panic. “What has she seen?”

But his dragon, as stubborn as ever, chose this moment to retreat.

“What happened?” But the answer came to him even as he asked and he groaned. “No way.”

“Way.” There was relief and anger fighting for dominance in Sloane’s voice. “I thought that you… I thought…” Words failed her and she looked away.

Dain got her meaning just fine but – she couldn’t mean this, right? She couldn’t. It wasn’t reciprocated. It wasn’t possible. Dain knew how much she liked him – but he also knew that her hatred exceeded it by far.

“Sloane,” he said carefully. “I would never.”

“I know this now.” Her eyes were ablaze but she sat up in bed – in bed? – so he could stay reclined while they were staring at each other. “Do you realize how close you were to fucking dying?”

The answer was no but somehow, Dain didn’t think she’d appreciate it. “I told you,” he said evenly. “I only want you.”

The fire went out from her eyes. Just like this. “You told Garrick as well,” she breathed. “And you said it during your fever. Many times.”

He nodded. “That’s the truth. But I wasn’t planning for… this, Sloane,” he added honestly. “It wasn’t our first time with Cath. I thought I could withstand it. I was always able to, before.”

She snorted. “When you were twenty pounds heavier? Look at yourself, Aetos! You’ve lost so much weight since I first saw you that it’s scary. When I saw you at the Parapet, I thought you were the last delight I was ever going to set my eyes upon – look at yourself now! Behind those muscles, you’re a bag of fucking bones! Did you really think you could take the same amount of churam as before and have the same effect?”

His heart went in overdrive. He had suspected it for a while but to hear that his instant infatuation at the Parapet had been shared… He wanted to scream with joy… and then the rest of her words made their way into his mind as well. “If I’m so unpleasant to look at, what are you doing here? Why did you agree to undertake… this?” His horror was mounting because he remembered very well the effects of an overdose. Gods, had she cleaned him? He did feel clean and he fucking knew he couldn’t have been before.

“At my next Presentation, I’m looking for the dumbest cadet I can find,” Cath declared. “I’ve long been advised to choose them simple and fierce. But no, I have to find some brainy ones that immediately prove themselves being dumber than I thought…”

Dain tried to slam his shields but Cath pushed them aside, the way he sometimes pushed a curious hatchling aside. With his mental nose. What was this, a pick on Aetos day?

There was no anger in Sloane’s expression, though. None. Come to think of his, her only display of anger had been when he had admitted he hadn’t even thought that he might be placing himself in danger.

“I didn’t say you were unpleasant to look at,” Sloane said softly. “I said you were too thin to take as much churam as you used to. Nothing that a few good meals won’t fix. If you don’t prefer my… help in… another way.” She was suddenly self-conscious and looked away. Dain braved his fears and took her hand. It fluttered in hers like the wing of a scared little bird.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said. “It was really not my intention. I didn’t know where I stood with you. I still don’t. It might be stupid but…”

His thumb found the pulse on her wrist. It was racing. He looked down. Her nails were painted pink and indeed short but long enough to scratch. It wasn’t a dream, then. It wasn’t.

“No,” she said after a while. “It wasn’t stupid. I didn’t know where you stood with me either. But now…”

“Now you do?” He held his breath.

She nodded. “Dain, I thought you were with someone else, I was blind with rage. I wanted to kill you.”

The first time she said his name. Admitting the wish to kill him. It was so fitting. That was the girl he saw on the Parapet. The one who had wanted to take Violet down. And she had wanted to kill him because she had been jealous. He barely swallowed his stupid grin.

Sloane was serious. “I’ve been wondering what I wanted, for a while. When Garrick broke that door and I didn’t know if you were alive, if you were going to live, I realized I didn’t want you dead. I just wanted you.”

He swallowed and forced himself to look her in the eye. He had to know. “Despite Resson? Despite everything that happened?”

She nodded. “Despite it all.”

Dain wanted to hug her but he was too tired and his limbs were too heavy to move. He wanted to kiss her but despite feeling clean – due to her ministrations, no doubt, and that mortified him – he doubted his breath was something that she would appreciate now. He just pressed her hands to his face, leaving a kiss on each of her fingers. She drew his thumbs down his temples.

“Your fever has truly broken,” she murmured. She didn’t say what else had broken with it – the cloud of her distrust. She had waited that first day, all day long, to hear the real him in his fever. To hear what he couldn’t, wouldn’t say. Instead, she had heard that he was just what he looked like. Someone who had only ever tried to protect Sorrengail. Someone who had trusted his father. Someone who was sorry.

“Yes,” Dain said and hesitated. “How long has it been?”

“Four days,” Sloane and Cath answered as one.

“And you’ve been here for all of it? The bad part?”

“This is my room,” Sloane replied, clearly trying to avoid the answer.

“The worst part?”

“It was just me,” she said, trying to soothe his mind. ‘No one else saw.”

Dain shook his head. She didn’t get it.

“I don’t care what everyone else saw,” he said. “I can’t go further down in their eyes anyway. I just didn’t want you to see it.”

Sloane wasn’t moved. “Tough luck,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I didn’t want you to see me fall on my ass two hundred and three times during fifty or so sparrings and challenges but you did.”

He blinked. “You counted the trainings?”

“I made the numbers up,” she replied readily and was rewarded when he burst out laughing. That was the first time she heard him laugh and gods, it was a sight and sound to behold. “But I wanted to impress you even as I hated you. And I hated myself for wanting to impress you when…” Dain tensed, waiting to hear Liam’s name, but Sloane was suddenly way too tired, the exhaustion and fear of these four days – and the one before that – collapsing all over her. “When you only had eyes for Sorrengail,” she finished.

To her great relief, he didn’t deny it. During his fever, she had clearly gotten the feelings of rejection and heartbreak from him but not necessarily real romantic love for Violet. Still, she knew he didn’t know what he had felt, that he wasn’t sure. And she appreciated him not lying to her.

“I didn’t only have eyes for her,” Dain said. “Each time you fell, I wanted to do many things as you lay there, confused and bleeding. And they were all unproductive for your training and your confidence.” He hesitated. “Much as I imagine your ministrations were for my self-perception as a capable person who could take care of himself.”

Sloane lay back down and pulled him against her again in the pose that had relieved his heavy, aching limbs best. Started doing that light scratching that made his skin sing with relaxation. But she didn’t tell him the particulars. “Then I guess I was in luck, between the two of us,” she murmured in his ear. “I got to learn the ways I can help you relax. Now, I just need to learn what to do to make you… unrelax,” she finished and he laughed again. “You, on the other hand, have to learn how to make me unrelax and how to soothe me when I execute a flying landing.”

“What!” He sat up and she drew him back. “Oh, you’re kidding,” he said, content, and relaxed into her again.

“No,” Sloane breathed in his ear. “I intend to become as good as you are and you’d better teach me this complex maneuver before I maim myself trying to self-learn.”

With mounting horror, Dain realized that she was serious but she was rubbing his back, her pillow smelled like her and she smelled like her and he decided this argument could wait until he could hold his eyes open for more than a few minutes in a row. When his breathing has evened out and sleep was pulling him under, he heard her say, very softly, “And I didn’t say I wasn’t attracted to you because you were a bag of bones. Even if your muscles waste away, Aetos, I suspect you’ll remain the most attractive of them all, to me. You are the fever in my blood that I’ve got no explanation for.”

She thought he couldn’t hear, this much was clear. And he would give her that privacy. He’d wait for her to be ready to say it aloud. Who knew, he might even brave saying it first.

“You were never a coward,” Cath said. “That’s why we chose you. Stupid, yes, but not cowardly.”

All was well in the world, Dain supposed. He finally let sleep win and envelop him without a fight.

The End