Chapter 37
Previously:
Arthur sleeps deep and solid and well, until there’s some kind of jostling, and badly muffled giggling, and someone poking him in the shoulder.
“Whu…?” he makes as he drags his eyes open. The pillow is very soft under his head, and the bed is a warm cocoon, and he is decadently comfortable, but he’s also not being cuddled, there’s no second body under the blankets with him.
Because, he sees in the moon light coming in through the window, Quincy is sitting on the bed next to him.
And holding something sparkly.
And giggling.
“Arthur! I didn’t mean to! I swear I didn’t mean to, but, but, but…” Quincy waves something in his face. Something flat and kind of sparkly? Also, Quincy’s squealing. But there’s also something… potentially upset mixed in?
And he’s wriggling, making the mattress shiver.
Arthur levers himself up onto his elbows and flicks a spark at the lamp on the nightstand so he can see better.
The thing Quincy is alternately shoving into his face and then pulling back protectively appears to be a piece of paper. It’s purple and, yes, sparkly, and there’s some kind of complex grey border design around it, and, as his sleep fog lifts, Arthur realises it smells. Like fae magic.
He looks at Quincy’s excited, flushed face and wide eyes and his gaze catches on a broad strip of colour around Quincy’s upper arm.
At first he thinks it’s some kind of jewellery, because it shimmers in the light, but no, it’s too close to the skin.
It’s… a tattoo? Bands of glittering colour, white-teal-light blue and orange-yellow and what he can only think of as “water”- translucent to murky grey and greens and blues and everything in between. It doesn’t look quite real, with how much it glitters and changes, like you can never quite get a hold of the actual colour, like ground gemstones on (under?) Quincy’s skin.
There’s some kind of design, maybe, that all those glittering bands are surrounding, but Arthur can’t make it out from this angle.
“What?” he asks muzzily. “You didn’t mean to what?”
~
“Give John a contract!” It comes out with a giggle, and Quincy snaps his mouth shut, because he refuses to sound like Felodiau, but bloody hell, he, all of a sudden, understands why the man is so high. It’s so hard not to giggle!
He has one contract.
One!
And he feels all bubbly and boiling inside, it tickles! Bloody hell, it tickles and swirls and, oh, feels so very, very nice. Just like his glitter giving him that pretty, pretty sign of, yes, John and him having a contract. A contract like his mother must have with his father.
Ugh, he feels all buzzed in the worst sensual way.
John’s emotions like a thunderstorm on the horizon, static in the air and neck hairs standing up from it. The world could be swept away in the rain front he knows John could bring with him.
So much emotion!
Ugh, no wonder his manly man keeps it under a lid normally.
Another giggle, because Quincy feels close to popping… and popping more than a boner.
Although he can’t decide what would be the worse one, the one about yes, that is so bloody sexy, but also, so bloody sweet because John trusts him with this!
All his emotions! So close, so very close, like John’s heart beating right between Quincy’s hands the moment they clasped them tight into each other, even while he was still fang-locked.
They’ve gotten so good at talking quietly with each other. Quincy still struggles sending his thoughts, but his darling and Cycy always catch them.
They were all surrounded by their shared emotions, and Quincy was making so sure that John felt strong with it, felt his emotions would spurn them to action. Quincy knows that John can’t stand just sitting with his thunderstorm inside. Has to do something, has to get to action. Quincy wanted nothing more than to help John use that thunderstorm to be the tempest in their sails.
It must have crackled something fierce between them when John told him he needs him to do that, to, yes, please take care of those emotions for him so he can protect them, all of them, but Quincy specifically, rather than letting him fall to his temper.
It felt so bloody good, so bloody right!
And he felt the shiver and the surprise and, yes, even the pain when the crackle, the emotion, the magic surged between them, two tattoos around their arms and that piece of paper. That beautiful, glorious piece of paper. And then, John’s emotions, right there, pressed tight into him through more than fangs.
Quincy did moan and he couldn’t stop that if he tried. It felt too much as if they just had amazing sex.
Is that how it feels for fae? No wonder they are after contracts.
But John didn’t punch him for it. No, he looked at the contract, looked at the tattoos and laughed.
They so are nothing alike. John’s is bloody huge. His entire right arm and shoulder covered in harsh lines of ragged flames, stormy waves, lightning strikes, and avalanches curled and raging around a ship in a bottle. They both know that ship, John’s dreamscape ship, kept safe from the tempest in that iridescent bottle. It’s them together, and yes, Quincy blushed about it, but it felt right. And all John did was hug him tighter into himself and tell him: “In this together, Molly.”
And then he bloody shooed him away to go show off to somebody else, shooed him away because now he felt at peace again, felt okay to get back to sleep.
Ugh, manly men and snoring after sex, but it’s so true, and so right, and Quincy wants it!
~
Oh. Oh? Arthur frowns.
It’s too… middle of the night for this.
But also… He’s not quite sure what to make of Quincy’s mood?
“Is this… a problem?” he asks. “Or… a celebration?”
Quincy kind of looks more celebratory than upset. He thinks?
“You don’t want me to look that over, right?” Because… That feels wrong. That feels like an invasion of privacy. That, for some reason, makes him blush.
But he should be looking over unexpected fae contracts, shouldn’t he?
But this is Quincy. So it’s not like he’s some random fae.
Arthur decides he’s confused.
~
‘Look it over’?
That’s not even a whisper, that’s a shriek in the back there, and Quincy pulls the piece of paper close to his chest, hissing, without meaning to: “Mine, mine, mine! All I’m doing is helping him do something with his emotions. All of those burning, lashing, thundering emotions…”
Yes, now he is biting his lip and purring, which is just about all he manages to not go right back to moaning while he melts into the bed, cradling the contract close, then ends up kicking his legs with a squeal.
“John’s so many emotions, right in here. We read all those things about fae and emotions, didn’t we? He doesn’t like talking, he always needs to do something. I agree. Apparently contractually agree. Ugh, it’s hot in here with all those emotions of his. I can feel them,” yeah, that’s another purr and giggle, “John could bring down a wall with those emotions of his. All mine to feel now.”
He really can’t decide if he wants to giggle, squeal, or moan. Screw it, he does all of that.
~
Arthur studies Quincy. He feels oddly relieved that Quincy doesn’t want him to look at the contract, but also he’s still not sure of this mood. Quincy is acting oddly…
“Are you… drunk? And what do you mean, ‘do something with them’? Do what with them? That doesn’t mean John doesn’t have them anymore, right?”
Quincy wouldn’t do something like that… right?
~
“I didn’t nibble that much on him! Not drunk… I wouldn’t feel this bloody good from just some alcohol! No, emotions, ooh, I get it now. Mother, I get it now! She has to have a contract like this with Father, and he was so entitled to his anger, there is just as much emotion under his stoic front as there is under John’s. Phew!”
Fanning himself, Quincy grins from ear to ear, still holds the contract close.
“We said we’d do something with his emotions together. He wasn’t upset about the contract. We’re in this together, friends helping each other out. I bottled,” yes, he’s snickering at that given the tattoo, “enough of his emotions so he can deal, where he can do something. That’s my darling. He’ll boil alive in those emotions if he just sits in them, but, oh, he has me! And I have him! And I have his emotions and emotions are power and that means I can so break whoever has Darcy in a contract chain! Her two men together! Hah!”
~
Arthur settles back down. He’s not sure how much sleep he got, but it was a few hours and he slept really well. He kind of wants to go back to it.
“Okay, not drunk… More like high… So John’s okay with this? This is good for him?”
He decides he’s not going to think too much about Quincy just comparing John to his father, that’s… weird.
~
Giggling again, Quincy nods hard enough to bounce slightly.
“He just went to sleep! Made this with me and decided it’s too late for dealing with me being wound up like this.”
That John finally wasn’t too upset to sleep well at all, Quincy obviously doesn’t say. Protecting his manly man’s ego is part of this whole contract.
“But you’re my boyfriend! I had to show off, didn’t I?”
~
“…I suppose you did,” Arthur allows. Because it’s Quincy, and this is very sparkly, and… yeah, okay, it just makes sense, somehow. “So… John’s okay, and asleep, and you’re okay, and this contract is fine, and now you showed it off… Does that mean I can go back to sleep, too? Do you need anything else?”
~
“If you can sleep, sure! Come, I’ll hold you and promise to giggle quietly to myself!”
Pushing the contract so tightly into his chest that it vanishes in a rain of glitter, (that feels even better, since when does he like guys putting things into him?,) Quincy is underneath the blanket, wrapped around Arthur in a heartbeat, because oh yes, contract and all the touch, feeling all of his boyfriend, well, not all, but… ooh, the strings are more noticeable like this! His fingers play little melodies all over Arthur’s body, tingling ripples of power under them that have Quincy hum along.
~
Arthur decides that’s good enough for him, blows out the lamp and tucks his head under Quincy’s chin. Yes, that’s better than sleeping alone. He yawns, relaxes into the darkness and the warmth of sheets and Quincy, and the feeling of arms around him, reaches for that deep relaxation again and drifts off into random thoughts of glittery sparkles.
~
Not that it keeps long.
Quincy’s humming gets interrupted by the sound of shattering glass, and he’s sitting up faster than he thought he could, unwrapping himself from Arthur to jump out of bed, because his drac is yowling in agitation, and oh, ooh, that must be John’s protectiveness backing him up there, because it burns under his nails even while he ignores the glass under his feet. That pain doesn’t matter in comparison to the one he feels streaming off of the poor drac there.
No, not his own. He kneels down next to the window, arms open, but leading with his drac, not his body, all the high he had a second before concentrated down into a deep sense of care.
~
Arthur jerks awake again, with another “Wha…?!”, then groans and presses his hand to his forehead, feels the beginning of a headache from the sudden jolt. The smell of blood and the sounds of whimpering drift over to him, together with Quincy’s gentle voice. Apparently, he’s still high enough not to mind.
Arthur waves his hand at the lamp again, then squints in the sudden light. The first thing he notices is the glass strewn across the floor, glittering, and the gleam of Quincy’s hair over on the floor below the window- right, that was what woke him again, the crash of the glass.
Close, very close to Quincy’s red hair is another set of… no, it’s not actually red, it’s white but soaked in deep crimson, Radu’s head on Quincy’s shoulder, at his neck, still whimpering.
That gets Arthur properly awake, and he doesn’t think this time he’ll just get back to sleep, either. He’s torn between several impulses of worry- is Radu hurt? Is he hurting Quincy? Did he hurt someone else? “…What’s going on?” he asks, and how come he’s always asking that, he wonders grumpily. It’s like he’s constantly playing catch up.
Quincy holds up a hand but doesn’t say a word, turns his head slightly to smile at Arthur. The movement shows that Radu is really very close to his neck, really very close indeed, fang-close, and Quincy clearly isn’t stopping him.
Arthur feels his own eyebrows shoot up at the sight, gives Quincy an alarmed “Are you sure?!” kind of look.
Or he hopes he does. Quincy, in response to whatever is on his face, only grins, and giggles, and mimes a wolf howl, then focuses back on Radu. The expression his face is… concentrated? But also… oddly gleeful? And there’s single flecks of glitter swirling around him in intervals.
Arthur sits up properly, pulls the duvet around his middle against the cold draft of January air from the broken window, and props himself up against the headboard- decides that, well, if Quincy doesn’t feel the need to… do anything about an upset voivode’s fangs in his neck… Fine, he supposes he’ll wait it out, too, whatever is going on. And oh, hey, that glitter matches Quincy’s new tattoo!
~
Giggling again, Quincy mimes tapping Radu on the nose when he finally lets go of his neck.
The full brunt of an unfettered hunting bite, from a voivode, and all it does is make Quincy feel his care and affection for Radu.
It would seem too little if he didn’t know it doesn’t have to manipulate him. No, he really is sure, his drac can feel Radu’s, can feel it whimper. There’s no calculation, no manipulation. Just Radu needing him, and, oh, now he’s back to feeling high. First John, now Radu, pushing all those emotions at him. High he might be, but he also is in complete power, no, that needy drac is going to behave, he’ll make it. He knows what it wants and he can oblige it, but on his terms.
“You’re not pulling that again. Possessive beautiful thing that you are, I’m not Darcy. Bad drac, no enthralling. Arthur would have a fit.”
Oh, the whimper, the heavy whimper, as if all those emotions they had swirling there in the bite teetering between hunting and social hadn’t been perfectly eloquent to him, but Arthur wouldn’t understand that, so he reformulates slightly: “I know we just talked that through, but he couldn’t hear us. Now come here, I’ll be gentle. Yes, closer, yes, that’s good, hush, hush, it’s me.”
As he keeps talking, he smiles at Radu’s bloody wolf ears, at the whimpers and the golden eyes following his every move as he slowly puts a hand under Radu’s wrist, makes sure not to close his fingers around it as he lifts it higher, leans in with a hum, puts his lips on it slowly, pulls back again at the louder whimper, keeps soothing, uses his powers more. He has to focus on letting his drac nuzzle Radu’s or he’ll spook him, spook it. Radu is so lost to his drac, but there’s no double fangs, no berserking, just a drac that needs him so much.
Needs his drac so much.
But it’s scared, so very scared of men.
He can’t help being a man, but he can focus on other things he is. It’s a stretch to his power, but he focuses really hard on overlaying his face mentally with his idea of how his wolf face should look. How his drac looks, to be drac outside and in. He allows the furry thing to really show, to keep doing what it wants to do.
It’s gently licking at Radu’s drac, and this time, Radu doesn’t flinch as Quincy puts his lips against his wrist again. He knows how to form his bite, come on, full power now, he wants to show Radu that he is standing over him, that his drac is standing over Radu’s, they care for him, they shelter him. That’s the emotion he crafts, his care, his genuine, gentle care.
As he pulls his fangs back to begin drinking, he has to estimate, but he knows that vagueness from Darcy.
He doesn’t even think it’s the important part.
No, he only just felt it with John, with the contract.
He focuses more on his emotions, on the care, on wanting to be close, on wanting to care… on wanting to hold Radu’s drac gently, closely, as close as he wants to hold his heart.
Come here, come close, let him share his mind, let him share his own heart. Minstrels togethers. They both don’t know what to do with their dracs, but Quincy promises Radu in the bite that he’ll take care of his drac. That he’ll pet it when it howls, that he’ll hold it steady when it’s scared. That’s more important than counting the seconds he lets drip by in sweet blood between them.
Still, finally he kisses Radu’s wrist healed (which really is a bit of a shame, because now that’s a lovely taste), and smiles.
“Patience now. You’ll get me closer, but it’ll be a little bit longer doing it the right way, Moonshine, you beautiful, beautiful drac, you. Hush. We’ll take care of it, you did enough tonight. Let me do the rest.”
~
Arthur blinks, and blinks some more at Quincy’s words and actions- no enthralling, he’s definitely in agreement with that, yes, he would have a fit indeed. But… if it’s not enthralling… well, that would make it a… blood bond? Quincy is starting a blood bond with Radu? Isn’t that… vampire marriage?
He’s confused.
Again.
~
Getting up and laughing at Radu bouncing to his feet, hovering close, clearly terrified at being left, Quincy again nuzzles his drac against Radu’s. Oh, how he wants to touch him more, but he’ll go slow, so very slow if he has to, such beauty, such deep emotions, oh, who could say no to getting one’s… well, he supposes paws, on it?
He has to have that drac! And it wants to be so close, yes, so close, under him, under his drac, yes, all the power, all the control, all the knowing that with John and Radu close, his own fae blood can never win! He can do this even without Darcy, he’s back on top of the world! Even if he has to hunt for his fallen angel, oh, he has another one, another Draculesti drac at his fingertips, and his mother is such a sly tactician. Of course she grabbed on to a Draculesti, which fae wouldn’t?!
That is exactly why he needs his wife back! Nobody takes a drac like that away from him! He grins, fangs glinting, then has to force himself to smile softer, right, gently, gently now with the scared drac, if he could stop shivering and having trouble stopping to run his tongue over his lips, oh, what a lovely taste, and he’ll get more, but not now.
Now, he needs to use all this power to solve another problem. He takes Radu’s hand, there, that should show that he won’t leave, and turns to Arthur.
“We have to save some girls and women.”
~
Arthur eyes the way Radu’s ears are fixed on Quincy- urgently, beseechingly, still a little scared. It’s really not hard to come to some conclusions about what Radu went off to do, and how he returned.
“The selkies?” he asks as he shoves off the blankets to get up and grab something to wear- something not fancy, because who knows what state he’ll end up in. And no, he’s not going to think too hard about what the others found, and reported, and how much he doesn’t want to walk into the same thing.
He’ll do what needs to be done.
“How many? Where? What’s the situation?”
~
It’s a bit of work to get information out of a drac, but then, it’s Radu’s drac, of course even that is eloquent to a degree when Quincy coaxes it before answering Arthur’s questions: “He has the names, the network, the organisation, but getting those names meant seeing the memories of the leaders inspecting the… wares. Meant getting the memories of all the supplier locations, and one was so close that his drac couldn’t just turn around. The selkies are fine, he didn’t harm them at all. But he couldn’t carry all of them and he doesn’t know how to contact the Lemurians. He doesn’t know the exact number of…”
Quincy has to break off to focus for a bit on hushing Radu’s drac again, oh, he’ll need to clean him up, and find him a good spot to sleep, and make sure he doesn’t wake up alone; maybe he can tell John to monitor his sleep, too.
In any case, turning back to Arthur he goes on: “His drac could not get close to the pit, but the older women are free, waiting there. Some of them remember home, maybe they can guide the younger ones. Moonshine left the keys he got off their abusers with them.”
~
Arthur nods as he pulls on trousers and jacket over his pyjamas- at least they’ll keep him warmer and it’s faster.
“Okay. …Should we wake Mariam? I don’t know whether she’d be willing to handle the sight, but for one they probably prefer fewer men around, and for another they don’t really seem to want to deal with men, anyway. But I want to come along to heal whoever needs it and will let me.”
~
“She is our only woman, so she doesn’t get a vote this time. I’ll have to go for hearing thoughts I… Radu!” Quincy chides softly, because at him saying he’ll have to go, Radu whimpered loudly, clawing hard at his hand. “I can’t very well stay here. I don’t want to see it either. No, I’m not leaving you… Oh seriously, you sweet scared thing, hush.”
Soothing Radu once more, he tries to come up with a way to do both things he has to, then wonders: Maybe…? Radu is a voivode, after all.
Asking the house for his clothes, Quincy shrugs into his shirt and vest, has to do it one arm at a time because Radu protests at having to let go of his hand.
When he finally has himself buttoned up, he focuses on projecting his visualisations again, pictures and emotions more than words, he can tell that there is precious little of Radu’s human mind in there right now. So he envisions his drac sheltering a rat, all safely curled up in his drac’s ruff, their dracs close but his hands free, and that couldn’t have worked out better if he had told Radu in words. Their intertwined fingers turn to Quincy making sure to keep his palm steady as he carefully places the white rat into his breast pocket, hums soothingly as he quickly pulls on a pair of trousers, too, gets his jacket so he can shelter Radu underneath it, can’t help the giggle and grin at Arthur.
“…He’s not going to freak out once we get there, is he?” Arthur asks with a glance at the lump in Quincy’s pocket. “It doesn’t seem very… good for his mental health… Also, is your hand okay? Need any healing?”
“He’s no worse than Darcy on the hand crushing.” Quincy giggles, has to keep himself from sticking his finger into his pocket, because this is just too much fun, he has full control of a voivode, a centuries old drac on his leash, relying on him, giving him all that power. Radu could have gotten into his mind any time he wanted to, Quincy couldn’t have forced his way in, but what does this scared drac do? Let him in! Oh, he could cackle!
Right, he thinks he is definitely still experiencing a rush, and his own emotions trigger John’s crashing in right after, and, phew, okay, this might be a bit much.
He’ll get used to it, he’s sure, because he’s not giving this up. How could he have growled at Felodiau? The man is so right, this is the life!
Shaking his head to try to focus a little better, he does remember that he stepped on the glass and giggles at Arthur.
“But yes, a bit of healing would be good. I don’t need glass inside my shoes.”
~
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