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tamingthemuseTitle: Random Pages from the Histories, I
Fandom: Original Fiction
Prompt: Mens Rea
Warnings: Language, Sexual Suggestion
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Declan’s wardship over Sylvie nears its end, they share an evening of food and friendship during which Sylvie tries to ease Declan’s heavy conscience.
Word Count: 1,772
Author’s Note: (advanced apologies for length) This piece, and presumably others to follow, derives from a series I’ve written whose overarching title is The Witch War Histories. The POV character Declan O’Leary appears in books two and three. As book two isn’t due to be published until sometime this year, I suppose this piece technically contains spoiler material, although I don’t anticipate that being a problem, as the first book wasn’t a bestseller. Just a heads up. I do feel this one stands alone; however, background information is available if you feel like you need it. I tried very hard to write this so that readers wouldn’t need it. Of course, background info isn’t much a problem in established universes (e.g., Buffy, Supernatural, etc.). Hopefully, I’ve managed all right. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy. Hopefully, a lot of things… By the way, for interested parties, Declan does have his own personal journal on LJ, where I’ve written a bit for other comms, although I’ve gotten rather slack lately. Still, some of it is a little fun…
Random Pages from the Histories, I
Declan's footsteps fell silently on the rubber treads lining the concrete stairs inside the stairwell leading to Sylvie's second floor SoHo flat. With an abstracted consciousness, he considered the virtues of the treading. Safety, certainly, in a city that boasted more days with rain than without, as feet would be less inclined to slip on the slick steps. The silence, however, that too was a virtue, and the heavy quiet of his passing might have been no more than the momentary parting of air caused by his broad shoulders and steady stride.
Not daring to pause on the landing, he turned the corner and moved down the short hallway to her door. Two sharp raps, a brief pause, another rap, and he waited. He didn't have time to wonder if she would be alone this time. The door opened, and the warmth of the small room behind her reached to envelope him, pull him from the cold corridor, secure him in the shelter of her tiny home.
"You've come."
She smiled, face wan and tired and too tight for twenty-one, and moved to let him inside. He stooped to kiss her cheek and place a white paper sack in her hands as he passed by her. She smelled warm and woody and as familiar as every memory he had of the past three years. The honey hair was bound tonight, plaited in a single, thick braid down her back to her waist. She wore an old green silk robe, richly embroidered, a gift she'd told him once from her uncle's wife from a trip they'd taken to Japan. It was a favorite of hers, and he'd seen her in it many times.
"I brought dinner."
"So I see."
She shut the door and shot the bolt. Glancing around the small front room, he saw they were, in fact, alone. No Xavier, no uncle, nobody. He sighed and shrugged out of his heavy overcoat while she unpacked the bag of food on the small table in front of the couch.
"You brought burgers and fries?" she asked, and there was a distinctive tinkle of laughter in her voice.
"It's the end, Sylvie. You know that. I thought… well, a toast to Kincaid. That's all."
"American food for your American best friend?"
"And your American…"
She dropped her eyes and whispered, “I don’t know. Honestly, Declan, I just don’t know.”
The food was spread out, and he realized with a start how hungry he actually was. With a sense of familiarity he wouldn’t have believed when he first came to London from Dublin, when he first learned about the witch of all witches and swore an oath to follow the man who was destined to destroy her, he pushed himself off the couch and walked twelve steps into her kitchen to get them a couple of beers.
“Why haven’t you ever had a girlfriend, Declan?”
“I… What? Where in hell did that come from?”
He’d lost count of the beers after they ate. There hadn’t been any plans to discuss. As he’d told her earlier, they really were at the end of it now. He’d come only because he was accustomed to coming, because he’d made a promise to Kincaid, and because he’d missed her. With nothing pressing to do, they’d eaten, avoiding the awkward conversation they’d nearly started earlier, and now they lay sprawled in her lounge, he on the sofa and she draped across a much battered overstuffed chair with her long plait brushing the floor. When she asked the random question, he jerked upright and barely caught the beer bottle as his hand flew out and knocked it off the table.
“I said…” she began again with some asperity.
“I heard what you said.”
She turned her face toward him, the blue-green eyes sharp despite the handful of bottles cluttering the floor in front of her chair. For somewhere in the neighborhood of the one-thousandth time, he cursed Kincaid for his foolishness in acquiescing to her outrageous plan three years ago. The two of them were going to get hundreds killed.
“I love Kincaid,” she said with great deliberation, “but I do have eyes, Declan O’Leary. Eyes and a heart. You are as beautifully made a man as I’ve ever seen, and none can question your loyalty.”
“I suspect Father Jonah would argue that particular point with you.”
“Fuck Father Jonah,” she said rather tartly, and he laughed despite the seriousness of the situation.
“I’m too busy for a girlfriend.”
“And fuck that,” she said just as tartly.
Suddenly, she seemed to lose steam. Pulling her knees in, she turned to sit upright in the chair. Legs curled under her, she pulled the plait over her shoulder and played with it between her fingers. She was nervous. It was another gesture he knew well by then.
“Sylvie, what’s on your mind, love?”
And without warning, the enormous eyes filmed with tears that would not be checked. The slender shoulders moved just once before she straightened them, bowing her head and letting the strain wash out of her for the briefest of minutes. When she was finished, she raised her head again and looked at him squarely.
“You really must let go of the guilt, Declan. It isn’t warranted, and it isn’t helpful. Certainly not now. None of this is your doing.”
“I should have argued with you harder that day at the warehouse. I should have been more persuasive.”
But she sat shaking her head, and he closed his mouth, allowed her to speak again.
“There was no other way. Jonah knew, Declan. He knew how Kincaid felt. If your enemy can read your heart and what he sees will get you killed, then there is nothing to be done but to change your heart.”
“I still disagree. They were a bunch of old men, Sylvie! We were three young, strong warriors. We could have taken them!”
“No, not then. Hours later perhaps, but not then, and we didn’t have hours, Declan. You know we didn’t.” Sighing, she reached for a bottle, found it empty, and tossed it back on the scuffed wooden floor where it chinked against the others. “You have to let go of the guilt, and not just over that day.”
“I don’t have any other guilt,” he lied.
“What about your duty?”
“My duty is to Kincaid.”
“Your duty to the Church, I meant.”
“I know what you meant, and I meant what I answered.” He paused and swallowed against the memory of a friend and a sword and a girl he didn’t want to trust. Waving a hand around her tiny flat, he said softly, “I know my duty, Sylvie, and this is it.”
“And the past three years? What about those?”
Ah, now they were coming to the heart of it. She was clever, the girl was. Clever and beautiful and utterly without mercy when she chose to be.
“I can’t undo the past three years. I made a promise,” he repeated, “and if keeping it meant I’ve spent three years with you when he could not, then so be it. I’ll cope with the consequences.”
“And the guilt?”
“And the guilt.”
“It’s only a shadow, you know.”
“I know.”
He watched her face as she came to some decision and rose from the comfortable chair. He was still pleasantly drunk but not so far gone he wasn’t sufficiently wary as she approached the couch. During their conversation, he’d relaxed again, stretched out across the width of the three worn cushions with his feet hanging off the end. She sat near his hip on the second cushion, and he shifted slightly to make room for her.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty, Declan. Not for Kincaid’s loss.”
His eyebrows rose in suspicion, and he managed a joking, “And you can relieve me of that?”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly with a shake of the head. “Not that exactly. What I can do is show you what you haven’t taken. It’s up to you to understand the difference between our friendship and what Kincaid doesn’t recognize right now.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but she shushed him. Then, she touched the index and middle fingers of her right hand to her lips before placing those fingers on his own lips. Under their gentle pressure, he closed his eyes.
When it started, he thought for a crazy instant she was giving him the memories she’d taken from Kincaid, but he knew almost immediately that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be, because Kincaid still had his memories; he just couldn’t access them. Or something like that. No, what she gave him was a motion picture in which he was the stand-in for Kincaid, the understudy, the blocker. And she didn’t give him everything.
He could almost sense her picking and choosing from among her own memories. Thus, he saw her as Kincaid saw her for the very first time, standing so small and fierce, holding that ridiculous sword in the middle of Savage – their training ground. He felt her mouth give under his the first time Kincaid kissed her sitting there on the same couch where he lay now. And he understood Kincaid’s desire to permanently mark her as his own the first time they made love. She gave him a handful of sparring sessions, arguments, and simple pleasures. And one perfect afternoon the three of them had spent together, his dark head stark between their two bright ones; it was incredibly powerful for Declan as he had Kincaid’s experience with Sylvie as well as his best friend’s experience with himself.
At the end, she withdrew her fingers, and he closed his hand over hers, not daring yet to open his eyes. One corner of his mouth curled into a sardonic smile. He could feel the irony and fought against the urge to roll into her with the laughter of the insane. Yes, she accomplished her goal. He did understand that his moments with her were nothing to compare with what Kincaid had shared with the woman sitting beside him now. He wouldn’t feel guilty over that time anymore. Could she know though, that she’d given him an entire suitcase of new sins to carry home? If he’d harbored some small guilt over innocent hours spent in her flat over the past three years, how much worse would the knowledge of the feel of her, inside and out, be in the coming lifetime? For surely it would take no less than that to forget.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said almost lightly as she rose from the couch and began to collect the empty bottles, “that minor effect will fade.”
Fandom: Original Fiction
Prompt: Mens Rea
Warnings: Language, Sexual Suggestion
Rating: PG-13
Summary: As Declan’s wardship over Sylvie nears its end, they share an evening of food and friendship during which Sylvie tries to ease Declan’s heavy conscience.
Word Count: 1,772
Author’s Note: (advanced apologies for length) This piece, and presumably others to follow, derives from a series I’ve written whose overarching title is The Witch War Histories. The POV character Declan O’Leary appears in books two and three. As book two isn’t due to be published until sometime this year, I suppose this piece technically contains spoiler material, although I don’t anticipate that being a problem, as the first book wasn’t a bestseller. Just a heads up. I do feel this one stands alone; however, background information is available if you feel like you need it. I tried very hard to write this so that readers wouldn’t need it. Of course, background info isn’t much a problem in established universes (e.g., Buffy, Supernatural, etc.). Hopefully, I’ve managed all right. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy. Hopefully, a lot of things… By the way, for interested parties, Declan does have his own personal journal on LJ, where I’ve written a bit for other comms, although I’ve gotten rather slack lately. Still, some of it is a little fun…
Random Pages from the Histories, I
Declan's footsteps fell silently on the rubber treads lining the concrete stairs inside the stairwell leading to Sylvie's second floor SoHo flat. With an abstracted consciousness, he considered the virtues of the treading. Safety, certainly, in a city that boasted more days with rain than without, as feet would be less inclined to slip on the slick steps. The silence, however, that too was a virtue, and the heavy quiet of his passing might have been no more than the momentary parting of air caused by his broad shoulders and steady stride.
Not daring to pause on the landing, he turned the corner and moved down the short hallway to her door. Two sharp raps, a brief pause, another rap, and he waited. He didn't have time to wonder if she would be alone this time. The door opened, and the warmth of the small room behind her reached to envelope him, pull him from the cold corridor, secure him in the shelter of her tiny home.
"You've come."
She smiled, face wan and tired and too tight for twenty-one, and moved to let him inside. He stooped to kiss her cheek and place a white paper sack in her hands as he passed by her. She smelled warm and woody and as familiar as every memory he had of the past three years. The honey hair was bound tonight, plaited in a single, thick braid down her back to her waist. She wore an old green silk robe, richly embroidered, a gift she'd told him once from her uncle's wife from a trip they'd taken to Japan. It was a favorite of hers, and he'd seen her in it many times.
"I brought dinner."
"So I see."
She shut the door and shot the bolt. Glancing around the small front room, he saw they were, in fact, alone. No Xavier, no uncle, nobody. He sighed and shrugged out of his heavy overcoat while she unpacked the bag of food on the small table in front of the couch.
"You brought burgers and fries?" she asked, and there was a distinctive tinkle of laughter in her voice.
"It's the end, Sylvie. You know that. I thought… well, a toast to Kincaid. That's all."
"American food for your American best friend?"
"And your American…"
She dropped her eyes and whispered, “I don’t know. Honestly, Declan, I just don’t know.”
The food was spread out, and he realized with a start how hungry he actually was. With a sense of familiarity he wouldn’t have believed when he first came to London from Dublin, when he first learned about the witch of all witches and swore an oath to follow the man who was destined to destroy her, he pushed himself off the couch and walked twelve steps into her kitchen to get them a couple of beers.
ΩΩΩ
“Why haven’t you ever had a girlfriend, Declan?”
“I… What? Where in hell did that come from?”
He’d lost count of the beers after they ate. There hadn’t been any plans to discuss. As he’d told her earlier, they really were at the end of it now. He’d come only because he was accustomed to coming, because he’d made a promise to Kincaid, and because he’d missed her. With nothing pressing to do, they’d eaten, avoiding the awkward conversation they’d nearly started earlier, and now they lay sprawled in her lounge, he on the sofa and she draped across a much battered overstuffed chair with her long plait brushing the floor. When she asked the random question, he jerked upright and barely caught the beer bottle as his hand flew out and knocked it off the table.
“I said…” she began again with some asperity.
“I heard what you said.”
She turned her face toward him, the blue-green eyes sharp despite the handful of bottles cluttering the floor in front of her chair. For somewhere in the neighborhood of the one-thousandth time, he cursed Kincaid for his foolishness in acquiescing to her outrageous plan three years ago. The two of them were going to get hundreds killed.
“I love Kincaid,” she said with great deliberation, “but I do have eyes, Declan O’Leary. Eyes and a heart. You are as beautifully made a man as I’ve ever seen, and none can question your loyalty.”
“I suspect Father Jonah would argue that particular point with you.”
“Fuck Father Jonah,” she said rather tartly, and he laughed despite the seriousness of the situation.
“I’m too busy for a girlfriend.”
“And fuck that,” she said just as tartly.
Suddenly, she seemed to lose steam. Pulling her knees in, she turned to sit upright in the chair. Legs curled under her, she pulled the plait over her shoulder and played with it between her fingers. She was nervous. It was another gesture he knew well by then.
“Sylvie, what’s on your mind, love?”
And without warning, the enormous eyes filmed with tears that would not be checked. The slender shoulders moved just once before she straightened them, bowing her head and letting the strain wash out of her for the briefest of minutes. When she was finished, she raised her head again and looked at him squarely.
“You really must let go of the guilt, Declan. It isn’t warranted, and it isn’t helpful. Certainly not now. None of this is your doing.”
“I should have argued with you harder that day at the warehouse. I should have been more persuasive.”
But she sat shaking her head, and he closed his mouth, allowed her to speak again.
“There was no other way. Jonah knew, Declan. He knew how Kincaid felt. If your enemy can read your heart and what he sees will get you killed, then there is nothing to be done but to change your heart.”
“I still disagree. They were a bunch of old men, Sylvie! We were three young, strong warriors. We could have taken them!”
“No, not then. Hours later perhaps, but not then, and we didn’t have hours, Declan. You know we didn’t.” Sighing, she reached for a bottle, found it empty, and tossed it back on the scuffed wooden floor where it chinked against the others. “You have to let go of the guilt, and not just over that day.”
“I don’t have any other guilt,” he lied.
“What about your duty?”
“My duty is to Kincaid.”
“Your duty to the Church, I meant.”
“I know what you meant, and I meant what I answered.” He paused and swallowed against the memory of a friend and a sword and a girl he didn’t want to trust. Waving a hand around her tiny flat, he said softly, “I know my duty, Sylvie, and this is it.”
“And the past three years? What about those?”
Ah, now they were coming to the heart of it. She was clever, the girl was. Clever and beautiful and utterly without mercy when she chose to be.
“I can’t undo the past three years. I made a promise,” he repeated, “and if keeping it meant I’ve spent three years with you when he could not, then so be it. I’ll cope with the consequences.”
“And the guilt?”
“And the guilt.”
“It’s only a shadow, you know.”
“I know.”
He watched her face as she came to some decision and rose from the comfortable chair. He was still pleasantly drunk but not so far gone he wasn’t sufficiently wary as she approached the couch. During their conversation, he’d relaxed again, stretched out across the width of the three worn cushions with his feet hanging off the end. She sat near his hip on the second cushion, and he shifted slightly to make room for her.
“I don’t want you to feel guilty, Declan. Not for Kincaid’s loss.”
His eyebrows rose in suspicion, and he managed a joking, “And you can relieve me of that?”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly with a shake of the head. “Not that exactly. What I can do is show you what you haven’t taken. It’s up to you to understand the difference between our friendship and what Kincaid doesn’t recognize right now.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but she shushed him. Then, she touched the index and middle fingers of her right hand to her lips before placing those fingers on his own lips. Under their gentle pressure, he closed his eyes.
ΩΩΩ
When it started, he thought for a crazy instant she was giving him the memories she’d taken from Kincaid, but he knew almost immediately that wasn’t right. It couldn’t be, because Kincaid still had his memories; he just couldn’t access them. Or something like that. No, what she gave him was a motion picture in which he was the stand-in for Kincaid, the understudy, the blocker. And she didn’t give him everything.
He could almost sense her picking and choosing from among her own memories. Thus, he saw her as Kincaid saw her for the very first time, standing so small and fierce, holding that ridiculous sword in the middle of Savage – their training ground. He felt her mouth give under his the first time Kincaid kissed her sitting there on the same couch where he lay now. And he understood Kincaid’s desire to permanently mark her as his own the first time they made love. She gave him a handful of sparring sessions, arguments, and simple pleasures. And one perfect afternoon the three of them had spent together, his dark head stark between their two bright ones; it was incredibly powerful for Declan as he had Kincaid’s experience with Sylvie as well as his best friend’s experience with himself.
At the end, she withdrew her fingers, and he closed his hand over hers, not daring yet to open his eyes. One corner of his mouth curled into a sardonic smile. He could feel the irony and fought against the urge to roll into her with the laughter of the insane. Yes, she accomplished her goal. He did understand that his moments with her were nothing to compare with what Kincaid had shared with the woman sitting beside him now. He wouldn’t feel guilty over that time anymore. Could she know though, that she’d given him an entire suitcase of new sins to carry home? If he’d harbored some small guilt over innocent hours spent in her flat over the past three years, how much worse would the knowledge of the feel of her, inside and out, be in the coming lifetime? For surely it would take no less than that to forget.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said almost lightly as she rose from the couch and began to collect the empty bottles, “that minor effect will fade.”
