Chapter Text
“Good morning, love,” Frank mumbled, kissing his husband’s temple as the watery light of the sun reached through the curtains onto their bed.
“Hnggggg…” Matt answered. He rolled over on his other side, away from Frank, and pulled a pillow over his head.
“You okay?” Frank asked. It could just be the morning, but Matt’s moan didn’t sound like morning. It sounded more like a headache, which Matt confirmed by moaning:
“Uhhhhhhrg…” and putting his hand on his face.
So Frank got out of bed, made sure Matt was tucked in well, offered to make him tea (‘Mhmmmm’, which probably meant ‘yes’) and went to prepare for the day while the kettle was on the stove. He had a free period today, thanks to the first years being on their fiend trip, but sadly, that didn’t mean he had the whole day off. Well, it wasn’t that bad. He liked his job… but he’d rather care for his husband. He’d also rather crochet the little goat he had promised Elliot, or make a hellpincer out of the new modelling clay he had bought during summer, or work on his scale model of Ranjit’s office and see if he could get all of the little lights to work, or do any of the other fifty projects he had in his head at all hours of the day. But work was fine too.
He brought Matt his tea, who still had the pillow over his head and who clumsily tried to levitate the tea towards himself, but since he was effectively blind, with his eyes still inside of their night caskets, he levitated the alarm clock instead – which was probably for the best, seeing that he tipped the thing over, right above his head.
“Careful, love,” Frank said, trying not to sound too concerned. Matt couldn’t stand it when Frank didn’t trust him, even if he had very good reasons not to. “Do you want your eyes? I can get them for you, or maybe a few of them?”
“Naaawww…” was the drawn out sound that came from underneath the pillow. Then a sigh and in a slightly clearer voice: “I hate light.”
“Light hates you too,” Frank joked, very carefully kissing the exposed bit of Matt’s neck between the pillow that covered his head and the blanket that covered his body. Matt moaned in agreement to the statement.
“It dooooooooes….”
“Want me to get Lenny?”
“Fuck Lenny…”
“Let’s talk about that when you’re feeling better,” Frank said and then quickly jumped aside as Matt threw the alarm clock vaguely in his direction.
“Fuck you too.”
Frank looked at the alarm clock that was now on the floor and sighed.
“I gotta run to prepare my first class. Are you gonna be okay on your own? Are you sure you don’t want Lenny to take a look? Maybe he can make your head hurt less…”
“m fine,” Matt mumbled. “Thans for tea.”
“No problem, I’ll leave one of your eyes next to you, okay? In case you wanna see something.”
Matt did something that looked like nodding, so Frank picked one of the fancy wooden caskets he had customly made for Matt and put it on the night stand. It was the cat-eye one, which was probably fine.
“Love you,” he said, as he softly squeezed Matt’s shoulder.
“uv u to,” Matt mumbled.
Frank got up and closed the door to the bedroom as softly as he could manage before leaving their rooms towards his classroom. He didn’t get very far though, because he ran into Elliot, who had a panicked smile on his face. He was one of the only people Frank knew who had such a thing as a panicked smile.
“Frank! Where’s Matt? We need him for the fiend trip today!”
Ohhh, right, to Frank, the fiend trip meant a free period, but Matt was supposed to go with them, being a steward and all.
“He’s sick,” Frank said. “Told me to fuck Lenny, so…”
“Please don’t say you’re on your way to…”
“To?”
“I’m sure you aren’t,” Elliot decided, rather than finishing his sentence. “So he can’t join us then?” Frank shook his head. “Oof, well, I- of course, I hope he gets well soon! But that’s a bit of an issue, because he would drive us. Or Saikaku would, but he’s Matt’s, so… Wait, does Saikaku have a gender?”
“IIIII…. Don’t know,” Frank said. “I doubt it.”
“Do you think Matt would let us use him? Her? It? Saikaku?”
“I’ll ask,” Frank said. “Wait here.”
He turned around and went back into their rooms, opening the door to the bedroom very softly.
“Love?” he asked, but Matt didn’t answer. He had probably fallen back asleep. If he had a headache, that was for the best, Frank decided. But he couldn’t let the first years walk all the way to the Furnace, right? He closed the bedroom door again and felt in Matt’s coat pocket, next to the door to the hallway. Bingo.
“Matt was asleep,” Frank told Elliot, handing him the runestone. “But I’m sure it’s fine, if you guys were going to use Saikaku anyway. Just be careful with it. Him. Them. You’ve confused me.”
“Thanks, you’re amazing!” Elliot said. “Do you have time to join us, now that Matt is out of commission?”
Frank shook his head.
“I wish, but the third years are going on a trip next week and I have to help them prepare, since they’re making their own gear for the first time.”
“Okay, well, thank you very much,” Elliot held up the runestone, “we’ll take good care of… Saikaku-”
“Let’s just say ‘it’, for simplicity.”
“We’ll take good care of it. I don’t wanna misgender a monster thought, that’s rude. We’ll take good care of Saikaku and make sure we’re back before dinner, alright?”
“Perfect, I doubt Matt will want to use his car before then.”
The rest of the day was quite uneventful. Frank taught his classes. He had fun helping the third year students make some magical items they might need on their trip and as soon as he had some spare time in his day, he went to check on Matt, who had reluctantly opened the box with the cat eye so he could safely drink his now cold tea. Frank made sure to give him some new, hot tea and he had even gotten some of the leftover healing soup the first years had taken with them on their trip. Healing was slightly different magic than curing diseases, of course, but maybe it could function as a kind of painkiller, Frank reasoned. Either way, Matt took some sips of it, which was good because the man needed to get something into his stomach.
Frank tucked Matt back into bed, put his eye away, kissed his forehead and made another kissy sound after Matt had pulled the pillow back over his head. He then softly closed the door and remembered he hadn’t told Matt about the car. Oh well, Elliot would take good care of it, right? He knew how much Matt loved that thing and he was the steward of respect, after all.
Elliot looked a little nervous when Frank saw him again at dinner. Frank went to sit next to him and asked for the runestone back, but instead of simply reaching into his pocket and giving it, Elliot focussed his eyes fully on his dinner.
“So, eh, Saikaku is well,” he said said, very clearly not saying a lot of other things. “It brought us to Harrow-In-Furnace and back and is now in the Plagueround, where it belongs…”
“Uhuh…” Frank said. “But?”
“Okay, so, in my defence, I didn’t expect Roland Thudberry, of all people, to pickpocket me.”
Frank’s eyebrows rose and his jaw dropped.
“Roland fucking Thudberry?!” he scream-whispered, hoping that the students in the dining hall wouldn’t hear him.
“He came over to hug me, which I thought was so cute, but… well, it wasn’t.”
“So now he’s in detention forever?” Frank asked. “Kerry was there, right?”
“Kerry?!” Elliot leaned over as he noticed his own voice getting louder and started to scream-whisper back. “Kerry just put all the blame on me and didn’t give a hoot! She was like,” Elliot put on a decent Scouse accent, “Well, you and Hebden stole the car, so that’s your problem.”
“I mean, it is…” Frank sighed. “So Roland has the key now?”
Elliot took a deep breath and shook his head.
“Roland, eh, disposed of the evidence.”
“F-” somehow, Frank managed to stop himself before he swore loudly in front of all of their students. “So where is it now?”
Elliot’s expression said all Frank needed to know. He had no idea. FUCK. Poor Matt had been in bed with a headache all day and now the runestone to his car monster was lost… and his husband and one of his best friends had betrayed him… and as far as Frank was aware, there was no spare runestone.
“Kerry said he’d kill me – Matt. That Matt would kill me,” Elliot mumbled.
“He might,” Frank said. “He threw an alarm clock at me for making a bad joke this morning. Who knows what he’ll do…”
“Leeeeet’s… we both have tomorrow afternoon off, right?” Elliot asked. Frank nodded. “Let’s go back to Harrow-In-Furnace and look for the key then, so at least we can confess what we did with a happy ending? Not like that.”
“You know who would be way faster than us at getting to Harrow-In-Furnace and at finding the key?”
“Matt.”
“Matt,” Frank confirmed. “He can fly and see out of nine eyes and he probably has a spell to locate the runestone or even make it fly towards him or something…”
“But we’d have to tell him,” Elliot said
“Yeah, but it’s better than spending a full afternoon not finding it and then telling him anyway. But let’s save it for tomorrow, when he’s hopefully feeling better and not as murderous anymore…”
So that night, Frank crawled into bed next to Matthew, probably with guilt written all over his face. Luckily, his husband was blind and not paying attention anyway. He weakly thanked Frank for taking care of him between his classes before falling back asleep. Frank turned off the light and lay awake for at least a few more hours before he finally fell asleep as well.
The next day, Matt did wake up, rolled out of bed and groggily released his eyes from their caskets.
“Morning…” he mumbled at Frank as he shuffled from the bathroom, through the bedroom to the kitchen to make himself coffee. Frank took a deep breath. Matt was clearly feeling better, even if he wasn’t fully healed yet, so he didn’t have much of an excuse to wait with telling him, right? Then again, it was morning, Matt hadn’t had his coffee yet, and he probably had to teach so he had to prepare for that and… other excuses.
“I have to tell you something,” Frank blurted out when Matt entered the bedroom again, coffee in hand, and rejoined Frank in bed.
“Oh?” Matt asked and Frank could hear in his voice that that simple sentence had triggered his anxiety. Shit…
“So, you know Saikaku…?” he started and internally rolled his eyes at himself.
“I know my baby, yes.”
“Welllll…. Elliot asked me if they could still use it for the fiend trip and you were sleeping and I kinda lend him the runestone…”
“To my car monster?” Matt asked, raising his eyebrows indignantly.
“I trusted Elliot and figured you would have done the same…” Frank said.
“Well, maybe, but it’s my car. You should’ve woken me up at the very least. And now you’re going to tell me that everything is fine and the runestone is back in my coat pocket where it belongs and you just wanted to tell me because you value honesty and nothing else happened?” There was a clear mixture of anxiety and anger in Matt’s voice and Frank swallowed.
“Saikaku is doing well… but the runestone…”
“Is in my coat pocket.”
“Is still in Harrow-In-Furnace.”
“You’re kidding.”
Frank sighed and shook his head.
“Roland stole it and then, as Elliot put it, ‘disposed of the evidence’…”
Frank waited for some kind of reaction from Matt, but he said nothing and just stared at Frank with his nine floating eyes, which was honestly worse. The unmoving silence lasted a few seconds and then turned into a moving silence as Matt used one of his eyes to look at his coffee cup and took a sip, the other eight still watching Frank. Then the ninth eye joined the others again.
“Please say something?” Frank begged.
“Saikaku’s runestone is somewhere in Harrow-In-Furnace,” Matt stated. “So how are you and Elliot going to fix that and make this up to me?”
“Well… I figured you’d be way quicker than us at getting there and finding it, since you’re an amazing wizard and we’re just a measly artificer and fighter…”
“Oh yeah,” Matt said. He took another sip of his coffee. “With a bit of help from Ranjit, I could have the runestone back within half an hour I’m sure.”
“But?” Frank asked, since Matt didn’t sound like this was his actual plan.
“But fuck you and Elliot. And Roland Thudberry – Roland Fuckberry. You’re gonna find that thing back for me and you can decide amongst yourselves if you want to include an 11-year-old menace in that. If not, I’ll oversee his detention.”
“Fair…”
“And you better make sure there’s chocolates when you give it back.”
“Absolutely.”
“And a snack for Saikaku.”
“What does he eat?” Frank asked and Matt shrugged.
“Figure it out.”
So that’s what Frank did. His morning was filled with half-hearted classes, where he pretended to be alright, but teens see everything and during each period, he got at least one boy asking him what was up. During lunch, he looked for Roland, to tell him to report to mr. Hinks as soon as mr. Hinks was feeling well enough to hand out punishment, which the young paladin accepted with suspicious grace. Either he was really aware of consequences of his actions for a boy his age, or his parents had taught him very well how to behave in front of adults when they were looking at you. Frank suspected the latter. The kid didn’t seem remorseful, he seemed polite. Whelp, whatever, he was sure Matt would find a way to make him feel sorry.
“One more thing, mister Fu- Thudberry, do you remember where you tossed the runestone? We need it back.”
Roland now looked at the ground, his polite demeanour exchanged for actual shame – good.
“I threw it off the cliff, Mr. Hebden… I- I- I panicked when Saikaku went wild and- and- I didn’t mean to. Mr. Kelly saw, I think. Maybe he can help.”
“Oh he’s going to,” Frank said. “Matt, Mr Hinks, insisted on it.” Frank often wondered why he opened his mouth at all. His students didn’t need to hear about his husband being angry… “Well, that’s all for now. Mr. Hinks will have a word with you as soon as he’s better.”
“I hope he gets well soon,” Roland said and Frank couldn’t help a sarcastic:
“You really don’t.”
With that, he left Roland and went looking for Elliot, because the sooner they would leave for Harrow-In-Furnace, the more likely it was that Matt would allow him into bed tonight. His 43-year-old back was too bad for the couch.
“Ready to go?” he asked Elliot, who was quickly taking the last few bites of his lunch.
“Yeah, ehm, do we have a plan for crossing the Plagueround? Now that we don’t have the magic school bus or flying wizards… Walking would take hours.”
“Ranjit?” Frank suggested and Elliot shrugged.
“That’s marginally safer than using Saikaku again…”
Luckily, Ranjit was in a rather good mood and was happy to help the two men to Harrow-In-Furnace with a simple teleportation spell. They gathered their adventuring gear, most of which hadn’t been used in a while, and let Ranjit send them on their way. Once there, they realised that now they would have to get back as well, but that was a later concern. First, they’d have to find the damn key.
“Any ideas on how to tackle this?” Elliot asked. “My specialty is headbutting things and then sincerely apologising for that. Happy to be your sword and shield if needed, but I’m quite useless when it comes to locating stuff…”
Frank reached into his pocket and with a proud ‘tadah!’ he showed one of the compasses he had made for the first years. Opening it up, he slightly changed the programming of it and then closed it again.
“I really hope I got it calibrated right,” he said. “With a bit of bad luck, this will show us the way to a random stone…”
Whichever stone it was showing the way to, it was pointing over the cliff’s edge.