House Draculesti

Previously: Obsidian: Crystal Heart – Chapter 28

Owwww, is Arthur’s first thought on waking up. But there’s a voice singing and his head is lying on something soft. He blinks his eyes open to a comfortable darkness, and grass, and fabric, and, when he turns his head, Darcy’s face above him, surrounded by her hair, dark with a halo where the light from the castle breaks in it, looking down at him. 

What…? Oh right. 

“Oops,” he mutters. 

Oddly, he doesn’t feel upset or anything. Just sheepish. 

Well, and in pain, when he tries to sit up and jolts his arm. 

He looks at it, sees blood and torn fabric and the limp hang of his hand, the way the bone isn’t quite running the way it should. 

That should also be more upsetting, but… he can fix that, easily and he feels perfectly safe. Darcy is here, and he has glimpses of Quincy and John hovering, too, and there’s Art’s voice rumbling, too, asking if he’s alright. 

Arthur tells him a distracted: “Will be,” takes a deep breath, lays his good hand along his broken arm to pull it into position. It’s not like it’s horrendously broken, just a little twisted out of alignment. 

He thinks his magic could fix it either way, but no need to chance it. And yes, that hurts, there’s a flash of pain, but he pushes that aside to concentrate, because it’ll be over in a moment if he does. 

The healing spell is familiar now and comes quick, and rushes through him, cool and soothing and taking the pain with him. He gives a relieved sigh.

~

For a moment, Darcy claps her hands in delight at seeing him all better like that, then she giggles, leans down and puts a kiss on his forehead. “I win this time, but you did really, really well, Arthur-dear. Thank you for playing with me… with my drac. Thank you for being nice to it and me. I’m really proud of you and so happy that you are my friend. Oh… and I’m sorry about your pretty bracelet.”

She hadn’t noticed before, but the stone, the nice stone, is all cracked, and that must be her fault. She hopes he’s not too angry with her for that.

Maybe John knows she’s worrying about that, so he distracts Arthur for her by punching him on the shoulder and congratulating him on getting her all fired up like that, only for Quincy to chide him that it was horrifying, nothing to encourage! 

~

Arthur cups a careful hand around the cracked stone to prevent all the pieces from falling out and scattering in the grass as he sits up, even while he gives Darcy a shy smile. He decides he liked that forehead kiss. 

“Thank you, too, for training with me. Um, I’d rather learn this way that I might pass out if it breaks- I think that’s what did it, there was some magic backlash and I didn’t manage to handle it properly. That could be really dangerous in a real fight.” 

He also smiles at John and Quincy for their support, and thanks them.

~

“That’s enough for one night. Well done, kids.”

John grunts at being called a kid, but Godalming is right, he’s about ready to stretch out somewhere, the day kind of got long. “Hey, culver, why don’t you carry Arthur inside? Make sure he doesn’t drop his marbles.” Patting Arthur’s shoulder to make it clear he’s joking, he gets up, playfully kicks at Molly but gets told that he can go ahead. Sure, he can. Also means he doesn’t need to show that he is terribly vindicated about Quincy being the only one who really can stop Darcy from mauling them. Neither Arthur nor even her daddy are any better at it than him. And he can stop her with a command at any point!

Still, he knows how much she likes knowing things like that, so he ruffles her hair and tells her that she did really good tonight, he’ll go ahead and build them something fun to reward the dracs.

~

Yay! Darcy chirps a ‘love you’ after John but stays where she is, gently pets Arthur’s cheeks. “Would you like me to carry you?” She’s a bit worried she’s too much herself, her drac too visible and she’ll spook him, so she makes sure to smile as sweet and protective as she can without showing fangs.

She is so happy that he played with her, that he doesn’t need her to have a thick mask on her face. And she’s so happy that they are all together here. She’s looking forward to another night with everybody around.

Although, well, they will have to find another way than having Arthur-dear sleep in their room. She loves him to bits… but she wants her love making with her men! She can sit out one night, maybe two, but more than that? She no wanna!

~ 

“Um… I mean, you can carry me if you want to?” Arthur offers, because… he could totally walk by himself, and being carried is for kids, right? But also, Darcy looks so happy, and he is still feeling a little light-headed from the magic, and… somehow, he thinks it’d be fun if she carried him?

 ~

Quincy gently shoves at Arthur’s shoulder, because really, now that’s an idiotic concern. “Honey, you let me carry you. And I can’t even count how many times me or my darling have carried our forest goddess, or she carried me to keep me safe from any creepy crawlies. Being carried has exactly nothing to do with being a kid. Give in to the puppy eyes! You’ll thank yourself later. So where to?”

Even if Arthur would say anything more, Quincy’s glad to see that his personal fallen angel gets the hint and is already reshuffling to put her arms underneath Arthur, and carefully lifts him up, keeping an eye on the shards nicely shimmering in the moonlight of that amethyst he’s cradling. Pity that it broke.

 ~

Being carried definitely makes it easier to keep his hand level and his other hand cupped over it to hold all the pieces in the setting. Arthur can still feel a slight charge of magic to them. Like they’re still primed for the spell, still holding its shape a little. Which means: 

“I think I can rebuild this. And, uh, I’d rather do it sooner than later. So… my lab, if you don’t mind?”

 ~

“Ooh, can I watch? I want to hear everything about how you do it!” 

Is Quincy ever sniffing a chance to get Arthur to talk excitedly about magic here. Not that Quincy has a specific interest in magic or rebuilding bracelets, but he has a vested interest in beauty, and nothing is more beautiful than seeing the Divine through the open doors of a person’s soul when engrossed in a passion of theirs.

Obviously, Cycy’s doors are always open, the Divine shines from her eyes with every step she takes, with every syllable she blesses him with, with every touch of their skin. But that doesn’t mean that Quincy doesn’t want to see others. He’s seen his darling’s, too. So why not take a look at the other person in their house?

Certainly better chances there than with Godalming and his prejudice against him. Although he wishes them a good night cordially enough. But no, this sounds like a lovely appetiser for basking in his lovelies’ divine glow later. Yes, Quincy is going to sit himself down in that lab and poke with questions until the explanations and beauty flow from Arthur freely.

 ~

Arthur gives Quincy a surprised look for that, but: “Sure!” 

He doesn’t think anyone’s ever been this enthusiastically interested in him doing something magical. 

It’s a really nice feeling, he finds. 

Also, he’d still rather not be alone, because who knows when Gregory’ll pop back up?

~

Has it really been since she ran down with the meanie hunter book that she’s been down in Arthur’s lab? Wow, Darcy feels weird about that. And she markedly ignores that she walked over there after her silly honeymoon, too. No, not thinking about it. Not thinking about Gregory and the tremor in her heart the mere mention gives her. No, just bringing Arthur down there and getting ready to cuddle up to Quincy and watch him be so good with his words and watch him make Arthur feel really important! She likes when he does it for John, too.

Oh, right. John went ahead. She doesn’t want him to worry or wonder, so she kisses her sang du coeur and puts a kiss on Arthur’s cheek, too, promises that she’ll be right back, don’t wait on her. She’ll just run and tell John where they are. “See you in a few minutes. I’m curious, too, now. Love you both! So much!”

She keeps chirping as she rushes out the door, steps getting easier. Clearly, spending time with her family is slowly making the crystals turn to dust. But… there’s a hum coming from another room down here. Huh? What’s going on?

Better to check. Oh, it’s coming from the nexus door. And, she sighs, of course, of course, it’s Llew. But she remembers that he helped her during the ritual, she can’t remember what exactly it was, but she remembers she made a deal with him. There’s a prickle of crystal at walking up to him. No, she doesn’t trust that supposedly delighted grin at all. Well, she hates him! She’s so angry at him! Oops, that’s the crystal. Okay, she needs to be civil. So she asks why he’s so glad to see her.

“Because with you already down here, I don’t need to disrupt your evening at all. It’s just going to be a moment. There’s the tiniest bit of outstanding debt from the ritual I helped put together for you. If you just come along, we can resolve that quickly and you can go back to your men, hm?”

Darcy doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like it at all. But what can she do? She knows that she is powerless. The ritual was the will of her family. She can’t remember what deal she had with Llew, but she knows it was about being better for her family. She knows that without Llew they couldn’t have done it.

That makes her angry. She wishes he didn’t exist!

But… she also knows she’s helpless in all these contracts. No, you have to pay your debts to the fey. And she knows that everybody would just worry. So no, she doesn’t like it, but she’ll do this, quick as she can. Her dress is burned and muddied and bloody, but Llew is so nice as to get her to her room. She can quickly change.

She also doesn’t trust fey on how long it will be over there. She doesn’t want to have to take anything of their hospitality, so she asks the house spirit for a few things she stuffs into her pockets. It’s one of her favourite dresses. Bright and so deep pink that it’s really red, and she thinks she’ll feel more powerful in it against the fey.

At least a little bit powerful, not much, just her… alone.

But it will be quick. She won’t even be missed. She hopes. Just a few minutes out here, and then she can run back to her sang du coeur, can let him hold her. He’ll love it all better. And then they’ll go to John and he’ll protect her from anything bad the fey might have done.

As long as she can just get back to her men, it will all be fine. Just through the nexus door, down to whatever far-too-pretty table they set down there and haggle it out.

She’ll be right back. She promised Arthur. She promised Quincy.

She won’t even need to miss them.

Still, she hates when the nexus door closes behind her.

~

Perfect. All going to plan. He’ll get out of his debt to Marcas yet without ever having to pay it off himself. For once, that demon was good for something, (apart from very mediocre sex that the thing is getting too self-aware to dare anymore.) With Darcy so unbalanced, it was easy to talk her into doing his work for him. Now just to give himself enough time. Can’t have it that his sister notices what he’s trying to pull because the rest of the meat shields are making a ruckus.

He doesn’t know why they always do. It’s just a tiny little bit of a trick. Darcy will be fine. She has more than enough emotions. She won’t miss whatever Marcas takes. And she’ll be angry and then she’ll be hissing at Llew for it and she’s so damn sexy when she does. So many emotions in that disgusting drac of hers.

Oh, he hopes she demands blood as restitution. Oh, he so wants those dirty, gross fangs of hers again.

With an anticipatory shiver, Llew twirls in front of Darcy’s mirror to check that he got all sides of the illusion right. Yes, one disgusting dhampir right there. So he clears his throat and goes bouncing off to tell John that she’ll spend the night with Arthur and Quincy, never he worry, she’ll go on a long, long date with him tomorrow, just him. A giggle and a stolen kiss for good measure, and that love-spraying aberration is placated. Maybe he should use this illusion to get more out of John. That one is sexy in his own right, but alas, no gross drac, so no revolting fangs to have rammed into him. Shame.

And the other one with those horrid fangs is getting too good with the mind sense. No, he won’t chance being caught. No, Llew keeps an eye on the surveillance system until he can tell that that filthy Unseelie is distracted enough with the emotions he’s extracting from Arthur. Only then does he stick his Darcy-shaped head into the room and giggle that John wants her for something special he’s planned just for her. Sorry!

 ~

With the help of the house and Quincy’s company, redoing his defence charm is successful and even more fun than making it in the first place was. Quincy is full of questions even though magic isn’t even his thing, and tells Arthur that the design he comes up with to put all the pieces into two bracelets this time is pretty, to boot. 

It’s a very novel experience. 

As is what Quincy describes as ‘a decadent evening treat’ for all their hard work. The hot cocoa, Arthur gets, but he isn’t sure what this ‘face mask’ business is about, even after Quincy explains that the point is that it feels nice and cool, and then you get to massage it off and your skin feels all refreshed. And yes, the way the cream prickles after a while is normal. 

Arthur’s not sure, either, what he thinks of Quincy being the one to massage the stuff off of his face, but Quincy says he likes doing it, and Arthur supposes it is quite relaxing? He didn’t know faces could be more or less relaxed, but it’s true that he’s pleasantly sleepy by the time he curls up on Quincy’s couch, which is, yes, cushier than Darcy’s. 

And he isn’t alone, and that’s the most important part, even if Darcy and John are spending time with each other.

~ To be continued in Obsidian: Ash and Moonbeams ~

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