Disclaimer: All characters, settings, etc. used herein are the property of Susan Cooper, and are used without permission but with great admiration for her ability to weave a beautiful, enthralling story.
Warnings: Slash, some angst, lime. Short. Very short. Too short.
______________
Lovely weather it is, outside. Lovely weather, when it's raining in my heart.
He's out there, I know. Sitting with his girlfriend. Will and Jenny, and what a nice couple they do make. Everyone says so.
And everyone acts like that's the way it is, and always has been. Like it was fated from the beginning. No-one remembers. No-one except Will...and me...
Oh yes, I remember. I remember up on Cadfan's Way, teaching the English boy a few words of Welsh and how to say them, and how Cafall, my lost Cafall, knew you from the first moment. I remember that chase through the Lost Land, running from the Dark, always just the two of us side by side. I remember riding with you in that carriage, wishing I had been the one to throw that rose, and when I teased you about Jenny you looked at me blankly, and I felt that great surge of hope. I remember by that river, when I wound you up and you jumped on me, and for the longest time we just lay there, and you almost kissed me before the Dark broke in.
And your hand on mine, when together we held the sword. Your touch so light, so hesitant; it said everything we didn't have time for. I always thought it'd be different, after...
That's why I chose. Duw, what an idiot. Loving bonds, I said, and you didn't even blink. I knew I'd forget, but I hoped you might remember.
Now I know what he meant, my father, when he bent to say goodbye. Nil vigilium solus, he told me. He shall not watch alone. I don't know what he did, then, but somehow when Merriman wiped our memories...mine stayed.
It's so beautiful out here, out on the hillside, looking down over the green valley. The mist has covered everything with a fine net of dew - spiders' webs like skeins of diamonds, crystal balls on blades of grass.
He puts his arm around my shoulders awkwardly. "Jane..."
"Ssh." Just for a moment I'd like to feel like a normal couple, just for a moment. Because we're not going to be a couple much longer.
He sits in silence for a few seconds, looking not at the view or at me but down at the ground. Then he takes a deep breath, and I steel myself for what I know is coming.
"Jane...it's over. I'm sorry."
That's it. Then he gets up and walks off, back towards the cottage. As if the problem's obvious, as if I should know exactly what he means.
Oh yes, Will Stanton. I know what the problem is. I know why you pull away every time I go to kiss you, though you try to hide it. I know why you still introduce me as 'my friend Jane'. I know.
Even if I didn't, Barney does. Woman's intuition's no match for my brother's. Takes one to know one, he'd say. I always laughed at him, but it turns out he was right all along.
Still, that doesn't stop it hurting.
"It's all right, Jenny, it's all right..."
Bran slides onto the bench next to me, a gentle hand dropping onto my shoulder. "There now, what's wrong? Here," he rummages in a pocket before proffering a carefully-folded tissue.
I hadn't even realised I was crying, but I mutter my thanks and take it from him, scrubbing angrily at my eyes. "Sorry. I'm such an idiot."
He tilts his head after Will. "There a problem?"
A hollow laugh slips out before I can stop it. "You could say that."
His strange, tawny eyes are full of concern as he stuffs his tissue back up his sleeve anyhow. "Anything I can do?"
I feel like laughing again - this day just keeps getting better and better - but it catches in my throat. Maybe this isn't my day, but that doesn't mean it can't be someone's. "Yes. Go to him."
He looks at me blankly, and then I laugh, releasing all the grief and self-recrimination. "God, you're both as blind as each other. I've seen the looks you give him, and the way he looks at you." I catch his face between his hands, staring into those startled tiger's eyes, surprised by my own forcefulness. "Go to him. He wasn't ever meant for me."
There. I've said my piece. I can't do any more. "I'm going back to the Evans's."
I watch her set off down the mountainside, smile on her face, wrapping her coat around her shoulders. What did she mean, the way he looks at me? Iesu Crist, could I really have missed something like that?
My hand traces my cheek where she touched me. Surely not - but she seemed so sure...
I want to believe it, oh yes. It took me so long to fall in love with him, that quiet English boy who never made the Evil Eye sign against me. Who never cared that I was different. Who knew me before I knew myself. Ah, Will Stanton, and you thought I had forgotten.
The door to the cottage is still half-open; I push it aside, knowing already where he's gone. He may be sleeping in my Da's room, just for these few days, but he knows where he belongs.
Sure enough, there he is, sat on the end of my bed with his head in his hands.
"Sut 'dach chi?"
Will looked up unwillingly, forcing a weak smile onto his face. "I'm fine."
Bran leaned nonchalantly against the wall, folding his arms and crossing one ankle over the other. "Jenny went off back down to your auntie's. Everything okay?"
"No." Will pushed his hair back out of his eyes, looking tired. "We broke up."
Bran raised a white eyebrow. "I'm sorry."
A wry grin. "Diolch yn fawr."
"So?" Bran's grin was genuine. "We'll make a Welsh boy of you yet."
Will could barely muster a smile in return. "I doubt it."
The other boy slipped his dark glasses out of his pocket, toying with them, not meeting Will's eyes. "You've always been pretty close, haven't you?"
"Hm?"
"You and Jane." Bran's expression didn't change, but his voice betrayed a hint of strain. What he said next almost knocked Will to the floor.
"I remember how worried you were when she was in danger. When the afanc came."
Horrified, for a second all Will could do was stare; then, with great deliberation, he stretched out his arm, all five fingers spread stiffly. Bran recoiled instinctively, shrinking from that all-too-familiar gesture as Will began to mutter ominously under his breath. He felt a tingling begin at the back of his neck and tried to run, but he was held in place, unable to move. All his precious memories were about to drain away like so much dirty ditchwater.
Suddenly, the tingle began to move. It flowed down his back, making him shiver, and then down his legs. Will's eyes widened and he swore, bringing his other hand around and speaking louder - but it was all in vain. The power simply earthed itself, flowing through the albino boy as if he were a lightning rod, unable to touch him.
Slowly, as Bran realised what was happening, a sly smile spread across his face. He shook himself like a dog, free from the hold that had been put on him; that spell had shattered. Then he walked forward, advancing on the speechless Old One, their eyes locked.
"Oh no, Will, not this time. Not this time or the last. It won't work, see? My father saw to that. I remember everything."
Will's mouth opened and shut helplessly as strong hands took him by the shoulders. Bran pushed him down onto the bed, firmly, still talking in that easy, conversational tone. "Oh yes, I remember how it was. Brackish?, you said, and I said no, it's perfectly good. And then you jumped on me and held me down, just like I'm doing to you now, sais bach." Will shivered as the Welsh boy brought his face down till they were inches apart, his breath sweet and warm on the brown-haired boy's cheek. "And if the Rider hadn't walked in right at that moment, who knows what you might have done, eh?"
Will was struggling to breathe, but he managed to choke out, "W-what?"
Bran chuckled, his fingers stroking gently along Will's collarbone. "Don't you play the innocent with me, Will Stanton. See, if I can remember that much, don't you think I can remember...where you touched me?"
His hands slipped easily down Will's chest, deft fingers unbuttoning his shirt. "If I'm not very much mistaken, it was somewhere just about...here..."
His touch was light, teasing on Will's flushed skin; Will gasped, his stomach muscles automatically flinching away. "Ticklish, hm?" murmured Bran, trailing a finger down to Will's navel and grinning at the response.
With a sudden surge, Will shoved the white-haired boy off him and pinned him against the wall, breathing heavily. "Damn you, why didn't you say something? Four years and not a word. Four years!"
Shaken, Bran pushed back, almost sending Will off the edge of the bed. "Why didn't I say something? Dammo, Will, look at what you tried to do when I did!"
Will scrabbled for balance before launching himself back at Bran. "What did you expect? You weren't supposed to remember!"
They grappled for a moment, precariously balanced on the end of the bed, before toppling to the floor.
"Ow!" Will rubbed his head where he had caught the floor a crack; Bran, quick to press home his advantage, grabbed him by the wrists and pinned him to the floor. "Here we are again, eh?" he murmured quietly, all the anger gone from his voice. "The circle turns, and this time it turns for us..."
His voice dropped on the last word, and so did his head, dropping towards Will's until with a soundless shock their lips met.
For a moment that was all there was - just the pressure of Bran's cool, dry lips against Will's warm, moist ones. Then with a gasp Will surrendered, opening his mouth as Bran's tongue flickered against his lips and dived through.
Will's hands clutched at Bran's shoulders, his shirt flapping loose as Bran's tongue explored his mouth thoroughly, hungrily. The Welsh boy's nimble-fingered hands slipped beneath the waistband of Will's jeans, hunting for the soft, soft skin beneath, eliciting a moan from the brown-haired boy.
Then Will slid Bran's shirt over his head and pulled him down, and for a long time neither of them spoke...
Bran cracked one eye open to find Will standing at the window, clad in nothing but his underwear, staring out over the misty Welsh valley. Pushing sweat-soaked white hair back out his eyes, he raised himself on one bare elbow.
"What is it?"
When Will turned from the window, tears glimmered unshed in the corners of his eyes. "I...I was thinking about what you said. About the circle turning. It's true...the circle turns, and maybe it'll take us away from each other again...I can't stop it, Bran, I can't. What if it does?
Bran fixed Will with a serious gaze, tawny eyes holding chocolate brown. "Four years I waited, cariad. Four years I shan't see again. I'm not giving you up that easy." Then he laughed aloud. "You spent too long up on Cader Idris, boyo. Come here, you poet, you mad English dewin, come here and kiss me."
And, grinning for the first time in ages, Will complied.
Warnings: Slash, some angst, lime. Short. Very short. Too short.
______________
Lovely weather it is, outside. Lovely weather, when it's raining in my heart.
He's out there, I know. Sitting with his girlfriend. Will and Jenny, and what a nice couple they do make. Everyone says so.
And everyone acts like that's the way it is, and always has been. Like it was fated from the beginning. No-one remembers. No-one except Will...and me...
Oh yes, I remember. I remember up on Cadfan's Way, teaching the English boy a few words of Welsh and how to say them, and how Cafall, my lost Cafall, knew you from the first moment. I remember that chase through the Lost Land, running from the Dark, always just the two of us side by side. I remember riding with you in that carriage, wishing I had been the one to throw that rose, and when I teased you about Jenny you looked at me blankly, and I felt that great surge of hope. I remember by that river, when I wound you up and you jumped on me, and for the longest time we just lay there, and you almost kissed me before the Dark broke in.
And your hand on mine, when together we held the sword. Your touch so light, so hesitant; it said everything we didn't have time for. I always thought it'd be different, after...
That's why I chose. Duw, what an idiot. Loving bonds, I said, and you didn't even blink. I knew I'd forget, but I hoped you might remember.
Now I know what he meant, my father, when he bent to say goodbye. Nil vigilium solus, he told me. He shall not watch alone. I don't know what he did, then, but somehow when Merriman wiped our memories...mine stayed.
It's so beautiful out here, out on the hillside, looking down over the green valley. The mist has covered everything with a fine net of dew - spiders' webs like skeins of diamonds, crystal balls on blades of grass.
He puts his arm around my shoulders awkwardly. "Jane..."
"Ssh." Just for a moment I'd like to feel like a normal couple, just for a moment. Because we're not going to be a couple much longer.
He sits in silence for a few seconds, looking not at the view or at me but down at the ground. Then he takes a deep breath, and I steel myself for what I know is coming.
"Jane...it's over. I'm sorry."
That's it. Then he gets up and walks off, back towards the cottage. As if the problem's obvious, as if I should know exactly what he means.
Oh yes, Will Stanton. I know what the problem is. I know why you pull away every time I go to kiss you, though you try to hide it. I know why you still introduce me as 'my friend Jane'. I know.
Even if I didn't, Barney does. Woman's intuition's no match for my brother's. Takes one to know one, he'd say. I always laughed at him, but it turns out he was right all along.
Still, that doesn't stop it hurting.
"It's all right, Jenny, it's all right..."
Bran slides onto the bench next to me, a gentle hand dropping onto my shoulder. "There now, what's wrong? Here," he rummages in a pocket before proffering a carefully-folded tissue.
I hadn't even realised I was crying, but I mutter my thanks and take it from him, scrubbing angrily at my eyes. "Sorry. I'm such an idiot."
He tilts his head after Will. "There a problem?"
A hollow laugh slips out before I can stop it. "You could say that."
His strange, tawny eyes are full of concern as he stuffs his tissue back up his sleeve anyhow. "Anything I can do?"
I feel like laughing again - this day just keeps getting better and better - but it catches in my throat. Maybe this isn't my day, but that doesn't mean it can't be someone's. "Yes. Go to him."
He looks at me blankly, and then I laugh, releasing all the grief and self-recrimination. "God, you're both as blind as each other. I've seen the looks you give him, and the way he looks at you." I catch his face between his hands, staring into those startled tiger's eyes, surprised by my own forcefulness. "Go to him. He wasn't ever meant for me."
There. I've said my piece. I can't do any more. "I'm going back to the Evans's."
I watch her set off down the mountainside, smile on her face, wrapping her coat around her shoulders. What did she mean, the way he looks at me? Iesu Crist, could I really have missed something like that?
My hand traces my cheek where she touched me. Surely not - but she seemed so sure...
I want to believe it, oh yes. It took me so long to fall in love with him, that quiet English boy who never made the Evil Eye sign against me. Who never cared that I was different. Who knew me before I knew myself. Ah, Will Stanton, and you thought I had forgotten.
The door to the cottage is still half-open; I push it aside, knowing already where he's gone. He may be sleeping in my Da's room, just for these few days, but he knows where he belongs.
Sure enough, there he is, sat on the end of my bed with his head in his hands.
"Sut 'dach chi?"
Will looked up unwillingly, forcing a weak smile onto his face. "I'm fine."
Bran leaned nonchalantly against the wall, folding his arms and crossing one ankle over the other. "Jenny went off back down to your auntie's. Everything okay?"
"No." Will pushed his hair back out of his eyes, looking tired. "We broke up."
Bran raised a white eyebrow. "I'm sorry."
A wry grin. "Diolch yn fawr."
"So?" Bran's grin was genuine. "We'll make a Welsh boy of you yet."
Will could barely muster a smile in return. "I doubt it."
The other boy slipped his dark glasses out of his pocket, toying with them, not meeting Will's eyes. "You've always been pretty close, haven't you?"
"Hm?"
"You and Jane." Bran's expression didn't change, but his voice betrayed a hint of strain. What he said next almost knocked Will to the floor.
"I remember how worried you were when she was in danger. When the afanc came."
Horrified, for a second all Will could do was stare; then, with great deliberation, he stretched out his arm, all five fingers spread stiffly. Bran recoiled instinctively, shrinking from that all-too-familiar gesture as Will began to mutter ominously under his breath. He felt a tingling begin at the back of his neck and tried to run, but he was held in place, unable to move. All his precious memories were about to drain away like so much dirty ditchwater.
Suddenly, the tingle began to move. It flowed down his back, making him shiver, and then down his legs. Will's eyes widened and he swore, bringing his other hand around and speaking louder - but it was all in vain. The power simply earthed itself, flowing through the albino boy as if he were a lightning rod, unable to touch him.
Slowly, as Bran realised what was happening, a sly smile spread across his face. He shook himself like a dog, free from the hold that had been put on him; that spell had shattered. Then he walked forward, advancing on the speechless Old One, their eyes locked.
"Oh no, Will, not this time. Not this time or the last. It won't work, see? My father saw to that. I remember everything."
Will's mouth opened and shut helplessly as strong hands took him by the shoulders. Bran pushed him down onto the bed, firmly, still talking in that easy, conversational tone. "Oh yes, I remember how it was. Brackish?, you said, and I said no, it's perfectly good. And then you jumped on me and held me down, just like I'm doing to you now, sais bach." Will shivered as the Welsh boy brought his face down till they were inches apart, his breath sweet and warm on the brown-haired boy's cheek. "And if the Rider hadn't walked in right at that moment, who knows what you might have done, eh?"
Will was struggling to breathe, but he managed to choke out, "W-what?"
Bran chuckled, his fingers stroking gently along Will's collarbone. "Don't you play the innocent with me, Will Stanton. See, if I can remember that much, don't you think I can remember...where you touched me?"
His hands slipped easily down Will's chest, deft fingers unbuttoning his shirt. "If I'm not very much mistaken, it was somewhere just about...here..."
His touch was light, teasing on Will's flushed skin; Will gasped, his stomach muscles automatically flinching away. "Ticklish, hm?" murmured Bran, trailing a finger down to Will's navel and grinning at the response.
With a sudden surge, Will shoved the white-haired boy off him and pinned him against the wall, breathing heavily. "Damn you, why didn't you say something? Four years and not a word. Four years!"
Shaken, Bran pushed back, almost sending Will off the edge of the bed. "Why didn't I say something? Dammo, Will, look at what you tried to do when I did!"
Will scrabbled for balance before launching himself back at Bran. "What did you expect? You weren't supposed to remember!"
They grappled for a moment, precariously balanced on the end of the bed, before toppling to the floor.
"Ow!" Will rubbed his head where he had caught the floor a crack; Bran, quick to press home his advantage, grabbed him by the wrists and pinned him to the floor. "Here we are again, eh?" he murmured quietly, all the anger gone from his voice. "The circle turns, and this time it turns for us..."
His voice dropped on the last word, and so did his head, dropping towards Will's until with a soundless shock their lips met.
For a moment that was all there was - just the pressure of Bran's cool, dry lips against Will's warm, moist ones. Then with a gasp Will surrendered, opening his mouth as Bran's tongue flickered against his lips and dived through.
Will's hands clutched at Bran's shoulders, his shirt flapping loose as Bran's tongue explored his mouth thoroughly, hungrily. The Welsh boy's nimble-fingered hands slipped beneath the waistband of Will's jeans, hunting for the soft, soft skin beneath, eliciting a moan from the brown-haired boy.
Then Will slid Bran's shirt over his head and pulled him down, and for a long time neither of them spoke...
Bran cracked one eye open to find Will standing at the window, clad in nothing but his underwear, staring out over the misty Welsh valley. Pushing sweat-soaked white hair back out his eyes, he raised himself on one bare elbow.
"What is it?"
When Will turned from the window, tears glimmered unshed in the corners of his eyes. "I...I was thinking about what you said. About the circle turning. It's true...the circle turns, and maybe it'll take us away from each other again...I can't stop it, Bran, I can't. What if it does?
Bran fixed Will with a serious gaze, tawny eyes holding chocolate brown. "Four years I waited, cariad. Four years I shan't see again. I'm not giving you up that easy." Then he laughed aloud. "You spent too long up on Cader Idris, boyo. Come here, you poet, you mad English dewin, come here and kiss me."
And, grinning for the first time in ages, Will complied.