Chapter 8
Previously: Obsidian: Ash and Moonbeams – Chapter 7
What?
What just bloody happened?
Quincy rubs his eyes, sits up groggily but with that terrible tingle at the nape of his neck that normally warns him, just, it’s fading already by the time he’s fully awake. Or okay, awake enough to notice that Arthur is at the edge of the bed and Katharina is making angry cat noises and… does the air smell weird?
“Arthur, honey, what’s going on?”
~
“I…” Arthur’s voice comes out cracking and shaking, and he clears his throat, but it doesn’t help much. “Gregory. …Was here. I, uh… plasma-bolted him…”
He did that. He really did that.
Does he… feel bad about it?
He can’t tell. Right now, he can’t really tell much of anything, because he’s still just shaking.
Gregory’s gone, though, isn’t he? …Isn’t he? He can be invisible, what if he’s still there, still… lurking?! Arthur still can’t see, but jerks his head around anyway, trying to peer into the shadows.
~
If the tingle wasn’t subsiding, Quincy would be tempted to shriek, but it is, so Arthur must have gotten the demon. Still, he tries to let the gasp he couldn’t stop help with restarting his breathing and listens. No, not for sounds, listens inside for any tremble on that cloth touching his mind. There is Arthur, and further off, hard, so hard for him to really feel but familiar, is John’s piece of metal. No Gregory.
“He’s gone. Thank the Divine. Actually, thank you.”
Exhaling with relief, Quincy reaches towards Arthur, he thinks he can feel a slight vibration off the bed, the poor honey must be shaking. No surprise.
“Hey, come here, let me hug you.”
~
Oh, yes, a hug- that sounds fantastic. Arthur makes his shaky, reluctant limbs crawl back up the bed, and kind of just folds against Quincy.
“He’s gone? For sure?” He manages to reach out one hand, and find Katharina’s head in the darkness to pet her. “Thanks for waking me,” he mumbles in her direction.
~
“Yes, yes, he is. Promise. I checked with that sense of touch on the inside.” The way Arthur falls against him has Quincy hold him extra tight, yes, let him take care of somebody who needs it. That’ll make sure he doesn’t let his mind tie itself into knots about what ifs. “Good kitty, Katharina.” Yes, that might just make up for her leaving hairs on him from being in this bed.
~
Arthur hears Katharina give a satisfied ‘mrow’, and then start purring for them, and that and Quincy’s tight arms around him has him let out a huge breath, and with it, the jitters seem to finally leave his body. “Oh, good. Oh, that was… that was scary. That was creepy.” He tucks his face against Quincy’s shoulder, and admits: “…I’m going to be glad when he’s gone for good.”
~
“Cycy said he did that. The showing up in her room, sitting over her when she slept, just staring… Staring with those black eyes that eat you alive.”
Now Quincy is the one shuddering. That stare, it was part of whatever the demon does, isn’t it? He remembers those eyes, those hungry looks. How they ever were anything but creepy is beyond him now.
“Yes, we’re all going to be glad when we’re safe from him.”
~
“‘M still sorry I brought him back… made him,” Arthur corrects himself.
He didn’t bring Gregory back. It’s not Gregory. Gregory is gone, and has been gone, and whatever’s walking around in his body, it isn’t him.
He needs to remember that.
“It feels wrong leaving it to someone else to deal with…”
~
Maybe it’s not the kindest thing, but Quincy chuckles as he shakes his head against Arthur’s hair.
“That’s your moral dilemma, not mine. I’m perfectly happy to leave it to someone who has a bloody clue about demons! If we want to talk morals, it’s your duty to let somebody know about the issue but… Honey, sorry to say, you trying to fix something beyond your ability is the whole reason we have the trouble now.”
Oh, lovely, he is being a bitch right now, isn’t he? Not that he thinks he’s wrong, but that’s really not a great way to reward Arthur for letting him rebound on him and for getting Cobb out of the room.
~
Arthur huffs out another breath against Quincy. What he’s saying isn’t nice, and maybe it hurts a little but, but… but he finds he doesn’t actually mind? It’s… it’s not a platitude. Quincy’s not… not trying to make it better, and he’s not making excuses for Arthur’s fuck-ups.
But he’s also not mad at him or even really blaming him for them. He’s just telling him how he sees it, giving him another perspective.
“I know. Rationally, I know. And I’m glad, too, that we can let someone deal with it who knows what they’re doing. It… It felt like we had to do everything ourselves, and it was scary and hard and confusing, and now… now there’s adults who actually help, and all. I like it. So I guess I’ll just have to wait until the squirmy guilty feeling about it goes away.”
He’s rambling, he thinks, but after the sudden emotion spike, he’s feeling tired and wrung out again. Not exactly sleepy, yet, but like all he really is capable of is lying here limply against Quincy and ramble out his thoughts.
~
With a slight hum, Quincy strokes over Arthur’s back because really, part of this he understands so well. “You know, I get it. I don’t like people taking care of me. You’ve heard me hiss. But… there’s a difference between doing something completely on our own, and us setting things up so they work out. It’s okay to not do the scary, hard, and confusing thing. I can’t promise you the guilt is ever going to go away, but it’s not as if you are ignoring the problem now that you know about it. That, yeah, that I think, honey, is when you really should feel guilty.”
Turning his head and looking into the gloom of the dark room Quincy sighs. “That’s what we both have resented people for, haven’t we? They knew but they refused to help, or to even see.”
~
Has he done that? Arthur wonders. But then he remembers sitting in the street, Gregory dying right in front of him, and how everyone pretended they weren’t there.
“Yeah. I think you’re right. And I don’t want to be that person. But also… but also I’m not being that person if I leave dealing with something to better qualified people, I guess?”
~
“Exactly, honey.”
Maybe it’s an example that will make things feel too small, but it is one that Quincy is familiar with, that feels easy to compare, even though the memory drives another shiver through him, given how both of these people are so different now. That change still scares him, but this is not the topic now.
“When something of my sister’s broke, I let my mother know so she could fix it, too. I did it rather than trying to fix it myself not because I didn’t care, but explicitly because I cared about it being done right. Knowing our limitations is not a weakness.”
~
It’s probably thinking about Gregory and the past that makes Arthur say: “I think according to my father, having limitations is a weakness. Which is… um. Unrealistic?”
That does seem unrealistic.
~
“Oh please.” Rolling his eyes with a snort, Quincy just shakes his head again. “Now, I’m the last to say anything about a bit of arrogance, but can we please just establish one thing? There isn’t a single thing I ever heard that came from your father that isn’t absolutely the most rotten piece of regurgitated back alley shit I’ve ever heard. Get some bleach and scrub his words out of your brain.”
Now that feels like an easier topic, especially for having been woken up and being jittery for a moment in the middle of sleep that’s already not great with Cycy missing.
~
Quincy’s profanity makes Arthur snort, and then chuckle. “Gross!” he complains, not very seriously. “And… and I kinda wish I could do that, but I don’t think it’s that easy…” he adds, more seriously. “I guess you’ll have to help me. I’m so glad I have friends to do that…” He didn’t have those.
Gregory… wasn’t good at that.
He really wasn’t, was he?
~
“That’s a deal, I hired you for boyfriend, so I’ll deal with the emotional trouble you can’t do on your own. And once we have my wife back and no demon to make her scared you’d pick Cobb over her, let her just run you over and chew those things out of your mind, will you?”
Yeah, that thought is nice, so bloody nice, and it helps him calm down enough to actually yawn. It’s still been a long rubbish day.
“And if we are awake for too long now and my darling tries to check in and can’t find us, I make no promises that he won’t break the door down.”
~
The yawn is infectious, and Arthur shifts to cuddle down more sleep-appropriately and less… clinging due to scary things. Which…
“He’s not going to come back, is he? Um, Gregory?”
~
Quincy’s just not going to say that he is terribly tempted to declare his darling’s need for space not above his own need to feel safe from that possibility and stick all of them together into a room, but then, the demon normally avoided Arthur, too, and now it didn’t and got plasma-bolted for it. That has to make him think twice about trying, doesn’t it?
“I don’t know, but you have a cat who clearly isn’t fond of him, so I think we have protection… And if I wake up… Well, my drac has been howling all day long, maybe if it snaps at something that’ll help. So, no, it’s okay, go to sleep, I’ll be there when you wake up.”
~
What Quincy says makes sense, Arthur thinks. “Okay, I’ll try. Thanks for being there.”
It’s a nice thought, that once more, he won’t wake up by himself.
He kind of likes this new thing where sometimes he has company overnight. It’s… nicer with Darcy or Quincy than it used to be with Gregory, too. Arthur’s warmer and comfier and not hungry and… and they’re more reliable.
So he settles down, and closes his eyes, and lets the warmth and touch of Quincy’s presence, and that of Katharina, lull him back to sleep.
09 to 14 Jan 1900
Quincy is as good as his word, because Arthur wakes up from the feeling of somebody kissing his forehead. “Good morning, honey.”
For a moment, Arthur feels confused and disoriented- why is Quincy there? Then he remembers the previous day, and night, and groans. “…Is it good?” He peeks open an eye, sceptical- then blinks, because it’s way lighter in his room than he expected. “What time is it?”
“We had an interrupted night, nobody has kicked us out, and my darling checked in, so I take it as ‘we’re all sleeping in’.” Leaning up on an elbow and smiling down at him, Quincy winks. “Only just woke up myself, to be honest.”
“Well, if that’s the consensus…” Arthur gives a weak chuckle, huffs out a deep breath. “Good morning to you, too.”
“I know, I’m not feeling it, either. Been building scenery with John all night long, he’s going stir-crazy already. That’s my darling manly man for you, work his hands bloody and smile but having to wait idly even in his sleep and he’s about ready to combust.” Letting himself fall back onto the pillow, Quincy sighs. “More research and maybe another try at haggling with Eluned.”
Arthur groans, mutters: “Fucking fae…” He shifts over to cuddle up to Quincy again, because at least that’s a comfort. “I want Darcy back. And then I want her to marry you, and fall in love with John, and marrying him, too, if that’s what you all want, and then for us live happily ever after. Which I know isn’t how life works, but… It’s just been one thing after another for the past months…”
~
For several long moments Quincy is quiet, then he starts laughing, part out of misery at the situation, part out of letting his howling drac out a bit, and part out of sheer needing it. So he keeps laughing, laughs so hard that he ends up snagging Arthur into his arms, wheezes out: “Cycy’s bad at how real life works. She believes in fairy tales. Bloody good for her I’m a fairy!”
That makes Arthur snicker, too. “Yes, you’re a fairy! So happily ever after is the plan?” He cleary perks up a bit at that idea.
“From everything we’ve read yesterday, that’s a very, very long ever after, but I’ll take my chances. I have a father to outperform on being a hopeless romantic, after all.” Still grinning, Quincy looks back at Arthur. “Whatever it takes. I’ll get my wife back!”
“Yes!” Arthur sets his jaw. “Whatever it takes.”
“Right this moment, that will be for my boyfriend to drag both of us out of bed. Get to it.”
Quincy winks again and makes it easy on Arthur by lifting a hand to where Arthur can take it.
~
Arthur takes Quincy’s offered hand and gets up and draws him with him, but asks while he’s at it: “Right, the boyfriend thing. Um… what’s that all about, then?”
“Is it a problem for you, honey?” Swinging his legs out of bed, Quincy gives him a smile. “Or rather, what do you want it to be?”
“Um… I mean, I never had a boyfriend, I always thought that’d involve…” Arthur feels himself blushing, ducks his head, shuffles his feet uncomfortably. “You know.”
He hears Quincy snort, feels him lean back over and kiss his hair. “Yes, it involves cuddling and holding hands and being there for each other like we did all of yesterday. You didn’t seem to mind.”
Arthur peeks back up at him, because…
“…Well, if that’s what it involves, that sounds nice, then. I don’t mind that at all…” That’s not any of the uncomfortable stuff. That’s like… extra-good friendship.
The kind he thought he had with Gregory, but… as they’re establishing, he really didn’t. And certainly not now.
“Good, you shouldn’t, you feel nice to touch and you have even nicer emotions. I need those with everything that’s going on and you need somebody you can talk to. Who better than me? Hop, out of bed, breakfast, and then back to the fight. We’ll show them!”
Arthur complies, although that might be what Quincy said, but by the time he’s finally done with the bathroom Arthur was starting to wonder if he got stuck in there.
Arthur, on the other hand, is quickly dressed and ready to go, lets Katharina out of the window into the garden, and is reviewing yesterday’s notes while he waits for Quincy to emerge. When he does, Arthur smiles at him, tucks his notebook away into his jacket pocket, and, a little shyly, offers Quincy his hand.
Quincy did say being boyfriends involved holding hands…
Taking his hand with a wide grin and leaning in for a kiss on the cheek, Quincy beams at Arthur. “Now that’s a proper boyfriend!”
Arthur, of course, blushes, because… “That’s not something I ever thought someone would call me…”
A grin spreads on Quincy’s face. “If you keep blushing as sweetly as that, I’ll keep calling you my boyfriend!” Then his smile softens. “Thank you. You are giving me such a sense of control over at least some parts of my life. I need that right now.”
Arthur smiles back wryly. “I’m pretty sure I’ll keep blushing, I can’t help it…” His face just does that. Then he gives Quincy a curious look while heading towards the door and breakfast- without letting go of Quincy’s hand. “I’m glad to help- but I don’t feel like I’m doing anything? How am I doing that?”
How’s he going to do more of it if he doesn’t understand how he’s doing it?
“It’s the way I can see your emotions, feel the slight tingle of the strings under my fingers when I caress you, the way you react to my words. You are a lovely boyfriend, and I apologize for how fae that sounds, you make me feel in control of the relationship.” As Quincy says it, he squeezes Arthur’s hand slightly, gives him an apologetic look about the fae part.
“Your fae side is kind of showing since yesterday,” Arthur agrees, smiles at him again. “Or maybe we just didn’t know what to look for before. That’s fine, though, it’s not like you’re trying to trick me and buy my emotions away or anything. Um… is being in control of the relationship important to you? Does that mean I’m not in control?” He wrinkles his nose a little. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that… Can we both be in control of it together?”
“We’ve read how many books on fae yesterday? Pretty sure I’m laid bare before you all in ways I didn’t even see in the mirror.” Chuckling, Quincy sighs dramatically, then taps his lips for a bit, but ends up chuckling once more. “Fine, not as if Cycy wouldn’t glare me to death if I pulled any dominance stunts on either her or you. But!” Turning towards Arthur, he taps him against the chest, voice suddenly stern. “No forcing care on me, I can take care of myself! No chaining me down! No pestering me for attention when I don’t want to give it! And no being cutesy, I detest it! In exchange, I will not poke too harshly at your issues and will provide emotional support and social guidance. Is that a fair deal?”
Arthur tilts his head, considers the matter. But he’s sure he doesn’t do the last two, anyway, and for the first two… “Is asking if you’re okay or how you’re doing forcing care on you?”
“Depends how you follow it up. If I wave you off or indicate I do not want help, then you will respect that. You also will not give me gifts, unless I have approved the occasion, those are only chains in disguise.” His voice is still serious, eyes fixed on Arthur’s.
Arthur thinks that through as well, then nods. “Sounds fair. I preserve the right to offer help, but it’s up to you if you want it or not.”
~
Now that’s contract words! Quincy knows that language!
But instead of making him hiss at the memory of Harker, he finds himself purring. This feels safe, this feels right, there’s a tingle underneath his fingertips that feels the strangest kind of similar to the ache behind his fangs when he’s hunting.
“Acceptable addition. Yes, a fair deal… boyfriend.”
Arthur gives him a slightly sceptical look. “…This isn’t going to turn into some magically-binding fae contract which will screw us over if I accept, right?”
Of course… not? Divine, why didn’t he think the ‘not’ immediately?
Quincy can feel his eyes going wide, only now realises that his body had moved. He stares down at his own hand, halfway raised as if to shake on it, and he squeaks.
“I didn’t mean to! I swear!”
Oh Divine no! He can’t be fae like his sister! He doesn’t want to! But he didn’t even notice! How can he push against the cold whispers when he doesn’t even notice when they whisper?
Arthur luckily only chuckles. Apparently, to him this doesn’t seem so terrifying.
“I didn’t think you did- just, well, it seems your fae powers like to pop up without giving you proper notice first, just making sure.”
Shaking his hand as if he touched something he didn’t want to, Quincy sticks his tongue out. At least the sense of something against his fingertips is starting to fade. Sadly, with that, he can feel his drac more again.
Nothing more to be done other than trying to pretend it was nothing.
“I don’t come with a manual, that’s for sure. Which is annoying. My own powers making me feel not in control of myself, that’s just wrong. Alright, more research after breakfast, maybe we can hone in on what I’m missing.”
Arthur offers him his hand for going back to the hand-holding rather than contract-shaking. “I don’t think any of those books are going to have a manual for you, either… You’re rather one of a kind. But I’m sure you’ll get your powers tamed and properly behaving soon.”
“Got to have them all sparkly to show them off to my wife, now don’t I? She has rather the way with stroking my ego.” Grinning more comfortably again, he runs a thumb over Arthur’s hand and walks a bit faster. No, he’s totally not running from his fears, nope, as long as John doesn’t see him he feels safe that Arthur won’t notice. “So let’s get to it!”
“Let’s!” Arthur follows along with him, gives him a bit of a side-ways grin. “But I still accept the deal, by the way- on condition of no magically-binding fae-contracty stuff.”
“You clearly know what’s best for you, honey.”
Without slowing down, Quincy puts a kiss on Arthur’s hair, which doesn’t even get a reaction out of John already waiting at breakfast for them.
~
Their high mood doesn’t last long as they all spend another day engrossed in research- with no immediate result. Darcy doesn’t reappear, and no one has any lightbulb moments on what to offer the fae to find her, or to go find her themselves- oh, certainly, there is information on what fae would be interested in, but while Arthur is serious about ‘whatever it takes’, he’d like to still be himself when she comes back, and he doesn’t think she’d thank any of them for sacrificing themselves, or their most precious emotions at least, for her.
And they would’ve researched on late into the night again if Art hadn’t declared that, no, this isn’t good for them. If they have more days of research ahead of them, and it is very much looking like they will, they need their sleep and they need breaks. So he shoos them all to bed at a reasonable hour, and orders breaks and relaxation going forward. And much as Arthur would like to have Darcy back as soon as possible, and for this to be resolved already, much as he feels the urgency of not knowing where she is or what’s happening to her- he has to admit he enjoys going out riding with Art and John, while Quincy and Mariam are having ‘girl time’- whatever that involves. And after dinner, which is declared as “end of the work day”, he enjoys being curled up on an armchair in the library and reading something fun while John and Quincy are apparently deciding which book they’re going to build a dreamscape adventure around next for Darcy, which involves John reading out loud and Quincy acting out parts and… is actually very interesting to watch.
Like a private performance.
Then Art casually asks whether they wouldn’t also want to get the sword-fighting parts right, and Arthur can’t help but perk up in interest.
Maybe Art notices, because once he’s arranged a time and place, (apparently, the castle has a fencing salle,) for a first lesson with John and Quincy, he grins at Arthur and ruffles his hair and tells him: “That goes for you, too.” It’s a spark of happy anticipation Arthur can well use among the frustration of not getting anywhere- as is cuddling up with Quincy again for sleep, and a lack of Gregory anywhere when Quincy sweeps the room with his mind, just to make sure.
So the next day, an hour before lunch, they meet in the fencing salle and Art shows them basic ways of how to hold swords, and introduces them to the different kinds there are, all while telling them anecdotes from his own life- which just happen to feature the sabre that is now John’s, until John looks down at it and the crest on its hilt, and even Arthur can see the realization- and he’s pretty sure Art did that on purpose.
John stares and gets flustered and then apologizes for being a stupid boy and not treating it right, it’s not a toy, he realises that now. And Art smiles and says that with just having said that, John proved that he can’t be a stupid boy, because he’s a man. That makes John stand straighter, and Quincy nudges Arthur and shares an approving and conspiratorial grin with him.
From then on, that’s their routine: Breakfast, research, sword lessons, lunch, research, going for a ride, tea and research, dinner and then relaxation. John and Quincy work on dreamscape projects, Arthur and Mariam further their Romanian with Art’s help, or read their own books.
And if it wasn’t for Darcy missing, Arthur would actually enjoy this. For the first time, he really feels like… part of something. A family. But as the days pass, and Vlad brings them more books, their hopes turn more and more towards that meeting with Lucy Jr. on the following Wednesday- when Darcy will have been missing for eight days.