Who: Cian & Ash What: Making up? Making things worse? Who knows anymore. Where: Cian’s apartment When: Tonight. Rating: PG-13 because Cian and Ash Status: Complete
By the time she reached Cian’s apartment, she had already taken care of about half of the things that she’d had on the list she’d made on her way back to Emillion. It had been a way to distract herself from the flight and what she was going to do once she’d landed. But things with Lena had gone smoother than she’d anticipated - though, now that she was thinking about it, she wasn’t sure why she’d thought things would go south - and she felt a bit calmer about everything. The decision hadn’t been an easy one, and while Cian had been partly responsible for her making her mind up, he hadn’t been the only reason.
Hell, he hadn’t even been a major reason.
Didn’t make it any easier, though. She hadn’t given him a heads up that she’d be dropping by - he knew she’d be back today, probably figured that she’d ignore him for a while. Fuck, she wasn’t even sure if their fight had ruined anything; for all she knew, she could walk in and find him with the blonde twit from the coffee shop. Which, her mind reminded her, wouldn’t mean a damn thing because clearly it was okay for him to sleep around since she’d still been working.
And, yeah, it had taken her a few days to calm down and see his point, but fuck if that wasn’t the last thing she’d wanted to walk in on.
But she also didn’t want to be ignored or rejected if she sent him a message.
She sighed, shook her head, and disarmed the security. Then, slowly, she made her way up the stairs.
He’d heard the security click, had to assume it was her, though his gun rested conveniently on his coffee table. He might have one arm in a splint, but he could still aim it squarely at the door. Not that a half-decent assassin would give this much warning, but better safe than dead, as always.
He lowered the gun once he saw who was at the door. He had to give her props for daring; he hadn’t figured to see her for a week or two. Her ship had landed and that had been the only word he’d assumed he’d have -- and from someone else, at that. And yet there she was, looking a little tan and a lot annoyed (the expression only deepening when she saw the obvious signs of healing injuries).
Her eyes narrowed as soon as she saw him sitting there, busted up and looking only a little annoyed to have her intruding. Or maybe he was in pain, because his arm was in a fucking splint. She hadn’t been sure what she had been going to say when she saw him, but it sure as hell wasn’t what she ended up saying: “The fuck did you do? Decide to go drive into a fucking Paling?”
“Hello to you too,” he said, even if he was relieved she’d spoken first. Somehow the annoyance was a lot easier to deal with than an awkward greeting might have been anyway. “Emillion -- never a dull fucking day. I thought I’d punch an elemental in the face. Unfortunately for me --”
“-- elementals don’t have faces,” she chimed in, so the words were said in almost creepy unison.
He shrugged his good shoulder, said, “What can I say? You missed a party.”
“Some fucking party,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. Instead of walking further into the apartment, she leaned back against the wall and looked him over. “The fuck did you go elemental hunting for? You don’t know magic.”
Unless he’d been wasting dice, that was. But he was just as likely to roll a spell that just helped the fucking thing rather than hurting it. “We lose anything else or was this one contained?”
After a moment of consideration (he knew her well enough to realize she would not like the answer) he said, “Didn’t get to the city; someone shot whatever was driving the things down just short of the Palings. So, our lucky day; no more broken shit, for now.”
Her question of why was purposely ignored. Telling her he’d been pissed was the wrong answer. Telling her that the blonde he’d picked up the night prior to the ice storm in the Outlands had ended up sprinting out into the fray like the bunny on speed she appeared to be and he’d found himself alone and naked in her apartment and thought why the hell not was probably also the wrong answer.
“I’m going to assume your meetings were successful?” he asked, knowing she probably wouldn’t allow him to change the subject but giving it a try anyway.
She gaped at him. “You went out to fight shit that hadn’t even made it into the city.” Aisling shook her head. “What the fuck were you thinking? It had nothing to do with you. Why the fuck decide to play big damn hero now?” Was he really that much of a fucking adrenaline junkie that dying once had given him a taste for it?
Slowly, she took a deep breath, exhaled. “Meetings were fine. Everything’s good to go. You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?”
He shrugged again, told her, “Told you already, wanted to punch something in the face. By the time I’d realized it was a bunch of fuckers without faces, I didn’t have much choice but to go with it. It’s fine. I didn’t die, obviously.” He hadn’t even really come as close as he might have, though it hadn’t been his most enjoyable afternoon ever, either. “Gotta show the bards are all about city safety once in awhile. We’ll say I was representing the smiling fucking face of the guild.”
“In what fucking parallel universe would you be considered the smiling face of the guild?” she shot back, incredulous. She shook her head. “I came over here to talk to you about something, but find you laid up, broken, with a sudden taste for playing hero. Maybe I wandered into some fucking portal in the Faram-damned desert.”
The only comforting part of this was that he hadn’t died. Again. And that was only mildly comforting. Was this going to become habit? If it was, then what the hell was she supposed to do? One of them had to be hail and healthy or else the org would go to shit, and since she was expendable, she always figured she’d be the one to go out every so often, play the dutiful guild associate, and come back broken or whole or in some mess in between.
“Gave it a go again, didn’t care for it,” he said shortly. “At least my bike and the Paling didn’t get in an altercation this time. And by all means, talk, since last time I checked you weren’t capable of rewinding time and undoing my bad decisions. I thought you said the meetings were fine.” And what else could she want to talk about? He had to assume she wasn’t stupid enough to rekindle the fight about his spare time versus hers and how the same standards shouldn’t apply.
This was one she was going to have to let go - he was right. Wasn’t a damn thing she could do about his bad choices, just like he couldn’t do a damn thing about hers. “I quit,” she said.
He gave her an incredulous look. “What, you think because I’m in a splint, you can just waltz out? That’s pretty damn short-sighted of you.”
“The fuck are you talking about? I quit Ruby.”
He prided himself on his ability to think on his feet but that threw him; he looked at her with clear confusion for several moments before it sunk in that she wasn’t trying to walk out on him over his ill-advised heroics.
And though the temptation to make her admit he’d been right all along was pretty intense, it was tempered by relief (she wasn’t going to test his resolve today; if anything, he had gotten a concession), so he said, after a few moments of processing. “Ah.” The silence had every intention of stretching into the realm of discomfort, so he added, “I’d be lying if I didn’t say good for you.” I’m glad.
Suddenly, this was awkward. She looked down. “It had nothing to do with you,” she felt the need point out, even if it was a little bit of a lie. “But figured you should probably know.” Lead by example he’d told her. Even though quitting had more to do with all of the shit she’d been trying to not deal with for months than wanting to do what he told her to do, of all people, he probably had the most right to know.
And she wasn’t going to mention any of his flings. If he still felt the need to go out and pick up other women, then they were fucked from the start anyway.
“Right,” he said. And they probably could have let it lie there, just assuming it was resolved, but that had worked so well for them last time, so he added, “So I’ll give the twit something to cry about, and that’ll be that.” He didn’t mention the perky fighter and the cake for breakfast and all the fucking weird shit that had gone down while he’d been stewing on his own; he doubted that would ever have been more than a one-time thing.
He didn’t carry on relationships, real or fictitious, with any woman who could hurt him, with the perhaps unfortunate exception of the one who stood scowling in his doorway now.
“Do what you want,” she said, keeping her voice casual. “What you do in your free time is none of my business.” But she pushed away from the wall and looked up. “Need anything? I’m getting a cup of water.”
“Think we’re a little past that, princess,” he said wearily. “But I could use a potion. My ribs are fucking killing me.”
She didn’t say that they weren’t past that before she left, but she held her tongue. She’d come to apologize - sort of. And so she nodded before disappearing into the kitchen, filling a glass with water and retrieving a potion from the drawer he kept them in. When she returned, she sat down next to him, popping the top off of the bottle and handing it to him.
“How long they say before you’re healed?”
“Few more days,” he said, taking the bottle and chugging it down in one go, grimacing at the flavor. Cormac’s concoctions tasted like shit (very possibly on purpose), but they were damn effective. “Done with the sling tomorrow, and it’s all downhill from there. I’ve been working pretty much since they discharged me, same day. No big deal.”
He set the empty bottle down, then reached out, placed his hand on her knee. Not much of an overture, but it was what he had to work with at the moment.
What are we even doing? she wanted to ask, forcing herself to not tense at his touch. It wasn’t unwanted - just unexpected. Like every fucking thing that had happened in the last month or so since they’d actually started trying to have a relationship. And they’d done a bang up job so far.
She placed her hand over his and leaned into the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m still going to be dancing there,” she said after a moment. It had been her compromise - Ruby had helped her out when she’d needed it, and the floor shows were popular partly because an experienced dancer was choreographing and performing. “Just floor shows,” she added.
To his credit, he didn’t tense, either. “Seems fair,” he said after a moment of silence. “You barely ever dance anywhere else unless someone asks you a favor. You’d miss it otherwise.” And what the fuck did he care if people ogled her? She was worth ogling. Anyway, it wasn’t the same thing; the line he’d drawn, for whatever reason, didn’t encompass her twirling around in strips of leather.
Not that different from flirting with customers at the roulette table, really. And that wasn’t about intimacy or sex or power -- just money.
“I’m not unreasonable, you know,” he said after a moment, then clarified, “mostly. About this, anyway.”
“Never said you were,” she replied, thinking about what he said about her dancing. She did miss it, had started letting more people call in favors. Even had an apprentice, though she doubted Cian even knew about Jak. The hapless kid had his own life and seemed to only really know about the front end. She didn’t pull him into anything, and he didn’t go out looking for it. But she missed the stage and the feeling she used to get from dancing.
It used to feel like flying. When had it started to feel like being weighed down?
But that, along with a lot of other things, were thoughts for later. “You had a point,” she added, quiet. “It was an unreasonable expectation.”
“Yeah,” he said simply, “I did.” Seemed it had taken a few days away to clear her mind of whatever fucking fox it had been under. “If you want something from me,” he said slowly, “how about you ask next time? We can try to talk about shit like rational adults who claim to -- care.”
Some words were still utterly fucking impossible to say.
She looked over at him. “What do you want?” It was a loaded question, and a deflection. Even now, all she really knew was that she wanted him, but the rest of the details were fuzzy. She knew she didn’t want him sleeping around, but fuck. If she was only going to figure out what she wanted whenever she found out he was doing something she didn’t want him doing, this was going to be a long, bumpy ride.
“Fucked if I know,” he said. “You not to try to give my key back, for starters. I have no idea what the hell we’re doing but it probably ought to involve actually seeing each other for more than just work.” They’d practically lived in each other’s pockets once. Not that he wanted to go back to such suffocating closeness, necessarily, but it definitely hadn’t left any room for indifference.
“I wouldn’t be against having you around,” he muttered after a while. “For a few reasons, though I wouldn’t mind it if you bothered to stay the night on occasion now that you don’t have to be here because you’ve got nowhere else to go.” And if she was going to be an asshole about any of this, he’d blame the damn potion for making him sentimental, even if this one didn’t contain narcotics.
“Didn’t think you wanted me hanging around.” Probably something she should have figured; he hadn’t acted like he’d wanted her gone the last few days she’d been staying with him. But then they hadn’t had any real contact since then - she’d come over once before their last fight, and things had been fine. It had been a little awkward, but it had also been nice.
Still, it wasn’t something that would be hard to do. “I can drop by more,” she offered, before pointing out: “And you can drop by, too. Haven’t moved in years, and even if I never gave you a key, I know you have one.”
“I hate that fucking house,” he said before he could stop himself. Then, “Sorry. Probably cold of me since it got hit. Guess it doesn’t really look the same anymore anyway.” It wouldn’t quite fade all the things he didn’t want to think about but… “Yeah, I can stop by. And yeah, I made myself a key. In case.”
She gave his hand a squeeze; it was difficult for her to remember the horrible things her father had done. Death had made it so that most of those memories were practically erased so she could remember only the good. Except she’d seen the bruises on Cian, had heard Tynan’s voice as he went on about Cian being worthless. “Doesn’t really look much at all like the old place,” she said.
He took it as the kindness she’s meant, nodding. “Yeah, as I said, I’ll stop by. And that’s all I’ve got for you.” He sighed, adding, “Seriously, in case this wasn’t fucking blatantly obvious, I’m just making shit up as I go along. I told you I don’t remember how to do this.”
“I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, either,” she confided. “What worked when we were younger sure as hell won’t work now.” There wasn’t anyone to hide from, for one. Cian could come through the front fucking door, not climb through her window. The best she could think of to do was just be honest.
But fuck if that wasn’t complicated on its own, either. There was still a lot of shit left unsaid, and it just didn’t feel right bringing any of it up at the moment. Instead, she yawned. “Should probably let you get some rest.”
It was probably enough honesty for one day. “If you don’t want to go,” he said after a moment, “you don’t have to.” Another awkward one-shoulder shrug. “Or go, whatever you want.”
This all seemed familiar somehow. No point in dwelling, though; she nodded and scooted a little closer. “Don’t have anything else to do, so I’ll stay. Maybe I’ll even make dinner,” she teased.
He chuckled to show he appreciated the joke -- Faram fuck he hoped it was a joke -- and said, “I see how it is -- it’s not that you don’t want me dead, it’s just that you want to be there to witness the deed. I’ll order takeout.”
And for tonight, they’d manage whatever the hell this was well enough.