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Have you ever seen someone else’s life flash before your eyes?
“PYRO!!!”
Watching Pyro fall seemed like it took both forever and an instant, disappearing into the depths of the tower followed by Scott screaming his name as panic forces his body into action. Overwhelmed by a freezing anger he manifests it into a chilly blast he directs towards the phantom who shoved the fire mage off the edge before returning his gaze down, down, down trying to peer through the fog to the bottom of the tower desperately hoping his friend survived the plummet.
“Please for the love of everything, be okay.” Scott mumbles to himself, barely caring as he watched the phantom step forward to follow Pyro’s descent as he takes off at a sprint down the stairs of the tower.
Those with him say a few things to each other but he doesn’t stop to pay attention, his thoughts immediately jumping to the worst while his soul was heavy with regrets left unsaid. Nearly tripping a few times he has to catch himself against the walls while his chest heaved with quickened breath, his worries changing his usually graceful coordination into clumsily stumbling or knocking ancient books off ledges on his way past. Pyro couldn’t have perished…he would have known right?
That damn fire mage was far too stubborn in every other aspect, surely…surely he was safe.
Scott couldn’t reason with his own worries no matter how much he tried, sorrow and mourning already tightening his chest preparing for the worst. His boots clatter against the steps below while magic ices his veins leaving prints formed of snow behind him as he fled, finally within sight of the bottom he keeps looking over expecting to see something terrible but finding nothing.
The moment he reaches the bottom he frantically glances around while gasping, muttering Pyro’s names between pained wheezing until his eyes land upon the fire mage.
Spooked out of his damn mind but alert and standing, neither even give it a second thought as Scott reaches forward to yank the shorter brunette into his embrace. Grounding himself through touch and reassuring himself that his friend was alive he barely realizes he is shaking like a leaf until they both slowly balance out with fire heating ice while chills cooled the inferno.
“How did you—?”
“My fire step…remember?” Pyro quietly answers Scott as the rest of their group now join them, mentioning their relief the handsome brunette is fine which is when the blonde taller man steps back allowing the others forward.
Of course Pyro could save himself, Scott feels his heart start to slow as reality sinks in that his friend hadn’t fallen to his death, his lavender eyes constantly watching the fire mage as he hugs Drift with a comforting smile and light teasing. The ice mage smirked the smallest amount hearing him use humour to brighten the mood, another habit that hadn’t changed despite the several years they spent apart.
He almost wishes he couldn’t read the fire mage so well, watching the slightest glances above him like he expected the phantom of the murdered man to appear yet again. After straightening his clothes he loudly clears his throat, tilting his head to the exit once everyone turns to look at him.
“I, for one, have had enough of this tower for today. Shall we head back?”
A unanimous agreement leads to the group of five walking together on the trail back to the academy as evening set in, four of them holding torches while Pyro magicked a small ball of fire to hover above his right palm. Scott lets his pace slow so its just the two of them, needing to spend more time in his presence while his mind kept repeating what they had just experienced watching with clenched fists the brunette mage falling to what the ice mage thought was his doom.
The trio ahead of them had lapsed into discussing what they had seen at the tower, Pyro remaining unusually quiet up to this point with a troubled expression marring their confident mask Scott knew they wore like a shield. Hissing, his attention shifts to the pain in his palm where his nails cut through his flesh, holding up his free hand to the light and sighing.
Without a word Pyro reaches over to link their hand into his just like when they were kids, both clearly needing some physical touch after the trying time behind them they walk back to the academy without letting each other go. Only once they arrived at the front door did Pyro release it, giving a silent wink they say goodbye to the others who plan to study at the library for a bit before making their way back to their own dorms.
Once they stand before their doors Scott knows he isn’t ready for Pyro to leave his sight…not yet. Reaching back to open his door behind him he meets his gaze to Pyro’s with hope that the fire mage will accept his invitation.
“Do you want a cup of tea before bed?”
“I’d love one.” The shorter brunette entered after Scott lead him inside, firmly latching the door behind him Pyro collapses onto the ice mage’s couch with a groan.
Gathering together his teapot and two mugs, he brings them over to where Pyro is laying who peeks open one stormy blue eye to observe Scott, waiting for him to speak. “Mind boiling this for me?”
“Offered to host me then you make me do all the work?” A question that would normally rile Scott up brought out a chuckle instead, neither quite having the energy to truly torment each other Pyro holds his hand out to do as the ice mage asked by placing his palm against the bottom and invoking the fire that burned within his heart.
Placing in a metal infuser stuffed with dried tea ingredients he lets it steep for a moment while gathering together some milk and sugar from his pantry and icebox he had crafted just a few days ago. “Two of each?”
Pyro looks a little surprised, nodding as his face falls the smallest amount. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
“Of course, you have made it the same way all our lives.” Scott’s words are heavy with a thousand moments while he pictures just how many times they made tea just to warm themselves up during the long winters Tegrith faced.
Knowing exactly what would make them both feel better he also locates two bowls, hovering his hands over each as he manifests delicious vanilla ice cream to appear in each before grabbing them both spoons and returning to where Pyro tended to his fireplace. Building it up the smallest amount with some thick logs he scorches for a few heart beats before placing against the growing pile of timber, Scott takes comfort in the warmth as Pyro strips off his coat, clearly the temperature was for the ice mage’s benefit and not their own.
Neither speak for a heavy few moments, digging into their sweet treats as Scott keeps finding himself glancing back at his company. Apparently his anxiety from earlier hadn’t let him go as he was quite shaken by it all and he wasn’t even the one who plunged hundreds of blocks. Pyro’s normally dancing eyes were distant as he stared into the flames before eventually clearing his throat.
“Quite a day, huh?”
“I…I thought you were dead the moment you were shoved off that ledge….as I was running to the bottom all I could think about was what I would find there...” Scott admits softly, barely able to keep his gaze on Pyro now overwhelmed with conflicting emotions while in his mind’s eye it replayed that accursed memory yet again.
“Instinct saved my ass I have to say, my flame magic felt like it had its own consciousness once my reflexes kicked in but boy I am glad they did.” Pyro shudders, taking another spoonful of the sugary ice cream he held while waiting for his tea to cool. “But hey, thank Gods they did, who else would annoy you the way I do?”
This time the joke doesn’t quite land, instead dragging forth yet again how terrified and upset Scott felt wondering if Pyro had perished. Bringing his knees up to his chest Scott hugs himself tight, throat closing up as tears threaten to spill. How pathetic he must look from Pyro’s perspective, the ice mage wasn’t even the one in terrible danger today yet he can’t hold it together long enough to discuss it as all his concerns want to do is replay the moment over and over again.
“Hey.” Scott startles as Pyro is suddenly beside him, having moved when he zoned out and presses their shoulders together. “I’m still here and so are you, all our friends are safe.”
“For now.” Scott replies, taking a sip of his tea before continuing. “We have already seen students perish though Pyro, how long until its one of us?”
“If I have it my way no one we care about will ever be on that list.”
“But what if we lose you?”
“You won’t.” Pyro places down his empty bowl now that he has finished his dessert, reaching forward to grasp Scott’s hand once more. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, we still have so much to do! Raising our dragons, mastering our magic, learning all we can from this place…Give me a day or two and I can write you a list and then some.”
“Will that list include coming home? Even maybe just for a visit?” Scott can’t hold back the questions especially after the danger they faced today, clarity coming after the incident in who Pyro would be leaving behind and who Scott would have to inform if they did die.
“Perhaps.” Pyro answers after a few heartbeats, Scott searching for any hint of a lie within that response and is pleasantly surprised to find none. “For now though, I know how to distract you.”
Standing up quickly they wink before leaving his room briefly, returning with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“Where the hell…”
“I may have robbed the kitchen for the bar I built in my room yesterday, I’ll have to give you a tour once I am done decorating it. Can’t have you showing me up with a prettier room than my own.” Pyro vaguely waves around them as Scott smiles, playing with one of the deep blue vines that hung from the ceiling letting off a faint pale glow. Popping the cork out of it he heavily pours them a glass each, both picking them up and holding them up in cheers. “To our good health.”
“Now that just feels like you want to incur fate’s wrath.” Scott drily comments as Pyro chuckles, making a point to reach forth and rap his knuckles against the wooden coffee table before them.
They both take sips as Scott admires the beautiful yet infuriating man sprawled before him on his snow-white couch, deciding to hell with it as no one else is around he slides himself closer to the fire mage and waits for Pyro to nod before leaning into his side. Their innate abilities rage against one another for a moment before they even out, both pleasantly in the middle instead of bone-chilling cold or raging-inferno hot.
Taking another long drink of the fruity wine Pyro had delivered Scott unconsciously starts to trace his fingertips across the top of Pyro’s calloused knuckles where his free hand rests, wondering about the stories carved into his flesh in the forms of various scars or marks between the tendons and bones. Some he is familiar with, being able to picture the incident that caused them in great detail where others are strangers to his knowledge, clearly happening some time when they were apart living their own lives.
“Can’t believe that hasn’t faded…” Scott’s touch lands on one in particular cut deep between the knuckles of his ring and middle finger on his left hand, something once Pyro spots brings a strained smirk to their face.
“Each and every time I see it I remember us carving our names into that tree, only barely getting through my own name before the knife slipped. I wonder if the carving is still there…”
“It is.” Scott’s confidence makes Pyro turn to him with an arched eyebrow, the wine washing through his stomach loosening his lips as he gives a small smile in return. “Each moon I spend a few hours at our spot and before I leave I freshen it up with my knife, my heart couldn’t bear to watch it be reclaimed. Not our spot.”
“That’s so sweet I might throw up.” Pyro’s tone lacks true teasing inflection that sentence deserved, Scott turning his head to meet Pyro’s once more who appears genuinely touched by that gesture. “I didn’t know how much you mourned me.”
“Of course I did, you ar—were my best friend.” Having no idea where they stand Scott cannot speak it aloud in present tense, deeply disliking how much that hesitation made him question everything. “I love and adore my family, I’d do anything for them…but they weren’t you. We have been part of each others lives for as long as I have known, when you suddenly disappeared so did the piece of my heart I trusted to you.”
“Gods we really shouldn’t be talking about this when we are not sober.” Pyro can only giggle nervously, clearly a bit thrown off by the direction this conversation had taken while he takes a few deep breaths compiling his own thoughts before he speaks once more. “I do feel bad for the anguish I put you all through but I couldn’t live another day in Tegrith, it was too isolated for the dreams I hold. I absolutely agree I could have left on better terms instead of just disappearing…I didn’t know how you would take it.”
“You mean you couldn’t face us and admit you were leaving.”
“That is the more blunt way of putting it, yes.” Pyro winces at the accusatory tone, glancing between his lavender eyes waiting for what the ice mage would say next until he watches Scott’s shoulders slump.
“I had eight years to stew on this anger...I can’t do it anymore.” Relaxing back into Pyro’s grasp, he sighs deeply while laying his head against Pyro’s chest listening to their heartbeat. “It won’t be solved today but I just don’t have the energy right now, you are correct in the fact this certainly shouldn’t be talked about while we both have already had nearly a full glass of wine each.”
“Let’s make that two.” Pyro gently shifts Scott as he refills their goblets, pressing it into Scott’s free hand as he rubs soothing circles in between Scott’s shoulders with the other. “Tonight is all about celebrating the fact I didn’t perish so I can continue to bother the absolute hell out of you.”
Yelping as Scott lets his ice magic fill his palm to press against Pyro’s neck in retaliation, the fire mage glares with a fond twist of his full lips at the blonde snuggled into his side after his antics.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” Scott can only whisper the next sentence, his mind yet again reminding him of what he almost lost. Gods, he was a mess tonight.
“What, be in danger? That’s an impossible ask.” Pyro teases gently, noticeably missing the usual snappy bite of his tone during this time when they were both feeling raw and vulnerable.
Scott can only hold him tighter at that, the wine bringing a warm blush to his cheeks and freeing his emotions from the ice walls he usually froze them behind.
“I don’t know what I would do with myself if you died, I certainly didn’t expect to reunite with you here when we both signed up for the academy but I’ve recently started to view it as maybe a second chance we could talk about things. It won’t ever be the same again…but perhaps we could both at least learn who the other is now.”
“I’d like that.” Scott turns at Pyro’s sincere reply, memorizing this exact blink in time knowing it’s a rare admission from the normally arrogant fire mage. “You piss me off…but I did miss you.”
They finish their second glass of wine between lighter conversation as topics turn to their plans tomorrow, deciding they would spend some time together in the morning practising their magic once the hangovers wore off. Scott finds himself yawning as they chitchat, feeling like a content cat as he curls up against Pyro’s now abnormal body temperature with fire flickering just beneath the surface.
Far too soon bells chime midnight throughout the halls, reminding them both they should go to bed but neither move from the positions they found themselves within. Scott had returned to laying across his chest while Pyro’s fingers played with his hair, their other limbs tangled together in a confusing yet comfortable mess of knees hooked around each other beneath a blanket that was for Scott’s benefit. This couch certainly wasn’t meant for two above average men to be cuddled together upon it but they made do, neither willing to leave as they recovered from what they had faced.
Their wine glasses remained empty and forgotten on the coffee table beside them alongside the finished bottle of fruit wine Pyro had brought while the flames within Scott’s fireplace slowly dim as the minutes crawl by. Its a comfortable silence shared between them now, urged along by the exhaustion that tugged at them both and the comfortable buzz of alcohol warming their stomachs, taking solace in the fact they were together and alive.
There were plenty of things left unsaid between them that were sure to be spoken about in the coming weeks, Scott certainly wasn’t finished ripping them a new one over how they left and still had to admit about the trouble Tegrith faced in the fire mage’s absence but now was not the time to do so. Adjusting himself as his arm had fallen asleep Pyro grunts in annoyance before settling back down, having dozed off faster than the blonde who shifts his head to view the man who he had worried was lost to him forever.
The dimming flames from the fireplace illuminated his grown features as they peacefully slept, releasing the tension he held between his brow and softening the confident smirk they were infamous for. Their brunette hair curled in ringlets where it had escaped the messy bun at the nape of their neck, Scott reminding himself in the morning to see if Pyro would let him braid it out of his way. Back when they were kids Pyro often requested a shorter hairstyle which was quite a difference from the shoulder-length tresses he now had however Scott thought it suited them much better, framing his face handsomely.
A moon ago he had just left Tegrith properly for the first time promising to return with a solution to the corruption that was stalking its way up the icy mountain they hailed from, their long winters luckily held it back a decent amount but the horrid decay was getting concerningly close these past few years as the summers warmed up the forests around them. Scott knew they had less than two years left before their summer homes became uninhabitable, maybe five before their winter homes did as well with the progression he tracked meticulously on behalf of Tegrith.
The council was running out of ideas and were searching for desperate solutions when rumours of this academy opening up had caught their attention. It was an easy pick who they would send if they were accepted as Scott was both young and of able body, the rest of their men, women and everyone else were needed to begin planning for a new place to live if they couldn’t stop the corruption in time. Their population had shrunk rapidly even in Scott’s lifetime between the dangers of mountain living and those who up and left, no longer having faith in Tegrith’s survival they sought their life elsewhere.
Something like Pyro had done actually…but for his own pursuits as he had no idea what was threatening their home. That was going to be a tough conversation—but it wouldn’t be the first one nor will it be the last.
It takes about another hour before Scott manages to sooth himself to sleep using the steady heartbeat beneath his cheek and the comfortable warmth of who slumbered beside him, peaceful rest managing to lure him away.
Morning rushes in all too fast, bright sunlight spilling in through Scott’s window as he blinks his bleary eyes open. Groaning softly at the cramped position of his limbs when he shifts Pyro begins to stir too, clearly confused when he initially comes too before they both remember where they had fallen asleep last night still wrapped in each other’s embrace.
Neither want to break the spell of silence, holding each other for a few breaths more until the dawn bells chime through the school. Scott sits up with a wince as his neck protests the position he had rested in, groaning quietly. Without a word Pyro reaches forward to lay his warmed hand across the sore spot Scott had been rubbing at, moving his own to allow the warmth to sink into his annoyed muscles with a relieved sigh.
Helping each other stand up both stare at each other for a breath or two, something in their dynamic felt healed even the slightest amount despite the turmoil they went through yesterday, Scott the first one to step back and go up to the loft where his bed is to grab his hairbrush.
Returning to where Pyro waits he holds it up with a yawn, eventually offering, “For training do you want your hair braided?”
“Oh yes please, its been driving me crazy, at least what I haven’t singed off by accident trying to master this magic we have now.”
Collapsing back onto the couch Scott quickly combs through their messy hair before separating it into three equal amounts, weaving it together with well-practised moves before tying it off with the black ribbon Pyro held up when the ice mage asked for it.
Once he has stopped busying himself with that task the silence draws forth once more after Pyro stands up to face him, neither quite sure how to breach what was left unsaid between them. Pyro opens his mouth then closes it, choosing to fidget with his hair while Scott goes to put his hairbrush back after running it through his own, returning to the mage’s side with a sweeping gesture of his arm towards the door.
“Let’s be more cautious today and stick to the academy, I am sure we can wear each other out sparring and practising our magic.”
“Just admit you want to get your hands on me and save us all the embarrassment.” Pyro’s cheeky wink makes Scott smirk, rolling his lavender eyes as their familiar banter breaks the somber mood.
Opening his door Pyro leaves first then Scott does, the fire mage turning to call out a greeting to the mischievous fox they shared a hallway with as Scott closes his room. They fall into talking about their day ahead while Scott keeps pace beside, still thinking about everything that had transpired within the last twenty-four hours. There were many more things they still had to discuss but he had a good feeling they could work through it together, last night was the first step in nearly a decade of misunderstandings. Maybe he could relieve the kitchen of another bottle of wine for the next one.
He envies how easily Pyro slips his confident mask back into place while he laughs at something Seapeekay said, the ice mage struggling today after being wrung dry by his anxiety yesterday but Pyro covered for him well enough while still sticking close at his side.
It takes them less than five minutes to head to the classroom they intended to practise within, deciding to do that first to work up an appetite for breakfast. Somehow neither of them woke up with headaches which meant some physical exertion sounded perfect as a distraction from his whirling thoughts. Seapeekay waves them off and leaves to get his breakfast as they make their way into the practise ring, Pyro turning to face him with a playful expression.
Both settle into a balanced stance before the fire mage extends his finger to gesture him forward, saying with that infuriating haughty tone, “Bring it on, Scott.”
“You will regret that taunt.” He replies, pooling ice into his hands before launching himself at the fire mage.