WHAT: Del decides to ask Eli a few questions about why he has become a fae assassin and how he became so good at stabbing things with knives—with slightly sad results. WHERE: The Mountains WHEN: March 31, before they go out to search for the portal beast WARNINGS: Talks of death, violence, and slighly nsfw making out STATUS: Complete!
This was not the first time Del had been in a cave. Del remembered decades, centuries, where caves were his home. But he was much larger, taking up far more space than his current body could, and the mountain—these mountains, actually—had been the only solitude he could find. Those were the years in between, where he had waited for Cayden or Eli or Cayden and Eli to come back to him. Caves were synonymous with loneliness, and Del was finding himself in a strange mood. Because he wasn't alone here, in fact, he was the opposite of alone—saddled up with the two people who he had often waited for.
When Del arrived, he wasn't exactly sure what version of Eli and Cayden he would find. The last time he had jumped through a portal to be a big damn hero, he had been met with a somber version of Eli. One who had been living a life that Del would never choose for him, and he often wondered if they had been reunited in that world. But now here, he was met with a different sort of misery from Eli and Cayden. He was the source of that sadness and it had been met with mixed results.
So as the days stretched out in this wild, uncompromising version of Vallo, Del had spent far too much time watching the both with equal measure. Trying to sort out their feelings, their hangups, and proving to them that he was himself. Mostly. It was complicated, it was always so complicated.
The Outlanders were planning to head into the forest today. They had to find the beast. And Del, satisfied that Cayden and Eli weren't in mortal danger in this Vallo, had shifted his priorities to helping. He was shoving meagre supplies into his pack, before spending a few moments summoning and unsummoning his starlight sword. But the whole time his eyes had been tracking Eli in his peripherals, nonchalant.
What he wasn't expecting was Eli doing the same thing. The differences, the assassin in him, were stark and Del frowned. "How many weapons are you bringing with you?" Del asked. Knowing his Eli who hated sword training, he expected the answer to be zero.
Eli was pretty sure he hadn’t taken his eyes off of Del. If he had his way, he wouldn’t have taken his hands off of Del, either. They’d already hashed that out, with Eli’s immediate elation and Cayden’s immediate suspicion. It was fair, they’d been stuck before in a situation that had very nearly cost him his own life because of being too trusting.
He knew Cayden was merely concerned, and with good reason, but Eli couldn’t have stopped his knee-jerk response even if he’d tried. He missed, he longed, he needed. It had been years now of hunting, and sometimes he just felt so tired he wanted to cry.
But that didn’t mean he was about to stop. The fae had to pay.
But now it felt like he saw the end, in a little way. They’d already been told this was temporary and he wasn’t willing to admit to that yet, but he could keep Del as close as possible in the meantime and would. So he watched, and he found himself with the barest hint of a smile as he started sheathing weapons in an answer to Del’s question. The four hidden in a holster tucked into his leather pants. The knife that popped in and out of his boot. The poison darts just barely sticking out of the sheath at his arm. The knife that fit snugly into his belt. The two rings on his left hand were never removed, but both hid a pop-out serrated edge.
Eli let his thumb push them around his finger before he responded, “That depends on how you quantify my magic, I guess. But at least a dozen.”
If Eli intended for Del to watch him with unfaltering interest, he was doing a good job of it. Del watched him sheath every weapon, his brows raising and lowering in growing curiosity. He felt like he was admiring a wholly different person, and when his attention reached Eli's face Del was almost surprised to keep seeing his familiar features reflected back at him. Different Eli, same Eli.
Del's fingers itched to touch him again to see if he was real. He curled them into fists as his side, white-knuckling in a reminder not to. Not yet.
"Your magic counts," Del said, his pack left unfinished by the pallet he was using as a bed. He wanted to approach Eli, wrap around him in that undeniably needy way he refused to admit to. He felt like he was denying what was natural, but he couldn't seem to shake off the memory of Cayden's apprehension too. They warred appropriately in his chest. "I've seen you use it in many situations. You've used mine too. I can't in this body, but I like knowing that it goes to good use. But you—" Del squinted, assessing. "You already know all that. You've been around me already."
The one question he hadn't asked yet was how, but he didn't know if that was a self-fulfilling prophecy by knowing. He knew better than to challenge fate. "But a dozen," Del tried to reroute their conversation back to something superficial as weapons. "I can barely get you to keep an interested in swordfighting back home. For your protection, of course."
Eli finished the weaponry sheathing off with a thin spool of wire that had two leather-wrapped circles on each end. It was neatly held together and fit into a small pouch on his belt - something that was more of a last resort than what he liked to go with. He’d found over the years that despite his love of a good show, keeping to the shadows was a much better route for him.
“More than a dozen, then,” He let his smile grow. They knew this was Del now, not some trick, and Eli had to keep himself from getting too ahead of himself. Again. They had a job to do, even if he didn’t want to do it. “I tried swords a long time ago but it’s never been my preference. Knives, magic, commanding shadows.”
Oh how he remembered the days of being able to stop time, of borrowing from Del and the three of them were simply a force to be reckoned with. It made him sad to remember that, even if the memories themselves were good ones. He moved slowly, towards Del, until he got close enough to reach out and touch him - his shoulder, neck, then jaw. “I didn’t care much for weaponry before. I had you to protect me, to keep me safe. I took that for granted.”
Del took a deep, visible breath when Eli touched him. It wasn't that he couldn't reciprocate—his hand was on Eli's waist immediately to hold himself together, to ground himself, to slow down the rush of adrenaline that spiked with contact—but there was a need to proceed cautiously. Del pressed his cheek into Eli's palm, not innocently, but with all the naked hunger of someone who desired to be touched and be touched often. The last few days was a dearth in Del's usual quota. The flood gates of Eli and Cayden had been opened months ago and he didn't think he could hold it back, even in another realm.
"You don't take it for granted," Del said, even if it wasn't his feelings or choice. He may be intrinsically bound to Eli, but their emotions were always their own, separate choices. But still. Del corrected, "I don't think you take them for granted. I promised I would take care of you and protect you, you trusted in that. And I was certain I would be there to do it. There was never an option in my mind where I wouldn't be."
He had always been so sure. That there wouldn't be a time where he wasn't there to protect them. His whole life, every life Del had made a promise—and while he had carried on in this life, while he continued to lose Eli and Cayden, he never stopped promising to be the person to shield them from outside terrors. He had never predicted that they would lose him in the process.
"It's not your fault that I couldn't, and you've had to resort to..." He gestured casually to Eli's body, filled with weapons and power that looked good on him, but had clearly been built out of unexpected necessity.
Eli just wanted more. He wanted more touching, more kisses. He wanted to climb in next to Del’s bed and press against him and pull Cayden in behind him so that they could feel safe and secure. Nothing had felt safe and secure for them in such a long time, and Eli had to learn how to shut down all of his emotions and to lock people out just to function.
Touching Del opened a crack in that. It was like Del could breach through any walls he’d ever built up, the years of shields and distance. Eli’s voice cracked when he finally spoke up, and it felt so unusual. “No. It’s not your fault. We should have all been able to protect each other. If I’d just been better then-”
Then maybe Del would still be with them for good. Not this temporary bullshit that was just playing mind games with them. It didn’t make him want Del any less, he never would, in any lifetime, but they had to fix this for him. Eli couldn’t be there for his own, but he could do this for this Del. “Mnestaes, I-” Why did it feel so strange to have the word love caught on his tongue? What was this, if not the most eternal love? “I love you. I trust you, always.”
"Eli," Del said, gently scolding. He couldn't let him be like this. The blame and guilt was rearing its ugly head and it felt like Del couldn't do anything about it. How often had he felt the same way? How often had Del carried his own self-reproach to how he had handled losing Eli and Cayden in the past? With the tables turned on him, Del finally understood the pleading that had often come from the two of them—not your fault, not yours to carry, there was nothing you could have done. And Del had never listened.
His heart seemed to swell, too big for his chest to contain. He put his hand on Eli's jaw and drew him in. "I'm going to kiss you now," was Del's only warning before he pressed his lips hungrily to Eli's. He wanted to give him time to pull away, to shake his head in consent. His Eli had taught him the importance of it.
He kissed like he missed him, like he had been missing him for centuries. A desperate needy sort of kiss,, where a wounded noise caught in the back of his throat. Hearing his name. Hearing I love you. It was all too much. He could hear the pain in it. The loss was so great, and Del felt like he was losing them all over again when Eli looked at him with such longing.
When he managed to pull away, just enough to press his forehead against Eli's he inhaled a shared breath. "I love you too. I always have and I always will. And I'll find a way to come back to you, you know I will." His arms wrapped around Eli's shoulders, secure and strong, like he could become a human shield for him now. When was the last time Eli felt the need to put down his weapons and just feel safe? He and Cayden had been doing this for too long. "Let me take care of you for a little while. While I can."
Eli wasn’t complaining, his hands both reached out to clutch Del with the kind of hold that wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He had to cling, with enough desperation that it was felt between them. Because Del’s words could be comforting, they were just the balm he needed over his heart.
But it was never as easy as that. Eli knew that they would be reunited again, after this. And again. They were bound through countless lifetimes. But Eli’s mortality felt so real this time. Sometimes, he was born and lived long, together. The hundreds of years. Not this time. This time the fates had been cruel to them all, with the threat to pull the three away before their times. He heard Cayden’s voice echo in his own head, I will not lose you too, a reminder of conversations past.
You might. He hadn’t replied that, but now he thought it. Now as he was held in Del’s arms, he felt so keenly aware of his mortality. “I want to take care of you for once. You always took care of me.” It was nothing he had ever been ashamed of, until he’d failed to be what Mnestaes needed.
There was something left unsaid, and Del could feel the absence of the words like a palpable thing. He could be painfully obtuse on good days, aggressively impatient on the others, but when he was with Eli, he wanted to try. Try to be better, try to be more aware, try to be softer when he was always anything but. There was a humanity that Eli had brought out in Del by being so gentle with him in ways he couldn't ever seem to vocalize. It was different than what Cayden did, how he made Del feel.
"All right," Del said, bringing his hands up to smooth back the hair from Eli's face, once, twice. He couldn't seem to stop touching him like he would his Eli, and he supposed this one would have said something if it bothered him. But that awareness that he was so keen to hold on to was telling him it was okay, wanted. "I'll let you. However you want, whatever you want. I'll give it to you, all of it. You know you only have to ask, even if I am terrible at allowing it."
He dragged Eli's forehead to him, pressing barest touch of his lips there. Nothing like their heady, frantic kiss before. "But on one condition," Del said, turning his face just enough to rest his cheek against Eli's temple. "This isn't going to be out of some sort of—some sort of penance. Like you're making up for something, or not doing something. We don't owe each other things, that is not how I love you. And that is not how you love me. It's not transactional. We only have so much time together."
Not just between two Vallos, where Del would eventually return to and leave them alone again without him, but in this life. He could feel the impending mortality when coupled against his own. One of them would be alone in this lifetime, and Del didn't want to think of who it would be this time.
There was no hesitation in Eli when he nodded. He wouldn’t have turned this down for anything in the world, and would even fight Cayden again for it (he hated fighting Cayden), but hoped that he’d be able to get all three of them to this point. To the point where they could hold each other and forget the pain for just a few days.
Eli desperately needed to be held by Del. He had leaned so heavily into Cayden for so long, there was guilt there that he hadn’t been what Cayden needed, especially now that he knew Cayden worried about just the two of them beyond this. “I’ll take whatever I can have from you. No penance, just us.” He needed it, they all needed it. It had been a long road of vengeance and anger and pain.
So much pain.
The pain he felt deep in his heart, the pain that quietly diminished as time went by, as their lifetimes reset and they found each other again. But this wasn’t the same. This was temporary, unlike grief. He leaned into Del’s touch and kissed whatever he could reach, a neck, a jaw, a cheek. “Does it give me any extra points if I tell you how many fae we’ve killed over the years?”
"Just us," Del echoed, tipping his head back as Eli peppered his sensitive spots with his mouth. He bared his throat, almost vulnerable to his ministrations. Normally it was Del who was coming at Eli with a full-bodied affection, greedy and eager to consume everything he could, as if he had been building it up for years. He had, actually, but this was different. This was allowing Eli to take care of him, give him what he knew and wanted. It made him so fucking dizzy, he had to close his eyes for a moment to regain his composure—or decide to give into it. Del was still so stubborn about letting go.
He swallowed, exhaled sharply, and felt a fizzy warmth in his stomach. Eli had killed fae for him. And while violence shouldn't really do it for him, Del was a bloodthirsty beast trapped in the confines of an incredibly unreliable mortal body. "So many points, shit, you don't have to do it on my behalf. I've caused enough trouble taking them on for you."
Realization dawned almost as abruptly as Del let the thought come in. He didn't want to ruin this fragile moment they had finally carved out for one another, but his mouth just kept moving, "That wasn't the reason why I died—" Did they come for him? Did the fae finally try to retaliate like they did in his nightmares when he could find time to sleep? Had this all been one cyclical problem that he created so long ago?
Del kissed Eli, cutting off whatever he might have said. "Don't answer that, I don't need to know."
Eli didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t want to answer at all, so he ended up shaking his head in denial. Or just denial of answering. It was a topic that Eli didn’t want to broach, and was glad for the fact that Del didn’t seem thrilled about it either. They’d already discussed enough when it came to Cayden and the shapeshifter, but Eli knew that was a harder topic for Cayden to discuss than it was for himself.
He barely even remembered it. But he remembered the pain he felt coming off of Cayden in waves. He had only ever felt that joint pain once, in this lifetime, and there was no mistaking it.
It had made Eli more careful, until this week. Until he’d ruined it all with something far more risky. “Trust me, it was no trouble. We needed it.” It was probably not the cleanest path to take, the one of vengeance, but it was the way they had to focus their pain and anger. Now he felt as if a balm was across his heart, as temporary as it might be. “But I’d rather talk about more pleasant things. Do more pleasant things. I want the time I have with you to be worth it, Mnestaes. I know we don’t have long.”
"Pleasant things," Del agreed, slowly. He was letting go of the questions he had, the irritating feeling that he would never get the chance again and allowing himself to be okay with that. Del had always been someone to not let things go, but for Eli? For Cayden? He would do anything. They only had to ask, and sometimes even that was just a courtesy. He kissed Eli's cheek, as if sealing his promise for pleasant things. It was soft and simple, a stark contrast to how hungry they had been for one another not a second ago.
Del wanted to go back to that, but he also knew they had things to do. His hands were smoothing down Eli's arms, to his waist, feeling the heavy weight of metal against him. Del wanted every weapon Eli that tucked against his body to be an extension of himself, protect him in the way he wouldn't be able to when he left.
When he finally stopped roaming Eli's body with his palms and his attention, he looked at Eli's face, tracing his bottom lip with his thumb. "It will be worth it. I am trying to make every day worth it. We've never had much time, you and I," Del said, a reality in this world and in the one he came from. How they mirrored one another so acutely, and how Del had spent so much time wasting it when he kept them both at an emotional distance out of fear of obligation.
He was not the wisest of dragons when it came to matters of the heart. Impulsive and overwrought with his emotions, it seemed. He replaced his thumb with his mouth in a warm and unhurried kiss, to make it worth it.
His other hand curled into Eli's leathers, tempted to rip them from his body to spend more time with him now, but responsibility tugged at him. Against Eli's mouth, he murmured, "We, unfortunately, have a beast to catch."
Eli pulled away with a groan. He didn’t want to, he wanted to find Cayden and the nearest soft-ish surface and remove clothing and forget there was even a mission to be done. Hadn’t they earned that?
He felt like he was on fire, a jolt of electricity was just thrumming through his body from Del’s touch, Del’s mouth, Del’s everything. It all felt more to Eli now that they had been apart for years. Cayden’s touch was strong and sure and kept him grounded, it was exactly what Eli always needed, while Del’s lit him on fire and made him feel like he was slowly going mad, it was a spiral and a combination that swirled in his gut for so many lifetimes but had been cut so short in this one.
“Ughhh,” He wanted to say fuck the beast, fuck the job, let’s go get Cayden and make our own time worth it. But Eli couldn’t be that selfish in this moment, as much as he would’ve liked to be. He needed a little distance now, and stepped away again to sheath one last dagger into its place at his ribcage. Then he finally held up the ring. “You don’t have yours, but this lets Cayden and I both track your location. Don’t get too far ahead of us.”
Even if it was his idea, Del looked disappointed with the space between him and Eli now. Was there a way to stay attached and still be productive? He knew the answer was no. And he was about to pout about it, say something like maybe you should climb on to my— but Eli was holding up a ring and it stopped him short.
"I won't," Del responded, distantly, clearly distracted by the ring. He wanted to touch it. Hell, he had a mighty urge to steal it. He wanted to know what happened to his ring. He suspected it might still be on his body wherever it might be. The sentimentality was not lost on him, and so he tucked away that information to bring back to his Eli and Cayden when they—no, he—made it home. Del blinked, shook off the dull hazy ache in his head, and promised, "I will never be far from you."