by Ashura
pairing: Bran/Will
disclaimer: don't I wish I owned Will, Bran, and the whole Dark is Rising sequence? But alas, I don't. and I have no money to take, because I write fanfiction rather than doing things to get paid.
archive: Arcadia (http://arcadia.envy.nu)
notes: MORE LIME. And total cheesy sap-fest. (Because of course you didn't expect these things from me, right?)
Also if you like this sort of thing, check out the dir-slash list on Yahoogroups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dir-slash/
part iii: gyda'ch gilydd
"I can't exactly pick up and move to England, just like that." I can't think of an immediate good reason why not, but Will apparently accepts it as sensible and just nods. "And I know I can't ask you to stay here...there's nothing to stay for."
"Oh, I wouldn't go that far...I can think of something...." He lifts his head just enough to press a kiss against my hair. It's late morning, and the two of us are lying on the grass in front of the house. He sprawls on his back, arms folded under his neck, and I'm stretched out next to him, head pillowed on his chest. "You're right though, for now anyway. I've got university to finish."
"What'll we do then?" I would like to just stop time from flowing around us, if I could, so that not another minute would ever march forward til we were ready for it.
--Time outside Time—
Why do I have this feeling that we've done something like that once before?
Imagination getting the better of me. I suppose I'm just clinging to anything that will make this morning drag on. But after last night, some part of me is more sure than ever that there's something very important I've forgotten, and my mind is still struggling to get it back.
Will shifts a little under me, adjusting his position. "See each other on holidays, like everyone else, for now anyway. And when I finish, or if you decided you wanted to go somewhere else—well, we can deal with that when it happens, too. If it comes down to it," he adds slowly, as if he's choosing his words oh-so-carefully, "I think I could live here, for a while...I can write an academic thesis on the Mabinogion here as well as I can do in Bucks."
"Better, I should think." It pleases me, surprises me a little, that he's writing on the mythological history of Wales. But then, something deeper in me says, it makes sense, doesn't it? Yet I don't know why.
Too much thinking. That at least is easily solved. I roll over, half atop Will, and lean in to kiss him. We've been doing a lot of that, all morning, reveling in the newness and novelty of it, and incredible rightness, feeling out boundaries—so far nonexistent—and exploring unfamiliar sensations. I like kissing Will. I like the way his eyes flutter closed whether he wants them to or not, the way his whole body tenses as if he's afraid to lose the moment, the way his tongue delves into my mouth like he's trying to find my soul in there somewhere.
"Everyone's coming back tomorrow," I say, when we've come to a pause again. Only a few days ago I would have been relieved that my time alone was drawing to an end; now I'm not alone at all, and I wish they'd stay away a while longer. "We won't have the house to ourselves anymore."
A wickedly playful grin teases at the corners of his lips. "True, but we've got mountains, and acres of field, and a lake if we walk far enough...we'll find places to be alone when we want to." He emphasises the point by freeing one hand, running teasing fingers from the nape of my neck and downward to my thigh.
"Mm. I think we'll have to stop in and prove we're still alive, now and then. They'd get worried, if I kept you out and to myself as much as I'd really like."
Will chuckles. "Cold, too"
"What, you don't think we can keep each other warm...?"
He rolls over with a laugh, displacing me onto the grass. "For a while we could. Your turn to play pillow now, my back's getting sore."
We settle again. He rests his head against my side, and I drape one arm across his chest. "Do you mind if I don't tell my da about this right away? I'm not sure...I mean, he's a deacon."
A sort of muffled laugh comes from behind Will's hair. I expect he's imagining my father's reaction, same as I am. "I don't mind. It's probably best that way, really...small town and all."
"You think your family'll mind?"
He shakes his head, and the motion of it tickles my stomach. "No. Especially if they know it's you." I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that, but he's still talking, so I don't dwell on it. "I've got a brother who's an artist, another playing in a symphony, and a sister who's an actress...it's not like it's something they've never dealt with before. And as they got used to my being a bit different when I was, oh, eleven, I don't really think there's anything else I could do or say now that would shock them."
"But you haven't told them yet."
"No, not yet." He pauses, thoughtfully, drawing patterns on my palm with one slow finger. "Was never any reason to...nobody important enough for them to meet."
That reminds me of something awkward. "I meant to ask you something...it's a little odd."
Even though he's not facing me now I can see his gaze roll toward me, hear the dry amusement in his voice. "Odd, from you? Now that's new."
"Don't be a prat. I was just curious—" Now that I've started, I'm not entirely sure how to finish the question. But I've got him listening, so I just let the words come out. "You...seem to know more about how all this—" I brush my hand along his chest, to indicate, but I think he would have caught it anyway—"works than I do."
"Ah," says Will. There's a pause where neither of us says anything, and he adds, "I'm waiting for the question part, now."
"Well, how is that?" This is not the easiest conversation I've ever had, by any means. "I suppose I just want some idea what I'm dealing with...you read it, or made it up, or you've been out there experimenting?"
"Ah," he says again—shrugs, blushes. "A bit." It's what I expected, really. I realise I don't like the idea of my Will being touched that way by anyone but me, and I tell him so. He laughs.
"Believe me, if I'd had any idea you were interested...." The words trail off to an apologetic smile. "Really though, isn't it better if at least one of us knows what they're doing?"
If I weren't so comfortable where I was, I'd feel morally obligated to throw something heavy at him. "If that's a complaint—"
"Absolutely not!" I can't tell if he's serious or joking. Then again, it probably doesn't matter. The next thing he says is serious, though. "It's always been you...I told you that."
"Good. I'm finding it way too easy to get jealous, where you're concerned."
Another chuckle. "That's nothing new. You were positively nasty to Jane, the first time."
"Ah yes. I remember. Not that she was all sugar and spice either, mind. At least I had an excuse—I didn't have all that many friends of my own, didn't like the idea that you might like somebody else more than me." I remember the feelings well, but not the words, the whole scene is hazy. Most of my memories of Will's trip that summer are hazy, and I find myself stretching for them again. "How is she these days, anyway? And Simon and Barney? Do you still...?"
"Barney, sometimes. He's in my department, behind a few years though. He's still harbouring a fixation on King Arthur, so we run into each other." I can't pinpoint exactly what the strange quality to his voice is now—wariness, almost. Tension. "Jane's married now, she lives in London somewhere. Simon's a journalist in Canada."
"Everybody's moved on, then."
He puts into words what I haven't, yet. "You haven't."
It's difficult to shrug while lying on one's back, so I don't try. "Nowhere I really want to go." I've already explained it all to him. "Well—actually there is one place." I push him off me so I can sit up. "Come on."
"Hey—I was comfortable, there!"
"You'll be comfortable again later. Come on, we're going for a walk." He's grumbling as I haul him to his feet, but I'm too attached to this sudden new idea to listen to whining. Before we start off I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him up close against me. "I'll make it worth your while," I promise, savouring his quick intake of breath when I grind my hips against him.
It's a fairly long trek, where I intend to take him, but I don't want to give away our destination yet. Will senses that, I think, so after one quizzical look he just slips his hand into mine and walks alongside. Truthfully I'm not even sure why I just got the urge to head as far back into my past as I can go, but it feels right, and in the past few days I've learned not to argue with intuition. It adds even more to the Rightness when Arian comes bounding up to tag along.
Me, and Will Stanton, and my silver dog, all going home.
I think he recognises the route after a while. Something old and tired and sad slips into his expression, something that makes my heart twist and ache with wanting to make whatever's causing that look dissolve away.
"Bran...." He says it so quietly I almost don't hear him. "We're going to the cottage, aren't we?"
"That's right." I stop, though, and turn to face him, because there's something in his voice too heavy to ignore.
"What for?"
At least that I have a ready answer for. "Because nobody ever goes near the place, and I want you to show me every last thing you've picked up from whatever reading or thinking or experimenting you've been doing," I tell him boldly, and though he looks a little surprised, some of the lines ease from his face. I pull my glasses off, even though it's too bright and the sunlight makes my eyes hurt a bit, because it seems cowardly somehow to hide behind them for this. "If your next question is why there instead of just staying at home...I don't really have an answer for that. It just occurred to me, and it feels right—the way ringing you up when I couldn't sleep felt right, or like last night felt right. I feel like there's some big part of myself missing, and you're the only one who can put it back—I can't explain it, Will." He's staring at me, and I can't make out the mix of emotions in his expression. I slip the glasses back on, so I can see him better, but I still can't read his face. "If it really bothers you, we can go back."
He shakes his head, and reaches out to slip one hand behind my neck, and kisses me. "So be it," he says—he still sounds tired, but not nearly as sad. And when he smiles, it brightens his whole face. "Of course I don't mind. Let's go."
The cottage I'm taking him to is where my da lived when I was born. Not the place I was born—note the difference. It's where he met my mother when she wandered out of the mountains with me in her arms. A few days later she was gone, and I was his. Maybe I wasn't born there, but it's still where my life started.
It's on Prichard land, not Evans, but that doesn't matter anymore. Caradog Prichard—rotten bastard that he was—died some few years back, and his wife runs the place with the help of the men they've had hired on for ages. She's not nasty the way he was—he'd happily have shot at Will and I if he caught us on his land, and he had a few times, but she doesn't care. She doesn't do anything with the upper parts anyway.
So it's been years since the last time anyone paid attention to this little place. It's been empty for a long time, and it shows. The door creaks when I try to ease it open. There's a curtain of dust on the windowpanes, and a nest of baby birds in the corner, near the door. The floor is rough, and covered with dust, with weeds breaking through the floorboards in places.
Neither of us say anything at first. I wander through, staring at the walls, trying to evoke some memory of my youngest days. What I really remember about this house though is coming back to it, when I was eleven—the first summer Will was here. Prichard shot Cafall, and he was hunting for Pen, so we took him and hid him here.
I hadn't wanted to see Will, at first, not even for that. I was angry at him. Why? He was the only friend I had at the time, and everything had been fine, up until—until what?—until Cafall.
--part of a long pattern, like the stars and the sea. And nobody could have played his part better.—
--Go away. Just go away.—
I turn to ask him if he remembers. He's kneeling on the floor a few paces away, holding a smooth pale stone cupped in one hand. The sadness has returned, it lines his face and makes him look so much older than twenty-one. "Will—"
Startled, he looks up at me. The creases on his face retreat as he offers a sheepish smile, slipping the stone into his jeans pocket. "Sorry. Was thinking about something, is all."
Arian nuzzles her face against his knee, whining. And suddenly, looking into his face, I don't care what happened between us nine years ago, or what childhood traumas brought us to this point. I don't even care what causes that pain in his eyes—I just want to make it go away. Even if it's just for a while.
"Will, cariad...." I take off the glasses again, slip them into a pocket. He steps forward, and I cup his face and pull him close and kiss him hard. I feel him melt. His hands tangle in my hair, and then skim down my back, and mine slide under his shirt. He lifts his arms, and I pull it over his head and toss it onto the floor. My hands are so white against his tanned chest. I look like a ghost.
I don't feel like a ghost.
His mouth strays to my neck, nibbling, his tongue traces the line of my ear and I tremble. Last night I lay under him and he touched me; today I am as active a partner in this as he is, and if I fumble a little sometimes, because I have never done this before—well he doesn't seem to mind, and I can learn very, very quickly.
Wrapped tight around each other we sink to the floor. Will pushes our discarded shirts into a pile and lowers me onto my back atop them, his hands braced on each side of me, mouth and hands straying over my body. I'm struggling with the buttons of his jeans, trying to push them down out of my way. Somehow we get all of our clothes off—I hear a button pop, but I don't know whose it was. And I don't care, because he's—doing those things with his mouth, again. My fingers tangle in his hair, push his head down.
"Do you—sorry—oh!"
"No, it's—mmm—all right—"
And he's doing something else with his hand, and I can't see straight anymore and for all I know I'm floating five feet above the floor. He climbs over me, pushes my legs up, and I clutch at him and want to cry because it hurts—and I know that if I told him to he'd stop, but I don't want to stop. His face isn't sad anymore but blank, like this is all too much to process, his breath coming fast and ragged, my name on his lips, repeated, chanted.
--the mountains are singing—
Sunlight filters in through the dirt-covered windows to speckle our skin with pallid, fading drops. The world slows, and little by little all sensation fades, even the rhythm of Will's driving into me, and my grip on his damp skin.
There was a ship, and they asked me to go away with them on it. But I didn't go. I wanted to stay with Will, even then. I didn't want to leave him here alone, as I knew he must be—but he was alone anyway in the end, because the price for my staying was to leave the memory of it all behind.
The sunlight is fading, and the windows are grey now. I remember the tree, and the sword and the ship and the man to whom they both belonged—regal and tall, and sad the way Will sometimes looks sad, and I know why.
I remember what we argued about, when Prichard shot Cafall.
I remember the Riders and the Sleepers and the Dark.
I remember a horn and a harp. I remember a mirror and a train and a journey, and the stuff of nightmares all behind me.
And I remember how it was Will, all the time, beside me. Off to save the world, and though there were six of us really, he and I were closer to each other than the rest.
And now we're closer than ever, and he's whispering that he loves me, and I'm breathing him in, and we're both about to fall. It's too bright, and I know, but I cannot see.
--outside even the High Magic—the strongest things on earth—
--strongest things on—
We cry out together.
The light recedes, and I can feel the soreness overtaking my body, the rough gravel digging into my back—the brilliant fading ecstasy of what Will and I have just shared, of what I've been given back. He's crouched next to me, his hand on my damp forehead, his soft eyes worried.
"Are you all right?"
I realise suddenly—he doesn't know. He was joined to my body but not my mind; he didn't see everything crashing down around me to surround and fill me.
He doesn't know that I understand now, the wistfulness I saw so often in him, and that there's no need for it anymore.
"I remember," I tell him, and watch his eyes widen in surprise, in desperate hope. "I remember everything."
He meets my eyes and holds them, unmoving. "How?"
I touch his face, brush limp brown hair away from his eyes. "I don't know. The place, or us, or everything...does it matter...Old One?"
A smile breaks across his face, and this time there is no secret sorrow behind it. "No, I guess not."
He rolls off me, and helps me sit up. We brush bits of gravel and pebbles off our skin. "I'm sorry for leaving you alone so long. I didn't want to."
He lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my palm. "Nothing to be sorry for. You weren't really given a choice, in that part." His eyes narrow, flicker toward the window, and he hands me my balled-up shirt. "You realise it's raining."
"Did we do that?" It's not outside the realm of possibility that what we've being doing here tipped off something in the weather. He just shrugs, pulling on his jeans.
"Don't know. Maybe. Whether we did or not, we have to walk back in it. What the—I'm missing a button, now." His hands fly up in frustration and he starts to laugh.
"What's so funny?" I demand, though it's quite an effort not to start laughing myself.
He winks at me. "This has been one hell of a trip," he says, grabbing the tail of my shirt and pulling me against him. "I guess I'm just wondering if there are any more surprises in store."
I think it is probably not a surprise when I kiss him, but it's a good excuse, anyway.
"Love you," he whispers into my hair, once we've stopped.
"I love you too. It's always been us, hasn't it?"
He nods.
"Looks like it always will be, too. Now I'm really stuck with you, I suppose." He makes to push me, and I stick out my tongue at him like a child. From further up Cadair Idris, a clap of thunder sounds. Arian whines, huddled in the corner. "We'd better get started back, or we'll end up stuck in here til it blows over. And much as I like being alone with you, I'd rather do it somewhere warm, with food and tea."
He nods, lacing up his shoes. "Stupid of us to not bring jackets anyway. Oh well." He beams up at me—I don't think he's stopped smiling since—well, since. "I don't really mind, somehow."
So we hold hands, and run as far as we can til we start to lose our breath. By the time we get home we're sopping wet, hair plastered to our heads, clothes dark with the rain and clinging sodden to our bodies. And much later we are warm and dry again, and full of food and tea and each other, curled together in my bed for one night more.
Maybe two...I never did ask just how long he could stay.
So I do now. "A few days more," he says, nestling his face into my chest. "I told them I had a family emergency that needed dealing with, and that's why I had to leave so sudden....they won't expect me back right away." His smooth fingers stroke gently through my hair. "Maybe you could come up next time, you think? Not right away, because I'm going to have to make up what I'm missing, and I'd never get anything done if you were around—but in a couple of weeks."
"I'd like that." I savour this, the way his hair smells and his skin feels, the way the blankets fall when there are two bodies beneath them instead of one. "I've always missed you, after you leave, but this time even more, I think."
"Me too." He lifts his face, though, and his eyes are shining. "Just knowing you're here, though, and you remember—I won't feel like I'm all alone in the world, anymore."
I wrap my arms around him tight. "Not ever," I promise, and this oath is forged in a love stronger than any magic the world has seen. "Never alone again."
[fin.]
****
translations:
gyda'ch gilydd: together
cariad: love, dear (term of affection)