Chapter Text
Thimble has a sword that was made to slay nightmares and right in this second she wonders if there’s any higher power in the world she can haggle with.
Because okay, technically Sir Julien Davinos isn’t an incorporeal monster from the Tenebral Reaches but he is causing her severe distress, making him a nightmare that deserves some good slaying.
They were fighting Ethrand Tachonis side-by-side, for once in complete harmony, united by their need to murder the bastard. Ethrand, pathetic coward that he is, caught on to the very real danger to his life real quick and did his very best to flee. To that point, his sorcerer pal threw Thimble back a couple of feet with telekinesis right as she tried to go for the jugular. She landed on the ground hard and ghouls immediately swarmed around her, blocking an easy path to escape. Of course she kicked and stabbed and slashed, a noise of near feral anger slipping past her lips until the blood froze in her veins.
For one horrible heartstopping second, Thimble watched a fire bolt race towards Occtis’ back and she was consumed by a vision of watching him immolate and burn, not even a body left behind to reanimate. And then, out of nowhere, Julien jumped in and pushed him to the ground, the flames catching on his cape, biting into his arm instead.
The relief hit first, almost dizzying and sweet, and Thimble laughed, hacking at her enemies, blood spraying until they all fell. But as the dust clears and she takes off towards them the weirdness creeps back because the world’s most annoying person took a blow for the world’s most amazing person - and he let Ethrand Tachonis get away in the process.
“Stop fussing.” Julien hisses like a posturing cat, tugging his singed but no longer burning arm from Occtis’ grasp. He isn’t pulling it too forcefully, and Occtis still holds on until the very last second, a weird imitation of a caress, a thought Thimble immediately wishes she could un-think. “I’m fine!”
Occtis doesn’t have veins that can throb in annoyance anymore (ha, throb. No, Thimble, focus!) but he looks all shades of done with the conversation. “That blow could have killed you!” you idiot, Thimble mentally adds. Occtis doesn’t say it, but it’s very much implied.
“It would have killed you. ”
They stare each other down, like, super intensely. Worse than the charged eye contact is the fact that, unfortunately, for once Julien has a point.
“Julien’s right.” Thimble says as she gets beside them, grimacing as soon as the vile words leave her lips. “That felt horrible to say.”
“Thimble.” Occtis says, his whole face softening as he gathers her in a big, big hug. Thimble sinks into the embrace, indulging in the touch any chance she gets. Even through the layers of clothing he’s so chill, the lack of a heartbeat, the lack of a breath tickling her neck so unusual. But it’s him, she’s finally hugging him and it doesn’t matter. He’s as alive as he can be, and she’s warm enough for them both.
Instead of taking his chance to slink off like a decent man, Julien clears his throat obnoxiously. Oh Thimble is going to ram the toy sword though that throat, mark her words. She glowers as she ever so slowly (and reluctantly) lets her arms fall back to her sides, already homesick for the cold. Julien stares with a subtle sneer. Occtis just looks exasperated.
“Will you let Vaelus look at that wound at least?” he asks, a surrender. Vaelus watches the interaction and though her veil hides half of her face, Thimble gets the feeling she’s enjoying the awkwardness of the moment, the electricity in the air that could spark any moment and burn.
The need to be contrary and bitchy wages a valiant battle against Julien’s common sense. Surprisingly, the latter wins out.
“As you wish.” he mocks, but does join Vaelus without further protest. Again. What the fuck. Thimble squints at Occtis until the intensity of it gets his attention and he tears his gaze from Julien. She arches an eyebrow.
“What?” he asks like he doesn’t know. It should be plenty obvious! Unless he doesn’t think this was weird. In which case things are worse than she fears.
“What’s the deal with you two?”
Occtis blinks twice, on purpose, at her accusing tone. “The deal… ?”
“Yeah! The deal! Julien just saved your life!”
“He hasn’t saved - you know what, never mind.” Occtis sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Julien has a particular set of people he’s very protective about. I happen to fall into that category because he needs me to get back at my family. That’s it.”
“Get back at your family.” Thimble repeats flatly. “The same family he let get away right now to burn himself for you?”
Occtis pauses. Engages in much needed self-reflection for a moment. And then has the gall to come to the conclusion that:
“You’re overthinking this.” Oh wow. Her best boy is actually an idiot. Thimble - playfully, because she does love her dumbass very much - cuffs him on the head. “Ow. What was that for?”
“For being an idiot.” she says, poking her tongue out at him. “Come on, let Kattigan heal you up. Maybe he could do something about that thick skull of yours while we’re at it.”
“My skull isn’t - do you really expect me to believe Sir Julien Davinos gives a shit about me?”
He does a lot more than that, Thimble thinks with mild irritation, catching the aforementioned knight keeping a watchful eye on them even now. She makes a face at him. He scowls and looks away.
That’s what she thought.
***
Julien peels off from the group as they prepare to make camp to secure the perimeter and that’s the moment Thimble turns herself small to stealthily follow him. When he gets far enough away she whizzes in front of him, gets right up in his face and says, before he has a moment to recover: “You know you can’t fuck him, right?”
Julien’s eyes all but bug out of his face. “Thimble. What. The actual. Fuck?”
“Occtis. You can’t fuck Occtis.” then she realizes how that might sound, and she clarifies “Because he’s undead.” then she realizes that actually, no, she had it right the first time around too and she juts her chin out defiantly. “And also because he’s too good for you.”
“I… What the…” he seems stunned, speechless. But also… vaguely confused? Then vexed. That’s more familiar, good. “I cannot fathom where you got such false impression, but let me tell you plainly, for the first and hopefully final time: I do not want to fuck Occtis Tachonis. Your boy’s honor and chastity is more than safe from me. Enjoy him. You’re the right size for it now.” he adds, lips curled in a sneer. First of all: asshole. Second of all: yeah, she’s not buying it.
“I know you Julien, I know how you get. You’re playing sweet with him to bed him.” she says, adding a false simper to the word then she pretends to gag. “What else could you want? Romance?”
Julien flaps his arms out wide, frustration mounting. “Am I sweet with him then? If taking a hit for a comrade in battle is a romantic overture then half of our crew would be going at it like rabbits now!”
Thimble lets the second half of the sentence fly harmlessly over her head and instead gets stuck on the beginning. Sweet. Maybe he really isn’t sweet. Occtis and him exchange exasperated barbs more than flowery compliments, even if it is occasionally tinged with fondness. Julien doesn’t seem interested in wooing him but he is interested in dying for him and…
Thimble scrunches up her face. Julien wanting to sleep with Occtis was a disturbing concept but the alternative is worse somehow. “Wait. Are you two friends?”
This time, Julien swats at her - not forcefully, not with any true intention to slap her out of the air, but the message of “fuck off” is still received, loud and clear - and promptly ignored. Thimble ducks down, evading him, and turns herself big with a glare. He makes a noise of deep irritation.
“Listen to me: there is nothing in this faithless, godless world that I want less than to be his friend. Now stop distracting me with your insipid questions. I have work to do.”
Thimble absolutely does not stop distracting him. Julien walks ahead, continuing his round and Thimble keeps the pace. “But you care about him.” she needles.
“I do not.”
“You soooo do. You let Ethrand get away! Now, wait, wait, hold on. If you had Primus Tachonis right here, right now, would you kill him if it meant Occtis would die?”
A muscle twitches in Julien’s jaw. “What are you trying to achieve here, Thimble? If you’re concerned about having competition,” again, a slight, disdainful curl of his lip “I would watch the ranger.”
Kattigan’s fine. Probably. (Isn’t he?)
“Pff,” she says, perhaps a bit too loudly, voice getting a distinctly and embarrassingly squeaky quality “what competition? You’re not competing. I’m not competing. This is… a normal conversation.”
“I’m sure.” Julien replies, sounding anything but.
For some reason, Thimble needs to dig herself into a way deeper hole in front of the worst audience possible: Sir Julien and Thaz. “I just care about him!” a lot, a lotlotlot, something that would probably be in the neighborhood of deep, abiding love, if Thimble cared to examine it deeply which she doesn’t. Occtis is her person, and she is Occtis’. That’s all that truly matters. “And I wanted to know what your intentions were.” she finishes lamely.
“I’m sure.” Julien repeats, this time a small smirk peeking through, the bastard realizing he has the upper hand now. Retreat would be advisable. Neither of them is the wise sort though, so she isn’t surprised at all that Julien presses his advantage. “Should I ask Occtis about the nature of your relationship? Perhaps he could give me honest insight on the subject.”
Thimble pokes a finger to his chest, threateningly. He looks down at her hand, then back at her face, the small smirk blooming wide, insufferably pleased with himself. “Do not.”
“Then can we consider this conversation over? Have we come to an understanding?”
No. Not even close. “Fine.”
“Excellent.” he nods. He gingerly grasps the hand still poking a hole into him and lifts it to his lips to press a quick kiss to it, before Thimble can recoil. For a strange, horrible second, she is so surprised she lets him do it. Then Julien unceremoniously drops her hand and strides off and Thimble’s brain processes the last few seconds.
“Ew!” she yells loudly, wiping her hand down on her shirt like she could rub the memory away too, if she tried hard enough (his lips were soft, warm and made her feel strangely tingly - no one was able to hug her for years, but they couldn’t kiss her either. It was a jolt to her system, something she almost forgot, that’s all). “Fucking asshole!”
Only a chuckle from deeper in the woods answers.
She trudges back to the camp to find that a small campfire has already been set. Occtis and Kattigan are in deep conversation (should she worry about Kattigan?) but once more when Occtis notices her, his whole attention seems to go to her, the world narrowing down to just the two of them. He smiles at her and waits until she smiles back before refocusing on his conversation (she’s not worried about Kattigan, that would be crazy. Worrying about Julien is already a full-time job).
Vaelus takes first watch that night. Thimble flexes and unflexes her hand, thinks about hugs and thinks about kisses, thinks about a knight’s pointed barbs and stares at Occtis from across the dying embers of the campfire. When she was small, she often slept tucked against her friends, but she’s never… she’s never tried it while she was big.
It would be different, undoubtedly, but she wants it. She wants it so badly.
“Occtis,” she asks, hating how self-conscious she feels, how her fingers drum across her thighs “could I sleep on you?”
Occtis’ face doesn’t even twitch. “Yeah, of course.”
“No, but,” she pauses, gesturing to her larger body “like this. Not tucked in a pocket.”
Occtis just smiles at her and repeats, “Yeah, of course.” Like it wasn’t even a question, even out of the ordinary as the request is. He lies down on his bedroll and makes space for her. Thimble stands from her seat, the gaze of Julien tracking her every movement. For a moment she looks to the side and makes eye contact. He has nothing snide to offer, he just watches, eyes keen, almost curious. Thimble looks back toward Occtis. She kneels beside him, for a second unsure where to put her limbs.
But it’s just Occtis. Her Occtis.
She settles down with her head pillowed on his ever-silent chest, arms wrapped around his torso like an octopus. She breathes in. He smells like death, the faintest traces of rot clinging to his skin, mixed in with the various and confusing scents of the spell components that he hides in his coat, dead things, sweet-smelling potions, old parchment.
His arm comes up to encircle her waist too, frightfully cold, but she doesn’t flinch.
She was both so young and so old when they first met, frozen in time and yet having lived through so much. She knew about love, knew about sex, knew about everything else in between, even if she never got to experience it for herself. She knew then, that as they raced away from a pissed off nixie that the joy and wonder she felt when she looked at a laughing Occtis was the start of a tentative, innocent crush. Thimble didn’t care, didn’t bother with it other than to acknowledge it like a guest she was sure would leave soon. It didn’t. It stayed and stayed, all through the years growing too big and unwieldy for her to manage it anymore.
It’s still there, unfortunately, making her hyperaware of each place their skin touches, making her care about such things in the first place. Occtis’ chest beneath her rises at times perfectly evenly and then erratically, and Thimble lifts her head to peer up at him.
“Are you trying to remember to breathe?” she asks with a small smile. Occtis’ own looks sheepish.
“Sorry. I thought it would make you feel more comfortable. I can stop.”
Thimble feels a twinge in her heart. He doesn’t need to breathe because he’s dead. He’s dead and she wasn’t there. Maybe that’s why, she reflects, she feels so conflicted about Julien’s attention towards him. Because Julien was there. There the night he died, and there in the Eternal Night with him. Julien has a head start on murdering his shitty family. And Thimble is, as always when it comes to her loved ones lately, one step behind, just picking up the pieces.
“I’m comfortable.” she says, her lips quivering a little but she manages a smile, so as to not alarm Occtis. She lies back down, her head where his heart should be but isn’t, and inhales again. She’s a faerie and he’s a dead thing, and there’s nowhere else she’d rather be than in his arms.