Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever.” ―Alfred Tennyson

On the first page of Jack's journal there is an old watercolor drawing of a young girl with flaming red hair, the word 'Anna' is written in a messy, but legible hand that danced between cursive and print. On the opposite facing page was written Jack's name with another word next to it that had been crossed out so violently that ink has spattered across the page and deep grooves were left on the inside cover. A family name perhaps? After the faded picture of the girl were more drawings, animals mostly, a cat sitting on stairs, an orange newt with blue spots, but also a beautiful woman with black hair, her arms folded and her head turn to the side, the barest smile lighting her features.

Lyndon was stunned by the quality of the illustrations, had Jack done these? Was he the one who had drawn his sister?

There was a blank page after the woman, and then a sentence scrawled, uneven, bleeding, and pressed deep into the paper. It made his stomach turn.

“We should have tried to reach Westmarch instead of hiding. I'm sorry.”

He read it several more times before he was able to turn the page. Another blank, but the scribbling of a date and another sentence 1275 “Josen reminds me of my father.” Lyndon remembered the name, Josen, the leader of the Demon Hunters. More drawings after that, and Lyndon turned the pages rapidly, devouring the new information like a starving man at a feast. Birds in flight. A landscape that looked like a wasteland. A field of dead trees, like grave markers in a cemetery. An older man with a beard, smiling with a falcon perched upon his shoulder. Many ravens in a large wooden cage-like structure. Three wolves. Forests. A mountain lion in the distance drinking from a pool. Hooded figures, harsh looking people, faces drawn down in firm lines, visual trademarks he had become familiar with that screamed Demon Hunter.

Lyndon realized with a jolt that these few pages and drawings had dates written on them that stretched over years. At least five years altogether since the awful sentence that spoke of Westmarch. Jack had not kept a proper log of his earlier activities it seemed, but Lyndon could make guesses as to where he'd been living. The Demon Hunter encampment in the North.

There was a drawing of the tattoo on the hunter's back, then several different versions of it in scribbled sketches afterward. Then a few more short sentences, mostly talking about what he thought of the crossbow he was learning to use and the other people in the encampment. “I do not like Greyscarr.” Was written in harsh, angry lines, but after it, “Quang the chemist has given me some watercolor paints. He is very kind.” The way the sentences were written, it was almost as though Jack didn't really want to write anything at all, and had only done so at the urging of another.

Then an entire paragraph:

“In a obvious trick to get me to speak more, Greyscarr tried to kiss me. This is not the first time he has done this. Josen has insisted to me that I had no restrictions if I were interested in... spending time... with anyone. But there are very few people here that I speak to. I hope a face full of mud will dissuade Greyscarr from any further attempts to touch me. I expect that he also has some bitterness over the fact that I am a better shot than he is, despite his position of Third Ranger, while I am merely a recruit.” Lyndon's eyebrows rose nearly into his hairline. So he was not the first to come onto the Demon Hunter in such a way. Jack had never said... Though, he was so private, why would he? Maybe he never wanted Lyndon to know, or didn't think that it was important.

Lyndon had been with so many people before Jack that he'd long since lost count. It wasn't important, it wasn't but... he found that he hated this Greyscarr immediately, and if he ever met him, he swore he would put his fist right into the bastard's face. That aside, the tone of the writing was what he was used to hearing from Jack, blunt, matter of fact, and vaguely irritable. That was familiar at least. From there on out the journals got longer, more detailed. Lyndon smiled, perhaps Greyscarr had succeeded in getting Jack to speak more all the same, at least in his journal.

There was a drawing of an egg laid in layers of fabric with the caption: 'I turned 17 today, and Josen has given me a raven's egg to do with as I please. He said it would hatch soon, but when it does, I don't know what I should do with it. I don't think I can raise it, I don't know how. It seems wrong. But Josen said that it has no parents, so I must.'

On the next page there was a drawing of a black, puffy chick that he could only assume was the hatched raven. 'He said his hair is black like mine, so therefore, we are the same. I told him that his hair was not hair, but feathers, he did not believe me.' Lyndon felt a terrible, heavy sadness in his chest after reading that, but he wasn't quite sure why.

Lyndon read about what happened to Holbrook in more detail then what Jack had told him when they had been there. It was... disturbing. After, he read of his journey south. Passage through the Iron Road, heading towards New Tristram. There were some drawings of a wildcat, and something that looked like a furry man, the words 'Stickhead Shrubfist' written beneath it. Odd. Then roads and familiar Khanduras landscapes, rock walls, grasses and houses. A visual of Jack's travels before they'd met.

Then writing, and opposite that, Leah's smiling face was staring at him, exactly as he remembered her. It was almost a shock, like seeing a ghost, and the knife of grief twisted in his heart at the sight of her. It hurt , more than he thought it would.

'New Tristram... An ill name for a town if ever there was one. My childhood home wasn't too far from here, buried in the forests of the kingdom of Westmarch. But now there's nothing left of it except for the ashes. I will not let New Tristram fall to the same fate. The town's gates must hold.'

Unable to bear her gaze any longer, he turned the page, and observed the date 1285, a full ten years after Jack had joined the Demon Hunters. Ten years and he'd hardly written much of anything. There was half finished sketch of someone Lyndon recognized to be the Tristram Militia captain. Rundlett...no, Rumford and more writing about the town and the cathedral.

An eerie sketch of Tristram Cathedral followed and then, still more words, it seemed as though Lyndon was finally getting to the good stuff: I do not know whether Leah's uncle survived his ordeal, but I'm reluctant to trust to hope. I've found that it has a way of betraying you. Still, if the meteor fell into the cathedral, it is worth looking into. Leah has a stout heart. She reminds me a little of my sister, Halissa... I asked Leah to stay behind to learn more about her mother, but truly I hope to spare her the pain of discovering her uncle's fate firsthand. This cathedral is a dangerous place... There are many hunters who would not enter it. But I am not one of them. It is time. The infamous cathedral lies waiting, rent by the falling star's passage. I can smell the stink of hellspawn flowing from it even after all these years. Leah asks me to look for her uncle. I do not expect to find him alive, but I will not dash her hopes. Not yet.

Lyndon read on, about finding Deckard Cain, the broken crown piece, things Lyndon hadn't quite been privy to. It was interesting at least, to know what had happened in more detail before he had joined their merry group. Before, he perhaps would not have cared, didn't care, but now... everything was different. There was a sketch of Haedrig, sitting by his forge along with a disturbing note: I have never known the blacksmith, but I have seen his expression on a thousand other faces. In his grief, he cannot face that killing his wife and friends before the corruption takes hold is mercy, not murder. I will show him.

Most of these entries were rather depressing Lyndon noticed, like a man going through the motions, executing tasks, but feeling little to none of the impact of it. Jack had distanced himself from what he did expertly, if he hadn't, he likely would have cracked years ago. Lyndon skimmed though the pages quickly, and read another passage: This place lives beneath the shadow of the reanimated Skeleton King, but I feel strangely renewed. My days have been spent killing pockets of demons across this world. Now, Cain sends me back to the cathedral, down through the mausoleum in the churchyard and through a sealed golden door. There, I think, I will find demons in unimaginable numbers, more than I have killed in my entire life. I can hardly wait.

Lyndon glanced up at the sleeping Demon Hunter, staring for a good minute, heart sinking. Gods, Jack, was that all you lived for?

But then he read of Kormac, and smiled: 'I have helped the Templar Kormac fight off his former ally. He certainly didn't show Jondar any mercy, but I'd do the same if a hunter ever tried to kill me. I could use a skilled fighter on my side. Perhaps Kormac will join with me since we have mutual enemies.' then a few drawings of Kormac, one looking stern, then one where he was smiling a little nervously, as though posing for the drawing. Skeletons, tombs, and a shimmering piece of blade along with a drawing of Tyrael wearing rags and looking sad. Goatmen. More goatmen. A woman he recognized from New Tristram (one he had... slept with.) Chickens in a coop. And-

Oh.

'Some shifty-looking fellow has asked me to help him rescue a "friend." I have a feeling I'm going to regret this...'

Yeah, Lyndon knew who this was about, but shifty? Shifty? Pfffft! How rude!

'Well... that was Lyndon. It seems he's invited himself to join me. I suppose he may be useful. After all, he's not completely worthless with that crossbow. Anyhow, the Drowned Temple is just down the path.'

Lyndon laughed out loud at the “compliment” on his crossbow skill. Jack had always said it in nicer ways than that to his face, but apparently felt safe enough to be blunt and judgmental in his writings. He might have been upset to know that Lyndon was reading it...but... Lyndon read on. There was a drawing of himself after, seated in what he recognized to be the Slaughtered Lamb tavern, his eyes were closed and he had his head on his hand, and the barest outline of Kormac was seated beside him. Lyndon remembered that night, he'd been so tired, first being chased and assaulted by the Thieves Guild, thinking his damn life was over, then following Jack around through the damp, cold, and nasty woods after and being set upon by ghosts and skeletons. He had slept hard that night, and then his life hadn't been quite the same since.

'I wish Lyndon would not talk so much.'

Well, that was a little hurtful... but things were different now, weren't they?

Lyndon read on and on and on, reliving experiences he remembered through different eyes, and an endless number of drawings illustrating what Jack felt was important enough to capture. Animals mostly, he'd always like animals, Lyndon knew that, but there were people too, and demons... lots of demons.

The writing stretched across the ocean, the drawings did too, sandy dunes, wasps, and a rather pretty one of a female Lacuni from a distance, cleaning her delicate fur like a cat. Lyndon had never seen one that wasn't trying to kill him before, it was... strange. A few pages after that were nothing but Eirena. Interesting. He must have thought she was pretty , but had never said. Then another about Finding Leah's mother:

'Leah and Lyndon and I were able to kill the demons holding Adria captive. It was interesting seeing mother and daughter reunite after so many years apart. I wonder how I would feel if someone I lost were still alive out there... But it is pointless to dwell upon such things.

Yes, beneath all the duty, and the tasks, and the battles was a wretched unhappiness. He had been so quiet, for months. None of them had any idea of how miserable he was, well Lyndon always called him miserable because he was such a sourpuss. He'd never realized until recently, how dreadfully accurate he had been.

And after that...a lot of these entries seemed to be about Lyndon, he skimmed the entries, picking out his name more and more as he read:

'Lyndon created some trouble for us today by-'

'Sometimes his constant chatter is soothing, like white noise, it keeps me from thinking about-'

'Lyndon seems more unhappy than he wants other people to know.'

“I learned that Lyndon has a brother, in love with his brother's wife.”

' A Thieves guild member. But who is he running from?'

'Lyndon's brother's name is Edlin, strange how similar their names are.'

Jack apparently paid a lot more attention to him then he initially thought. It seemed as though... he had grown to care about him over their little journey, and not just after the Prime Evil had died. Lyndon thought that Bastion's Keep had been where their friendship had really begun, but Jack had thought so long before that. This was real then? He'd been absolutely rubbish at showing it in any way, but...he really did care.

'I yelled at Lyndon today and I believe I may have upset him. I wish I were not so terrible at apologizing. I wish I were better at talking to people so that I could say I was sorry. I wish I were not like this, but change is not built upon wishes.'

Lyndon had no idea of the inner turmoil the Demon Hunter suffered due to his stunted social skills. He thought there was something wrong with him. It was terrible . Gods, you poor thing.

Something made a noise, shaking him out of his reading and Lyndon jumped, looking around guiltily. He looked up, and oh, two somethings. At the bloody window. A very familiar raven, and a far less familiar falcon. Annoyed, he set the journal down and got to his feet, then stood in front of the window, arms folded. He had very uncomfortable memories of being pecked by that raven and was wary of letting it in, not to mention the falcon he had never even seen before, whose beak looked awfully sharp.

The raven made a croaking noise and tapped at the glass again. “Oh no.” Lyndon hissed, “I'm not falling for your tricks this time. I don't care how cute you looked as a baby.” The raven puffed its feathers up and tilted its head at him in what Lyndon imagined was an expression of annoyance. Like father, like son. Bloody flying rat. The falcon, a slightly smaller, sleeker looking bird then its raven friend, stared at him with dark eyes, fluffing it's paynes grey and cream plumage before letting the feathers lie flat again. When Lyndon didn't move to open the window, it opened its little yellow beak and started peeping at him rather loudly and insistently.

Lyndon scrambled with the window locks and opened the window, “Alright! Alright! Just...shhh!” He snapped and then looked at them. Upon closer inspection, the falcon had a small coiled piece of paper tied to its leg, but the raven did not. “If you peck me I swear to Akarat...” Lyndon grit, extending his hand slowly and carefully, as Jack had instructed him to do once before.

To his surprise and relief, the raven stepped onto his outstretched hand gently and made not a fuss. The falcon waited until Lyndon had gingerly removed the piece of paper at its leg before flying up and perching on his shoulder which made him a little nervous, but it's little feet claws didn't dig too hard into his shoulder.

Hmmm. A letter for Jack. Lyndon supposed he could contain himself and not read it before the Demon Hunter did.

Balancing the birds on himself, Lyndon gingerly sat back down on the bed. The raven, wormed its way into the blanket he threw over his lap, snuggling right in, but the falcon stayed put on his shoulder. Resigned to being surrounded by birds, Lyndon sighed and just tried to ignore it. At least they weren't pecking him. He opened the journal again. He skipped ahead through parts he knew, nothing too exiting, but in order to help Jack he needed to see-

'It is working. The soldiers have rallied from the signal fires, defending the fortress with renewed strength. If I can get them to hold the keep on their own, it will allow me to pursue Azmodan directly. I must say, being so close to him and the Black Soulstone has made my nightmares worse... But I have dealt with these distractions before.'

Ah, yes. Here was where Jack started to go downhill. Lyndon read, and it was terrible:

'The walls of Bastion's Keep are secure. With the catapults in place, the soldiers should be able to hold the fortress long enough for me to confront Azmodan. I have never been near so many demons at once. The nightmares have greatly intensified. I can see my father's face, frozen in determination, as the demons began closing in... This war must end soon. I will ensure that it does.'

And-

'I worry for Leah. She is brave, but that is not enough to get her through this trial. I am beginning to think that she will never again be the hopeful young woman that I met in New Tristram.'

But, why didn't anyone worry for you?

'Azmodan's war machines are nothing more than heaps of rubble, but the battle rages on. Leah and I will never know peace while the Lord of Sin lives. I must hunt him down over the battlefield. I cannot rest until his great filthy carcass is riddled with my bolts.'

And-

'I see the landscape of my nightmares before my waking eyes. The spikes, the flames, the hot ash in the air... All is as I have beheld it in my terrifying dreams. But I fear nothing now. There is no room for anything in my heart but hatred for Cydaea, Azmodan, and every last demon in the Burning Hells.'

Gods-

'I have come far since Josen taught me how to keep my arm from shaking when I held a crossbow. It's strange; I can remember first meeting the master hunter so clearly, yet here I am on the verge of slaying the last Lord of Hell. It has been a long journey, heavy with sacrifice and blood... and that is how it will end. But this time, the blood will be a demon's.'

Gods Jack-

'Everything will change... Deprived of their leaders, the surviving demons will be scattered and weak. I'll hunt them down, one by one, until the end of my days.'

Is that all you see?

'No... It was all a trap—an elaborate illusion—to aid an unspeakable enemy. Now Leah is imprisoned within that abomination, the Lord of Terror himself. If I had any sense, I would throw myself from these walls and let my blood freeze into the ground. But I did not give in when Halissa died, raving and cursing with her last breath. I cannot lose faith.'

Lyndon felt his blood freezing to ice in his veins, he felt nauseous, he wanted to grab Jack and shake him, to hold him until it stopped, but instead he kept reading.

'Diablo. I cannot rest until I face him... I have no doubt that my nightmares would overwhelm me, and I would never wake again.'

'I made Lyndon cry. I'm so sorry.'

I have dreamed of this moment for years... or perhaps those were nightmares...

'I'm tired.'

'I will bear the guilt of Leah's death to my grave.'

Lyndon's eyes flew over the words, struggling to turn the pages fast enough to keep up.

'I must face Diablo alone, just as I have faced terror alone in a thousand of my nightmares. How many times have I seen my parents struggle and scream as the demons tore them apart? How many times have I seen my sister, Halissa, rave and lunge at me in the depths of her madness? It can all end today. I will kill the Lord of Terror and save the Heavens... and myself. For my sister, my family, all those who have perished at the hands of demons... I will fight to my last breath.'

And then-

'I thought that when Diablo's corpse lay smoldering at my feet the nightmares would end. But I feel an emptiness clawing at me still. It is not enough. I am soon beginning to realize that it will never be enough. The Prime Evil's death has not brought my family back, nor ended my torment. This is something I must learn to accept. I went to the tower where Leah died, intending to end it once and for all, but the children came and begged me to teach them to shoot a bow, and then Lyndon came after and I found that I could not go through with it. I am a coward. I am cursed to linger on and on until I will not. Lyndon is a good friend, perhaps he can make this wretched existence a little more bearable. And I did promise I would help Kormac with his Order-

Lyndon snapped the journal shut, unable to read anymore, then took several deep breaths, blinking tears out of his eyes. As this how Jack felt all the time ? He was just continuing because he felt he had to? Lyndon's heart felt like lead in his chest. He'd had no idea. He known the man was unhappy, anyone could see that, and he had said he was tired of being alive...but Lyndon had no idea ... that it was this bad. There was not one word written about anything that brought him joy other than killing those bloody demons, he barely wrote about the animals he kept, or his drawings, just... nothing.

Lyndon decided that to help him, he would stick to his original plan and make it his new job to show the Demon Hunter that the world could be good. Jack had not done one thing he'd truly wanted to that didn't involve killing, in years . He'd done everything for others and nothing for himself. Not one bloody thing . He thought, that perhaps, the best place to start would be to let Jack go where he wanted to go for once. The Prime Evils might return and then things would be bad again, but for now...

For now they had time , and he could teach Jack that being alive was something to be enjoyed.

He opened the journal again and skipped ahead to Holbrook, there must be something good in here!

Chapter Text

Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
With stoutest wrists and loudest boasts,
He thrusts his fists against the posts,
And still insists he sees the ghosts.
― A speech therapy exercise, origin unknown

It was becoming a ritual of theirs to walk together in the early evenings. To speak of this and that. Of things simple and complex. Happy and sad. Frivolous and important. Jack found himself greatly looking forward to these walks, these blocks of time set aside just for them that were spent somewhere that wasn't indoors or in the company of strangers who scrambled for his attention, like so much of his recent time had been. He'd spent days in bed, sleeping, eating and... other things. Recovering. He was getting accustomed to being woken with a mouth on his shoulder, on his neck, his lips. He'd never been so self indulgent. It felt... strange , but Lyndon frequently made a concentrated effort to remove his guilt by assuring him that it was good for him to rest and get himself back in order.

They walked arm in arm now. It had become a habit for Lyndon to offer the hunter his arm to lean on when he grew weary, but Jack had been feeling much better for a while now. Still, the comforting habit remained and he was grateful for it. Jack spent most of his waking hours with his heart full to bursting with a swirling muddle of good feelings he'd forgotten existed. He felt silly, giddy even, with the rush of sudden, overwhelming contentment.

He let Lyndon lead, as he often did. It was relaxing to let his mind wander and the thief knew the winding, cobbled streets of Westmarch better than almost anyone.

A haphazardly strewn pile of debris shifted as they passed an alleyway. Lyndon jumped at the noise and then yelped, digging his fingers into the Demon Hunter's arm rather tightly as a rat suddenly scurried out away from them, deeper into the dark space of the narrow passage. He tossed Jack an annoyed look, free hand clutching at his heart, daring the hunter to say something about it.

“Need I remind you that you've been to Hell and Pandemonium and seen far more frightful things than poor rats?” The hunter gently chided him.

Lyndon scowled at him, snatching his fingers away from Jack to fold his arms crossly over his chest. Jack smiled placidly back at him. He'd been doing a lot of that lately, and the expression felt odd on his face.

“Well I could see all the demons and the scorpion torso wretches and the horrid portal beasts and whatnot the whole time I was there couldn't I? They didn't jump out at me!” Lyndon snapped irritably, still looking a little embarrassed and shooting him odd glances when he wasn't pointedly looking away.

The thief had been different then, all those months ago. The unspoken 'back then I didn't care about dying' hung in the air between them, but neither would acknowledge it. Lyndon had always been rather easy to startle, but he'd been a great deal more jumpy these past few weeks. Then again, they'd all been on edge for quite some time. Hyper alertness was a hard habit to break, even when swaddled in relative safety.

They both still carried their weapons after all, his new armament resting between his shoulder blades, and Lyndon's lightly frosting crossbow in its normal place at his back.

“Lyndon...”

“Oh shut it! I don't make fun of the things that frighten you!” Lyndon shot back.

“At least my fears are valid.”

“They're rubbish.”

“No more 'rubbish' then yours.”

Lyndon tilted his head and blinked owlishly at him. “Are you mocking me?”

“Just your accent.”

“I don't have an accent, you're the one with the accent.” Lyndon insisted.

“A Kingsport accent is generally the minority in Westmarch, therefore you are the foreigner here.” Jack argued.

“Well, Westmarch is boring isn't it? Everyone’s all snobbish.”

“Are you saying I'm snobbish?”

“Noooo, I meant people from the capital are snobbish. You're not from here.”

“What if I was?”

“Well you aren't, and if you were I wouldn't have said it!” Lyndon grit out, looking flustered.

He wound his arm back into the hunter's, a comforting warmth. He led them towards a bridge that spanned the canal. The waning light lit the sky in brilliant reds and golds, the colors casting the city in pleasant hues. Clusters of pigeons lined the tops of the slate roofs, the small grey birds puffing up and soaking in the last of the sunlight before the evening cold set in.

“Why don't you like people from Westmarch?” Jack asked, resting his elbows on the railing and peering over the edge of the bridge into the dark, swirling waters below. He knew from personal experience how cold that water was, but it was gentler now. No bodies remained, they were replaced by small black and white, goldeneye ducks, drifting lazily in the slow current.

“Because they don't like people from Kingsport.”

“Why not?”

“Simple. They think they're better then everyone else. Noses so deep in their own arses you'd think they were shitting gold instead of merely inheriting it. They place more value in bloodlines, families and nobility then in the sale of desirable and much sought after trade-goods. Kingsport is a city of self-made men. A merchant who made their fortune in trading silks will never be as good as some stuffy noble who did little else to earn his veritable sea of wealth beyond being born.” Lyndon grumbled, sounding rather bitter. “But I mimicked their style of speech so I didn't sound like I was from Kingsport anymore. Well, like the lowest dregs of Kingsport society anyway.... So I guess that says something about me.” He finished with the little laugh Jack had eventually come to realize he used only when he was feeling sorry for himself.

“You used to speak differently?”

A measured sigh. “...Yes.”

“Like how?

The thief rolled his eyes, “Awright, real sowfern mess like wiv me vowels all asunder. Sorted mate! ” Lyndon said quickly, falling into the voice easily. It sounded a little strange, a little unfamiliar but Jack let the grin form on his face, and Lyndon smiled too, but it was crooked and fleeting.

“... Please pretend you don't know this about me.” Lyndon said eventually with a flush of embarrassment.

“I like it.”

The thief's smile turned confident and sultry. “Do you now? Well you're the first to say so.”

“They think we sound stupid. So I changed... because I wanted people to think that I was better. Not that it altered many opinions regardless. Thievery has a certain stigma about it you see. Can't imagine why.” That quicksilver grin Jack had grown so fond of appeared, then disappeared again, like a trick of flash powder.

“My mother was a noble from Westmarch. Her family wanted little to do with her after she married my father. They left the city soon after and she rarely spoke of them again. My opinions of Westmarch nobles are as much hers as formed by my own experiences with them.” Jack offered. “I suppose that means I could still have relatives somewhere but...would they hate me as they did her? I don't know. They might even be dead now. It's likely.”

“Blood isn't everything.” Lyndon said softly.

“No. But it is something.”

“Yes... It is something.”

They were both quiet after that, Lyndon staring hard at the dark canal and the floating ducks, perhaps thinking of waters further south. Jack hadn't meant to make the conversation sad, they'd had plenty enough of that already.

“Bastards are easy to rob at least. Useless empty headed sods.” Lyndon added, recovering his good humor quickly.

“Am I... easy to pickpocket?” Jack asked a little hesitantly. He knew that Lyndon had managed it more than once, but hoped it was because Lyndon was just particularly skilled rather than any worryingly unobservant behavior on his part.

“Not when we're out and about no, but... sometimes. You get distracted when you're comfortable I've noticed.” He glanced at him sidelong. “Then again, I am very good.” Lyndon finished smugly. He craned his neck at the streets around them, then made a slight noise of disappointment, flicking some stones over the railing's edge. “If there were more people about I'd show you how to steal a coin purse without missing a step.”

“And you'd give it back to them right after I assume?”

“Uhm, yes...?” Lyndon offered with a nervous grin.

“Yes.”

They moved on, crossing the bridge and wandering into the old district in Westmarch Heights. Lyndon absently commented on any little thing that caught his eye, from the scaffolding set up for building repair, to the dress of the occasional person they passed in the street. Jack was content to listen. Most of the people remaining in this area were workers involved in the restoration of the city. Much of the Heights had burned in the wake of Urzael's wrath, but the pattern of destruction was haphazard, one street filled with blackened, hollow buildings, another with homes nearly untouched. There was little aid from the nearby cities in the way of building supplies, they were likely swept up in their own restorations. The city's economy was nearly destroyed, and the prices of much sought after goods had skyrocketed. Lyndon often grumbled about the tea tax and the “utterly mad” price of beer, even though they weren't particularly hard up for gold. The wood needed to build new homes was being taken from the ancient pine forest that flanked the city. A sweeping plague of the 'King's Broad Arrow' carved into their bark. The new King of Westmarch had his work cut out for him.

He remembered the throng of people that used to be here, a city alive with so many people it had boggled him as a child. Westmarch would heal, he was certain of it. The people of Sanctuary were resilient.

At the top of the hill that made up the Heights, Jack caught sight of what was left of the Tower of Koralon, far beyond repair, and burnt to crumbling cindersticks. An ominous black obelisk in the setting sun. He'd almost burned alive in there.

Best to think of other things.

“Do you know who Korelan was?” He asked Lyndon curiously.

Lyndon blinked, looking over at him and furrowing his brow. “Korelan... Uhhm... I think he was someone important.”

The Demon Hunter released a light sigh of veiled irritation. “...Not sure why I asked.”

“To hear the warm, honeyed cadence of my voice surely.” Lyndon said quickly, grinning.

“Ehm.” Jack swallowed.

Lyndon laughed, and the dark tower fell out of sight once more. Jack turned his attention back to the narrow streets and the cramped little houses, some with windows lit, firelight dancing merrily, others dark and empty. Cold and dead.

The style of the houses changed as the streets went further and further back in time. They were smaller, more dated, and cramped, shoved together like a collection of books upon a shelf. There were some larger dwellings set in between them like bookends holding the whole row together, but one in particular stood out, an old tavern of some kind, its windows heavily boarded.

There was nothing particularly telling or visually distinct about this building, but as soon as Jack had set his eyes upon it he became overwhelmed with the sudden, burning impression of wrongness. The houses next to it almost giving the illusion of curving away from this tavern, recoiling from it as cave creatures might recoil from sudden light. The sensation made his heart kick up a bit, and he felt it thumping in his chest. His eyes darted around from window to window, checking every dark space within his field of vision, fingers itching for the weight of crossbows that no longer existed. There was nothing to see, and in a moment the feeling had gone.

Just an old building. Jack thought, feeling foolish for letting his nerves act up again for no reason.

Lyndon, utterly oblivious to his internal plight, cheerfully led them closer and closer to this particular tavern until they right on the stairs before it. The scoundrel cast a quick look around, then gave Jack a suggestive, heated glance. He pulled him up the short steps and crowded the both of them into the dark, sheltered doorway. His eyes dark, Lyndon tilted his head up towards him. Jack had become accustomed to leaning down to meet the thief halfway, the height difference between them only thought of in these moments, but their lips met easily, tongues moving against each other with gentle insistence, seeking the other out, and Jack quite forgot about everything else around them.

It was easy to wind an arm around his neck, the other sliding down to find the curve of Lyndon's lower back. It got easier each time he did it. It was easy to sigh into the man's mouth and lean on him a little, the comfort it brought him was staggering, near crippling, and he could almost die right here in his embrace. It was a bit melodramatic of him, but he didn’t care in the slightest. Lyndon was quicker and far freer with his roaming fingers and grabbed his rear with both hands and squeezed, kneading the flesh there. Jack looked up quickly and glanced around feeling the embarrassment color his face.

“There's no one about you worrywart.” Came the husky reassurance. “And even if there were...” Lyndon closed the dwindling space between them, grinding against him just enough to ache, and gave a little impatient growl into his throat. “I've done it in worse places, yes, but we have all night and an actual bed for that. How about a bit of fun first?” Lyndon asked, wiping the edge of his mouth with his palm.

Lyndon was utterly insatiable, not that Jack minded all that much, but he was awfully quick to escalate anything between them to be positively indecent for anyplace other than safely behind a locked door. Jack was honestly a bit wary of what the man could possibly have in mind.

“...Fun?” Jack asked when he'd caught his breath.

“Target practice. More specifically.” Lyndon said, running his fingers over the bow at the Hunter's back with interest, his smile turning impish.

“Why?”

Lyndon scoffed indignantly, “ Why? You can't tell me that you're not absolutely itching to try out that new bow of yours. I want to see. Come on.” Lyndon tilted his head towards the door at their backs, then began rummaging in his pockets. He produced the familiar skeleton key and slipped it into the lock. The door swung open with an ominous creak.

Lyndon was right, Jack did want to use the bow, break it in, test the strength, especially after so many days spent inactive, but-

“In here?”

“What?” Came the sharp reply. “It's been abandoned for years and years, even before the troubles started. Something about six o'clock being bad for business or some rubbish. Superstitious nonsense surely. Nobody lives here.” Lyndon assured him quickly.

“I'd rather not...” Jack couldn't place why exactly, just that strange feeling from before made him hesitant. And hadn't they encountered enough “superstitious nonsense” to know that just about anything was possible? That they did not have the right to scoff at anything that was even slightly out of the ordinary?

“But it'll be fun! You need more fun.” Lyndon wheedled, then held his hand out to him in a gentlemanly show of politeness, his face bright and smiling that crooked smile Jack had absolutely zero defenses for.

The Hunter gave a shy smile and relented, letting the warm hand close around his. “Alright.”

He did need more fun, certainly, and the feeling from before was probably nothing.

Lyndon gently tugged him forward and Jack followed easily, but paused in the doorway. Speak of the devil, that wrong feeling came again when the darkness inside the tavern receded at the brilliant sunset shining through the doorway. There was a sombre aura that permeated that place and lingered in the stillness of aged wood, in the corner cobwebs that were made stringy and heavy with dust. Lyndon's easy smile called to him, beckoning him forward with a pull on his hand, and he followed, soothed, the wrongness banished again. Jack once more attributed the odd sensation to lingering anxieties. Too many times they had entered buildings to horrors. This time would be different, the city was different. Better. They'd made sure of that.

He needed to relax .

Inside was dark and dusty, and Lyndon moved around, lighting just about every candle in the place with a small flint spark lighter he kept on his person. The light sent the shadows away, and apart from the layers of dust and cobwebs, it looked as ordinary as any other tavern they'd been too, if a little dated. But for being abandoned, supposedly for years as Lyndon claimed, the place seemed rather untouched. Nothing had been moved or broken, every window was intact behind the boards, silver goblets still sat in their place behind the bar, stacked carefully on the shelves. There were even liquor bottles there, dusty but full and resting patiently beneath of blanket of dust. Upon sighting these, Lyndon chirped a happy sound and grabbed two bottles, sneezing as the dust came flying off items likely disturbed for first time in decades.

Abandoned buildings in large cities rarely stood the test of time without suffering at least a few smashed window panes. Rocks slung from the hands of young, mischievous boys or squatting peasants. The downstairs tavern room they now lounged in looked as though it had simply been sealed up and declared pariah for no apparent reason.

“You know,” Lyndon began pleasantly, dragging up a stool and sitting beside him. “This places reminds me of a book the orphan matron used to read to us, 'Fanciful Folklore and Stories Meant to Frighten Small Children.'”

“...Is that really the title?” Jack asked, skeptical.

“Trust me, I didn't forget it.” Lyndon said seriously. “One time I'd been so frightened that I actually went and slept in my brother's-” He dropped off suddenly. “Well... it doesn't matter. It's a wretched book.”

And Jack found himself wishing for the thousandth time that he could have met Edlin, saved him, that things had turned out differently. He'd give anything to change it, but wishful thinking did not bring back the dead. A simple truth that took him years to properly absorb. Lyndon was better now, but he still hurt. Jack knew what pain looked like, he had seen it in his own reflection for years.

“The first time we ever worked together, Edlin and I...” Lyndon began, working at the shriveled cork set deep into the ancient liquor bottle. “Had been at the largest ball Kingsport had ever seen. Then or after.” He got the liquor bottle open with a pleased, “Ahh!” cautiously smelled its contents, tasted it, then satisfied, offered it to the Demon Hunter who declined with a shake of his head. Jack found that wine was about the only palatable alcoholic beverage, and even then he didn't drink much of it. How Lyndon could stand to knock back bottles of liquid that smelled like furniture varnish on a regular basis was quite beyond him.

“It was a party intended to show off the young lords and ladies from Kingsport and Westmarch who were eligible to be married. All in about the same social standing of course.” Lyndon continued with a wry smile, and Jack listened, interested. “You know, marrying into good families, merging houses, gathering wealth and power, all that good, noble rubbish. Nervous, naive little girls, barely sixteen in some cases, being paraded about like show ponies, thinking they'd meet the man of their dreams. Likely some entitled, sweaty little twit.” Lyndon took a deep swig from the bottle, sticking his tongue out slightly afterward in distaste.

“This extravagant ball took place in the house of one of the wealthiest merchants in Kingsport you see. Gheed, and sure, the other nobles looked down on him for actually earning his money rather than being born into it, but they certainly all wanted a piece of that pie, and Gheed had a lovely daughter who was of age to acquire a husband.”

“But what did any of this have to do with you or your brother?” Jack finally asked.

Lyndon smiled and ran his fingers over the Demon Hunter's knee absently, teasingly. “Well, Gheed had done a few too many things to piss of the Thieves Guild you see. When I say he earned his wealth I mean he bribed and schemed and conned right along the rest of us. Which, as you can imagine made the city guard rather unhappy with him as well, but they had no evidence against him, and he could buy his way out of most offenses. The perks of wealth.”

“No honor among thieves then?” Jack mused.

“It's not that. He just didn't watch his feet, stepped on the wrong people, took a little too much and got fat off of the Thieves Guild's assistance without bothering to give credit where credit was due. He fell out of its graces and needed to be dealt with.” Lyndon smiled a little humorlessly. “That's where I came in.”

The pieces clicked together. “You were an assassin?” Jack breathed in disbelief. How could he have still hid this from him?

“Well, it's not like I ran about killing people willy nilly!” Lyndon balked, offended. “But yes... for people who deserved it of course, and if I could get away without killing them at all, keeping the Guild out of the picture, then even better. And that's where Eddy came in.”

“He agreed to help you with this?”

“Granted, it took a fair bit of convincing, he was a lot like you you see. Noble in the very definition of the word, but the city guard had been trying to get Gheed for years. This was their opportunity. My brother's opportunity for advancement if we pulled it off, and it was better in the long run for the Guild if Gheed was simply arrested and shamed, rather then killed. Cleaner that way. Left his gold exposed for the picking. Good for everyone all around yes?”

“Was he truly deserving of such a fate? Tell me the truth.” Jack asked firmly. He knew Lyndon had done things he wasn't proud of, but he had not spoken of many of them. Was this one such event that shamed him?

“...Remember when I said that the people in Kingsport could be just as bad as demons? Worse?” Lyndon asked gravely.

Jack nodded.

“Cross my heart he was the worst kind of man. Maybe not years ago, but what he became. You would not have hesitated to put an arrow between his eyes I assure you.”

“Why?”

“Slaves. Children. Let's just... leave it at that.” Lyndon said hastily.

Jack moved quick to suppress the sharp needle of rage that flared up at the statement. The anger that had lain dormant for weeks reminding him that it still slumbered within. It didn't matter now, it was years ago, but still he fumed.

“From then on... it was easy to dress up for the part and acquire an invitation as a wealthy, noble bachelor. I would find some damning evidence against Gheed, deliver it to my brother, he'd bring in his guards, Gheed would be carted away to prison and the Guild would pick the place clean.”

“And this little scheme of yours worked?”

Lyndon smiled at him, a slow heated thing that made Jack feel a bit dizzy “Like a charm. We worked together ever since until... well. You know.” He trailed off and took another generous gulp of... whatever foul substance lingered in that bottle.

“An extravagant ball...” Jack mused, he imagined the thief eating too many h'ordeurves with his hands, licking his fingers and belching and being about as uncouth as a stray dog. Not fit for a party certainly.

“Were you, uhm.” He paused, unsure of how to ask. “Were you... very desired?”

The thief squeezed just behind his knee, making him jump from the odd ticklish sensation. “Of course! I spent quite some time memorizing which spoon was for soup, holding my napkin and how to properly wipe my arse with silk. You know, all of that ridiculousness.” Jack smiled, no wonder the man was odd. A bizarre mix between cultured and as far as one could possibly be from it.

“That sounds like it would have been rather difficult for you.” Jack teased, knowing how little patience and focus Lyndon had for things that did not interest him.

"Ha! It was certainly worth it in the end. I got to play at being a stuffy ponce for an evening and be my most charming, excellent self while they flocked around me like bees to clover, all very hilarious really, for I was about as noble as a discarded boot. Hahahaha!” Lyndon laughed, positively guffawed. The idea of it tickling him now just as much as it had then.

Jack sighed and shook his head. “My mother once attended such a gathering. She told me she'd spent weeks learning how to dance, how to eat, how to sit up straight so that her back would not touch the chair, things like that. All to look pretty for some man she likely wouldn't even love, and I always wondered what the point of it all was.” He blinked hard, waiting for the hurt to come, and come it did, but not as bad as it had always been before. Halissa's words had done more to heal his spirit than all the vengeance in the world. “I suppose that's why she left it all behind.”

“It's rubbish isn't it?” Lyndon said quietly. “Completely ridiculous. But nobles do so love to separate themselves from the rest of us filthy little plebeians in any way they can don't they? Even when the world turns to shit around them.”

“Indeed. Rubbish.” Jack agreed with a small smile, and Lyndon laughed again, looking at him with bright shiny eyes that reflected the candle light. The thief reached his fingers out and brushed a piece of hair out of the Hunter's face, his expression changing to something odd that Jack could not place, but set his heart racing in his breast and heat burning into his face.

“Did she ever teach you how to dance?” Lyndon asked, voice suddenly taking on a sombre note.

“She might have.”

“Now that I'd like to see.”

“Keep dreaming.”

He smiled, Lyndon laughed, and the spell was broken.

Chapter Text

“Ok, ok, but serious now. Serious. Can you hit this from all the way across the room?” Lyndon asked excitedly as he set up another alcohol bottle as a target, his fingers leaving haphazard trails in the thick age blanketing the counter. An empty bottle with a faded brown and cream label that most definitely had not been empty fifteen minutes ago.

Jack scoffed, offended by the very notion. “Please.” Lyndon had to have been getting a little drunk by this point, because the man had personally seen Jack hit targets from easily twenty times the proposed distance. And Gods, no one could drink that much and not be at least temporarily altered, no matter the cavernous depths of their tolerance.

“Oohh! Look out everyone! Demon Hunter in the room!” Lyndon crowed to the empty tavern. Perhaps to an audience of mice or dustbunnies listening in.

“You mistake confidence for arrogance.” Jack calmly informed him, already lining up the shot and drawing the string back. The motion was becoming more familiar now, more natural. He missed his crossbows still, and expected he might feel an ache deep in his shoulder later, but it was good practice.

“Arrogant Nephalem!” Lyndon growled in what seemed to be a sorry attempt at an Azmodan impression.

“Shut up!”

The scoundrel laughed and sprawled himself upon the bottommost steps of the staircase to watch, then the bottle he was still drinking from slipped out of his fingers followed by a hastily mumbled, “Shit -” but he caught the neck before it had a chance to shatter upon the floor and eagerly took another long draw of the clear, nose hair burning liquid. He grinned at Jack, the set of his mouth a little silly. The rogue was just slightly too excited about the prospect of watching an arrow shatter an empty bottle of... had it been the bourbon? (Had he drunk that too?) Jack glanced back at Lyndon, sometimes in moments like these it was almost as though he were seeing him for the first time, wondering how he had ever managed to go so long without seeing.

Jack lowered his arm, the draw weight already creating a little bit of muscle fatigue when he held it for long periods of time. He was not yet fully recovered. A fact he frequently (or rather, conveniently) forgot.

“Why do you drink so much?” He asked.

“Because I like to.” Came the quick reply.

“You... use yourself too roughly.” Jack lectured. A drunkard was not a pretty sight, Jack hoped Lyndon would have the good sense to at least pace himself this time, but he'd seen him make dreadfully poor drinking decisions countless times before.

Lyndon's smile faltered, but only briefly. “Hypocrite. And here I thought you liked it rough.” He deflected.

Jack gave him a filthy look and turned back to his target. Wretched man.

The string released from his fingers with a snap, the arrow swiftly taking flight, and not only was the bottle knocked down, but splintered to thousands of glittering pieces with a rushing gust of wind produced by the strange enchantment Myriam had bestowed upon it. Lyndon laughed, shielding his face from any stray pieces of flying glass, utterly delighted.

“Why did you give the bow to Haedrig, rather then sell it?” Jack asked, retrieving the arrow from where it had sunk deep into the wood of the wall on the other side of the room.

“I like crossbows better. I'm just not as good with bows, but I knew it was quality. I thought Haedrig would appreciate having it for...” He sighed with a thoughtful flap of his hand. “I don't know. Something. But here, how about a challenge?” Lyndon asked as he stood up and wobbled back a little before he got his balance. Approaching the bar he set up three bottles evenly spaced along the top, his hands slightly clumsy from the drink.

“Lyndon...”

“Come on! Have a little fun for Akarat's sake it's just target practice. You like practice, right? Mr. Discipline.”

“...I don't want to damage anything.”

Lyndon gave him a bored look. “No one's been in here for years obviously, this place was a dump before Malthael's mess. There's cobwebs everywhere, the furniture is stupid and ugly and who cares?”

A resigned sigh. “Alright...” Jack thought it a little childish, just smashing things for no good reason but... Lyndon took his seat on the creaking dusty steps behind him again, perky and grinning.

Jack picked out three arrows from the quiver, not yet enchanted, no need to destroy the entire room just yet. Grasping the arrows in his hand he fired them off in rapid succession, letting the next arrow fall into place after the one before it was loosed, each bottle exploding swiftly in puffs of shattered glass.

“Spectacular hits! You have excellent eyes.” Lyndon complimented effortlessly. Jack had never really given it much thought, precision and speed were just elements of archery he'd always worked to improve. He also never thought he'd be someone who was easily embarrassed. Until recently.

“I've never seen anyone hold their arrows like that. How do you do that? How do you fire them so fast? And don't say “determination”.” Lyndon said quickly.

The “how” would take a while to explain, Lyndon would surely become bored, and Jack hadn't much familiarity with the technique himself. “...It takes practice,” was what he eventually settled on to say, holding the bow in his hands a little awkwardly.

“Ah. You'd teach me?”

He still wanted to learn? “If... if you'd like.”

Lyndon grinned then set about setting up more “challenges.” Privately, Jack thought that the rogue merely wanted to watch various objects get destroyed, but he had to admit, it was satisfying to make a game of smashing things, he might have even said it was fun . The practice was good, meager as it was, and Jack smiled at Lyndon who cackled and carried on as though crates and bottles and chairs being broken apart was the most entertaining thing he had ever seen in his entire life. It might have been all the drink but... he was glad to see him laughing.

“Would you like to try?” Jack asked him after a time.

“I prefer watching you.” Lyndon purred. “But, if you insist, probably better now then later when you've slapped enchants all over the damned thing that will melt my face off or explode my fingers or whatever it is protective binding enchant things do.”

“It'll just burn your hands like hot metal. And make your mustache fall off.”

Lyndon gave him a look of utter scandalized shock before barking a hearty laugh. “HA! He jests! Someone tell the King! We'll engrave it on a plaque and nail it to the fountain in the town square!” The rogue took the bow from him gently and turned it over in his hands, looking at it with a critical eye.

“Certainly is a pretty thing. What's it made of?”

“Yew. Backed with black locust and wych elm.” Jack answered, claiming Lyndon's vacant spot on the stairs.

“Hmm, could you even call this a longbow?”

“No, it's large, but its design is of a composite recurve. Kehjistani in origin.”

“What are you, some kind of bow expert?”

“...Occupational necessity.”

“Right, right... stupid question. You'd think I'd learn to avoid the taste of my own boot.”

Lyndon adjusted himself very carefully, making sure he was standing correctly before he even attempted to aim. He looked rather rusty and Jack carefully cataloged every flaw, but continued to observe for the moment rather then speak up to correct him. When Lyndon drew back to aim, he did so with a bit of a struggle, his arms trembling slightly with sudden strain. “Gods, what's the draw weight on this thing?!” He grit out, before lowering the bow again to rest a moment.

“Nearly thirteen stone I'd say.”

“More than I weigh, and I should hope you weigh more than that!”

“...Nearly there I think.” Came Jack's sheepish reply, and he pretended to be very interested in the wood grain of the floorboards, the cracks between them grouted with dust.

“I understand that eating more than one piece of toast for breakfast is a novel concept, Mr. I'm-not-hungry.”

Jack huffed. “Are you going to shoot or not?”

“Yesyesyesyes! Relax!” Lyndon snapped, then heaved his arm back, throwing all of his weight behind just pulling the string back, the leather of his coat creaking slightly. He was going to pull a muscle at this rate, that is if he could even loose the arrow.

“It's a bit big for you I think. The bow I mean.” Jack offered gently, observing Lyndon's growing frustration.

“No, you meant my coat surely.” Came the sarcastic reply.“And just what are you trying to say exactly?”

“That it's a bit big for you? You want I should lie?” Jack countered, confused.

“No! ...Never mind!”

“Fine.”

Lyndon released a steady breath and worked on pulling the string back a few times, trying to aim properly and hold the arrow in place without it drifting away or falling out of his fingers. He dropped the arrow anyway and it clattered to the floor whilst the rogue loosed a particularly vulgar curse (being a little drunk likely wasn't helping him very much) and turned back to the Demon Hunter with an expression of embarrassed annoyance. “I'm not short! You're just freakishly tall!”

Jack sighed. Ridiculous. “Here.” Jack said, then got up to help him.

He spent twenty minutes or so trying to show Lyndon how to properly use the bow, standing behind him and assisting in drawing back the bowstring. The lesson might have gone better if Lyndon hadn't been so dead set on trying to bite his neck whenever he got close enough to reach, and giggling like a loon when he was gently shoved away. The arrow was loosed by accident with a slip of careless fingers, and it missed the intended target by about three feet, instead shattering a lamp and snuffing out the lit candle there, creating a new space of darkness in the corner of the room.

“Do you want to learn or not?” Jack eventually asked a little sharply, irritation winning out over any begrudging amusement.

“Mmm. I think I'd rather teach.” The rogue purred, his fingers wandering to the scarf at the hunter's throat, beginning to pull it loose.

Jack grabbed his hand gently and removed it. “Your advances leave much to be desired.”

Lyndon laughed a little too loudly. “That's not what you said yesterday, because I distinctly remember a “please” and a “Gods, harder-”

“Shut the Hell up!” The Hunter spat, face burning.

“Don't be ridiculous, nobody's here-”

There was a slow creak that came from the center of the ceiling, shaking loose a small trickle of sandy debris to rain onto the floor. They each looked up, then at each other, both deadly still in the tense, hollow silence that followed the noise. Old habits die hard.

As usual, Lyndon was the first to speak: “Ah, maybe some demons or something will fall through the ceiling. It would hardly be the most unusual thing to happen to us.” He whispered, as though afraid to make his voice too loud just yet.

“Mm.” Jack agreed. Nothing. It was nothing. He imagined a collection of torn fabric, hay and paper clippings inside the ceiling. A warm ball of mice curled within it, their brothers and sisters pattering around in the dark, vacant upstairs. Perhaps it may have been a little foolish to dismiss it but he had grown weary of his hackles rising at every little thing. And if it did happen to be something? It would come down the stairs, he'd kill it, and that would be that. He was good at killing things. They were.

Lyndon made to take another sip from his pilfered bottle and Jack carefully plucked it from his fingers, setting it aside. “Go on. Shoot something.” He urged.

“Is that an invitation?” Lyndon's smile was all teeth.

“Ugh.”

“Fine! Fine! Gods. You're no fun.”

Lyndon wobbled slightly in place and drew the string back again, aiming for a silver cup upon the bar and concentrating about as well as he could usually manage despite the drink. After several tense seconds he let the arrow fly where it pinged harmlessly off the edge of the counter in a spectacular miss, then spun point over fletching into the shelves behind the bar. Lyndon stood there a moment looking mildly furious before he handed the bow back to the Demon Hunter, and sat down shoulder to shoulder with him on the steps.

“Your stupid bow is too big.” He groused loudly, then reached for his own crossbow and cradled it reverently, picking icicles off and tossing them onto the floor.

“Right...” Jack replied with a slight smile.

“I can load new arrows into this fast enough,” Lyndon commented thoughtfully, “and that enchant for making more of them is better but-”

“You want more.”

“Well, yes.” Lyndon sighed. “You make me look rather bad.”

“I thought you always said I did the opposite.” Jack teased.

“Well standing next to me yes, but killing things? Not so much.”

“You're good.”

“Obviously. But not as good as you.” Lyndon irritably insisted, looking away.

“I don't expect you to be.” Just good enough to be helpful and stay alive, he didn't say.

Lyndon frowned and stared at his heavy weapon, the smooth surface of the wooden handle wrapped tightly with gripping cloth. “But I want to be better.”

Jack smiled fondly at him. “I haven't asked but, how are your enchants coming along?

“Uhmmm” Lyndon paused, playing with the firing lever of his crossbow.“Well it's not like I've had much time to practice now have I?” He said defensively.

“You have time now, I can help you.”

Lyndon brightened a little at that. Jack liked teaching, and it wasn't so bad to teach Lyndon, because it was a subject the man actually enjoyed and put effort into. It interested him far more than something like flora and fauna identification which rarely extended much further beyond, 'will it bite me?' or 'can I eat it?'

They examined Lyndon's crossbow together, there hadn't been much time for proper maintenance and Jack was curious to see if the heavy, cobbled together weapon was working alright. “Haedrig did very well, but perhaps...” He had a thought, then pulled his journal out from a pocket in his coat. He flipped through it to find an empty page, then started to scribble out a design while Lyndon looked on. His eyes blinked slowly, his movements lazy, and he watched the Hunter draw with great interest. “Holding arrows in your hand would make quick loading too difficult I think. Too slow. A box on top and a lever can make a repeating crossbow.” Jack explained pointing at the addition he'd made to the drawing of Lyndon's frosty crossbow.

“A what now?”

“Repeating crossbow. A Xiansai invention used by the Demon Hunters. When we visit we can get something made if you'd like, something more elegant than a box at least, and it would still preserve the core of your old one-”

“Is that where we're going? To see the Demon Hunter... camp? Village? Smelly dens,or whatever it was you lived in?” Lyndon cut in.

“Yes. A village of sorts, but...yes.”

“Ah, lovely.” Lyndon muttered. He sounded unhappy.

Jack began to get nervous, not sure how to reply. He wanted to go back to the closest place he could call home, find his feet again. He didn't want to force Lyndon to go with him if the man truly did not wish to but... He struggled to think of a way to communicate how desperately he needed to go, how badly he needed Lyndon to be with him when he did, without sounding terribly desperate-

“Maybe they'll have one there that I can try? Before I do anything more to mine?” Lyndon asked a little hesitantly, looking at the icicles that grew endlessly upon his weapon and picked them off again to tinkle like dropped glass upon the floor.

The relief was like a warm blanket. “Of course.” Jack assured him with a smile.

Lyndon looked at the drawing again, his hand curled over Jack's knee to lean in a bit more, staring at the drawing thoughtfully. It was a slow process to get used to the sheer amount of casual touches that Lyndon seemed to be unaware of. Many were deliberate to get a reaction but he was just very physical in nature, caring even less for Jack's personal space then he had before since they'd become... lovers? Yes? Lyndon was leaning heavily on him now, warm, loose limbed, and practically snuggling him.

At a side glance, Jack could clearly see teethmarks bruised into the scoundrel's neck, partially hidden by his collar. Oh. It reminded him of how frequently they coupled. Was it normal? He had no frame of reference for such things. Lyndon was always eager, and he likely had fresh, pink scratches all over his back and healing bruises peppering his skin like the pelt of some spotted feral cat. They probably both did. Jack felt he should perhaps apologize for it. But Gods he could smell him. Sandalwood, leather, calfskin, traces of bergamot from the earl grey tea he'd been drinking almost daily, and whatever he'd been drinking now. Whiskey? He wasn't sure, but Lyndon always smelled good. Jack felt the flush creep up his neck, a newly familiar heat growing in his belly.

Lyndon noticed, because of course he did. The grin he gives is lazy and knowing, his eyes darkening from hazel to something closer to obsidian. “Like what you see?” He asked smugly. Before Jack could scoff or roll his eyes at him in exasperation, he was being kissed, fingers curling tight over his thigh. Lyndon tasted like whiskey, and the slow way his tongue moved against his was downright obscene, nearly sinful. The air suddenly became thicker, humid, and harder to inhale, but it was alright because there was no one here at all, it was just them. Just them and no one else-

The town clock began to chime somewhere beyond the empty tavern and deep within the city center, long and resonating, the church bells ringing just after like echoes. Jack startled slightly at the sudden sound of the bells ringing merrily. Six times in count, and Lyndon pulled back a little, “Six already?”

“Bah. I hate choosing between this and food...” He sighed. “But I'm so hungry. I suppose we should head to the Enclave and see what's for dinner, I'm half starve-” His voice stopped abruptly and he went still. His brow furrowed slightly in what appeared to be a muddled confusion. Lyndon blinked and his eyes traveled up the stairs behind them before fixating at the top.

“Lyndon?” Jack craned his head, feeling a slow rise of the sensation of sudden dread, the same as before, and followed his gaze to try to find what the rogue was looking at. Just a blackness at the top of the stairs. There were no lights there.

The Hunter turned back and Lyndon's eyes had widened perceptively, the flush of color that had been present upon his face had drained away, leaving a pallid, bloodless color. Then Lyndon was up and moving, jerkily lurching away from him as though coming loose from deep muck. He staggered to the bar and Jack followed, grabbing for him and bringing the weight of both of them down heavily upon the dusty bar bench before he could fall or escape any further. Lyndon was trembling, having come over in a cold sweat that beaded upon his brow and beneath his eyes, collecting to shine above his upper lip.

“Lyndon?!” Jack called again, this time more urgently and received no response, not even the meeting of his eyes.

Jack shook him once, firmly, to regain his attention, and had it in the wide terrified stare of the man's gaze finally coming to his. “What's the matter? What did you see?” He asked quickly. Information was of immediate importance. Jack wanted to know, needed to know, with the intensity of a man weighed down by knowing experience. Was it a demon? A spirit? Some creature? But at the same moment, what, precisely, it was, didn't fully matter. He would tear it apart, and that was a promise, he would make it ashes upon the wind, a bloody streak upon the floor before it could ever hurt them-

“There's something upstairs.” The rogue finally breathed as he seemed to regain his wits all at once. He loosed a shaky breath and pushed a quivering hand over his forehead and through his hair. “But I didn't see anything. Heard something. A bad something. Can we leave?” The last words were spoken with an air of quiet desperation, almost begging the Demon Hunter to allow it.

Jack looked down at where their fingers had unknowingly twined together, his warm and dry, Lyndon's clammy and sweat-slick, then back up at the man's face, at the pleading look in his brown eyes. He had hardly begged anything of him, and Jack almost agreed right then and there to get them both up, and out and away from whatever frightening horror had been heralded into the second floor by the innocent chiming of the church bells but, oh, to maintain a responsibility to those that still lived here in this marked city. He could not knowingly walk away and leave a danger free to hunt those ignorant and unsuspecting, and far less capable of self defense than they.

“Whatever it is. Surely we cannot leave it there.”

Lyndon closed his eyes and took a deep breath and held it a moment before releasing it. “I thought you might say something like that.” The chuckle was weak, and the grin that accompanied it did not reach his eyes.

Jack noted the change in the air, a thickening of atmosphere and the sudden pervasive appearance of the noxious smell of rot. The hallmark of evil, his fingers twitched for the familiar handles of his long destroyed weapons even as his eyes darted to the bow and crossbow that lay harmlessly at the base of the now sinister staircase. “What happened?”

Lyndon frowned and squirmed slightly upon the bench, his knee bouncing involuntarily in energetic movement. “I heard... a voice.” He grit out briefly held the back of his free hand to his mouth until he could regain his words again. “I'd really- I don't want to go up there.”

“What did it say?”

Lyndon's mouth turned town in a thin line of unhappiness and he shook his head. Jack did not press for more.

Likely a demon, Jack's mind helpfully supplied, as it always did, and very likely always would. Two weeks of laziness would not alter years of hard ingrained habit. Something scraped audibly across the floor above them and Lyndon jumped with a startled yell, before releasing a frustrated noise.

Jack squeezed the hand held in his, looking into the rogue's eyes. “We cannot leave it here.” He insisted.

“'Course not.” Lyndon agreed with a nervous sarcasm.

“But you... you can wait outside if-” Jack hesitantly offered.

“Don’t be daft!” Lyndon nearly spat, cutting him off and apparently offended by the very notion. “But you're going first.”

“Fair enough.” And it was all instinct and muscle memory from there. Jack pulled them back to the stairs and closed his fingers in a steely grip around the handle of the bow, the enchantment upon it waking into a soft clean breeze that cut through the acrid, but sickly sweet odor of fear he hadn't realized he could detect. He needed both hands to string the bow however. Lyndon seemed to realize this and with great effort, unhooked his fingers from the Demon Hunter's and curled them around the handle of his crossbow instead, like a child might clutch at a comforting doll or stuffed animal. The rogue followed just behind as he always did, his expression taut, eyes bright, and his body a vibrating mass of sweating fear.

Jack felt the familiar swelling of pride when he looked at him, -many things but never a coward- a lesser man would have fled screaming into the street, though if Lyndon had been alone, perhaps he might have. He was afraid when he shouldn't have been, and that, in turn, made Jack afraid. What had Lyndon heard? What had this vile mystery voice said to him? Was there a spirit up there? Dwelling long in the darkness of an abandoned inn, forgetting how to look for the light and go beyond. It was a simple thing to free them from their worldly shackles, and Lyndon had seen spirits before. He'd chatted up the lost spirit in the crypt deep in the Fields of Misery and Jack was absolutely certain that if there had been a drop of blood left in that poor wisp of a girl she would have blushed right down to her toes, but he was afraid now and he shouldn't have been, and Jack did not like it.

He drew an arrow and it crackled to life with the bright glow and lightning smell of the arcane. The colors danced merrily between sky blue and rich plum, the light bouncing off the wall, and Jack held it perched between his fingers, arm pulled back slightly, the bow held half drawn. He cursed himself for his complacency. Comfort always came with a price he knew, but he'd be damned if they were going to pay it.

The darkness at the top was absolute, like staring into the tunnel of a spider hole even as the black retreated from the light little by little with every step of their ascension. The stairs groaned beneath their feet, grown dry and brittle with age, but they held. At the top the silence was nearly physical in its heaviness. The rapid heartbeat he could faintly hear must surely be his own, though he felt rather calm, despite everything. It was familiar, and even though it was horrible, there was comfort in the familiarity. Hadn't they crawled through such places before? An entire cavern of skittering beasts, spitting furred needles from their bulbous backs to induce a maddening itch so potent you could claw out your own eyes in the search for relief, but they had barely broken a sweat in that dank cave, arrows splitting the unholy, twisted creatures apart and complaining about the mess the entire way-

Then he heard it.

“She thought of you and your sweet little sister in her final moments.” The words drifted into his ear, sounding like apples rotting and worming in the rain. Lying forgotten in the dead, brown leaves that slicked to their surfaces like soggy paper. Something like fear filled the empty spaces in his chest and throat. It was almost novel, to feel an emotion he had spent years forcefully expelling from every facet of his being. For the umpteenth time that month even. He might have thought he was on a roll, if the prickling sensation of raw, heated terror didn't threaten to make a ruin of his rational thought.

More sounds now as they moved through the black hallway, the rhythmic chanting of barely there whispers, words he could not catch or understand. The floor had a slickness to it that squelched beneath their feet. He would not think of the bodies that had lined the earth in numbers within Nobles Rest Courtyard and Gideon's Row. The arcane light was all there was, a ring of purity around them that reflected upon every surface, the bowed ceiling, the curving walls, the walls- the walls, the walls! Mouths in the walls!

They chattered and gaped open, peppering the surface like the patterned wallpaper of a madhouse. Silverfish darted out from between uneven yellowed teeth that snapped at them, skating effortlessly over the smooth surface like rolling drops of water. Jack and Lyndon nearly molded together as they recoiled into each other to be as far away from the walls as they could manage while still moving their feet ever onward.

And the voice again. Nearly too quiet but he heard it. Hateful, vitriolic whispers, meant only to hurt, to weaken he knew the voice, buried deep in the watery cavern of his memories-

“Not your dear old dad, even as he swung the axe for her. No, no, she thought of only her children 'I hope Jack and Halissa get away, I hope, I hope, please let them, the stag will come and he'll lead them out.' How darling of her. She thought of the eyes of the white stag when they opened her up, blood filling her lungs like water rushing through a dry riverbed, she couldn't even scream anymore, but she still made these delightful little noises. Wet sounds. Just like walking through mud wouldn't you agree?”

Puddles sogged the ancient boards beneath their feet and Jack could smell blood. His heart thundered in his chest now, he could feel it pulsing in his temples, his wrists that held the bow taught, the crackling arrow held tight between calloused fingers. He swallowed the terror back and grit his teeth until his jaw ached and creaked. He had heard these whispers once before in a river below a town. A beast wearing his sister's face. Vigilance, vigilance, never forget they crawl out of the woodwork, breeding like rabbits, they wait until you're comfortable, they'll never stop, never ever stop-

The icy cold sweat rolled over him, frigid and clear like cave water. Forgotten, yet familiar in the way that creatures that had long dwelt in darkness might sometimes remember light. Lyndon would hear different things, terrible things, and that sudden thought helped him remember to to get angry. Panic and fear dissolved away leaving only a heightened awareness, he slipped back into years familiar territory like putting on old clothing that still held its fit. The hallway was crooked, threatening vertigo. Hideous whispers fell around them and the walls breathed in a steady rhythm. The closed doorways they passed crawled with centipedes, whether real or imagined he was not sure, the hallway seemed to narrow until they were crowded in together, their breathing loud as they struggle to stay away from the crawling surfaces.

“Dear old dad, now dear old dad, he-”

BE SILENT. Jack fairly screamed the words in his head. He'd long since grown tired of the words spat by demons. He'd not tolerate it for another moment.

SMELL YOUR FEAR BLOODSACK, SMELL HIS, I SEE YOU.

No. I see YOU. Look deeper, beast.

YES. LOVER'S EMBRACE. WARMTH. NEW FAMILY. I SEE. I WILL TAKE. DEAD EYES DEAD EYES STARING UP. LET HIM DIE. LET THEM ALL DIE COWARD. I WILL TAKE.

Memories came of a cave beneath a town and the deep churning waters within that could have gone on and on through carved channels of blackness until they emptied into the dark sea. A beast that fed on fear ceaselessly, grew fat with it. Sometimes when he woke in the morning, he could see Lyndon lying there dead, eyes open, burned into the very surface of his eyelids. Yet he lives, standing right behind me at my back.

YES, BLOOD. COME. I WILL TAKE.

Beetles fell from the ceiling, writhing and rolling blindly in the purple light cast upon the floor. It was pulling out all its tricks. Lyndon had wound tight fingers into the loose fabric of his cloak. Jack could not risk looking back at him, only ahead at the darkness there. The doorway at the end of the hall called to him, the surface of the old wood slick with dark ichor and marred with sigils carved in deep.

Before he could reach out his fingers to touch it it was flung open with a bang, startling them back. It was dark inside. Always dark inside, had been for years and years. There was a woman standing there in the center of the room, glowing with a beautiful inner light. Her dark hair fanned out behind her like the currents of a spring stream and she held her arms out as though waiting for an embrace all this time.. He thought she might have been the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and the urge to reach out to her was strong. She smiled, and that was where it went wrong.

The woman's cheeks caved in like forming sinkholes, Her smile spread wider and wider until it gaped open like a bullfrog's, peg-like porcelain teeth filed to points filled every inch. At its feet was a faded summoning circle, the smell of rot stronger than a moist tomb. It could not move beyond the border of the circle, it had been calling people here, hoping to find an escape. He'd give it death instead.

(I see you,Valdraxxis. Footsoldier. Outcast. Derelict.)

Hers was a lizard's mouth grinning out at them, spilling black slime and vitriol in equal measure, then that cavernous, poisoned mouth ejected a scream from its bulging throat, white as the belly of a river trout. A scream so loud and so piercing that it was like an icepick driving into his ears, Lyndon yelped and covered his ears, and Jack hated it. Hated it for inflicting suffering upon the only source of profound comfort he had ever managed to scrape together, hated it with every fiber of his being and the arcane arrow flew, almost without his knowledge, muscle memory taking over, his body screaming at him to act.

(Anathema even to your kind)

A needle of blue and purple charged through the room, scattering the dark around it like fluttering bats, and the screaming bolt pierced the heart of the horrid figure and continued on through, punching a hole through the boarded up window. A great gust of wind followed in its wake and it was as if it carried all the evil out of that room in one funneled gust. Moonlight shone through in a perfect, silver square. The vile presence of the woman, smiling away into nothing, growing pretty again as she faded. Thank you. It whispered. Thank you.

Only a spirit then. A forgotten trapped ghost that had been twisted by something more evil than she. The air became cool and breathable again. The sigil laid on the floor, set in powder, undisturbed for decades, the evil sealed away. Beside it, a skeleton, white, dusty bones slowly greying to black.

There had been not one, but two arrows fired. The second was imbedded in the window's frame, and frost smeared over the yellowed, greasy wallpaper like splattered blood. Lyndon was beside him, the weapon cobbled from the heart of his brother’s crossbow frosting ice in the iron grip of his fingers. He was looking at him and breathing hard.

“What was that?” Lyndon asked, his voice loud in the quiet.

What indeed? A concentrated force of evil, perhaps summoned by some inexperienced necromancer in a bid for more power. A woman killed for it, her spirit left to languish until it twisted into something horrible. Jack smooths his boot through the powdered sign upon the floor, breaking the seal at last. The skeleton crumbled to nothing and blew away out the window, traces of it nestling in between the boards.

“A ghost.” He replied simply.

“Oh.” Lyndon said, and his expression was a bizarre mix of incredible relief, exhaustion and faint annoyance. “Well, that was fun.”

“Mm.”

“You know it would be nice if, just once, it was a stupid bloody rat instead of something terrible.” Lyndon mused, moving to stare at the moonlit city scape out the window.

“It was a rat earlier.”

A sigh. “More than once.”

“Mm.” Jack agreed, then waited for Lyndon to look back at him. “Dinner?”

The rogue brightened a little. “Sounds lovely.”

They were fine.

=+=+=+=

They ended up skipping dinner, finding that neither of them were very hungry. Instead they went straight back to the house they'd claimed as theirs and made a concentrated effort to help each other forget the more unpleasant parts of their evening.

=+=+=+=+=+=

They lay curled in bed hours later, sweat long since dried upon their skin, and the both of them comfortable and drowsy. The horror of earlier events had already begun to fade like another bad dream. There was only the sound of their breathing, the hiss of flames licking the wood piled into the fireplace, and the subtle click of the wolf's claws on the polished hardwood floors a room away as she engaged in her nightly ritual of smelling every corner of their two story sanctuary. The raven slept in a blanket upon the desk and the falcon sat sleeping upon a knob of the bed frame, head curled into the feathers at its back. Jack was fairly certain that the ferrets had found a way into the walls, judging by the scratching sounds he kept hearing.

Lyndon shifted from his lazy sprawl to drape himself over the Demon Hunter as best he could, pillowing his head upon the Hunter's collarbone and hooking his ankle around his shin. He gazed into the fireplace beyond their bed, expression suddenly pensive. After a moment, Jack pushed his fingers up the back of Lyndon's neck -he was allowed to do this now, must remember- and played with his hair, observing the firelight playing over the curve of his shoulder. The rogue made a soft noise of contentment and his eyes fluttered briefly. But the touch did not seem to soothe him as it had times before.

“That... ghost, or whatnot...” Lyndon began. “It told me how my brother died.”

“We know how he died.” Jack assured him, his heart sinking. Of course that was what he'd heard.

Lyndon lifted his head, upset. “But it said-”

“It lied.” Jack interrupted firmly. “It was only how you fear he died. Not what really happened.”

Lyndon frowned and put his head back down. “How do you know that?”

“Because it told me how my mother died. Only part of it was true, the rest was from my memories. Of her and the demon under Havenwood.”

“Oh.” Lyndon's expression was thoughtful but a little unhappy. Jack let his fingers move, petting gently but the expression didn't change or go away.

“We'll burn it down tomorrow.” Jack impulsively declared. Never mind the how or who will allow it. Right to the ground. Into slag. If that's what it takes.

“Exploding arrows?” Lyndon asked brightly, a childishly hopeful tone coloring his voice.

“Molotov Cocktails?” Jack suggested.

“No. No. Waste of good drink that is.” Lyndon closed his eyes and squirmed until he got himself comfortable.

“Grenades, if you like.”

“Ah. Good.” He mad a noise of amusement, then closed his eyes, relaxing with a sleepy smile. Good. Things drifted back to a peaceful place. Like an old building settling atop its foundations.

Chapter Text

Now they know when you talk about the Hammer
You talk about a show that's hyped and tight
―U Can't Touch This, MC Hammer

Lyndon yawned from his favored perch upon Myriam's caravan steps, downing the last of his tea. A delightful concoction of Torajan nuts, coconut shavings, golden raisins and black tea. With milk and sugar added, it almost reminded him of some kind of nutty, drinkable cake. The friendly mystic had quite a variety on hand and was only too happy to share it with him it seemed, much to his pleasured surprise. The round, black woodstove crackled merrily with an inviting orange glow. The plump black and white cat, having failed to crawl into the rogue's lap despite many attempts, sprawled out before it in repose.

Lanterns hanging from the edges of the caravan winked peacefully in the dull afternoon. Cauldrons bubbled with liquid colors pastel and feminine as to remind him of a lady's tea set. Or her drawer of frilly underthings.

The sky was a depressing grey and the chill nipped at his extremities. He wrapped his fingers around his teacup, squeezing the lingering warmth. It had already snowed once. Wretched weather. Soon the month of Ratham would be upon them, dragging winter along with it. An aptly named month, Lyndon thought, since everything's dead when it arrives. He played with the switchblade in his fingers, opening and closing it rhythmically. His gaze traveled to Myriam and Eirena who were sitting around the fire looking through fabrics together. They were periodically prodding a rather sweaty looking Kormac for his sheepishly mumbled opinions.

Though he was pleased that Kormac still actively tried to engage in conversation with Eirena, despite that earlier disaster when he'd attempted to admit his affections, Lyndon was mildly offended that they hadn't bothered to ask for his good opinion. He knew what looked nice on a woman, and he could even properly articulate said observations. Two things he was quite certain the poor Templar was failing abysmally at.

Bah, whatever. Lyndon supposed he could always insert himself into the conversation anyway. Not like he hadn't done such things before. And not like there was much else for him to do. He sighed loudly. Jack was back in the townhouse asleep, and Lyndon was bored. A rare luxury these days, but that didn't mean he was going to pretend to enjoy it. Just as he was about to get up and relocate next to Kormac and insist that pale green and magenta were absolutely Eirena's colors, there was some commotion over at Haedrig's caravan:

“Damn it all! Where's ma' best hammer?!” Haedrig bellowed, bent almost double over a pile of freshly forged blades and digging through them with the feverish intensity of a man who has misplaced a valuable item. Lyndon could say that he was accustomed to... observing such expressions upon others. It was a good thing he was wearing a heavy pair of gloves, the surly blacksmith might've have cut his hands on the haphazardly piled blades in his fervor. Lyndon noted that Brycen looked distinctly pale. The rogue grinned to himself, putting two and two together, and gave the scene his full attention, waiting for the show to play itself out.

Haedrig seemed to notice Brycen's expression as well and turned to him, face flushed from exertion and anger. “It couldn't have got up and walked out on its own now could it lad?” Ahhh, it was nice to see someone else getting yelled at for a change.

“Uhh, uhm. N-no. Uhm o-one of the m-men needed a hammer. He s-said he wo-would bring it back...” Brycen hesitantly explained, voice weak.

The blacksmith grit his teeth in anger, “Fool boy! I'll never see it again!”

Brycen's large, watery eyes grew impossibly larger and watery-er as he ejected a whimpering “I'm sorry Haedrig.”

The bearded man heaved a sigh, and slipped his glove off to brush sweat from his brow, leaving a trail of ash upon the skin there. “Get out of my sight.” He said wearily, voice thick with exasperation and disappointment.

Lyndon observed as Brycen hastily pulled his hood up over his head and escaped the older man's wrath. He slowed as he turned the corner of the forge and seated himself on top of their shared stash of possessions, barely a few feet away but well out of Haedrig's view. The awful blue skeleton dog of his crawled its way out from beneath Haedrig's caravan and into Brycen's lap, whining and the lad was cuddling the cursed thing. By the tell tale hitch of his shoulders it was obvious that he was crying.

Damn it. Now Lyndon was beginning to feel a little bad.

Lyndon pushed himself up from the stairs and sauntered over to the bearded blacksmith, propping himself against the anvil on his elbows. Haedrig greeted him with a withering look, which the rogue ignored with practiced ease. “But I thought you said I was the cruel one.” The rogue remarked airily, a slight smile crossing his face.

“Shut your Gods damned mouth Lyndon before I shut it for yeh! I'm not in the mood!” Haedrig growled furiously. Lyndon smirked at this. The blacksmith pulled his glove back on and drew a baking sword from the open mouth of the stove with a frustrated jerk, then approached the trough of clear water. “Damned thing's ruined now anyway without tha' hammer t'work out th' kinks.”

Lyndon eyed the glowing blade and observed the steam aggressively hissing out of the water when it was dipped. “Ah. Suppose you could still put someones eye out with it though?”

“Are you volunteering?!” Haedrig spat, throwing the stick of ruined metal into the scrap heap to be melted down later. Probably to forge more eye stabbing implements.

“Well, aren't we ornery today. Can't you just get another one?” Lyndon groused, annoyed. “Don't they have, I don't know, hammer shops or something in Westmarch?”

Haedrig seemed to soften at that and sighed, wiping the sweat from his face with a filthy rag. “My old master gave it t'me before he died. I can't jus' get anotha one.”

“Oh.” The rogue craned his head around the corner and observed Brycen again thoughtfully, but oh, interesting. Lorath had joined him, asking Brycen what was wrong. “I don't really feel like talking right now.” Lyndon heard him say in a rather wet, snot soaked sounding voice. Good. Great.

“Alright.” Lorath mumbled, looking rather crestfallen. He placed a careful hand on the boy's back and continued to sit with him while Brycen pet that glowing blue abomination.

Lyndon turned back to Haedrig with a frown. “Certainly... Brycen didn't mean to lose your hammer.” He offered gently, not even precisely sure why he even cared. Though, in retrospect, he did have a fair amount of experience in trying to do the right thing, only to make it all worse.

“He's a fool. And fools end up dead around here.” Haedrig rumbled as he looked through his impressive collection of hammers of varying size. There was a jest in there somewhere.

“Oh, is that what it is?” Lyndon mused breezily.

“Is tha' what what is?”

“Well, you can't lose any more friends if you stop acquiring them now can you?”

“You keep that nonsense to yourself, or I might jus' forget how much I owe your Demon Hunter.” The blacksmith growled at him darkly.

Lyndon grinned, “Of course, of course. Now where's my golden crossbow?!” he demanded, laughing even as he dodged a chunk of metal aimed at his head.

=+=+=+=+=+=

“Do you remember who it was that borrowed the hammer?” Lorath tried again as Lyndon sighed rather dramatically, simultaneously wondering how he had roped himself into this situation and bored to tears with the entire process.

“Don't cry Brycen. Haedrig's a bitter old bastard, he yells at everyone.” The rogue stated loudly, uncaring as to whether Haedrig heard him or not. “The sooner we find where his bloody hammer went off to, the better it will be for everyone all around.”

Brycen sniffed and wiped his tears away with his sleeve, looking embarrassed but calmer then before. Spots rasped happily up at him in pathetic little dead barks and Lyndon tried not to curl his lip in disgust. Wretched thing. “I-I think I remember. It was an older man, with a beard. He said he was a sorcerer.”

“Oh lovely! A sorcerer! Because we all need more of those! Did he happen to mention what he wanted the blasted hammer for? Powerful hammer enchants perhaps? Spinning death hammers maybe?” Lyndon rattled off, folding his arms irritably. As much as he longed for distraction, he had zero interest in tangling with a sorcerer, or mage... wizard or whatnot. Too much trouble by way of things being set on fire.

“I think he said he needed it to fix a loose floorboard.” Brycen explained shyly.

Lyndon rolled his eyes and fought the urge to just go back to the townhouse and take a nap. “Eugh. Dull.”

“Did this sorcerer say where he was going?” Lorath cut in gently. “He wasn't one of the refugees in the Enclave was he?”

“Uhm. No. He's in a house in the Westmarch Commons. I remember the street name, Broad Street, I'm just... not quite sure where it is.”

“Well I know where it is. Why couldn't you have just told Haedrig this and avoided all this nonsense?” Lyndon interrogated.

“I uhm. I got nervous.” Brycen mumbled, and dragged his hood up over his head again, tightening the opening with the drawstrings. Siiigh.

“It's alright to be nervous Brycen, Haedrig can be a little scary I suppose.” Lorath offered with a pretty smile. “At least you remembered where he went so we can make it right.”

“Yes, thank you! Thank you both!” Brycen said with a bright little smile, his face flushing pink with gratitude.

“Yes, yes it's all terribly convenient.” Lyndon spat before he was made sick to death from the adorable little scene. “Let's just go fetch it and get this whole mess over and done with shall we?”

=+=+=+=+=+=

“Lyndon does your crossbow have ice on it?” Brycen asked innocently, his brown eyes large with wonder and curiosity as Spots the horrible skeleton beast followed at his heels.

He sighed. “Yes.” Lyndon replied quickly as they followed the narrow winding streets of the capitol. He was willing to babysit Brycen and Lorath through the Commons but he'd be damned if he was going to endure a round of twenty questions on top of it.

“Why is that?”

“It's enchanted.”

“Oh. Did Haedrig enchant it?”

“Yes.”

“It's pretty.”

“Good. You tell him that.”

“Do you think he'll teach me how to do things like that?”

“Probably. But probably not if we don't find his hammer.” Gods, shut up.

“Right...”

Lorath was smiling placidly through it all, perhaps pleased enough to just be out and about, but not offering much in the way of distraction to keep Brycen from talking to him.

“What was the Blood Marsh like? I've never been there.” Brycen asked, keeping up with his questions.

“Well I wish I hadn't gone. It was dark, smelly, wet, and terrible.” Normally he might have jumped at the chance to brag but some places held such terrible memories he'd rather not speak of them at all. “Ask Lorath.”

Brycen averted his gave to the young Horadrim with a hopeful expression. “Well... uh.” Lorath began awkwardly, and Lyndon had to fight the urge to groan out loud. He was trying to be nice, but they weren't making it very easy for him by being easily two of the most useless and boring people he had ever encountered.

“It was very dark, and the waters were blood colored and poisonous. I'm glad I had a map or we might have gotten lost. We were searching for a hidden entrance into the ruins of Corvus and it took some time.” Lorath explained. “We were lucky to have Jack to protect us.”

“Hey! I helped too!” Lyndon cut in, offended.

“I know that, you were far better than I.” The Horadrim amended apologetically. Damn right I was. Lyndon thought smugly.

“I'm sure you were amazing! You got to study with Tyrael! He's an angel!” Brycen burst out excitedly, and followed it up with an embarrassed, “Sorry.”

“Thank you Brycen, I... I like to think I'm getting better all the time under Tyrael's tutelage.” Lorath answered with a pleasant smile. Lyndon was beginning to wonder if he was going to need to locate a nice secluded corner to vomit in if he was going to be forced to look at their stupid smiling faces for the duration of this outing.

“Is Jack alright? I haven't seen him.” Brycen asked suddenly after a few minutes of blessed silence.

“He's fine. He's just tired and needs to rest.” Lyndon said stiffly. And it was just brilliant because now Lyndon was thinking about Jack again and wondering if he was alright on his own for a few hours with a fever like that or if Lyndon should really be getting back to check on him. But that wolf was with him wasn't she? And when had that suddenly become an acceptable replacement for human companionship and protection-

“But for how long?” Brycen's wheedled question snapped him out of his jumbled thoughts and the rogue sighed, already tired with the direction the conversation had gone.

“Probably for longer than he would like.” Lyndon drawled, hoping that would be the end of it.

“Oh.” Brycen said, then spoke no more about it.

Good.

They turned the corner of the town square and entered into Westmarch Commons proper. There had been no fires here so most of the buildings were intact, but things were still eerily quiet. Lyndon idly fingered the blade in his pocket and felt very aware of the crossbow at his back. One could never be too careful it seemed, there was always some wretched monster huddled underneath a pile of garbage or whatnot ready to jump out and kill them, and he didn't fancy having to try to keep Brycen alive. Useless sod would probably fall down and start crying and get himself eaten and then it would be Lyndon's fault wouldn't it?

“What was Pandemonium like?” Brycen piped up again.

“It was grey and terrible. Now stop asking so many questions!” Lyndon hissed.

“He's only curious Lyndon, you're really quite lucky you know, there have been so few people to visit-”

“Oh lucky, yes of course! Apparently there haven't been enough “lucky” people who have visited to decide that no one else needs to go to Pandemonium ever, because it is the worst place in the world. Ever. Er- worst place in the realm. Creation. I don't know!”

“Sorry Lyndon...” Brycen mumbled, his eyes downcast. He was carrying the little skeleton dog in his arms now, and the damned thing looked rather pleased to be carried. About as pleased as something with no facial features to speak of could look at any rate.

“It's fine, it's fine! You don't have to bloody apologize all the time. I just didn't like it there is all.” Lyndon hurriedly explained, a bit exasperated. He was trying damn it. He was trying not to be mean, but he did not want to talk about any of this in any capacity to anyone let alone Brycen and-

“You would have hated it there. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either. There were giant bones everywhere and everything was grey and ashy and smelled like a moldy attic. There were monsters there too. Ghosts of Angels, and Demons fighting each other and the whole damned place crumbling apart at the edges. Bit not good all around.” Lyndon found himself recalling, maybe because he felt guilty for snapping, or maybe because he knew that he and Brycen had something in common. They had both grown up poor and bound to the situation they'd been born in. Both orphans now too. There was a bit of camaraderie to be found in that.

“I'd like to see new places, even if they're bad places. I've never left Westmarch before.” Brycen remarked a little sadly.

“Well, if you stick with Haedrig and the rest of us I can personally guarantee you'll see your fair share of new and exotic travel destinations.” Lyndon assured him. “Be it a besieged keep in the bitter frozen north, or a sun baked city filled with snake men. I promise we won't disappoint.”

Brycen smiled, “I think I'd like that!”

And Lyndon found himself smiling too. Maybe it was Brycen's infectious enthusiasm, or maybe it was the innocent longing for adventure that he thought had been beaten out of his own soul some time ago. Either way, when put that way, maybe Lyndon could count himself lucky for having seen parts of the world that few others had experienced.

His travels had been nothing if not a wild ride.

Chapter Text

“-and then after Korelan's death, the crown passed to Justinian the First through a... somewhat convoluted interpretation of Zakarum scripture.” Lorath droned on whilst Lyndon contemplated escape by hurling himself over the bridge into the dark waters below. This “being nice” business was proving to be an awful chore. Granted, he'd only just started listening but the fifteen seconds or so that he'd been involved in had been completely terrible.

“There was no one else in Rakkis' family?” Brycen asked horribly, dragging the history lesson out another few miserable moments.

“Korelan had no sons so they had to devise some way of determining the most worthy successor to the throne of Westmarch.”

“Ohhh, I didn't know that.”

“That's probably because it's boring.” Lyndon interjected.

Lorath frowned at him, brow furrowing in that way they sometimes did when the man wanted to argue his point, but generally ended up letting it go because he was too “polite” or some such useless rubbish. Politeness only got one so far, especially when yelling, or better still, weapons, could get all sorts of fine results.

It appeared the Horadrim would not dismiss it so readily this time. “History is important Lyndon, it shapes the events of our world, and our leaders determine our future. Don't you know who the governor of Kingsport is? Doesn't it matter to you?”

“No.” The thief answered, bored.

“No? But why?”

“Because he's an arsehole. All men with too much power are, they treat the poor like filth and the nobles like gold, instead of the gold plated filth that they are. They bow to the flighty whim of every cursed noble in the kingdom and spit upon us dirty little plebeians. I don't give a rat's arse who the governor or king is, current or otherwise. They've never done anything for me or my ilk so they can piss right off.” Lyndon stated hotly.

“Justinian was a good man.” Lorath offered gently.

“So I've been told. But all supposedly “good” kings bend their knee to the will of the wealthy no matter where you are and then the homeless get thrown out of the church. Sanctuary my arse.”

“But I thought the King was a... a King! Doesn't he have the final say?” Brycen asked, so very ignorantly.

“I'd hate to burst your bubble Brycen but gold has the final say. That's how it's always been, and that's likely how it'll always be.”

“You have some bitterness I see.” Lorath observed, speaking the utterly obvious. Of course Lyndon was bitter. If things had been different he might never had to grow up on the Kingsport streets, he and Edlin could have stayed with the orphan matron, the closest thing to a mother they'd ever had, instead of being kicked out at ten years old because the orphanage “lacked money.” Ha. He could have had a life there. He could have learned an honest trade instead of clawing and scraping and killing for everything he had. He might never have joined the Thieves Guild at all. Maybe he'd even have joined the city guard with his brother and his life would have been different instead of the utter nightmare he'd made of it.

Lorath had no bloody idea. But as Jack was so depressingly fond of saying, 'What's done is done. No use dwelling on it.'

“I suppose I am slightly bitter. Maybe you would be too if things hadn't been so damned great for you.” Lyndon answered eventually, feeling upset and frankly, rather petty. He'd gone and depressed himself again. Brilliant. He wished he was back at the town house in bed. With Jack. Sleeping. Or otherwise.

Preferably otherwise, and damn Haedrig's wretched hammer to the Burning Hells! He can bloody well forge a new one!

“I grew up with privilege. I suppose I don't really know what it's like to be... truly poor.” Lorath amended hopefully.

“It's not fun, is it Brycen?” Lyndon remarked airily, beyond tired of the conversation.

Brycen was looking between the two of them, frowning worriedly, as though he were the quiet observer to his parents having a row. Maybe he'd had such experiences before. Lyndon certainly hadn't but he'd heard about such things. A perk of not having parents, if it could be considered one.

“Uhm, n-no?” The skeleton dog was clutched tightly in the lad's arms, some kind of disgusting, glowing blue slime leaked out from between it's burly jaws. Gross.

Lyndon sighed, feeling a bit guilty.

“Ah, you've just reminded me Brycen, I have something for you.” Lyndon declared suddenly when the thought came to him. He started going through his pockets with quick, darting fingers searching for the uh... the thing. He passed over keys of varying size, coins, rings, bobby pins, several knives, lock picking tools he supposed he no longer needed, but sometimes it was still fun anyway, some kind of magic demon dust that Jack said was useful for enchanting, and... was that a pointy tooth?

“How did I remind you? I haven't said anything.” Brycen inquired with a curious expression.

“Nothing, nothing, just your depressing looking face. Uhm just... need to find the...damn... Ahh!” he closed his fingers around the palm sized rock he'd been looking for and deposited it into Brycen's open hands with a triumphant little smile planted on his face.

“Oh thank you! It's a... a rock!” Brycen exclaimed a bit too pleased about it before he even knew what it really was. The lad was probably used to getting boring gifts like socks or whatnot as a Winter Solstice presents every year. If even that.

“Not just any old rock, I picked that up in Pandemonium. Thought you might like it.” Lyndon insisted proudly, then felt slightly embarrassed when Brycen's stupidly innocent eyes grew large enough to take up his entire idiot face.

“Ooohh! Is it magic then? Or- or cursed maybe?!” Brycen asked excitedly, as though being cursed by a rock from another realm might be the most interesting thing that could ever happen to him. Well, aside from the most interesting experience of surviving the systematic murder of most of the people in the world by evil angels while hiding in a walking-corpse infested cellar for Akarat knew how long.

Lorath was laughing, his hand over his mouth in show of some ingrained sense of noble politeness with his blue eyes squeezed shut in mirth. His teeth were pearly white and very even, and his short blonde hair was sticking up at odd angles in the back from wearing his hood up all day. Lyndon thought that if he were a worse person he might have actively tried to bed him. It probably wouldn't have been very difficult, he'd caught the other man staring before. But he wasn't rotten enough to actually do it, just... rotten enough to think about doing it.

He was already with someone anyway. And wasn't that a thought to mull over.

“I don't know. Let me know if your hair falls out or your skin melts off or whatnot.” Lyndon answered absently, staring far down the road and then behind them to make sure he hadn't gotten distracted and passed the street they'd been looking for.

“Bloody Hell! Oh! ...Sorry. Shouldn't have said that, heh.” Brycen exclaimed.

Lyndon rolled his eyes, scoffing.“Pssshh! How old are you?”

“I'm eighteen!” The lad said puffing up his chest rather proudly. “Eighteen winters.”

Lyndon exchanged a glance with Lorath that communicated an 'older than I thought' between them, before he insisted “Then say whatever the Hell you want. No one cares. At least I don't.”

“My parents said I shouldn't curse.” Brycen answered rather haughtily.

Lyndon could have said something horrible about them not being around anymore anyway so it didn't matter, but he didn't. Because it always mattered. Even when it wasn't supposed to.

“Oh. Droll.” He said instead.

“Regardless.” Lorath cut in. “I'm sure it's just a harmless stone, even if it is from another realm of Creation. There's likely nothing to worry about.” Lorath assured them confidently. Lyndon sighed, know-it-all.

It was blessedly quiet for a few minutes while they walked. Brycen turned the stone over and over in his hands, his eyes bright with wonder.

“Lyndon... I apologize. I meant no-” Lorath began hesitantly.

“Forget it. It's fine.” Lyndon interrupted quickly. “You said it was this street, yes? Broad street?” He said loudly as he spotted the worn street sign nailed to the side of a dumpy looking brick building. He was glad to have an opportunity to change the subject. Praise Akarat! He was feeling a bit peckish and tired and he just wanted to go back to the townhouse for a nap, but he felt too guilty to just abandon Lorath and Brycen without at least getting the hammer back first. They'd probably both die without him anyway. Get eaten by rats or some leftover skeletons or something.

Brycen stared at the sign, then back at the thief.“I think so.”

“Well, you'd better know so because I don't want to be wandering around all afternoon knocking on doors like some nosy peddler.” Lyndon remarked irritably. “I have some very important er- things! I could be doing.”

“Like what?” Brycen asked. Curiosity was a wretched trait.

“Deals. Important deals. Never you mind!” Lyndon insisted.

“It's this street. I'm certain.” Brycen said.

“Good.”

They walked aimlessly down the street, peering at the dark windows of every house they passed. Brycen had better not be wrong. Lyndon didn't mind doing a bit of searching but if they had to check every damn house on the street he was going to just leave them here to fend for themselves and try to coerce the Demon Hunter into taking another bath, if he wasn't too tired, that is. With Lyndon with him this time. That would be nice.

Lyndon fantasized about this for several minutes, letting his eyes dart around until they lit upon the only house on the street that seemed like someone was inside of it. There was flickering light emanating from the upstairs windows. “Ah, good. Must be that house there. There's lights.” As he spoke, he caught a whiff of something, something disgusting. Like a thing was lying dead somewhere. He wrinkled his nose unhappily. He hadn't noticed the stench of death since the city had been cleaned up, the air had been pleasantly fresh for days now. Perhaps a horde of rats crawled under the steps and died? Damn things were everywhere.

They stood upon the threshold of the front door expectantly and Lyndon put on his best smile before rattling the pretty, wolf shaped doorknocker. Several minutes passed in silence. Lyndon felt impatience starting to bite at him while Lorath coughed into his elbow, and Brycen kicked at the lip of the topmost step.

“Helllooo?!” Lyndon shouted impatiently. Bloody bastard sorcerer! It was getting late, and he really should be getting back soon. Jack might be awake and wondering where he was. Lyndon wouldn't put it past him to get concerned enough to go out looking for him, even if he shouldn't have even been out of bed.

“Gods damned... ugh.” He tested the doorknob, and it wasn't locked so he pushed the door open.

“I don't think we should go in uninvited...” Brycen said a little nervously.

“Nonsense, an unlocked door is an invitation! Ahaha!” Lyndon answered cheerfully while Lorath frowned disapprovingly at him in the same way people had been doing for years. He was more than used to that look to ignore it with ease. Besides, even if the door had been locked he would have just used the skeleton key. Far quicker that way.

Inside it was dark and empty and there wasn't a soul to be seen. Just great. The floor was barren and rather dusty, as though no one had been living here for quite some time. And Gods, why did everything stink?

“What's that awful stench?” He asked unhappily. The foul odor was thick and sickly sweet, and made his stomach turn. It reminded him of the Noble's Rest Courtyard with all of those bodies piled up- best to think of something else. He grit his teeth, he was so sick of smelling dead things.

“It smells like a corpse. Or a whole pile of them.” The Horadrim answered, hand over his nose. Lyndon was about to reply when the man suddenly conjured a gentle blue light at the tip of his staff spear thing.

Hold on.

“Since when can you use magic?!” Lyndon hissed accusingly.

“I'm a mage. I'm supposed to use magic.” Lorath answered matter-of-factly, as though Lyndon should have somehow known that already.

“Well, why didn't you use any in the Blood Marsh when it would have been... I don't know, useful?”

“Well... I'm still learning.” The Horadrim admitted with a faint flush coloring his cheeks. Bloody useless sod.

Lyndon rolled his eyes, “Gods, whatever. Just don't light me on fire or something. Hellloooo?!!” He shouted into the seemingly empty house. Stupid crumbling shithole. Where the Hell was that sorcerer? Did he even exist? Was this all just a concocted farce meant to waste his valuable time?

“Does anyone see a hammer? Maybe we can just grab it and leave.” Lyndon remarked, looking around on the floors. There was no furniture, not even any trinkets left lying around. No one had lived here for years.

“Perhaps upstairs?” Lorath suggested. Brycen stood very close to the Horadrim, frowning nervously. Spots glowed vividly bright in his arms, leaking shimmery spots of blue grossness on the worn floor. Eugh. He'd never get used to that thing. Jack was out of his mind for adopting it. Though, in retrospect, Lyndon supposed he shouldn't jest about the poor hunter's sanity, especially nowadays.

They climbed the creaking staircase, at the top was a door, slightly ajar with a fair amount of blue tinted light coming from it. Lyndon fancied that he could hear something as well. Like someone was speaking. Without knocking he opened the door with a flourish and- oh.

Bodies. Dead bodies. Hooo boy. Not good. Very not good. Can't things ever be normal and easy?

The stench of death that assaulted them was so strong it was nearly physical. There were several small piles of bodies, at least six to a stack, arranged in a circle in the small, cramped room. The floor was covered in dozens and dozens of intersecting white lines. Magical etchings and sigils were drawn on almost every spare inch of space in chalk. Lyndon didn't know what they did or why they were there, but he did know that they usually meant bad. As soon as he got over the initial shock of their grim discovery, he realized that someone was, in fact, talking. A bearded man stood in the center of the haphazardly stacked cadavers. He was dressed in simple, but nice looking clothes (was that silk?) and was reading from a rather ornate looking tome. There was some sort of blue energy swirling around the corpses, sparkling in the room like moonlight.

“Brycen.” Lyndon whispered suddenly, unshouldering his crossbow and loading a faintly misting ice arrow into it. “Go back downstairs, and be quick about it.”

Brycen was looking at him and stubbornly shaking his head, raw terror in his gaze as he hugged Spots in his arms all the tighter while the wretched little thing wheezed from the strain. He hid himself behind Lorath as best he could, even though they were almost the same height. It really looked rather pathetic.

“Mind what I say, go back downstairs!” The thief nearly shouted, but Brycen wouldn't go, and Gods damn it all he was going to get them both killed because he'd never really had to protect anyone before who couldn't defend themselves properly and why wasn't Jack here-

“Ave obitus, Ave interitus, insurgos ellistros institu.” The sorcerer read aloud from the pages of his book. The magic lights flickered and began to glow brighter. Good. Great. Brilliant.

“Uhm. Excuse me.” Lyndon interrupted loudly, aiming his crossbow at the sorcerer's (Necromancer's?) head. “What the Hell are you doing?”

The sorcerer startled with a small cry, nearly dropping his book, and spun on his heel to face the three of them standing in the doorway. “Oh! I uh-” He fumbled awkwardly.

What in the bleeding Hells was going on?

The sorcerer quickly gained his bearings and made a show of trying (and failing) to look like he was someone important. “I am casting a spell to recall the souls that have been stolen from these poor people, in order to restore their lives!” The man said proudly.

“Sir! This is an abomination! You must stop!” Lorath shouted from the thief's side. At least the young scholar had a weapon. Brycen had literally nothing. Less than nothing, because he was an idiot.

“I think it's a little late for that. I don't think anyone would fancy being brought back to life in a half rotted body. Unless your little spell fixes the uhm, gross bits? Does it?” Lyndon asked irritably. Was everyone in Westmarch bloody insane?

“It-It should!” The sorcerer insisted unconvincingly.

“Well, I think you're so full of shit your eyes are brown!” Lyndon snapped. He'd met a Necromancer er, Priest of Rathma, twice now, and he and far more capable looking than this useless muppet!

“Magic cannot restore them now you fool!” Lorath cut in.

“Excuse me! I am a Necromancer and I know what I am doing!” The sorcerer shouted, furious.

Lorath balked, looking almost personally offended. “You are not a Necromancer! The art requires years of careful study and you can't just-”

“You have no idea what you're talking about! You've interrupted a very delicate... ahm... ritual! And I politely request that you leave and- oh? What's that?” There was a low moaning sound and something moved. A scraping noise against the floor.

Oh no. Lyndon looked back at Brycen to see that he had pressed himself against the wall in the hallway, eyes huge. Well, it wasn't downstairs, but at least he was out of the way. It'd have to do.

“Praise Akarat, it's working!” The corpses were shifting, they were starting to come alive. The room filled with the sound of the pained moans of the dead. They staggered to their feet, leaking black fluid from ruined eyes, mouths gaping open to show yellowed teeth and Gods, Gods could nothing stay dead?

“Oh dear.” The “Necromancer” said breathlessly, stumbling towards Lyndon and away from the nightmare he'd created. “This- this wasn't supposed to happen!”

“You think?!” Lyndon shouted at him, then loosed three perfectly multiplied ice arrows into the closest three shambling dead things. They exploded on impact, sending frozen gore splattering against the grimy looking walls. Disgusting.

If Jack were here, this entire mess would have already been over and done with. But he wasn't here, was he?

Lorath stabbed at one with his spear, the conjured light on the end burning into rotten flesh and making the room smell impossibly worse. It took him a few tries to yank to spear free and he nearly fell backwards, almost pulling the still wriggling corpse down on top of him. Lyndon put a frozen arrow in its disgusting, squishy head, freezing it, unmoving, to the wall.

“Can you try not being useless for five bleeding seconds?!” Lyndon screeched at the Horadrim furiously. Impossibly angry for having gotten himself into this horribly stressful situation. He swore he would never offer to help them ever again. He'd just wanted to get Haedrig's stupid hammer back and then go have a nap. Was that too much to ask for?!

A fireball whizzed by his head, nearly burning his face off, and scorched five shambling corpses to cinders and set the filthy curtains on the tightly shuttered windows alight. Uhm.

“You don't even know what you're doing do you?!” Lyndon squawked at the Horadrim who was struggling to form another ball of fire between his open palms. Idiot. This was why he avoided magic!

“I'm sorry! I'm trying!” Lorath said, and threw another, more properly aimed ball of burning death at their undead enemies.

“Well try harder!”

Lyndon looked back again to make sure Brycen was still alive. He could barely make him out through the smoke, peering wide eyed around the edge of the door frame while the useless bearded sorcerer flipped through the pages in his book like a madman, mumbling and cursing to himself.

The thief stuffed a hand into his pocket as he kicked at a snapping corpse. Its head sailed clean off its shoulders and hit the ground with a sickening thunk. Lyndon frantically searched through his pockets, looking for the thing that that would bring this whole mess to an end and there, there! A grenade!

“Get back!” He yelled at Lorath who scrambled to get behind him as Lyndon lobbed the grenade into the center of the pack of clawing ghouls.

The explosion was loud, but surprisingly contained. It seemed to have done the trick and honestly, Lyndon was just happy he wasn't completely covered in gore. Again.

“All dead? Rather, extra specially dead? Good.” The thief said, brushing off his sleeves nonchalantly while Lorath staggered to his feet, bracing his forearm against the grimy, gore spattered wall, panting.

“Give me that rutting book!” Lyndon hissed, rounding on the sorcerer and yanking it out of his surprise numbed hands, then hurled it at Lorath who was just barely able to catch it. The young scholar might get some use out of it at least. This dumb bastard certainly wasn't going to.

“Where's the hammer Brycen lent you?” The thief questioned angrily.

“B-Brycen...?” The sorcerer stammered, apparently in shock.

“Yes. Brycen. That one.” He pointed to the terrified boy standing in the doorway. As he pointed he noticed Spots had started chewing on a severed corpse's hand, dragging it around on the floor and smearing blood everywhere.

“NO!” He shouted firmly at the awful dog thing. “Bloody disgusting! Drop it! Brycen?! Will you control that wretched beast?!?! Akarat's tits, I can't even-” Lyndon grit his teeth and massaged the bridge of his nose. He tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, sighing loudly until he felt less furious. He was starting to get a headache. Brycen picked Spots up into his arms again and retreated back to the safety of the doorway.

Lyndon turned his attention back to the sorcerer who was staring white faced at the disaster he had caused. “Where's the hammer.” He asked again flatly, voice quieter.

“I-I left it leaning against the banister. At...at the bottom of the stairs.” The useless wannabe Necromancer explained faintly, turning his gaze to the floor and blinking rapidly.

“Ah. Lovely.” They'd walked right by it. “What the Hell did you even need it for? If you don't mind my asking?”

“There... there was a loose floorboard.”

“Oh, Of course there was.” Lyndon muttered sarcastically. Gods.

“You're the worst Necromancer I've ever seen, you're not even a Necromancer. You're giving this up right now or Akarat help me I will kick you out the gods damned window!” The thief snarled.

“I do hope you've learned your lesson. Life and death is not to be trifled with by the uninitiated.” Lorath lectured rather primly whilst he adjusted his robes and tucked his new book into his satchel.

“Ah. Yes. O-Of course. B-Bless you, good sirs.” The sorcerer mumbled, horrified and ashamed. As he should be.

“Brilliant. Now give me your shirt.” Lyndon demanded.

“W-what?”

“Lyndon!” Lorath practically yelled.

“Your shirt. The cream one. It's silk isn't it? Give it to me right now or I'll fill your skull full of arrows and take it off your dead body.” Lyndon threatened while Lorath made a tongue clicking noise of disapproval from somewhere behind him.

=+=+=+=+=+=

“Now then.” Lyndon began as they made their leisurely way back to the Enclave. He was feeling considerably more cheerful with a brand new shirt under his arm and Haedrig's missing hammer back in Brycen's grubby, drool stained and grateful little hands. “We are making a pact between the three of us.”

“And what is that exactly?” Lorath asked suspiciously. He'd been rather cross with Lyndon ever since the thief had apparently “set a bad example for Brycen” by stealing and threatening murder all within the same sentence. Not that Lyndon cared one jot. That magicky bastard was lucky Lyndon hadn't just killed him outright.

Being nice was an awful chore.

“As far as Jack knows, this never happened.” Lyndon continued breezily.

“Why? Will he get mad?” Brycen asked curiously.

“Very mad. At me.” Lyndon insisted. “Which is something I'd prefer to avoid.”

“...Alright.” Lorath hesitantly agreed.

“Ok.” Brycen said with a happy little smile.

“Right then.”

“Uhm. Thank you Lyndon.” Brycen offered, beaming up at him with a stupid little smile planted on his idiot face.

“You're welcome. But if you really want to thank me you'll ask before ever lending out anything that isn't yours.”

“Alright. I promise.” Brycen said.

There. See? Lyndon could be a fine example when he wanted to be. Lorath could shove it.

“Good.”

He tuned Lorath out when the Horadrim started speaking about history and Kings and all that boring rubbish again, instead fantasizing about the nap he would be taking very soon. Sometimes things worked out, even if they were mostly terrible.

-End

Chapter Text

 “I have seen the horrors that lie
beneath the earth. I have felt
the icy breath of darkness upon
my skin, and have been gripped
by the skeletal talons of death
itself. What prayer can ever
heal the bleeding marks of
Terror’s embrace?”

Jack still dreams about it sometimes.

It was rarely the moment of his undoing in the Pandemonium Fortress that came to life in his vulnerable moments, and for that small mercy he was grateful. The nature of his dreams, a strung out series of truths, lies, and fevered dread all coalescing into an Aurora Borealis kaleidoscope of horror behind his eyelids, ensured that no two dreams were ever quite the same. The well to draw from was deep after all. But tonight he did dream of that moment, as he had a dozen or so times before in the past month.

They all begin in the same way: blood pours down from the gash in his back like hot syrup, almost tacky in how it tries to stick him to the stone floor. Dragging himself across the cold surface on his belly like a snake, it takes him a lifetime to crawl to Lyndon, who lies motionless and dead eyed just paces away. It was like trying to reach a drifting boat in a current of deep water. By the time Jack reaches him, Malthael is there, a silent sentinel observing the offering upon the altar, towering like a black cathedral steeple. The screams of a hundred thousand lost souls ring in his ears.

Jack places his hand upon Lyndon's chest, as though he can will life back into his empty body through some sort of divine exaltation, but the surface of his chest gives way and his hand sink s in through skin, muscle and breastbone, a well of hot, coppery blood squirting up between his fingers and steaming in the frigid air. In a panic he tries to yank his fingers back from the bleeding hole in his breast, but Lyndon jerks alive, eyes lit with that pulsing blue light that only shone through deep water. The river of the dead. And he screams and screams and screams and claws at him, undead fingers reaching up to devour him.

Jack pulls one more time and is finally free of him, Lyndon's heart clutched tightly in his palm, flickering in his grasp like a captive bird. When he sinks his teeth in to taste, it's sweeter than the honey mined from his father's bee trees. Sweeter than anything in the world—

He wakes swallowing screams and bile to Lyndon's cautious hands shaking him and calling his name in breathy panic though thick, still slurred from sleep, “Yer dreaming Jacky, what—” Terror and revulsion mixes hot in his veins like venom and he curls into Lyndon's waiting arms without a struggle. They wind firmly around his head and hold him there, like a shroud to calm frightened livestock. Jack sobs into the crook of his elbow, tears near drowning him. Lyndon quickly gives up on asking him what's wrong and instead tries to hush him, fingers petting in that anchoring, familiar way, assuring him that everything was going to be alright. Was alright, and that they were fine.

Sometimes, it was harder for Jack to believe him.

Chapter Text

She lives in a bungalow
She kills me with rosegarden thorns
She waits for me
My love is unusual
It's painted with roses and thorns
with her I'm complete

—Atlanta, Stone Temple Pilots

Lyndon still dreams about it sometimes.

His dreams did not always fixate on singular moments of profound trauma like Jack's did. He had nightmares sure, but for the most part his dreams were trivial things. Simple things. That or he simply did not remember them at all. Sometimes they were memories, and he wasn't exactly sure if these sorts of dreams were actually worse than the nightmares. Perhaps they could be lumped into the same category. Even his happiest dreams would turn to ash when he woke. Usually because most of these good memories involved Edlin in some way or another.

Lyndon applied much of his mental effort to locking away all thoughts of his brother in favor of less upsetting things (usually sex, or food, or both if he could manage it). He spoke of Edlin as little as he could possibly manage, didn't volunteer any information, and dismissed well-meaning inquiries from his so-called friends. And yet, he still managed to slip up around the Demon Hunter. Of course. Then when the moment was over it was back to burying them deep within the chests of his mind, locking them up tight, tight, tight until they burst forth again. 'X' marks the spot, and all that good rubbish.

Rea was locked away in there too like a shining jewel amongst tarnished coin, and despite all of his feelings of anger and betrayal and guilt, he sometimes dreamed of her too.

“Where are you taking me Lyndy?” Rea asked, her hand held tight in his as he led her down narrow alleys and snickleways, snaking his way toward the docks.

“It's a surprise!” He teased, almost giddy with eager excitement.

“Well I hope it's a good one, your last “surprise” nearly got us arrested.” She said skeptically.

“Nonsense. You'll love it.” And he proclaimed this with utmost confidence, because he was certain she would. He was going to show her a 'pretty thing' and as far as he knew, all girls loved 'pretty things,' and this was certainly one of the prettiest things he knew of in Kingsport that wasn't sealed inside the Merchant's Guild bank vault.

They reached the docks and climbed the haphazardly piled rocks down to the pebbled shoreline. Lyndon's grip tight on her elbow in case she slipped and fell, but she didn't, and his hand quickly found hers again.

Soon, they came upon a stretch of beach roses, growing wild on the edge of the shore. The heavily flowered bushes towered over their heads and stretched back toward the land a good mile.

“How lovely! They smell wonderful.” Rea said, leaning over a cluster of pink blossoms and breathing them in like they were the best thing she had ever smelled. Her dark hair swept down over her shoulder, coming loose from where she had tied it, and the pretty blue pendant she wore around her neck swung forward from where it rested between her breast, dangling above the flowers and catching the waning sunlight. When she looked up at him with her warm, brown eyes he was momentarily struck dumb by the sight of her, and it took him a moment or two to find his words again.

“Smells a damn sight better than the sewage drain I'd say. I used to come here a lot when I was small.”

“Just here? To the shoreline and the roses?”

“Not quite. In here.” Lyndon pushed thorned branches aside and beckoned her to go on ahead of him. With a mischievous grin that matched his own, she cut in front, and soon they were both pressed tight together, hands entwined, navigating the narrow hidden path of flowers that opened into a soft grassy clearing. The beach roses seemed to grow back into the land further and further with each passing year, but this little clearing always remained open. Birds flitted about in the dark of the bushes in the time they had left before sundown, and fluffy bumble bees whirred lazily from flower to flower, gorging themselves on the pollen, their little black legs fat with yellow clumps of it.

All around them the roses bloomed pink and white and fragrant. The sky tingeing pink with the coming sunset. He'd been sure to time it just right.

“Do- do you like it?” Lyndon asked her, a little unsure. A lot of girls hated bugs, a lot of girls hated being dirty, there were so many things to get right-

But she smiled at him, her teeth shining out radiant against her caramel skin, cheeks and lips flushed pink. “It's beautiful.” She said, and kissed him, and he was sure then that he loved her, finally knew what love was, and felt it for her more in that moment than for anyone else in the whole world. Wouldn't love another soul ever again from this moment on, until he breathed his very last.

There upon the grass they pulled their clothes away, because no one would ever come looking for them here, and he made love to her like he never thought he could with someone else and in the soft twilight told her loved her-

-and when the familiar dagger slid into his heart he knew that he had no one to blame but himself for making the mistake of loving her.

She wasn't smiling anymore, her eyes gone cold, her face gone harsh and the vibrant flowers had withered and died all around them, the bushes empty of leaves and blossoms but for thorns as large as his fingers, the grass they rested upon burnt brown around them. When he gasped, blood welling up from the wound upon his naked breast she said: “I killed him. Come after me if you must. I killed him-”

Lyndon jerked awake with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in the darkness of the bedroom. He panted hot in the enclosed, curtained space of the bed, eyes burning with something like tears and he hastily scrubbed at his eyes with shaky hands, smearing them away.

“Lyndon?” A voice said, sleep-thick, from his immediate left.

Dark hair, caramel skin, for a fleeting moment in the silvery slanting moonlight there, Lyndon thought it was her, but it was blue eyes that gazed back at him, not brown, out of a chiseled face carved out of wood littered and with two day old stubble, rather than the apple roundness of feminine cheeks, and he remembered where he was.

“Just a dream I think, nothing serious, I can't even remember it anymore.” Lyndon lied when he could trust himself to speak, his voice a hoarse, heavy whisper.

“Oh.” Jack sounded unconvinced, but soon became content and sleepy again when Lyndon laid back down and pressed up against the hard line of his back, burying his face into his raven's feather black hair that spread long and messy over the pillow.

He breathed in soft the scent of leather and black birch and that copper smell long after Jack's breath had evened out into quiet sleep again. Faster and easier than it often did. But not matter how hard he dragged air in through his nose, he could not quite shake the phantom odor of beach roses that married with the salt of the sea.

Chapter Text

“Once you have started seeing the beauty of life, ugliness starts disappearing.
If you start looking at life with joy, sadness starts disappearing.
You cannot have Heaven and Hell together, you can have only one.
It is your choice.”
—Osho

In the foggy, wall-dripping waking moments between extended naps, Jack became rather intimately familiar with the hardwood floor path between the master bedroom and the bathroom. The ferrets would bob along at his feet, whiskers twitching, never growing tired of following him. Fever made his hands sweat-slick and clammy, bringing harsh temperature flux and an overload of unpleasant textural sensations. The smooth whitewashed pine of the walls that his hands slid over for balance would be too cool and course against his fingers, but did nothing to douse the fire burning in his head. The boards at his feet were polished mahogany, the carpet lining the short hall gone askew. A cold glass of water in his fingers soothed the heat away, but only for minutes at a time. Then the journey would begin again: Twelve steps there. Twelve steps back. Crawl into bed. Sleep. And again.

Twelve might as well have been twelve thousand for the amount of time it took him to traverse it without Lyndon's hesitantly offered help, but he forced himself to do it, panting and wavering like storm rocked schooner, if only to prove to himself that he could. He didn't entertain the idea of navigating the staircase (at least, he vaguely remembered that there had been a staircase somewhere). He didn't remember what the outside of the house looked like, what part of the city it was in, or how he had even come to be here. His world narrowed down to a few walls, a heavily curtained window, a door that admitted various animals, and the buzzing insistence that was Lyndon's presence. When they slept at night, the curtain around the bed would be drawn closed, and the world shrank down further. A comforting tomb of warm, soft dark.

He couldn't summon the energy to be mad at the rogue for convincing him to swallow cup after cup of whatever it was in that bitter tasting tea that made sleep open up beneath him like a black hole. He hadn't slept this well since Bastion's Keep. He slept better. He felt better.

Later, he would acknowledge that he couldn't have handled much more than this. Sometimes when he closed his eyes he dreamed of gold light and dead eyes. The tea didn't always work.

=+=+=+=+=

Days moved by, each one a gift he thought he wouldn't receive. It was difficult to determine how many exactly, but when he could stay awake for longer than a quarter hour at a time- a halo of his own sweat spread in a ring around him, marking a fever broken, a body healing -coursing, rambling thoughts replaced untroubled dark. He would think about his missing crossbows, replacing them part by intricate part in his head, absently rubbing his fingers together, remembering slivers of cursed wood that had once been buried in deep. He tallied each component and the materials it would take to re-create them, things Haedrig didn't have. He drew up the blueprints in his mind to pour over when boredom grew insistent, eventually they made the transfer to an empty page of his journal, and if the writing was shakier than his usual, it was alright because he could still read it well enough.

In moments of anxiety, distressingly frequent, he worried about the people back in the grassy courtyard of the cathedral. Eirena, Kormac, Myriam, Haedrig, Shen. His friends. Those lingering Westmarch residents. How was the city faring? How were the people doing? Was there enough food? What was happening now? Were there still creatures left that needed to be dealt with? Was general Torion leading the effort? Lyndon would have remarked on the typical nature of his thoughts and scoffed at him. Would tell him ' Eat this, then go back to sleep.' or 'Draw your raven, or the falcon, or I don't know. Something. The weas- ferret things. Stop fretting!'

Lyndon would update him on current events when he came back, giving his own airy, disinterested version of what was going on that contained far too much personal opinion and not enough real information, but Jack felt better just listening to him talk.

=+=+=+=+=

He'd stare raw eyed out at the ceiling, not immediately visible above his head due to the bed's canopy, but beyond the square of half drawn curtains he would count the heavy wooden beams crisscrossing the white washed surface of it until it felt like his eyes would burn out of his head like a dying sun. Or a falling star. During the day, the small, shuttered windows would be throw open and The Master Hunter's falcon would sit patiently upon the ledge, surveying the cobbled street below. Sometimes it would leave, then come back, a large rat or pigeon dead in its talons, fur and feathers scattering over the floor.

Going up North would happen soon. Home. Or close enough. When could they leave? Maybe when he could stand for longer than twelve minutes without feeling lightheaded. Feeling a pinch of anger at this, he would curl onto his side and heave a sigh. This time spent being useless was more frustrating than simply being tired. At least if he was asleep he wouldn't have to think about it. He bore his restlessness in stages, winding his fingers into black fur, mahogany hair, around a pencil, whiskered noses, and feathered backs, marking guideposts of contentment along the spiral of his rattling thoughts.

When Lyndon was away, purposelessness rotted in his throat and threatened to choke him. He had not devoted his life to sitting around.

=+=+=+=+=

Sometimes he would wake up in the day and find Lyndon asleep beside him, 'afternoon nap.' Lyndon would say to excuse himself. The thief liked having a lot of blankets, either because he liked the weight, or he simply enjoyed the luxury of having acquired so many. With the way Lyndon crushed himself against him like a leech he certainly couldn't be cold.

He would always leave again after, but would return with dinner and stay for good until the following day when he would go out again. Jack didn't ever want him to go, but he knew that Lyndon needed to be around people. It wouldn't do him any good to sit here alone while Jack slept like a dead rock with little else but animals to talk at.

Jack thought about making more arrows- fire, ice, and shadow, and sharp edged raven feathers -getting a jump on replenishing their dwindled supply, but as though the thief could sense he needed an activity to keep busy, he made the suggestion that they make them together in the evenings. The rogue's enchanting was getting better, occasional temper tantrums not withstanding. Jack thought about the ethereal thread of contentment stretching out to measure the space between them.

=+=+=+=+=

He would not think about the gold light, brighter than the sun and burning the Angel of Wisdom turned Death to ashes upon the floor. Pandemonium was just one of many things he refused to think about.

=+=+=+=+=

When Lyndon saw fit to get out of bed, usually late, he would hunt around the cluttered mess of their room for what he would wear each day, muttering and cursing because he'd misplaced just about everything he owned within a span of hours. It was their house when Lyndon wanted to go to sleep, take a bath, eat something, or pry something valuable from the wall downstairs to pawn off to some desperate merchant downtown, but it was 'Pfft. Not mine, not my problem.' when it was suggested that maybe they should clean up and take care of their living space like responsible adults. Keep the room within the definition of bedroom rather than an animal's nest made soft by the spread of their woven possessions.

The instinct to get up and do something soon became stronger than the need to lie down and do nothing. It had been many years since Jack last thought of the placement of items in a room, hadn't owned enough things to even need to keep anything organized, but when he was feeling good, Jack would pick up a little. If only to burn away some mental energy, but perhaps to also prevent Lyndon from becoming too frustrated by his own absent-mindedness. It was rather important to stop stray items from migrating their way into the fireplace and burning the whole townhouse down around them he noted.

His mother had kept a clean house and taught him well.

Jack would sit cross-legged on the floor and examine Lyndon's collection of things while he put them away in his bag, as though they were the key to unlocking some great secret about him. Knives of varying size, shape, and quality. A collection of keys. A straight razor and a travel mirror. Powder flasks filled with fine sand and flammable oils. Sets of dice (one loaded, one not, and one with twenty sides). A deck of cards with six too many Aces, and a comb carved from bone and inlaid with mother of pearl. A mostly empty snuff box he couldn't recall ever seeing before. A copper Kingsport Guard's badge wrapped in a handkerchief, the design comprised of two crossed blades and a beach rose between them. It made his heart ache for what might have been.

When Lyndon would return to find things clean and organized he would look around in wide-eyed confusion as though he had never known that it could be that way. It had probably been years since he had last stayed in any one place for longer than a few nights at a time. Lyndon didn't know what a home was, and it had been a long time since Jack had found cause to remember.

=+=+=+=+=

Jack learned that the sandalwood smell came from a small brown-glassed bottle filled with clear oil. The scent of it curled in the back of his throat and sank to his belly like low-lying fog. It made him drowsy, made him hot, tingly, heavy - he put it away soon after, burning that cresting desire out of himself through pushups, situps, and pullups on the wooden beam jutting across the ceiling. Anything to keep him physically occupied until the dizziness forced him to lie very still on the floor and wait until he could manage to crawl back into bed again. Defeat burned an acrid path through his chest, and naked want still stubbornly whispered through his nerves.

=+=+=+=+=

Most of the time they didn't bother engaging in the full act. Jack could count the number of times they had on one hand. As much as Lyndon shamelessly claimed to love his naked debauchery, he never seemed to push very hard to get it. At least, not outside of that first handful of hours when there had barely been enough self control and coordination between them to manage the task of getting undressed. Lyndon initiated, often when they woke in the drowsy morning, but would hardly take it much further than kisses and sleepy grinding until Jack would come awake and turn into him. He'd kiss him back through morning breath and too-bright light melting through the drapes like softened butter, permission granted without words.

Desire would grow more insistent and their hips would slot together tight, both of them more awake then they'd been moments before, and Jack's fingers would bruise into Lyndon's upper arm while his other hand would curl around his lower back, encouraging their bodies to rock into each other, getting the rhythm just right, until they were both worn threadbare, gasping and shaking, white heat burning out between them.

Sometimes just his fingers. Sometimes just his mouth. Sometimes both. Arching into his touch. “You like that?” Lyndon would ask. Always asked. 'Yes', he would try to say, 'yes' but would only be able to make other sounds. Animal sounds. The world gone spinning fast away from him and sending gold licking up his spine to burst in his skull.

Each time left him open mouthed and shook him hard enough to slough years off his life like the skin of a shedding snake.

Drunk on touch, he would revel in the calmness of it afterward. Sleep would come easy after, softening the world at its edges. A water washed pastel of gentle colors instead of lurid red and cutting slate. There would be a vulnerability that would emerge from Lyndon after, as though he'd forget to put his mask back on after everything else had been taken off. As though he were much more himself in these soft moments than at any other time. It felt like he had passed some kind of test that proved his humanity, that he was one of them instead of something else.

They didn't talk about it. It just was. Neither of them were very good with discussing feelings. They liked each other, and this “whatever it was” between them was good.

For now this was more than alright. More than he'd dared to ever dream of wanting.

After, Lyndon would wake up again around noon, tell him that his breath was terrible and languish in bed with him some more until he would eventually ooze his way up with all the loose-limbed laziness of a sun cooked cat. He would smile at Jack as though he hadn't unraveled him like a fraying tapestry, as though he hadn't utterly wrecked him hours before. As though he did things like this every single day as part of his morning routine. Jack figured that this probably wasn't very far from the truth.

=+=+=+=+=

Lyndon's only other apparent motivation for getting out of bed was to get something to eat, either by making something edible to the best of his meager cooking abilities or going out to get whatever Myriam had made. He always brought Jack something, and would hover while the Demon Hunter ate it, always trying to pretend that he was doing something else. It was rather sweet of him, even disguised by thinly veiled air of casual indifference. Jack could not remember the last time he had been fretted over in such a way. Actively tried not to remember. He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself. Lyndon would painstakingly remind him daily to 'Stay here and rest, or read, or whatnot, just don't go anywhere!' as though Jack had a selective memory when it came to his own well-being.

This should have been mildly insulting, but when the seventh day of his enforced convalescence rolled around and he was feeling good enough to make the short trip to the Enclave for lunch and a much desired visit, he proved that Lyndon had been quite correct in his assessment of Jack's ability to pay attention to himself: They hadn't even made it halfway to the waypoint before a tolerable, ignorable pain in his head had progressed to steady, splitting agony, as though the grey matter of his brain were trying to forcefully escape the confines of his skull.

Even still, it was ingrained habit to will any discomfort away and continue. He'd suffered far worse, and it would probably be gone within the hour anyway. The only thing stopping him now was the brittle sound of Lyndon's voice piercing through the haze like a blade, “Gods, your face has gone bone white. Are you feeling alright? Are you going to be sick?”

And Jack remembered that he wasn't supposed to do this anymore.

“Headache.” He'd admitted, the word feathering out shamefully from between his gritted teeth, as though acknowledging that something was wrong, was some great, unpardonable sin. Jack wasn't quite sure where the pain resonated from more, his aching head or the core of his wounded pride.

(Arrogant Nephalem-)

“Would it kill you to say 'I don't feel well?” Lyndon had asked, the irritation in his words stained over with concern.

In the wrong company, it just might. Jack had thought, but at the time he'd been unable to respond. His vision blurred the hand that was leading him back down the street with a firm grip on his elbow. Lyndon called him ten kinds of stupid, stubborn and frustrating the entire way back, and Jack did his level best to tune him out, far too angry with his own body's betrayal to care.

=+=+=+=+=

“I don't... I don't want any of that.”

Lyndon looked up from where he was measuring out the tea mix and frowning at the nearly empty package as though it had wronged him somehow. “Just a little. A quarter. Barely anything! It has something for pain Myriam said. It'll help.” Lyndon wheedled in that honey-sweet voice he used when he wanted Jack to do something against his will.

“That's who you got it from?”

“Obviously. I certainly didn't make it. I burnt the toast twice this morning before I got it right remember?” Lyndon said, watching the kettle settling over the fire like a hawk as though the water wouldn't heat itself properly unless he was giving it the evil eye. Tea was one of the things Lyndon was good at making, the beverage a favorite indulgence of his.

Light from the setting sun slatted in through the half open window. Jack laid in bed on his side, blanket hauled up to his armpits and arms flung up over his eyes. Stiff, tense, and practically sulking. The small room was so familiar now Jack could have recreated it by memory in a drawing without a single flaw or missed detail. It wasn't that he didn't like it here, on the contrary, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so content and comfortable (Holbrook came to mind), he was merely tired of not having the choice of being able to go when he wished it.

He grit his teeth slightly against the pain in his head and swore that if he spent one more day in here doing nothing he was going to start climbing the damned walls.

“I hate this.” Jack hissed without thinking.

“Mmmm?”

“I hate this. This...not being able to do anything. Go anywhere without...” Jack snorted air through his nose in frustration, blinking rapidly.

Lyndon smiled and upended the contents of the teapot into a rather delicate looking teacup that had a chip missing from the rim. “Oh, I don't know if it's all bad.” He said, sitting down beside him, “Eat and lie in bed all week, not to mention the privilege of my most excellent company, sounds like a holiday to me.” Lyndon said amiably. “It has only been a week, you know that yes? That's not a very long break at all.”

“By your standards.” Jack said, then took the cup from Lyndon's fingers, knocking the concoction back all in one go and grimacing at the bitterness of it.

“Right, I did spend one marvelous summer here the year before last.” Lyndon reminisced wistfully.

Jack scowled at him. “Wasted more like.”

“Ha! Time scarcely better spent you mean!”

Jack smiled at that and closed his aching eyes, trying to relax. Lyndon huffed and Jack heard the telltale scraping sound of him nudging another log into the fire with his foot instead of picking it up placing it with his hands.

He cracked open an eye, already feeling drowsy. “That's not how you add wood to a fire.”

“You're supposed to be asleep.” The thief remarked flatly.

“And you're supposed to keep the house from burning down. It's not difficult.”

“Ugh. Fiiiine then.” Lyndon groaned and sighed and made a big show of dragging himself to his feet and repositioned the log with the fire poker.

“Good thing you're here to yell at me then.”

“Hmm.”

He didn't remember if Lyndon said anything else after that, dragged back under the heavy hand of blessed, pain-free black, but when he woke again it was quiet and dark and Lyndon was asleep beside him.

This. Just this, and he could tolerate being inside a little while longer.