Chapter 20 #2
“Ferme-la. My skill is infusing things with magic. Paper is an easy target; it has no internal workings to worry about messing with. I once fused magic with a pocket watch to—not important—let’s just say it didn’t tell time proper after.
Anyway, this one? It’ll freeze someone for a while. Make them real suggestible.”
“Suggestible?”
“Mhm. You tell them what to do, they’ll listen.
Emergencies only, and don’t trust it to last hours or anything, but it can get you out of a jam.
All you gotta do to activate it is be holding the paper when you say sassafras.
Ideally pressing the paper against the person you want to incapacitate to direct the flow. ”
“Sassa—”
“Fras, yeah. Don’t waste it now.”
Oh. Talk about going off early. “Why that word?”
“Are you gonna go around saying it for no reason?” Remonet asked, thick brows raised high.
Sully’s lips twitched reluctantly up. “Guess not.”
“But you’ll remember it. It’s an oddly unforgettable word.
Fun to say. Also, it just plain makes me laugh,” Remonet said, grinning again.
“Having folks run around in a fraught situation yelling sassafras. You should hear that one with his accent.” Remonet jabbed a thumb in Charbonneau’s direction.
In return Charbonneau muttered something in French that was probably uncharitable judging by his tone.
Sully smothered his own laugh. Stuffing the paper in his pocket, offering his hand to Remonet’s warm, confident grip. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
Remonet inclined his head in acknowledgement and sat back down.
After Sully finished his coffee, he washed out the cup and wiped it dry. Then Stone ushered him outside.
The second they were through the doors, Sully felt Stone’s trepidation rising. He barely held back an irritated sigh as they mounted their vehicles.
“Just follow me,” Stone said.
Obviously.
Sully nodded. He adjusted his warm hat, put on the goggles and the leather facemask to keep from getting too wind-chapped, and jammed his foot down on the kickstarter.
* * *
A THICKET OF BARE beeches and oaks lined the right side of the field they stopped in to refuel and eat breakfast. Some of the smaller trees still clung to their tightly furled brown leaves, and they rustled in the chill breeze.
Sully shook his hands to warm them up after the tight grip he’d had on the handlebars.
Around him the slowly sloping hills stretched to the horizon, dusted in a light layer of patchy snow, dried grass peeking through.
The silence made him almost as uncomfortable as the churning mix of forlorn emotion Stone was trying to keep him from noticing.
He wasn’t used to the lack of noise yet.
Or the lack of chaos. The only sound out here was the occasional crow cawing three or four times in rapid succession which made the stark quiet all the more noticeable.
Sully’s fingers were cold, but no colder than he’d gotten used to them being in the trenches.
He picked at the bread Stone had handed him and chewed a mouthful.
In his pocket was the apple he was saving for after whatever unfortunate conversation they were about to have, when he could hopefully enjoy the rare treat.
It was slightly wrinkled and worse for the wear, but still better fare than anything he’d gotten with the British.
“Spit it out,” he finally demanded, breath clouding in front of him.
Stone’s attention snapped up from the tree he’d been staring a hole through, blue eyes wide.
He didn’t look like the tough commanding officer he was supposed to be, but like a little kid who knew he was about to get in a world of trouble.
“Whatever it is you’re working up to, just say it.
And quit trying to hide how you’re feeling.
It’s not working and it’s giving me a damn headache. ”
“I…” Stone hesitated, dropping his gaze, worrying his bottom lip.
Fuck. Was that it?
“Is it because you know what I can sense? Is that why you’re so on edge?
” Sully waved a hand, anger intensifying at an alarming rate.
Years’ worth of insecurities, the fear he could never let people know what he felt rose up, thundering furiously in his chest before making a throbbing, angry home next to the exhaustion.
“Here’s some news, I don’t want to feel what you do any more than you want me to.
But neither of us gets a choice in it. I’m not trying to sense what you’re feeling, just do.
So sorry if that bothers you, but you can fuck off if you think—”
Stone held his hands up in surrender. “Warren—Sullivan, stop! You’re wrong. It’s nothing you’ve done. It wasn’t you at all.”
Sully’s heart pounded as he watched Stone’s eyes shut for a moment. A sigh escaped him in a visible wisp of fog.
Why does he have to look so good all the time? How is that fair?
“Then what the hell’s going on? ’Cause you’re hiding something, I know you are. So just tell me, Stone.”
“You’re not going to like it,” he said, finally looking at Sully again, those damn pretty eyes so contrite, a whisper of fear in the air. Fear of what? Fear of how Sully might react? His stomach cramped, not a good sign. And not something he enjoyed feeling from Ellio—Stone.
“I already don’t like it.” Sully crossed his arms, defensive, frustrated. “And I like it less every goddamn minute you’re not explaining.”
“Right. Er…” Stone took a deep breath and blew it out, his head tilting slightly to the side. “Have you been dreaming of me, at all, over the past few months?”
How in the hell does he know?
Sully’s face burned. His heart tripped over itself. “Awfully big opinion of yourself, you’ve got.”
The smile Elliot gave him was wry and a little sad. “That’s not an answer. And judging by the color of your face, I can tell you recall them to some degree.”
The heat flooding his face surged again. His chest tightened uncomfortably. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s only dreams.”
“They’re really not,” Stone said, his voice gentle like he thought Sully needed the information delivered carefully or he’d break.
Like he thought Sully was so weak he couldn’t take it if he just came out and said whatever the hell he was trying to.
“Or rather, they are dreams, but they’re also real.
I was there. In your mind. I’m a dreamwalker.
That’s my other skill, the one I told you was a secret. ”
The truth of Stone’s words hit him like a ton of bricks. He almost stumbled under the force of Stone’s emotions, the ones silently begging Sully to forgive him. All that did was make his anger burn hotter. “In my head. You were in my head? For months?”
Stone bit his lip, a desolate gaze imploring Sully to listen, to understand, but this was over the edge.
This was someone in his head. The one place you’d expect complete privacy especially when nothing else was private anymore.
When the degradation and humiliation of cramped, foul, trenches were all you had, when the only things you could control about your situation were the ones inside of you, that space was even more sacrosanct.
How could Elliot not know? How could he not understand?
Wrapping his arms around his middle, Stone struggled, and Sully felt him fighting for composure. “I didn’t plan it but you—”
“Oh, this is my fault somehow?” Scoffing, Sully took a few steps backward to put more distance between them.
Stone followed a step, then stopped abruptly. “No, of course not, but if you just let me explain.”
Contempt and violent angry impulses shoved out reason.
God, this was worse than anything he imagined.
“Nah, I don’t think I will. No wonder I’m so confused around you!
I can’t think straight about this. I can’t.
” He clenched his trembling fists at his sides, fingernails biting into his palms. His mind raced ahead in wild leaps and bounds.
“Is that why I can’t sleep? Jesus wept, Elliot. ”
Shaking his head, Stone started toward him again, one hand outstretched, reaching for understanding, but Sully didn’t want to understand. “No. I was helping—”
“It sure as hell doesn’t feel helpful right now.
Stop. Just save it.” Sully clamped his mouth shut.
Exhaled sharply through his nose. He couldn’t control the direction of his thoughts, or his feelings.
The twisted up, knotted mess of them, so tangled he might never find a way to unpick it.
And in the middle of it all, the ones screaming at him to listen, to forgive.
Worst of all, he couldn’t tell if those were Stone’s or his.
“I need to think. Away from you and everything you’re feeling.
Before I say something we can’t come back from. Just do me a favor?”
“Anything,” Stone agreed instantly, his raw expression knives stabbing into Sully’s chest. Or maybe that was the mass of agonized, apologetic, misery he was radiating.
That’s not fair either. It’s not fair to put that on me.
“Stay the hell out of my head from now on. It’s mucked up enough in there from everything I been through without being wrapped all around your fucking finger.
” He cut himself off before the rest of the vitriol building up in the back of his throat spilled out.
He needed to stop this, mitigate it, control it. Didn’t know if he could.
“I—” At Sully’s hard expression, Stone stopped short. He nodded, a stilted, jerking motion.
“We done here?”
Stone’s lips parted and closed. He swallowed with a heavy bob of his throat, and Sully watched him try to tuck all the vulnerable bits of himself away.
He could feel him trying to reel in his emotions and didn’t have the energy to yell at him again and remind him it was a useless, annoying fucking gesture. “I suppose so.”
“Good.”