Chapter Seventeen
Robin
Everil wasn’t nearly as bad in the kitchen as Robin expected a person raised with a magic chef to be. They managed a few dozen lemon cupcakes, all of them relatively tasty. Robin packed up three of them, along with clean clothes, his refilled prescriptions, and some books for Zyr.
Who knew. Maybe all fae liked citrus.
Talia dropped him off in Faerie, like the delightful niece she was.
From Bo and Everil’s cabin, it was weirdly easy to get to Zyr’s allotment.
Bo said all you needed to do was think about where you wanted to be, but Robin always made a point to visualize properly.
Faerie worked on intent, sure, but Robin worked on not falling off a damn cliff because his intention of getting to Zyr’s lands didn’t specify not in the water.
“Thanks,” he said to the air, as old growth gave way to lightning-scarred rock and the sky lit with the crack of electricity. A rush of magic on his skin and the scent of moss, there and gone like it so often was when he spoke to Faerie.
He hiked his bag higher on his shoulder, squinting toward the scrub, rock, and dark sky. No Zyr, striding out of the deceptively small cottage with “Raven-Robin” on his lips.
The deep, grinding noise of rock against rock from behind him. Too close to be safe. Robin turned on his heels and saw…
Holy shit, beithir were big.
More wyrm than dragon, long and sinuous and wingless. Scales, blue and bright, and those swept back, curling horns. Lightning in his eyes, like always, and dancing on the glinting barb of his tail.
Zyr sat coiled among the boulders of his cliffside, huge and silent and beautiful. Abandoning his bag at the door, Robin walked slowly toward the biggest fucking creature he had ever seen, eyeing the beithir curiously, head tipped back.
“I’m not a rock climber,” Robin called out, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. “I try to go up there, I’ll land on my bony ass.”
He half expected Zyr to talk to him like the dragons in movies. Maybe in his mind, or moving his mouth with the words not quite lining up. Instead, he moved through the rocks, slinking like a water moccasin, gaze intent as ever while he got closer.
And closer.
And big.
Zyr was really, really big.
Big enough to, like, literally eat Robin in a single snap of his jaws. Long, dagger-like teeth and muscles under the blue scales that would probably crush scrawny Robin to mush if Zyr didn’t keep a tight rein on his movements.
Robin stared, his eyes huge behind his glasses, mouth open. Zyr breathed and blinked, and Robin snapped that mouth shut, blinking in return. Lightning and old books, quintessential Zyr, flashed to mind. Chocolate, though, like back at the meeting.
Weird. Didn’t people usually taste metal before they were struck by lightning?
“This is the part where I joke about growing and showing,” he said, as he took a careful step closer. “But I don’t know if you’d be able to get a laugh out of it right now. If I touch you, would I get shocked?”
He reached out his hand, palm half up. Not to touch, yet. Because electrocution. But not not to touch, if no electrocution.
Zyr shifted closer, within Robin’s reach, and made a soft sound in reply. Almost a chirp, cuter than any sound something so big should make. He tipped his head down so his snout brushed the ground in front of Robin, the invitation clear.
And, like. It wasn’t that this was hot. Robin wasn’t a not-humanoid-looking-monster monster fucker. Zyr as a beithir-bodied wyrm didn’t yank his crank.
But if it wasn’t hot, then it was, at least, really fucking cool.
Zyr’s scales hummed pleasantly under his hand. The hair on his arms stood up, but Robin grinned, sharp and thin and with a flash of teeth as he stepped in closer.
“I would’ve been here sooner, but Talia made breakfast.” Could Zyr understand him? It didn’t matter. Robin talked anyway, shifting in until his stomach butted up against the gleaming scales between two very large nostrils. “I do not pass up a Talia breakfast. No work for another few days.”
Robin watched his hands and blue scales, fingers tracing a few inches up the ridiculously large snout, and down again. Chocolate chip pancakes. That’s probably why he kept tasting chocolate. They had been good, too.
Zyr huff-chirped again, eyes half closed while Robin’s hands explored.
“Whenever you’re ready to be bipedal, I have some things for you. Do this big, ship-sinking beithir thing as long as you need.” Robin patted his snout with more affection than he was willing to think about. “I don’t know how this fae stuff works.”
Zyr ducked his head further, turning it to the side until Robin could reach his horn. He stayed like that until Robin, both opportunistic and selfish, grabbed for it.
It was too big for him to fit his whole hand around like this, but he could touch, could hook his fingers enough to tug, once, before Zyr turned to beithir-coil away.
(Though his tail flicked against Robin’s ankle before he disappeared over the rocks, and maybe, yeah, Robin grinned, senses ringing with bright skies and worn pages.)
Within minutes, Zyr was walking back, over those big ass rocks, dressed and human-ish.
“Leviathans sink ships,” he said, like they were mid-conversation. “Beithir mostly poison people.”
In reply, Robin dragged Zyr down by the front of his shirt and kissed him, hard, got his other hand around a horn to keep him there. Zyr returned his eagerness with the same heat, hands kept to himself because he was great, even as his tail wrapped around Robin’s ankle. It held tight.
“You looked plenty big enough to sink a ship if you really wanted to,” Robin said once he’d had his fill, grinning.
“Should you take against a ship, Treasure, I will see to it.” It wasn’t right to say Zyr hesitated, but he did go quiet, watching Robin with a considering gaze. “Content. I am content, now that you are here.”
Robin tugged at his shirt once more, just for emphasis, then let his hand fall, eyebrows and lips both quirked. He didn’t step away, not with Zyr’s tail curled around his ankle, holding on, almost clinging.
Or, on second thought, actually clinging.
Content, with Robin there, and having been curled up in some rocks.
Maybe Zyr did that a lot. It wasn’t as if Robin could judge; he spent plenty of time curled up in small spaces, reading or doodling or whatever else.
Maybe basking in a lightning storm was to beithir what idle spirals in a notebook were for Robin.
“Inspired,” Robin replied, and held out his hand, palm up. “Peaceful. I’m gonna need that ankle to get inside. My wrist’s free.”
There weren’t many words on the wheel that said ‘I’m in a good mood.
’ Baseline. Glad to be there, but not relieved or thankful.
Not even aroused, kiss aside. Just happy to be back, even if he could see the instant the beithir’s thoughts began to wander, picking up a thread of something Robin said and following after.
It didn’t bother him, the way it had at the beginning. The way being looked past, forgotten and ignored, always rankled. Few things fucked with Robin the way being left behind did.
Zyr, though, he always came back. He had trouble with time, and always reached for Robin instead of pulling away. Didn’t even make it seem like it was because Robin was a treasure.
(Sure, a big part of it was probably that. But it didn’t feel like that.)
It wasn’t long, and Robin didn’t drop his hand while waiting. The beithir’s eyes cleared and refocused on Robin. His tail tightened once, and then Robin had his ankle back.
“I was refining your wheel,” Zyr explained, nodding towards his door. “I’m attending now. Let’s head inside. An endeavor you’ll find more expedient without my grasping. I fear I’ve news that adds some urgency to our efforts.”
His tail brushed over Robin’s wrist, then fell away. No warm circle of scales, or tail tip trying to thread through his fingers. Just that touch.
“Yeah, okay.” Robin rubbed at his wrist absently, studying Zyr only a little warily, and maybe a slight frown.
Screw it. If Zyr didn’t want to hold his hand on the way back, Robin wasn’t going to make him or ask pretty please. Sitting on the library floor, surrounded by fallen Nora Roberts and talking about feelings, that’d been different. And Zyr had said I fear.
Fine. Whatever. He'd wait for an ask in the future.
Robin shrugged, turning, and started back down the short distance to the house. “Do you like lemon?”
Unsurprisingly, Zyr caught up to him in a few long strides. But his tail snaking around Robin’s wrist, yanking him from his own brittle thoughts and making him stumble a step, that was surprising. He glanced up at Zyr, his fingers curling in to brush over scales.
“I was attempting to be courteous. I had forgotten that corvids are very rude birds.”
“And vindictive,” Robin said. “Petty.”
“Generous, when warranted,” Zyr countered, relaxing when Robin’s fingers stayed where they were. “As for lemons, they were once thought an antivenom, so perhaps I should take against them. But we have no quarrel.” A beat. “I’ve missed you. It makes it difficult to focus.”
Robin walked a little faster. It wasn’t that he disliked listening to Zyr talk. There was plenty of that, but it had been about books, theories, or bitten off, harsh, pleading asks to suck Robin’s cock. Not antivenom. And not with Zyr so clearly on edge.
“No quarrel here,” Robin agreed, skipping over the declaration of missing him and his own silent admittance that yeah, maybe he’d thought about the big guy too and had been more than a little antsy to get back. Even with chocolate chip pancakes. “Told you, I like you.”
And still. Something about Zyr’s behavior needled. It was off. He felt off.
Robin paused outside the door, feet planted. He stared hard at the beithir, eyebrows knit together and decided, again: screw it.