Chapter Seventeen #4
“We die when we lose touch with our natures. When we forget ourselves. That was what success looked like.” His smile was thin, as bitter as any Robin ever made.
“The deaths were acceptable, of course. But the bereft ‘life aligned,’ mourning the bonds they loved and cured into oblivion, caused issues.”
Robin hissed softly, his fingers gone still. An entire generation of unseelie bonded to fae like Nimai.
“Shit,” he muttered, and curled back in, closer. Robin forced his hands to start moving again, making himself breathe again. Zyr’s tail squeezed, gently. “The age gap between fae at a millennia and pre-convergence makes sense now. Why there’s so few. What about you? You survived them.”
“Another truth of people: they’re frustratingly individual.
Not every seelie who took an unseelie bond had the stomach for reform.
And others were less invested in the cause than finding a bond.
” The fondness in Zyr’s voice was impossible to deny, sweet but also mild.
“My bond was a sphinx, more interested in my note-taking skills than my predilections. Over the decades, she and I found a sort of equilibrium.”
One day, Robin would find out why fae put so much weight on a person having a bond. A Gate needed bonded guardians, you had to be bonded to be on the Council, House heads were looked at as unstable if they lacked one.
Stop getting into your head.
Robin kept tracing scales and focusing on the pattern, on the heat of Zyr’s arm and weight of his gaze. Kept his mind present.
“So she helped you think of bonds as … what? A tool?” Robin asked without judgement. It made sense. Marriages were a tool. Friendships. Jobs. People. Means to an end. That didn’t mean—
Robin didn’t know what that meant.
Zyr nodded, quiet for a moment. “When Gena died, my soul was mine again. I intended to keep it that way. The soul matches I’ve encountered since, and there have been several, were irritations. Reminders of lost friends and old resentments.”
“So when I came along…”
“It was the only quality you had that I didn’t like. I may be rude, but I don’t generally go around telling people their least desirable traits. ‘Fuck off’ is more effective.”
It was stupid to be relieved by Zyr’s lack of enthusiasm about the possibility. Bo would’ve been devastated, if his pretty, perfect, flesh-eating princess hadn’t wanted him. Most people probably would be. What did it say if someone felt your soul and thought, ‘ugh no’?
Rude, but fae. Zyr’s own shit, come back to bite them in the ass. And Robin’s, spun right around to do the same.
“‘Fuck off’ tends to be, yeah.” Robin’s faint, brief smile lurked in his words. He moved again, let a leg drop to press against Zyr’s, thigh to ankle. It took a little rearranging of tail and hands, but Robin figured it worth the effort.
“I didn’t intend to deceive you, Robin,” Zyr continued, still quiet. Still intense. Comforting, despite everything. “I know I did. And I apologize. To me, it was simply pushing aside something unpleasant between us.”
Robin hooked his foot with Zyr’s and received a light press against his in return.
“Your soul’s going to stay yours for now. We’ve our own stuff going on, and haven’t even figured out two week schedules yet.” Another flex, fingers stroking over blue, and Robin leaning. “I’m not looking to bond, either. Not even to a beithir.”
Even for a prickly, irritable, obsessive, clever, dry-humored, curious, awesome beithir who gave him room to come back to himself and didn’t try to talk Robin through a panic attack.
“Fair enough,” Zyr said, his smile a faint twitch of his lips to Robin’s hair. “Should you ever be in need of note taking, the offer stands.”
“I do like good note taking.” Robin pressed his temple more firmly against Zyr’s arm, eyes closing for a moment. Logic. Cultural differences. Brain differences. Triggers. It helped, knowing what he did, now. It helped a lot. Kept the anger at an arms length. Intent mattered.
“I consider myself fortunate for that, clever bird.”
Clever bird. Raven-Robin. Rude corvid.
“Thanks. For stopping when I needed you to. And talking me through it. I’m not…
” A gentle tap of his thumb to Zyr’s tail.
He needed–wanted–to say something. Not to fix things.
But maybe to reach out, as Zyr had. “Your aura’s like lightning in a hurricane, old books, and chocolate.
You call people you don’t care about by their aspect, give titles when you think they’re interesting, and only use names when you like someone.
Except for me. I get nicknames too. Your romance books are by author, series, and publishing order, not only author and title.
Because you’ve got good taste in filing systems and saw the sense in mine.
The sounds you make when getting fucked live rent free in my head.
You make complicated, weird fae things less weird and complicated when you explain them. ”
Robin reached between them, that tail-tapping hand pressed, gentle, palm up on Zyr’s thigh. An offer with loosely curled fingers, if he wanted to take it. A question quickly answered with those large, capable fingers intertwining with his own and Zyr, barely breathing, watching him in silence.
“I like you,” Robin continued into the quiet.
“I’m terrible at saying affectionate things.
But if I wasn’t some kind of attached, I wouldn’t have explained myself or let you call me Raven-Robin after coming back from Antonio’s.
I don’t deal with people if I don’t want to, because I’m a squirrely, suspicious, sometimes manipulative prick with a low stupidity threshold, and I’m not sorry for it. ”
“Also demanding, pushy bird. Don’t forget that,” Zyr said, low and unsteady. But not upset. Not angry, not then, or when Robin let out a short, sharp laugh. “In the future, I will endeavor to share my cards.”
It felt like an acceptance, the continued telling Robin what a demanding and mean bird he was. (Zyr didn’t say mean, but Robin could read between the lines.) An agreement. That they were good, and Robin wasn’t being slotted away as something too much trouble to handle.
God, Robin liked him so much.
“Just the big things that are my soul or mind adjacent,” Robin countered.
His chest still burned from the earlier effort of not hyperventilating, eyes sore from staring so long without blinking.
But it’d be fine, and that was a truth he felt in his bones.
“I’m not going to flip shit if it’s your personal things or musings or…
I don’t know. Just if it’s something big that’s intrinsically attached to me. ”
“There’s nothing I can think of along those lines at the moment.” Zyr relaxed slowly as he spoke, letting out a slow breath when Robin cuddled up against his arm. “But I will keep it in mind.”
“Thank you, beithir.” Robin took a slow, deep breath. An even one. Finally. “Right. So. You and I are good, we talked it out, one near panic attack and two sappy declarations later.” He looked up at Zyr, cheek to his arm, glasses nearly off his nose. “What was that about the veil?”
There was a lot about the veil, it turned out. About a whole host of stressful shit. Enough that they ended up with Robin’s ass on Zyr’s lap, hands around his horns, talking him down while Zyr teetered on the edge of a panic attack of his own.
As shared hobbies went, they could probably find better.
His books had been taken, old news and open wound. Veil magic and an old court record book, as they’d researched. And the head of Zyr’s House, assassinated, with the people Zyr suspected as having stolen his books soon to be his new lord and lady.
“But how?” Robin asked, forehead pressed to the top of Zyr’s head, between his horns. “You would’ve noticed.”
“Yes.” Quiet words, punctuated with a flex of Zyr’s tail. “It would take the Monarchs, or a like power perhaps, but they could seize the whole of my collection today if they so wished.”
A like power.
“A Gate?” Robin wagered. “Maybe a changeling? Since Gates take oaths to not use their power for harm.”
They worked it through. Not only then, but in the days that followed. Gates had oaths, binding them from causing harm (but did taking two books count was the question). There were only two changelings, and Aultyr and Judah weren’t exactly the type.
At one point, Robin suggested a seelie approved reworking of the Wild Hunt that could bring a surge of ancient magic that the book, or Gate, or House head with old ties and knowledge from that book, or fuck knew what else, could use to hurt the veil.
It was as likely as anything else.
The next two days passed quietly. They talked about Nora Roberts, and researched, and didn’t mention bonds. Robin ended up on Zyr’s lap again that second day, licking the needy sounds from the beithir with a greedy tongue.
Another couch ruined, Robin’s hands around both their cocks, Zyr’s tail around his waist.
And, later still, Zyr penned a message to the only pre-convergence unseelie still alive. The lidérc, Nahem, had been the one to trade him for the record book.
“I’ll have one of Banyan’s wisps send it,” Robin said, draped over his shoulders, watching Zyr write in a surprisingly showy hand. “Bo and Ever won’t mind.”
“Perhaps you should remain within Banyan’s lands,” Zyr replied, low voice reluctant, eyes on the paper. “I am under active threat here, and the Solstice Kings offer you more protection than I. You would be safer, there.”
“Don’t tell me where I might be safe or what I should do. I know. If you don’t want me here, or I’m unwelcome, say it. I’ll go. Otherwise,” an edge, there, to his words, “if you’re only saying it because you think you ought, stop. Don’t tell me to leave in a tone that says the opposite.”
Zyr’s hand stilled, and he leaned his head back against Robin. Robin knew, knew, that he’d closed his eyes, too.
“I want you here, Raven-Robin.” Quiet still, but relieved. Better. “Would you return to me when this errand is done?”
Even better. Best. A question mark, and asking something that Robin was happy to give.
“Keep your eyes closed,” Robin ordered, and dragged Zyr’s head back, moved him until he was in a place where he could be kissed, Robin sideways in his lap. Kissed him, slow, and it might’ve been innocent if not for Robin’s fist in his hair and the brief press of teeth.
When he broke the kiss, he pressed Zyr’s face against his neck and murmured, “Yes, beithir. I’ll return to you once the message is sent and my brother and Everil filled in. I’m going to leave my bag here, with all my stuff.”
“Yes?” Unsteady, and yep, that same relief, Zyr relaxing further against him.
“There and back. I promise."
There happened. Easy. A Banyan wisp sent off to Nahem.
Back was another story.
(Robin hadn’t intended to break his promise.)