35. Gravity Inevitable #2
‘Wait.’ Briar goes to him, picks up an abandoned dusting cloth from the desk and takes his hand, dampening the fabric and starting to clean him gently, rusty whorls of blood splattering against the taps and disappearing down the drain.
It feels good - an intimate act of service, tiny in comparison to what Bastian has just done for them.
Bastian stands there and lets them work.
Briar eases the cape from his shoulders, then takes off his shirt, the sleeves sticking to his skin where they’re crusted in scarlet.
They wash diligently, silently, until Bastian is pink-faced and clean.
He stands there, swaying and relieved, and then takes the cloth from Briar and says, ‘Take off your clothes.’
Briar shivers, then steps out of their ruined trousers, pulls off their shirt, and closes their eyes as Bastian’s fingers touch their neck, their sternum; he returns the favour with equal reverence, the warm lick of the cloth so soothing after all that concentrated brutality that Briar lets out a long, contented sigh.
Bastian’s hand jumps against their skin, then goes back to making slow, gentle circles.
It feels so good. Briar leans into him as much as they can while remaining upright, until their cheek is resting on Bastian’s shoulder.
When the motion stops, and Briar looks up again, Bastian is scrutinising their leg, then their face.
‘We’re extremely lucky that worked,’ he says, shaken back to reality, sounding as concerned as if it hadn’t. ‘It shouldn’t have, really. He’d nicked an artery, and then you’d somehow walked on it. You were about to bleed out.’
‘You said I was going to be okay,’ Briar says, taking the cloth from Bastian and leaving it balled up in the sink, turning the stiff tap off until it’s reduced to a steady drip.
‘Well, I lied.’ He seems to remember that Briar is standing in front of him nearly naked; two spots of colour flare in his cheeks, and he turns away.
‘Hey.’ Briar catches him by the wrist, with a jolt of elation.
‘I can do the Work. They got it wrong, when they turned down my application.’ They smile at Bastian; he doesn’t return it, his expression focused and serious.
‘This is huge. Surely they can’t just . .
. try to mess with my memory now, and send me away.
I’m one of you. And I can do something . . . exceptional.’
‘I don’t know,’ Bastian says distractedly. ‘Have you read any other texts?’
This deflates Briar slightly - because of course they have, and they couldn’t understand a word of them. A stumbling block. But it’s not fatal.
‘Maybe the way I do things is just . . . different,’ Briar says, rallying behind this thought.
‘This Working was new, right? You’ve never heard of it before?
’ Bastian shakes his head, eyes darting to the text where it’s resting, unceremoniously, on the floor.
‘And it does things it shouldn’t be able to do.
So maybe that’s it. Maybe there’s a whole different kind of thaumaturgy that’s been forgotten, and I can do it.
A better kind. If I brought them that text, this power .
. . surely, that would be worth something.
’ Bastian still looks unconvinced, so Briar says, ‘And . . . we could be together.’
That catches his attention, like Briar knew it would. He stares for a moment, then shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear it.
‘You should . . .’ He casts around, then picks up his cape, tries to hand it to Briar in a bundle. ‘Put this on.’
Briar lets it fall to the floor again. ‘I don’t understand. Is that . . . not what you want?’
‘Of course it is,’ Bastian snaps, so angry so suddenly that Briar feels like they have whiplash. ‘I’m just not na?ve enough to think it could ever be this simple.’
Briar’s mood can’t be dampened right now. They just narrowly avoided death and gained actual magical powers all in one day. Can’t Bastian see? It’s all going to be okay. ‘I didn’t say it would be simple.’
‘You’ve got some of the most powerful scholars in the school after you,’ Bastian says.
‘All that doesn’t go away just because you can do .
. . whatever it is that you can do. Besides, I don’t know how it would work, even if you could read other texts - it would take you years to catch up, and they wouldn’t let you start here from first year, I’m sure of it.
You don’t know the governors, they’re not going to take this lightly, and if they turn against you too . . .’
‘Your dad’s on the board,’ Briar says, as if Bastian doesn’t know this. ‘And . . . I’ve got you. Forget the others, you’re the most powerful scholar in the school, by a long shot. Don’t you think they’d do anything, to keep you onside?’
Bastian still looks taken aback, a question in his eyes, like Briar’s become something unfamiliar. ‘But . . . I thought you hated Temple.’
Briar does. Did. No, they still do. The wealth, the privilege.
The Trials, and the fucked-up people they produce.
But maybe they finally have the answer to that question - what would they have done, at eleven, if they’d been accepted?
Shied away from the cost? Said no to a life of magic, on principle?
It feels impossible. This is too important.
Not the idea of having power over other people, but the power to do something incredible.
Fuck Alistair and Mons. Fuck the board. They have the texts, but not all the texts.
Briar has their finds from the attic. Who knows what else might be lurking up there, forgotten or hidden by the faculty?
There must be a way to do this, with Bastian by their side.
‘We’ll work it out.’
‘How? I’m just one person, Briar.’
‘You’re just one extremely fucking formidable person,’ Briar says. ‘And I trust you.’
At this, the protestations seem to die on Bastian’s lips. He looks at Briar with an expression so transparently, anxiously hopeful that Briar can’t help but take his face in both of their miraculously still-working hands and kiss him.
It feels like there’s nothing standing in their way this time. No veneer of hatred, Bastian’s misgivings abandoned. Bastian seems to realise this the same moment Briar does - and it’s like they’ve fired a starting pistol.
Bastian is the one who pulls Briar close and kisses them hard, demanding their complete attention, his hand at the back of their neck, fingernails scraping pleasantly against their skin in his urgency.
The fact of this - of Bastian so obviously wanting them, any previous hesitance a distant memory, and the hot, delicious press of his body against theirs as the kiss deepens - makes Briar groan into his open mouth.
Bastian pulls away then, and Briar feels a jolt of shame, but he’s just walking a few unsteady steps to the sofa, where he falls back against the cushions like an oft-indulged emperor, and starts unbuttoning his trousers with one hand, eyes fixed on Briar.
The sight is enough to make Briar want to fall to their knees in front of him, but the memory of Alistair’s commands in that darkened chamber is enough to keep them on their feet.
They walk to him instead, ease down on top of him with one hand braced against the arm of the sofa behind him.
The other strokes his hair with great care, pushing it back and away from his face, then skitters with awestruck daring across his lower lip.
He opens his mouth, letting Briar’s thumb brush against the heat there for a moment, and Briar’s breathing goes ragged.
Heavy-lidded and pleased, Bastian shifts his hips, so it’s easy for Briar to help him out of his trousers, leaving them pooled on the floor.
‘Come here please,’ he says, his voice rough, and Briar eases their weight down to meet him, so fiercely enamoured with the soft, choked-off noise Bastian makes when their bodies connect that they grind against him, slow and shameless, to elicit another barely restrained gasp in their ear.
‘What do you . . . ?’ he says, one shaking hand travelling down Briar’s ribs to their hip, fingers flexing around the top of their thigh. ‘I mean, I don’t know what you . . .’
Luckily, Briar knows exactly what they like, after a couple of years of fumbling experiments back home in the village. ‘I want to take care of you,’ they say. ‘Whatever that . . . means, for you.’ When Bastian bites his lip, unpractised and earnest, they say, ‘And I want to watch you come.’
Bastian’s hips shove infinitesimally up into Briar’s in what seems to be an entirely involuntary movement; Briar feels exactly how hard he is, is half-frantic with the knowledge of it.
‘But,’ Bastian says, his voice thready, ‘surely that’s . . . that’s not enough for you to . . .’
‘Trust me,’ Briar says, kissing Bastian on the soft skin behind his ear, ‘I’m going to have an extremely fucking good time.’