conning | AND YOU WERE THERE, and YOU were there....

AND YOU WERE THERE, and YOU were there....

He wakes up in the wrong place. That, he knows. He knows it the same way he knows his cheek is resting against stone, the way the air tastes like night time and high altitudes.

Slowly, he blinks his eyes open, staring at the wall of the alley for several long seconds until he realizes that's what it is. He's in an alley, with cobblestone paving, with architecture that he doesn't quite recognize. Everything aches, everything, from his crown to the bare soles of his feet.

He rolls onto his side, then it's onto all fours, onto one knee, stand. He doesn't walk so much as lose his balance in a forward direction, stumbling into the street in an emerald green suit that would be quite at home in 21st century Manhattan.

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Any lingerings doubts fade to nothing beneath his fingers, as Zerxus relaxes for, it feels like, the first time in years. His own eyelids flutter for a moment before snapping open again, the yearning to melt into his husband's touch warring against the anxiety of closing his eyes and opening them to nothing.

His hands are trembling as he reaches out, smooths them down - down Neal's arms, not -

"Some." It's choked with laughter, and with so much else. "You - we - how - "

Evandrin's laugh is less amused and more pained this time. "Yeah, those are some good ones."

The same hand he hid before starts to tremble faintly again, and he knots his borrowed fingers into a fist. The other hand he can't stand to take away from Zerxus's temple.

"I don't have a lot of time. I told Neal everything, but I don't know how much he'll remember. The way I sent him, the magics he's passed through, he got the wizards' attention as soon as he made it here. They took him before he could find you. Broke into his head. He got away from them, but I couldn't warn him they had a failsafe set up if he tried. "

His first reaction - no, no, don't you dare leave me again - is not helpful, so he swallows it down.

"Where did he come from? How can I find - where are you when you're not - like this?" Inside of someone else, and Zerxus feels a vicious stab of guilt; he's barely spared a thought for Neal since the moment he heard Evandrin. He knows his husband, he wouldn't use someone who didn't agree to it; Neal is here, in immense danger and almost entirely alone, because he wanted to help.

"How can I protect him?"

"Another universe is the shortest answer I can give. He got caught in... some kind of disaster, in a place between places, and got thrown into ours. I can't send him back, but I could send him here."

He closes his eyes as strange unpleasant lightning travels through him. It's not physical. It's almost like a magical splintering as his will to hold himself here starts losing ground to the bedrock of Avalir.

Regardless, his reaction through Neal's body looks like pain.

"I'm... stuck. On another plane. Doesn't matter right now."

How can I protect him?

Evandrin meets Zerxus's eyes, bone deep affection making him ache in a very different way. "Be yourself. It's all that kind of thing has ever taken."

His hands tighten on Neal, reflexively pouring every bit of healing he has left into the form Evandrin is borrowing.

Zerxus knows it won't help - it didn't help last time, either - but if he doesn't try something he might break down, and no one can afford that.

He can't allow himself to falter, can't argue that being himself wasn't enough when it counted the most, because suddenly he has a second chance.

"Another plane - Laerryn, we need to talk to Laerryn - "

He grips Zerxus's shoulder as tight as he can with the hand that's still under his control, the other locked into its fist as that splintering feeling rolls through him again.

"No, listen to me, it doesn't matter right now. It can't, there isn't time. There can be time, but--nngk."

He sucks in a breath he doesn't technically need to take. "Not right now. Listen. He needs his memories back. You have to find out if there's a way. The wizards wouldn't just destroy his mind if they weren't fini--"

This time the pain makes him hiss as his vision goes hazy. The haze doesn't clear. "Listen to me. I love you. I love you, so much, but there are things more important than us. Don't know if I'll be able to speak so... directly again..."

He gasps, squinting, trying desperately to get one more glimpse of his husband's face.

His last act before he slips away is selfish. It's so selfish, so cruel, but he can't stop himself. He needs it so fucking badly.

Evandrin kisses Zerxus with all the desperation of years apart, all the familiarity of a man who's found his lover's every button and delights in pushing them. He kisses Zerxus until this borrowed body has to pause and pant for air.

"It's not her fault," Evandrin whispers. Then he kisses Zerxus one more time as he fades from the material plane entirely.

Edited 2024-03-17 06:16 (UTC)

He's holding on too tightly now, he knows, but he can't relax his hands, can't do anything other than stare into his lost husband's eyes and try to make sense of what he's hearing.

When his lips part it's to question, to plead - this can't be all they get, it can't - but then Evandrin is kissing him.

There hasn't been anyone else, since he lost his husband, and that's made starkly clear in his response; he kisses like he's been starving, or drowning, and his touch remains just as firm and desperate. He's left trembling and breathless when Evandrin pulls back, and his gaze blurs before he blinks tears out of his eyes.

He should be stronger than this, he should use their last seconds to say something reassuring or ask something useful but he's just standing there, dazed and desolate, as he loses the love of his life all over again.

Neal comes back to himself with his whole body humming. His breathing is ragged with heat, and when he looks at Zerxus with huge blue eyes it occurs to him that he somehow knows the taste of this man's mouth.

He blinks dazedly.

"I take it we won?"

Zerxus just stares, for a second, as it hits him that he just kissed a complete stranger who did not ask for it. The stab of guilty mortification is, at least, a distraction from overwhelming grief.

"I'm sorry." His voice is rough, and his expression is stricken; he looks like he's about to start sobbing, or maybe screaming. He feels like he ought to step back, except he's not sure if Neal is steady on his feet right now. "But, um, yes, we won. For now. We should leave."

Tempus is still out of range, but they can do this the long way, it's fine, it's fine -

"Woah, woah," he says, alarmed now more than anything else. It occurs to him that whoever he is, he's used to being unexpectedly kissed. "Why are you apologizing?"

A muscle-memory gesture that isn't his, a lingering residue: he touches Zerxus's temple, then his cheek, then brushes his thumb across the man's lower lip.

His eyes go wider. "--Sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

He finally takes a half-step back, trying to give Zerxus space without overbalancing himself.

"You - you weren't really here to - "

The words die in his throat, strangled with a low, needy sound that he regrets instantly. His hands jerk back the moment he feels Neal begin to move - but not entirely, just in case.

"I know. I understand. It's okay." He's trying desperately to sound reassuring but it comes off a bit manic instead. "There's - I know a little more, now, I can - but not here."

Neal can feel his cheeks go slightly pink at that sound, but that's not the important part right now, no matter how much his body wants to focus on it.

"It's okay." He presses his palms gently against the other man's cheeks. "It's okay. You're okay, I am, we're okay. Where are we going? What are we doing?"

This time, when Zerxus stares at him, it isn't with stunned regret; his gaze is bewildered, but in a tender sort of way.

"You - have barely been conscious for thirty seconds, and you're trying to reassure me." A bit haltingly, he reaches up to rest a hand on Neal's, and takes a slow, deep breath.

"Right. The Tower is still out, I think, at least for now. The safest place..."

Does he still follow that first instinct?

"It's not her fault."

There's a brief shudder, a ripple of tension, before his jaw sets. Whatever Evandrin meant, it doesn't - it can't matter, not right now. "We need to go underground. How do you feel, right now?"

Confused. Light-headed. Desperately curious to find out what this man knows and how.

"Fine. I'm good." He glances over at the remaining wizard, who's mostly healed but still limp on the ground. "...Do we need to do something about...?"

Zerxus knows what fine means, in this context, but he'll take it for now.

All traces of tenderness vanish as he glances at said wizard, his words a dark mutter. "Serves him right if we didn't."

But he pulls back from Neal - very slowly, at first, for entirely too many reasons - and hooks his arms beneath the mage's shoulders. He doesn't drag gently, but their fallen enemy gets tucked away in the nearest alcove. As Zerxus straightens, he pulls a stone from his belt and raises a finger to his lips.

It gleams blue as he says, "Captain Drake? I found a wizard on a bender."

The voice that echoes from the stone is an equal blend of aggrieved and amused. "Seriously? Please tell me this one isn't one of Hollow's."

Zerxus snorts, and it's the first time he's sounded almost playful. "No, they're College of Enchantment - I think whatever he got up to scrambled his mind, he'll probably be talking nonsense once he wakes up. But I can't stay, so - "

"More important things to do, I know, I know." There's no hint of the lieutenant's snide passive aggression; Drake sounds downright affectionate in her teasing. "Give me the coordinates, I'll send the person I'm most annoyed with right now. Anyone else you want me to call?"

For the first time, he visibly hesitates. Then, as casually as he can, "Archmage Por'Co might be interested."

"Okay, First Knight, but I'm dropping your name immediately."

"Fair." The moment they say their goodbyes, his gaze snaps up to Neal, and all of the grim urgency floods back into his voice. "All right, we need to hurry, because she's actually good at her job."

He offers his hand - then pulls it back, wipes the blood off of it, and offers it again.

The shift is uncomfortably attractive, or possibly the uncomfortably attractive circumstances are just making this man's charisma better. Worse.

Whatever, focus.

He takes Zerxus's hand. "Archmage Por'Co? Why did you flag her if we don't want her to be good at her job?"

"I..." He looks crestfallen, for a moment, before shaking his head, squeezing Neal's hand and starting to lead him forward, picking up the pace as they go.

"Patia is a friend of mine. But she's also - I don't know how entangled she is with this, yet. I don't know what kind of constraints she's working under."

I don't trust her curdles in his throat.

He catches the disappointment, stomach tightening with a familiar anxiety he doesn't know how to mitigate. He keeps pace, confusion rapidly winning over curiosity.

"Was I not supposed to take your hand?" He thought they were going to do some kind of magical something or other. "Entangled with what?"

He glances down at their hands with a glint of warm amusement before saying, "No, you were. So you don't fall over."

That said, he is going to cast Sanctuary on Neal now that he's thinking about it, because it can't hurt. It also gives him a few seconds to put his answer together.

"Patia is...very politically connected." Spoken with the rhythm of extreme understatement. "She's also one of the most skilled enchanters in the city."

Edited 2024-03-18 05:12 (UTC)

"Oh." To... all of that, really. The not falling over part (he does feel a little wobbly, the fatigue of a fight he doesn't remember starting to set in). But moreso the politically connected part. Which means whatever is going on with him--whatever those people had him for--it involves those in power, to whom this man is clearly adjacent but not able to entirely influence.

"I don't--" He hates saying it, he hates admitting it, but there's already so much he can't track about all this that he needs to take information where he can get it. "I don't understand what being an enchanter entails."

"I'm sorry, I keep - there's a lot you'll need to learn very quickly." His voice is deeply sympathetic; that was overwhelming enough when he came here on purpose, fully supported and mind intact.

"Enchantment is one of the eight schools of magic - it deals with influencing minds. Like, for example, erasing memories."

Goosebumps prickle uncomfortably up his neck and over his scalp, and his grip on Zerxus's hand tightens. Which is a good thing, really, because he steps wrong a moment later and teeters forward, overbalancing into exhaustion as the whole conduit thing also catches up with him physically.

Zerxus, accustomed to being the last man standing, doesn't miss a step. The moment he feels Neal stumble, he moves to compensate, and then barely stops moving as he sweeps Neal into his arms.

"You're all right."

Really, this way is quicker.

He makes a startled sound as Zerxus scoops him up with a motion so smooth it feels practiced. He's suddenly much closer to the other man's face, dizziness making him giddy on top of everything else.

"God you're beautiful," he says, the words impulse, and he can feel himself go red. He clears his throat lightly. "Where are we-- where are we headed?"

Not like he can do much about their destination even if Zerxus tells him. His bones feel like jelly, his body oddly numb. Is this shock? He thought he'd been in shock before, but nothing feels familiar. His throat hurts like he's screamed it raw.

He's pretty sure Zerxus is saying something.

He himself is also finally passing out.

Edited 2024-05-12 03:59 (UTC)

That...is about the last thing he expects to hear, even if it isn't the first time. (Look, sweeping a fae bard off his feet has predictable consequences.)

"Um. We're headed underground, I'm taking you to a friend, I trust her - "

On the bright side, his flustered stuttering doesn't matter that much. He can feel Neal going limp in his arms, and he knows better than to panic over it. Frankly, this might be better; it means that the poor man can rest, and that Zerxus can - just not think at all, as he dashes through the streets.

He knows every entry to the Meridian Labyrinth by heart. It was one of the first things he learned as First Knight, and it saves them quite a bit of time now.

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